Sigh 21.10.022

If I’d had a key, I would have left, then
Locked the door behind me,
And left you sleeping silently
Soothéd breathing

Instead, I woke you up
Let you know I would be leaving
And I grabbed my shoes
Placed them upon me
Foot by foot
Laced them
Tied the cords tight

And I waltzed out your door,
Felt you lock it behind me
As I walked down the stairs
Three flights, or more

I took a picture of my reflection in the glass at the bottom

Like a ghost
Done up
In a full-body snowsuit in the middle of winter
Before I stepped out into the night
And embarked upon my 12-minute walk home

Rewind

I could have done this every night
I thought, to myself, “I have arrived”
You laid there on your stomach
And I massaged your neck, your back, your buttocks,
Your legs, hamstrings and calves and feet
And I soon realized your breathing had changed

I laid down beside you,
One, two,
Three in the morning

[Siiiiiiiigh]

I thought to myself, ‘I could do this for the rest of my life,’
Every night,
Massaging you from head to toe
As you slipped into another world

I would then lay down beside you
Listening to your breathing
Feeling
How my own breathing changed
Soon slipping into that same world
(Beside you)

Had I a key,
I would have slipped away into the night
Locking the door behind me
But instead
I roused you, with my hand on your shoulder

My voice whispering, I woke you up,
And I brought you back into this world with me
I told you I would be leaving

You followed me down the hallway
As I laced up my boots
Put on my full-body snowsuit
Said goodbye to you

I shut the door— which you locked—
Behind me
And I tread my way down the stairs
Three flights or more
I took a picture at the door made of glass— I looked like a ghost
Then I stepped out into the night

Twelve minutes’ walk home
I disrobed
Laid down in my bed
Slept, as always, not in the center,
But on the left

Making space for no one.

Tool Belt 24.04.018

When little, my dad taught us deep-breathing:

“in through your nose

and out through your mouth,”

as my brother stumbled through his words,

all halting gasps and tears,

incoherencies;

as my butterflies frothed

in pyloric chyme: back-seat driving to 9ine
AM Sunday swimming lessons,
knowing 

throwing up chlorine-water, snot, Cheerio-cereal
after bad-backstroke nosechugging

might be my pricey ticket home. 

Better than a car’s back seat
was a quiet afternoon: threat looming, 
yet couchbound by a purring cat.
There I learned some mindfulness,
puzzling the cues of a creature with claws
who modeled such depth of breath.

Re-turn, re-turn to the breath,

fo-cus

on

the-breath.

From my mother I’ve taken grace and dignity;
she sits now with herself
through sadness and all else unpleasant besides;
I’ve learned the patience we must keep
as we await our own arrivals on the Other Side.

Hardly fearing any longer

nigh-unending forests in twilit gloom—

there is always an Afterwards.

Spell for Closure: Extrication, Disentanglement, Cord-Cutting 18.03.022 - 12.07.022

Entangled

(arms, legs; staccato-heartbeats, and shapers of language),

as though on a quantum level.

At first, so close, and then,

suddenly— 

in the span of three days—

nearly a continent apart.

I am sorry.

Everything you did influenced me in some way,

though you would not have it, and did not want

the tether to remain.

Two thousand miles and eighteen months of separation—

measurement, the old detractor, the destructor as it Where—

we decohered, connections failing, falling into disrepair.

I left. You despaired.

You told me you loved me,

and yet…

here we are:

here I am, and here

(less than a mile, again)

you are, and are not.

I am naught.

And yet…

all at once, I, too, am far too much.

What to say?

You hold too much sway over me—

enough.

I loved you once.

Somewhere inside, not too deep,

I hold that same love for you.

It will not go away.

For you, there will always be some space,

but I can safeguard it no longer.

You have not claimed it—

you do not want it— and so:

I seek to banish you.

With all my might, I will try

to cut every tie, cords wrapped around me

undone, untwined, and— gods damn it—

fully-severed, if so it must be.

