—SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY, THE DOTS DIDN’T ALL CONNECT. THE PROMISE BECAME REGRET.

Salvador Dali Days

Here I am, sculpting the jaundiced air again with a faulty spatula and one lactose intolerant lung.

 What I’m trying to say is (…)

What I thought I heard you ask was (…)

 Everything is carnal and flaccid, the pope wondering, Where’s Confucius when you need him?

Last night someone barbed my teeth and filleted my tongue, two kindnesses in a single evening.

 Last night someone overdosed on couch space and a grandfather clock with too many loose teeth.

Take a peek through the screen.

 See? The neighbor’s dog is holding an old couple for ransom.

Even the squirrels brandish machetes these days.

 What I’m getting at is (…)

Everyone I love wears excess debt in their beard, calluses fornicating in their throats so heady that the windows blush plum and plug their ears.

 It’s Hopelandic, but also (…)

So, to the ladder I go, top step, where the air tastes like gravy and vodka.

 I grab the goose down belly of the nearest cloud and shake, shake, shake it like a Polaroid picture.

I watch vowels and consonants raining down, all our stories, all our fears out there on the lawn, ready for surgery, mouth to mouth resuscitation, the touch of someone who craves them.

—ONE OF US IS DRINKING JUST FOR FUN,

ONE OF US IS DRINKING TO GET DRUNK

                             The Weight of the Wind

There’s a Ouija Board in my mother’s throat that I can’t see. She’s barely spoken since the earth bounced and maybe someone somewhere heard it, or perhaps sparrows shot out of the limbs, peppering the sky with their black smears. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I imagine it.

Yesterday the arborist came up with a quote. He thought mother wanted them limbed or sailed. He left stunned and confused, though his cheeks gleamed.

Neither of us eat, and David’s back at college, studying somehow. My own thoughts have gone cannibal. It’s a barren field inside my head, sallow but for the one thing I can’t stop.

At night I sleep with a butcher knife under the pillow. Sometimes I press the tip against my Adam’s apple, nick and feel the sticky drip pool in the hollows of my collar bone. I want to die a slow death, suck on the tongue of torture for an eternity. I want to hear myself scream and scream and scream, just to know something worthy and true.

In the morning, we float into the kitchen, light as enemy wind but with no gusts left in us. Mother sits at the table, still in her robe, though she might as well be wallpaper.

I can’t remember the last time I saw her eat and the endless rivers of coffee she’s drank have shaded her teeth pencil lead gray, same as her skin now.

I don’t know how, but I do it. I say, “I’ll do it, Mom.”

She’s avoided looking at me for thirteen days, six hours and fifteen minutes because I am the one who most resembles him. Not David. Me.

“You aren’t going to hurt yourself. Do you hear me?” Mother looks like a frightened scarecrow. “For God’s sakes,” she says, slapping the saucer and cup off the table, the break and clatter of shards and silver pining off nothing but dead silence.

I don’t know if I am actually going to kill myself, but I want to. Maybe Mom noticed the missing knife.

“The trees,” I say. “I can cut them down if you really want them gone. That’s a lot of money.”

Mother blinks three times, so slowly it’s like watching a garage door close and open.  Her eyes are still the color of putty, but there’s a speck of glitter in them now.

“I’ll buy a chainsaw,” I say. “It won’t be that hard.”

Mother’s arms, the shade and weight of worn driftwood, reach across the table. Hers are the thinnest wrists I’ve ever seen. When she takes my palm in hers, I realize my hand is shaking, my entire body trembling. The world trembling.

“Honey,” Mother says. “Listen to me. Listen. To. Me. It’s not your fault.”

And then there’s a metal plate sliding, lidding my throat so she can’t hear me say, It is It is It is It is. It was my idea to go back out. I talked David into going. Dad was tired. The tree The tree The tree The tree. It should have landed on me, not Dad.

Mother taps her fingers on my knuckles where my pulse throbs through a wormy gray-green vein. She taps and taps.

