friday night vibes are
a dialogue
between streetlamp
and sidewalk.
i am the strobe and
i spin again,
bullet-mouthed,
and so you tell me
to bite down.
you,
you reason,
are a good enough explanation,
expectations entrenched
insinuations undressed
on earth that feels too much like paper.
you,
you reason,
are good enough for a lulling conversation,
consolations congregating
up there for your consideration
up there with your condescension
condescension, condescension—
this is your slipping confession?
no.
this is the slip into heavy summer
when bitter winds still bite you
softer than i ever could.
this is the saturdays and sundays
eating i
you have slit me to a science,
a sigh, incensed
by sirens set to murder
the murderess.
you have made me a slut,
a slut out of me,
a shutout of queens,
waiting,
waiting for my screams:
what more could you possibly want?
“the man!” you’d demand,
as if this mistress could elicit
diamonds, efficient
words for you to witness,
among your shouts:
“Madame Deficit!”
deficits defined by divided times
call me cruel through my colluded crimes.
gloried, gallant, gigantic, I’m
cleaved.
I walk the line despised, now
talk incredible to the divine, now
dock lightning down my severed spine,
now
at eight, i remember imperfections
bordering my skin.
i remember sculpting them at nine.
ten tossings, turnings, talking now,
talking about swimming pools
and bloody noses, red on blue,
on waves of blue. i’d always liked purple anyway.
but eleven.
eleven is fear. eleven is new people and you blossoming while i shrivel, eleven is choking on spit, eleven is creased by a distinct lack of you.
i remember teeth grinding on teeth and lips and oh, god, the doctor says not to do that anymore but i do it anyway. you said it was fine and i wanted to listen.
twelve is tracing the borders first bluntly, then sharp, as if the words would never be
I.
i liked you better when you had told me you could,
could, and i knew i couldn’t. i liked you better when
you had told me that i was okay even when i was
the only one who managed to drown on an empty stomach.
i liked you when you had said that we could be reckless
(just for fun) like it’d be fine if i fell apart.
it was, really. these days, those people—
yes, it must be alright if i fall apart.
but you are no mechanic, are you?
i liked you better when we’d learned to bruise sidewalks,
as if the constellations in our skin weren’t enough.
if you think that you're unhappy
and the world just makes you sick,
(while these words are solemn-sappy)
remember this one trick.
there will come days of rain and rain
and great, great glowers galore.
and crews of crying paper cranes
may wash up at your door.
when you think your will's going, gone
i can assure you it's not:
you're the one who continues on
when pain's what pain's begot.
you'll find sunshine in the fault lines
and shimmers in showers past
while friends with which you laugh and dine
will be the ones who last.
so finally, here's that one trick
to warm someone cold on earth:
relax, unwind, and now, quick, quick!
just smile, fo
forgive me, but
i.
wash your hands once once
twice
once more
glory like the taste of money
when i bite down
and lips are paper parties.
up
tap water
up
in my lungs
we are
dragged,
hung up on the elephant moon
and
gold's wreathed in los angeles noon.
ii.
but the boys and girls,
they grow up
grow
too.
let's say that it's teeth
that are easy
against the grind.
grind.
let's say that it's teeth
that sink into the wounds
"this be the verse,"
you spoke,
with the conviction of a felon
and the heart of a child adrift.
indeed,
it is the verse
of guilt-stricken fingertips
and faulty cuts.
you are the colossus,
heaving in your anarchy,
swallowing god like air
in your wake.
and in this requiem,
a friend lost in crossing.
they say surgeons need
nothing but to be taut;
if so, you are rigid
strung through white by gauze.
wreathed
by ophelia's mercies
you draw close to the river
to crumple.
it is easier for you to float
to breathe
to gaze
when these lines are cut closer
to the horizon.
but before this dialogue bears
barren bonds,
stop.
stop.
take a step back and obs
there is no cruel mistress
divinity serves
but a recalibration of clocks
and us, in the wind.
you said,
there are orphans in the hills
so i say,
come in, come in.
in the olympic plumage
this collusion is fuchsia.
it is said to be this and that;
a rosetta stream into
constellations without translation.
there is no starlight to decipher
poking through gravity furnaces,
arrhythmic, arrhythmic.
to be a martyr --
you began,
-- means to be desire incarnate.
there is no cruel mistress
mi
never tell me that the dead look peaceful
until you look them in the eye.
in most worlds, there are sober
absolutes, unapproachable,
in fear of facing retribution.
in most worlds, there is a void,
a skip,
a glitch on the horizon.
the dead man's dance
draws it all in,
swallows the universe,
and short circuits.
there is deep gravity plastered
in the finite over the infinite.
in skin towns he is a terrace
flicker and urban beat.
he tries the trireme tarantella
over the sin cliffs.
he is tried for the great divide
and carves life into the mitotic skies.
like saturn's branches, freeze
and balloon, for jupiter grants
you no mercy.