…

…

…

To the overcast Skies, blanketing this city with the quintessence of haze;

to the diffuse Light of March, easing our eyes into the brilliance of Spring;

to the barely-bare Trees, budding out tentatively amidst the first uncertain days in the fifties;

to the Daffodils, the Crocus, Lilies of the Valley;

to the Aether, Dark Energy, and the voids they fill in our lives, in our Physical theories;

to the stilled waters of Mishigami, suspended between winter’s ice heaves and the endless waves of summer;

sixfold Deities— greater or lesser— I ask for your guidance

in a matter of things most in-between:

I request your assistance in determining

how to cut ties from a man I once loved.

To the nebulous man, whose manhood is brought into question by a lack of tenacity;

to the liminal lover, whose absence I cannot shake:

I ask for some respite; resolution; closure.

For mine own Self, who cannot let go;

for mine own Self, who loves both because and despite:

daily reaffirmations, to ground me in the present moment.

Rituals and practices to keep my toes pointed forward, with my heels following suit.

An abstinence from substances which might rake me across the coals;

exercise to soothe me; movement to ground me in the anti-inflammatory.

May the muddied haze of March Skies mollify my plight;

the cloying clouds about my head kindly dampen the Light

of Spring come too early— assuaging the ache

of a Truth I must face:

yet another cord cut, a tie come undone—

the pang more a familiar than any friend now or former.

And may these clouds soon clear, as I am ready—

may the Sun soon burn hot holes through the fugue,

beams alighting warmly upon budding branches.

Slowly, and with some caution, may they begin to leaf out:

suffused with Truth, turning Light into food, bathing the world

in emerald-green, a daytime gloaming.

Topsoil defrosted, emitting once more

the scent of new ozone: the chill, and the Freezing,

banished righteously: a mantling

of Flowers, both fragrant and deadly

(toxic and intoxicating),

spreading beneath every burgeoning limb.

Incandescent inflorescence upon every lawn and hillside, 

reminding me again of both poison and growth.

Dark Energy;

Luminiferous Aether;

Quintessence. 

More space

between us continuing

to come into existence.

My “biggest blunder”

suddenly making sense:

our decohesion, decoherence

(particles moving in waveforms,

the two of us)…

…

…

…

Return to Mishigami:

where blue meets blue

and the atmosphere colludes

with the cerulean waters

of the Lake.

Stilled waves:

suspension between

winter’s floes and ice heaves

and the rolling surf of a blazing summer.

Whether Frozen or warm;

whether immobilized and jagged,

or ferocious and liquid—

I have a need for movement.

Whether strewn about the shore,

piling up in craggy and barren hills— or

whether tumbling, untethered

and cataclysmic, onto the sand—

beating rocks and jagged glass

into smooth gems as I foam and recede,

strength and ferocity

abating in an instant-—

I will always return to stillness,

to some space in between.

As the Sun sets,

so too

does my face smooth

over, and soften.

Black, and glassy,

reflecting the Light of the Moon:

promising absolution.

Strawberry Shortcake 16.06.022

All those times

he washed and cut potatoes and beets,

oven-roasted

in vintage amber glassware

(sunflower oil, salt, and thyme);

all those salads delicately prepared—

not a one

containing the despised tomato.

Every mini loaf of banana bread;

every sable, each macaron

(he used to forget and leave eggs out for too long—

days, sometimes— 

he was the first to explain to me

that one at room temperature

would whip up far better).

He never touched red meat.

Oh, there were times— too few,

too far between— when tables were turned

and I’d be the one to prepare a dish:

the tomato-based soup

(there was a lot of it)

before I knew he hated tomatoes;

the thirty coconut cupcakes

for his thirtieth birthday;

I wish I could say there was more,

that somehow I’d forgotten something;

that— though I know

my memory does not serve me—

I could say, today,

that things were eluding me

more than normal.

Too few, too far between.

It is 90 degrees in my apartment.

Mid-June.

Sweat collects

about my crown, droplets

forming dripping circlets,

dribbles trickling down my neck.

Amassing about my eyebrows;

caressing the small of my back.

The cake—

the cake is store-bought.

The whipped cream comes from a can:

a distinct aftertaste of aerosols and nitrous oxide,

though unctuous— and sweet— all the same.

I am hovering over the kitchen sink,

paring knife quartering freshly-washed strawberries,

glistening like the back of my neck.

Maybe, I think to myself:

maybe if I had done this for him,

he would have loved me.

