Catch

so you will wait longer
for the moment when it catches
(up with) you:
the truth
you have hidden under your tongue
for so many years now

you paint lipstick in the morning
over lips you have not yet
even learned to love
and you are running
(from yourself
 and from the things you do not want
 to see in the mirror)

your feet are
bruised and bloody
pounding the cracked pavement
and you think you are being chased
by some monster with hooked teeth
who will shake your shoulders
and force you to admit
you are not
all that
special, really

but

here is what they do not tell you:
the truth is not hungry.
it does not want you to fall.
it waits, and it is not hook-toothed.

the truth will not sting or bite or crush
the truth does not rend or tear or demolish

it builds
and frees
and hurts like hell
and it will shout if it needs to
but it is also soft some days, and
it will speak to you gently
when you are tired

here is what they do not tell you:

the truth
will not
kill you.

it may be sunlight harsh
and it may stain your hands
and you will not be the same
once you invite it in

and likely, it will pull tears
down the slope of your nose and cheeks
maybe for weeks at a time
and your face may be drenched,
but the water is holy.
it will clean your skin.

the truth is not
that you are worthless.

the truth is
that you are radiant

and you must fight for yourself.

(you have been running
 from what you have been hiding
 for too long now

 perhaps it is time
 let it catch (up with) you.)

111.

you have glorified and excused yourself
and you have not realized that you were both
only sixteen, and then eighteen
and then twenty
and he was part of it, too

you think of him crying
you think of him telling you he could
not keep going without you
and you remember trying to fight his battles
for him, and his arms
when he visited you in the hospital
the yellow sweater he wore

forgiveness is a strange thing
it sneaks up on you
fills your lungs with fresh air
and reminds you
that you were not the only one
hurting

110.

you have tried to be smaller, to be easier
to hold. you have tried to fold
yourself in two
and you have closed your mouth at times, but
at best you are wide
and uneasy

and you have never been skilled
at hiding your fears
(in fact, they often rattle
 through your teeth
 and scare the neighbors)

and perhaps you are
more difficult
to love

but you will meet someone someday
who will not be so easily shaken
with hands broad enough
to hold you
unfolded

Not Unmove

I have been
blind and wound-by-every-inch-tightly-up
drawing breath and keeping it
knife hot inside me
(exhaling never)

and I have been
slinking sluggish deeper
into vaguely yesterday's reflections
watching dusted mirrors and
forgetting
that my muscles are
for moving

I have been
wind-knocked-out
back flat and waiting for air

I have been
bound
and static

but

I have noticed
an eyelid-fluttering and finger twitch
this morning
(a slow
 inhale
 exhale)
and the window is open

I have noticed a spattering of speckled light
green and leafy across my arm
it must be sun spotted

and I would rather not
be a have-been
today
I would rather
not unmove

so
perhaps I will
make a good breakfast
and take a walk

Rip

it settles over your eyes like fog
and you are too tired to push it away
you have been too tired for ages now, your
limbs collecting dust and your hair matted

you suspect that you were born with wings
lithe and delicate, made (you think)
of woven silver and parchment
they might have carried you off already

had it not been for the drought
that withered them from your shoulders
and your own temporality.
you are no longer infinite.

now flight is a childhood memory at best
and you are tethered fast to solid ground
and abandoning your wings
has left you exhausted

so you have made camp here on Earth
among the gray tree roots
and fallen into a twenty-year sleep
while wars are waged and won

and when it settles over your eyes like fog
this hopelessness that you cannot see through
you let your lids fall heavy again, and
you sink and drift and fade

it seems better to sleep and dream of the sky
than wake and watch it slip away

We make everything permanent and finite and at the end, we wish we had more time. I remember every day that I thought the sun only slid through the sky because I asked it to, every night that I prayed for light in the morning. We think we make time move forward by sheer force of will, and we lose track of its indifference to us. I know I will see you in two weeks’ time, and yet I am still saying goodbye as though we only ever had yesterday, and the future is a lie our parents told us to stop the crying. We forget about things like second chances, like flowers that sleep all winter and bloom again in the spring. We build concrete boxes in the ground or metal boxes on wheels. We avoid direct sunlight. We avoid everything. We smoke, we drink, we only come out at night. We continually refuse to acknowledge the passage of days, and then we wake up with longer limbs or beards on our faces or families, and we wonder where we’ve been this whole time. As though tomorrow only comes if we ask it to. We forget that there is always plenty, there is always room. We forget that more time means more chances, more goodbyes, more hellos. We are foolish and wasteful, and we will find ourselves at the end of everything, asking for more time, as if we had never been given enough.

Unparalleled Recklessness

throw my head back into dust
swirling in the glow of Saturday night
with honeyed whiskey in red cups and
so much that gleamed

and the only thing left from it
is the flush in my cheeks
and a headache

because I remember too much
like your careless breeze
against my face
and a smile that slides sideways slightly
when you've had too much to drink
(which is often almost
 every night)

that honeyed whiskey wasn't
quite sweet enough
to wash you from my mouth, and
nothing really ever is,
apparently

I found out too late
when they pulled my arms aside
to whisper at me urgently and kind
that you have hooked me
line and sinker
still

and they could see me
struggling

see, Saturday night
had me all starry-eyed until
they told me
that I had made a fool of myself

(because when you come at me
 with that careless sideways smile I always
 make a fool of myself)

and the sloppy edges of my mouth
must have looked horribly undone
like I had somehow lost my lips
in my frenzied search
for yours

I have always asked
too much of you

you are warm and thoughtless
and I have pursued your indifference
with unparalleled recklessness
since the last day
you kissed me, but

the only thing left from it
is the flush in my cheeks
and a headache