—THE TRUE CRIME WOULD BE THINKING IT’S JUST ONE PERSON’S FAULT

missed

    the

     moonlight

i should be

waking up

but i’m

losing again

scrolling with

the fish

inside a

black lung

as desperate

as a

blue-skinned

babe

for the last

gulp of air

that we sold

too cheap

at the altar

along with all

your two-faced

promises

what someone

saner

might call

an aperture

or orifice

but i’m

going to

try to keep

loving you

holding my

breath

while you

snicker

as the kelp

grabs my

ankles

pulling me

further

into the

redeeming

deep

—STAND UP STRAIGHT AT THE FOOT OF YOUR LOVE

traction

oh fuck

   this

day/night

   one a.m.

once again

   pearly fuzz

with a marled

   gray/black

beard

   not unlike

mine now

   bleak as a

murder

   of starved

crows glaring

   everything i

ever hoped

   to say is

tucked

   indiscreetly

inside this

   sacred

morning

   silence

because

   loneliness

is the

  only thing

i ever really

   trust

so promise, please

   to befriend me

when it’s

   all over

in the

  mean time

go ahead and

   grind me

beneath your

   favorite

nike running

   shoe

i’ll gladly

   eat the gravel

and smooth

   every edge

to ensure

   there’s

enough

   traction

for one more

   mile

sweet sweat

   splayed

down your  

   collar bone

like a dozen

   unspent

kisses

—OH MONDAY, IT'S SO MUNDANE, WHAT EXCITING THINGS WILL HAPPEN TODAY?

…I doubt I’m feeling any different than you are in these bizarre times…

I have a good day, I have a shitty day. I have a good day, I have a shitty day. Repeat.

Yesterday was one of the latter.

It started out fine, then veered sharply when my best friend shared that he had lost a good friend to the virus. Pretty much crushed me to know he’d be in that much pain.

I’ve always been pretty good at being sad, but now I’ve become something like the master of sadness. A PhD in grieving for everything, everyone and no one.

I’m well aware it’s nothing to proud of.

…But I don’t want to be sad today. I want to be light. I want to be creative and productively creative. I want you to be the same.

…So here are some comments from various friends on Facebook last week that made me smile, or even laugh:

-Started to make a Bloody Mary at 1:00.
Wondered if I should wait a few hours and decided no.
Wondered if I really needed the bloody part of the Mary and while deciding ended up drinking straight out of the gigantic plastic jug of Tito’s. I chased it with a spoonful of peanut butter dipped in shredded cheese. It was pretty gross. 

There will be plenty of collateral damage to hammer out when the sky clears. Until then, just eat and drink what you want.

-The good news is I have lost 20 pounds since the beginning of January and my ass is no longer the size of Brazil.

-Um, I just butt-dialed a coroner. The end times are here.

-I’m sorry, but it is fucked up that I should look this beautiful in a time of social distancing when no one can even worship me properly.

-Last night on my evening walk, I completely lost my mind because ahead of me was a white rabbit sitting upright, waiting for me on my path. I could not believe it. 

I took out my phone to take its photo. It didn't move, I wondered if it was an early Easter decoration, but it was too far down on the road and not in front of a home. 

I thought--it's frightened so it's staying still, take it slow. I walked up to it little by little, carefully, not to frighten it. Friends, I just spent a very slow ten minutes walking up to a plastic bag of dog poop. 

I'm not sure what social distancing is doing to you, but I'm apparently hallucinating white rabbits...

-Me: Heyyyy! 
Jada: Hi 
Me: Well hi to you too muhfucka. 
Jada: Are you drunk? 
Me: Yeah 
Jada’s homegirl: How did you know that?
Jada: Cuz he been like that since I was five. Now he gonna play some music for us.
Me: *already getting off the couch to get my CD book*

-FaceTimed with my grandma tonight. 

Grandma: You look like you’ve lost weight! 

Me: I have lost 45lbs but I still have 30 more pounds to go before I’m back to pre-baby status, still gotta find me a husband. *laughs*

Grandma: Be careful what you wish for...

-when I get rich Imma eat my fish sticks with white truffle aioli. And eliminate all tupperware from my life.

-My ears are still ringing. Can someone answer them?

-Black dude at work: “Man you really gonna make me fill out them Rona sheets? I ain’t been in contact with nobody but yo bougie ass. Can I write that on the sheet? ‘Been in contact with S_____ D____’s bougie ass’.”

-To whomever broke into my car last night, left unlocked (my bad) in a private parking lot outside our residence: you must have needed those 4 tampons, broken phone charger, 2009 Honda Fit car manual, and battered Rumi poetry collection more than me, so bless!

—YOUR HEAD IN YOUR HANDS, AND YOU COLOR ME BLUE

what to

   bring to

 my funeral

how can I be so bleak

     six feet under

starlings swirling

      like a spray of pepper

above ground while

      you curl the

ends of your hair

     your bangs perhaps

spritz and flounce

      oblivious again

I know it’s just me

     not you

not you    

     why should I

or you care

     when I’m dead

and this soil tastes

     as terminal

as another

     day-old obituary

and yeah I know

     I keep repeating

myself

      myself

myself

      that’s what happens

when you’re dead

      and there’s nothing

to do

     boxed in tight

bones beating the casket

     nuggets of dirt

caving down as I hear

     a muffled voice in

my ear that sounds

     a lot like yours

saying, I love you

     or, Fuck You

it’s hard to know

     stuck here in oblivion

so will you tell

     me which

please?

     please?