Spell to Break a Curse of Freezingmuteness 03.02.022

To the Moon, and the nighttime sky in which She shines;
to the churring Insects, humming through summer doldrums;
to the great Prairie, lying in wait for a chance to return to its former glory;
to the Breeze, wending its way through grasses and trees;
to the great Lake, Mishigami, whose shores he would not touch;
to the Snowfall, which he hates, and the quelling Silence found therein:

I petition your aid in breaking a curse of Freezing, and of Muteness, upon a man I once loved.
I invoke your powers combined to heal him of his ailments, and to bring him enduring Peace.

With your will behind me, and guided by your wisdom, to him I speak:

for the one who cannot verbalize,
for the one with the frozen tongue and icy heart:

a fire in your belly, searing heat and choking smokes
to singe the inner thorax, heat the throat,
and goad a dead tongue into movement, new life.

Liquid salt, to quell the aches and strife
of a carbonized larynx;
to expel the demons assailing your being.
Tears to wash clean and heal wounds twining:
an absent father;
a flighty mother;
a brother who could be closer.

Deluge of water, nonstop pouring,

to shake free crushing feelings
of regret, loneliness, and loss:
water, to invigorate the pro- and eu-karyotic,
to enliven what might otherwise become
brown’d husk, crusted carapace;
fresh ozone forth from whettened loam,
rich soils in which to plant your hands,
grounding the chaos of the chemoelectric.

To remind you:
the gentle droning of summer cicadas,
the chirping of crickets, a hum

in keeping with the thrum

of your bloodmuscle;

the Breezes which carry their chorus—
wending their ways through leaves and stalks,
wafting scents of things warm and verdant—

to caress your face

as I will

no longer.

In inky, loving blackness suspended:
the gaze of our Earth’s Moon,

whose visage you have long admired.

May She solace you in your solitude,
darkly reflecting the light of Truth
too bright for a lens of protein or glass to bear.
May She, too, remind you.

And when there is no growth;
when verdancy has given itself over to the sway of the invernal;
when the fires that have been lit and stoked
begin to wither and grow cold—
the churring Insects’ songs stilled,
Breezes transformed into whipping winds,
the Lake, and your voice, once more overfrozen—

when flakes plummet from the sky;
when the Freezing returns, and with it,
the Silence:

Pressing in.
Deafening.

Drowning out the roaring

of city life,
Moonlight,
and the echoes of my fading voice— 
the voices of countless others

(clamoring over one another
like the waves on Mishigami’s shores)—

with the sound of Nothing
blanketing your head like a fuzzy childhood memory;
pressure on your eardrums;
bloodmuscle’s thrumming nigh to bursting

in your locked throat:

may you reach inward, deeper
than you ever have before,
and—

filling your lungs
with the sacred absence of Vacuum, the cacophony
of every voice forgotten—

may you hear

your own Self

speak.

Burger Fog/Memory Map (what to erase)

Surskittles

Cocksucken

Combustanut

Nicki poetry (poke it out, poke it out)

Cardi

Beyoncés Coachella performance

Bad Bhabie

Animal Collective

Phillip Glass

LCD Soundsystem— American Dream

Bright Eyes— Lime Tree

All of Cassadaga

Neko Case— Dirty Knife; City Swans

Phosphorescent— Endless pt. 1; Endless pt. 2

Sleater-Kinney— Can I Go On

Beets and potatoes

No tomatoes

No red meat

Mr. Pollo

Bird tea

Chimken

Dudley

Monstera (Deliciosa)

Echeveria

Jade

Weed

Long-stemmed pipe

Magnifier

Magnifying glass-lit weed

Big jars of water (two hands)

Salads: greens, sunflower seeds (pistachios?), beets, kalamata olives, avocado

Sables

Macarons

Mini banana bread

Eggs left out for too long

Clogged sink

Dishes washed by hand

Cat box in the pantry

Lil Peanut

Haribo— star mix, cherries, happy cola, sometimes twin snakes

Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with a miso soup spoon

“Gare-“dettos

Cheetos Paws

A crönch-chip

Kettle cooked potato

Coconut Water

Golden kiwis

Concord grapes from the

Logan Square Farmer’s Market

Lula Café

Raclette (too-messy fried egg)

Lox’d bagel

Community Days, ambling about Logan Square

Holding your hand on Milwaukee, by the Taco Bell that serves liquor

Hairy Who

The Chris Debacle, a month of silence to follow

“Oh shit, OH shit!”

