I absorb

Their anxiety flows to me, streamline and steady, carving away down deep into my reserves. Depleting what little I have—from my line— left to supply. The worry steamrolls, billowing, bulgy clouds of caustic notions, dank with mental carcinogens. Clicking and clacking into my sole. Soot smeared, salted cockles. A fossil imprint.

I’m caked with gritty patina, consumed in this twisted ceremony. A union of mania. Transcontinental absorption of energy.

I wear it’s smudged hat and smile it’s greasy name. Conducting its business blindly, hollering for passengers to unload willingly, scattered, collecting their emotional tickets.

I am the fear revered by the weak. Imbibed in woes

I am empathy.

Compartmentalized Pain

My life. A soggy satchel. A vacant bag in an unfinished basement. Disembodied numbness.

I’m a sneering zipper sound of silent goodbyes. Hollowed-out and lonely. Crummy debris of misplaced feelings coating the canvas bottom like crusty mold on concrete. 

Lost in my freedom.

Isolated by love. Frayed in the corners. Little finger-sized holes gnawing away at the stitching. Pulling apart at the straps—exposing the sinewy filaments from the heart of the thing: Soggy from living and tremendous use.

Baggage in the basement.

On the broken highway after I left


I almost forgot about things once I stopped along the
shaky gravel roadside
in my spine-tingling, earnest delirium,
to pick wild lavender—
your favorite—
a desert variety,
as I pushed out of the mountains into the

wide weeping meadow,

teary-eyed, fumbling with reality.
They smelled so sweet;
I almost threw up
the sizzling tenacity.
And then I remembered and

dropped them,

and returned to my car and continued on
my
path
without
you.

 

Good Morning, Sunshine, 

            I went for a motorcycle ride while you slept.

I almost died twice, and I’m sorry you missed it.  

Just me once again, solo-stoned with my thoughts and oblivion.

It’s eerie thinking about a pair of fleshy legs wrapped around

controlled explosions—unattainable love, combustion and timing. It is only you out there, the wind snapping your

clothes and kneading your skin as the throttle

            opens like a vein.

It’s courtly death: machine and metal, flesh and foot,

slicing down a black road, knees dragging like knuckles in and

out of every turn,

            in and out—with a spin of the spoke bringing you closer to terminal ecstasy.

It was almost tragic feeling your smell peeled away from me, by the wind, like old wallpaper.

It was a nice ride. I almost died twice, and I am sorry you missed it.

I’m sorry too, that when I returned, you were still asleep, in the lifeless room where

I left you.