dealing with it

i am stuck
somewhere beneath the haze of
unfettered belief, the diagnostic release:
that final breath of understanding
as you hold back the tears and think
"this is it, this is an answer"
even if it is not the answer, even if, even if

your grey and squinty and fading eyes
don't linger on me much these days
maybe because i'm not looking for them
or can't; or maybe because it's true
we've changed
(indisputable, everything changes all the time)
and the shame i feel now is just the shame
of not trusting myself
enough to trust myself
when i feel unloved.

devilish food

the second hour of not getting up is the hardest.
neck pain from dehydration and
life pain from separation feel the same way;
sleepy, sleep, i want to disappear again
into the days of no fear
(none spoken)
no complications
(nothing broken)
no late night desolation, but of course
something snapped at twenty one
and i've got a switch that flips
every night
and you've got a future
that i once helped you put on hold
waiting for you just off the J train.

one day you'll roll on back
and i will lay covered in gauze
and you will see that i have made this bed a cocoon
and i will, finally, drink some water and breathe
beautiful as all get-out
and i will fly away from here
and you will watch and wave.

title wave

this is the way the world bends
into five colors, converges down
to a point on a pedestal: i
my brain and body
my bitten nails and the hair just above my elbows
dolefully and sometimes desperately
love you. not in a nasty, sobbing at work
kind of way (i sob at work for entirely
other reasons (but that's not the point) like
world hunger (but mostly my own hunger)
or
having forgotten to take my meds)
but in a silly, chest cavity collapses kind of way;
"you take my breath away" is a song about somebody
being suffocated by their lover
and loving it
while "take my breath away" is a song about asking for that kind of love
in return.
five different colors, all white, all roads
lead to you-know-where
scarily strolling along
walking on broken grass
hollow, hollow, hollow
we'll never love truly
till the point is off the plinth