Horner Park after The Infinite Wrench, June 30th, the last day of Pride

“You’re getting my load tonight”

New Year’s Eve, spent in your bed

Massaging you until you fell asleep, precious fucking angel— I had to wake you up so you could lock the door behind me

“OKAY, MAAAARY” 

*tongue pop*

“HAH! HAH!” in my face, unfair, you tease

Roping together the underside of your broken couch

Soldering your broken speakers back together

Exquisite corpses

Photographs of my boulder opals, fire agate

We never photographed my irises

Your black (GREEN) armchair

“I love you, too”

Mario Kart (your fucking rocket starts)

Jeni’s Ice Cream

Buddy Wakefield, 5/5ths, Mykele Deville

RuPaul’s Drag Race (AllStars 3)

“C’mon, trees! C’mon, nature!”

“Walking kids in nature”

Walks in nature, Belmont riverwalk

Trying to catch the same Squirtle

The fire station

The fire station mural (so homoerotic)

Cum in my eye, that first day, after your trip to the post office

Lighting my chillum with a match

“Wait for the sulfur to burn off”

You kept and remembered our Grindr messages

“M”

5’5”

125 lbs

Gram

Grandfather; name change; honoring his legacy

The silver roof

Naked sunbathing I never partook in

Jockstrap reveal, walking up the stairs

Videos for your boyfriend

Primary sexual partners

Halting speech, strained, anguish

“Minty man”

Filthy Friends— “Second Life,” “Mother”

Brand’s Park

Francisco

Kuma’s Corner

“THAT GAHDDAMN BITCH COLLEEN”

Permanent retainer

Perfect teeth

Dimples

Adjusting your glasses with one finger

Looking up and to the right (to remember, to avoid, to escape, to lie?) 

The cast copy of your grandmother’s ring, forever on your pointer finger

Conversations about the bullshit at work

Hugs

Kisses (I’m so sorry for that time you felt pressured)

Shuddering, shaking legs

Licking it up

“Pow pow powww”

I Want Your Stupid Love 09.08.021

It’s weird. Having to restrain myself from reaching out to you. Knowing that— were I to reach out— there would come nothing but a consuming silence. So many things— Stupid songs; Drag Race; Haribo— insist upon reminding me of you; it’s weird. I would say it feels strange, yet this feeling of echoing silence, of being shut out, is also too familiar. Strange things should not feel like family and old friends— like paths well-tread. Strange things are alien, and inconceivable, and novel. I have felt this before, and yet— nothing past or present can compare to the frenetic fluttering of my heartbeat (butterflies’ fragile, scaled wings) as you leant into me; nor, too, the fluttering of your own as my hand met its fleshy, hirsute cage. 

What to do, when nothing feels real? We seal off these parts of ourselves, compartmentalizing and doubling as though things have not changed. Psyches split, self-dividing in schizoid-mitosis, and we dance about like paper dolls; marionettes with one-handed puppeteers, shambling and wiggling in our best approximations of normalcy, of healthy relationship dynamics. 

I will never understand. You will never answer me. We will go on— demented and cavorting— repeating cycles of trauma responses and abuse. You will fall in love. He will be of the right and proper class; to your liking; someone you can proudly take home to the mother you hate. Someone in “the medical field”— a doctor, perhaps.

I will do my best for a man who leaves me devoid of any butterflies. I will eagerly await their return. Time will pass on— inexorable— and I will begin to doubt their very existence. I will forget the feeling of their wings beating themselves battered and scale-less against my delicate, sanguinous insides. I will assure myself that such things are to be relegated to children’s stories. No such thing exists. No chrysalid-memories. Metamorphosis in permanent suspension. Larval-stage mentality without the spark of latent potential.

Our best is all we can do. If the spark is to find us again, we can do nothing but wait— central nervous system devolving into a slurry of consciousness-goo, our carnal forms melting into imperceptible nothingness. If we are lucky enough to come out the other side, we will retain every memory despite a total obliteration and rearranging of neural pathways. We will remember the egg, the squirming infancy, the armor of second-nascence, the flourishing of our higher selves. 

Maybe I will flutter again. Who’s to say. But, God be damned— I miss you.