It is rush hour, again, somewhere.
And someone is dying in an elevator.
Somewhere between the 3rd and 4th floors.
Their heart had enough.
The doors clank open.
No one gets off.
A little sunlight cuts through the plastic plant in the hallway.
They are wondering their last wonder.
Oxygen ebbs and dims the lights.
The conductor bows.
Somewhere, it is rush hour, again.
I don’t remember being like this before
before the crank
before the chiva
before then
You might call that brain damage
and you may as well be right
I like to call it a mind-dimple
on my lens, fun-house,
contorting the perspective
it is simple, really,
never trust a faulty narrator,
I crawl along in the dark of existence trying to not believe what my feelers are telling me,
that this cave goes on farther, than I will not live forever,
brain damage.
doubting the real inside from the surreal outside,
with just enough mental scars,
one can enjoy this world like a child on ritalin
frolicking, like madmen do,
smiling at the beauty
of the end of our world
Thirsty like lilies
beyond the befores we had in bags,
rinsing out the inside,
chimed tips of tongues
you said the word “Socialist”
like you weren’t human
you said the word “Liberal”
like you have never loved your mother
but We killed Timothy McVeigh twice,
our hope can’t pay the rent, stop the beatings,
or feed us grains, fish, hands forgotten uses, wanting to make clocks,
grocery store closed and no tools
no calluses, or simple thoughts, don’t know the names of clouds,
no idea where soil begins
and starvation ends,
seedless robots that forgot how to be tender
care taker, of the garden,
a Manifested observation of the it, and all,
roots shrivel under strip-mall transplant
and he said “what good are shoe laces anyway?”
a terrible tenderness not meant to condescend
broken
in the middle, it is the ends that
hold it together
the means, these bullies bantering
in our Pompeii basement tomb
separated by wealth
conjoined in ash, when the suffocation ended,
don’t say orange to me again
begging for change-of perspective, singing
into barrels for resonance and an answer
a fever, chasing, rampage, total silence
swallows us in the ending
of paragraphs, epitaphs, and polygraphs.
Do you know what it took for me to get here?
right here, today, look and imagine
the total sum, piled, heaped here
next to me, what it took
It took all that I had
and some of what I would get
just to find out later
that I never had it to begin with
in essence, I had created something
from nothing, turned around
and gave the magic feather
to unsure pachyderms
it took holding on
to hope like a sad
deflated, disillusioned, life-raft
that let me drown, so long ago, icy waters,
I never let go, is what
should matter, that has
to account for
something
It took kicking rocks
between hard-spots
between the porn-mags
and feeling okay with myself, naked again
it took the late bus home
to be early to the grave
shifting, helping the vomit kids
chew their food, plant roots, and write resumes
it took more than one
gay men’s confessions
for me to stop worrying
what a real man is at heart
it took waking up
day after daydream
night after nightmare
insomnia after self-doubt
it took acceptance
that I am not the things
that I have done
but the things that I am doing
it took court dates
blind dates
parole hearings
and learning to listen
it took begging
for one more day
feeding myself
as if bribing tomorrows
it took falling on my knees
chipping teeth, staples in the head, silence,
hair-line fractions, restraining orders, death threats
terminal news, high-speed chases, and false positives
it took everything
all that I had
and I would give it all again,
twofold, to be here,
making lists of victories
