telling me where to go



the wind comes up again
soothing as an arm around tight muscles
and me...
me, next to nothing against the back-splash of this day,
fingers full of new stalks that came up yesterday
that i picked carelessly while the sun rolled away as fast as we used to pitch to each other in the yard.

i wonder if other people
think about dying this much?

not for myself
if that's what you're asking with your eyes.
but even now, with our arms full of life, my neck breaking against your shoulder...
am i going to have to watch you die?
you...
the word as long as the infinite scream
at the back of my mind, and oh it's funny now
how often i think of you.
but after the last day...

dog day in an eternal summer,
i lean out as far as i can to catch the smell of the warm grass growing, fingers apart
conscience of how fast all seasons go, each like the other
mottled skin beneath the blinding snow and our feet in the dirt once it's warm enough to stand.

"do you think it's possible to lose a soulmate?"

she sees him even when she's not looking,
and i run my fingers down your arm like you can give me some power, or at least enough static to block out the song i don't want to hear -

"i don't see why not."

please remember me.

i think about it every day
death
and the way you looked when i hung upside down off the couch, blood rushing into my ears until
not even the way we rumbled in my childhood, feet against pavement,
not even the way he looked at me across the table
not even a thousand vague memories of people i don't know anymore
could hold how much
i felt.

i've spent my whole life running away from how much i feel about things.

and if someday i have to listen to the other voice talking about how you went peacefully
how you looked in the last moments before your spirit finally gave up
how strong you were...
i'll already have hung up the phone.
and i will be out in the sun, watching it trickle into the barn windows like honey down the walls,
unwilling to breathe but feeling your hands on my shoulders
telling me where to go.

i think about it every day.
death.
sometimes i wonder if it thinks about us.

who can blame it?

i love thinking about you too.

please remember me,
and my misery,
standing beside you under a field full of stars ready to be harvested if only i'd had the courage to take one down
before i realized you were gone.

but nobody can see forever.

i wipe my forehead and dangle two broken legs over the side of the trailer, skin glistening
under a tangerine sky littered with clouds that i hope are empty,
and when i accidentally think about you
again
i feel that smile unfold over me.

you have no idea how hard it is
to know i can never love you.

x

sometimes people write poems about people you wouldn't expect


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HEY i posted another song here! it's sad. ew. but isn't all of this.



Comments

  1. yep, i forgot i could feel this deeply.

    holy geez, your writing is beautiful. and your song? haunting.

    ReplyDelete

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be kind.

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