1998

i see an airplane

burst into flames

high in the atmosphere

plummet and burn away.

dad in the driver's seat

tells me it's a shooting star.

i am six years old

on the 805 in san diego

and this

memory

feels real

but I cannot remember

if it is.

we can sit with our feet on the counter

arms around our knees and a filthy spoon

dangling precariously from one hand

the oven is still hot, open to warm the room

and you separate the blinds to see who just drove by

on cold tiptoes peeking out of too-long jeans

your phone will vibrate itself off the table

and CRACK into three pieces on the tile

put it back together and check its vitals, okay

we are fifteen, sporting hoodies and cameras

poorly dressed for the snow, in converse

let's walk to the park tonight to meet your friend

leaving on a jet plane

come into my bed
and let me walk
my feet up your shins

slowly, like a glacier, until you squirm,
push me off, say, “cut it out, you little shit”

will you answer to “space heater” for me

the hair on our heads will
knife out in awkward angles
like clock hands

we’ll try not to
notice how lamplight
blurs into jetstreams
if you move your head too quickly,
or how the roaring of a heater

sounds like turbines in
the midnight hours

...but the light likes tricks, and time will prove that it wasn't tricking you, it was you all along, a fool, that wanted to be tricked, that could only be tricked, that could only relax, and let go a breath, when everything was exactly as you wanted it, when you understood it, you thought, finally.

A trick to think you could make someone else understand, but no one ever will because no one can. You have to speak so slow, focus all you know, and tell them:

"Let the light show you, there is nothing to know, everything has already been, everything is traveling on a light beam, everything is getting somewhere, and taking you too, the end is far, and our beginning so near."

Say it slow.

i'm twenty one
the days taste like bark paper
i wish i could take you inside
and show you these
bark paper days
or my hands, feeling the clay
or my broken mug, or my dreams,
why i don't scream, violent as they are
but always feel a floating feeling
the same feeling you get
when you get an A on your algebra test

dollhood

when I spoke out I was too loud

when I was quiet I was being

trampled under foot

I shoved all my creations under

the rug

I quieted them

they called to me I told them

I must forget you

these perceived ashamed looks

that forced my fingers to

solidify together

that forced my voice

to quiet

that made me feel that

the thing I was best at

was sitting still

like a doll in the attic

past its prime

features so indistinct

insides hallow

and eyes sad

algebra plagues us

and geometry too
our love is a tetrahedron
god is the peak, insurmountable

at REI we bought ice picks, backpacks, freeze-dried biscuits
but remain woefully unprepared for the realities of "The Real Word: Part 33"
our cell phone bills past due, toss them in dumpsters, macbooks too
the beyonds are innumerable, but infinity is passe, we spend our days counting

the mathematics aren't complex; 1+1+1 does indeed equal a triangular pyramid
or the prism we haggled for, the new age Pearl Street lady who clenched her teeth
she wished us well, I think, or maybe she said 'hell', but we'd like to visit there too
we hung it gleaming from our rear view mirror, hoping for health, praying to mapquest

breaks are few, just pee in the bottle, eat a McDouble with a McChicken in between
feel our insides gurgle along to a scanning FM tuner, fill our selfs with fuzz and fat
at the rest stop, disavow all rules, break into a janitor's closet, steal the bleach
use it to clean ourselves, naked, rinse ourselves in the sea, sleep on the beach

when we reach our destination they will give us two pieces of valuable paper
and we will cry and envelop each other, arms grasping at arms, choking on tears
then god will come down from the mountain, he will not wear robes but a hoodie
and then, despite all of our grand expectations, he will simply bop us on the heads

algebra, god, and geometry too
are nothing more
than tricks of the light

myself

water's flavor
is my arm searching up my sleeve
for cooler skin to grasp
the blankness, filling