—SORRY IF I CAUSED YOU UNNECESSARY TROUBLE

Not Far From Potter’s Field

We’re drowning

  in a gray maw while

another bitter widow

  dangles from the ledge,

her jaundiced legs trying

  to pierce whatever

they scratch,

  hungry for the company

of her zombie kin who

  haunt the hollow skulls,

forging warrants

  and obituaries.

Look around: The air has

  turned to ash, the sky is  

a sore throat that can

  no longer swallow,

and each cloud carries

  the weight of

an unclaimed corpse.

  When they roll away

the stone, it’s only

  hollow black inside,

dust shimmying free,

       no you,

         no me.

—I TEND TO CLOSE MY EYES WHEN IT HURTS

The Way

The way you cherish something wounded, defenseless and breakable.

The way dawn pardons unforgivable sins.

The way your listening is an acute act of mercy.

The way an astronaut can’t contain himself, or his joy, when the stars float upside-down.

The way Luna’s a cure for every pernicious thing.

The way a mood doesn’t require a reason or repentance.

The way you give a shit.

The way newborns and unicorns are both unbelievable and precious.

The way hope is contagion.

The way tears and giggling are opposites but the same, a form of salvation.

The way it jolts when it’s imperfect, but right, and we both know it.

The way prosaic is splendor spelled differently.

The way there aren’t enough pixels to make you any more beautiful.

Any words to make you more beautiful.

Any more goodbyes to make you more beautiful.

The way you show up when you shouldn’t.

The way a tongue catches when it tries to be sleek and impressive.

The way the wind wants to weave us together at this very moment.

The way you know God is a deaf, dumb and blind woman, smiling on her throne.

The way this poem would rather have me dead but you say, No. Not him. Not now. He’s mine.

—IT AIN’T GONNA BE EASY FROM NOW ON

  

…Woke up this morning quite early, watched the sun come up and paint the cheeks of the lake all kinds of cotton candy pastels. 

It was beautiful. 

There was even a gaggle of ducks at one end of the water.

Then I read the news.

Then I got depressed and then the lake looked ugly and I felt ugly and I played ugly song after ugly song and now I still feel ugly.

Sometimes I don’t even want to be here, though I know it’s a gift.

Sorry.

I’ll be okay, though.

…Whatever you’re doing, wherever you might be, please be safe.

Someone loves you tons.

https://www.today.com/video/amid-coronavirus-outbreak-images-of-hope-to-have-a-little-faith-in-me-81881669642

—IT’S LIKE TRYING TO DRINK WHISKEY FROM A BOTTLE OF WINE

                                     X is the Most Valuable Letter

The trees, stunned into submission, ask the wind why it’s stopped whirring, and the lake will no longer looks me in the eye. Every stranger I’ve never met is counting cards, counting days, ex-lovers and corpses. Through ashen glass, the cheapened rain stiches roadmaps for blind men while another rack of bones collapses. When the sparrows croak, Breathe, I uncoil and try to believe them. Somebody’s got a saber in their pocket with our DNA on it. I’ve got walls and a face I can’t touch. I’d sell my teeth for the correct answer, divert the deluded clouds for a chance to die like Scotch, neat, no ice. These days X is the most valuable letter. Still, the pen in my hand writes your name on repeat, like a prescription that’s forgot itself, or an illness no one can decode.

—ALL I DO IS WRITE ABOUT IT

                                                  Let’s Twirl

If nothing else, let’s twirl inside the bell jar, hail or no hail, smoky jazz playing near a fire, lights on low, a slow sway and tuck, nothing here to harm us, those sharp words needless now, ridiculous now. It’s the end of the world after all, so I’ll hold your face in my palms, as precious as the sun. I’ll give you my best kiss, my first and last kiss, if you pinkie-swear you’ve missed me, and won’t let me go.

—I’M LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER AND TRYING TO FIND A DIME

  

                                                   Silent Spring

It’s a silent spring, petals blooming like mimes or muted landmines, the geese perplexed, every sprout redacted, vacancy both abundant and redundant, the nerve of truancy tested, a taciturn sun leaning on the elbow of each hollow thing while I wait for you at the edge of the lake, writing sonnets in the weed grass, finger-painting your name across any wave that laps nearby, sending you a message of patience and hope, patience and hope bobbing like the shrill sheen of infinity.

—YOU CAN SEND ME A MESSAGE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TALK, I’LL MAKE SURE I DON’T INTERRUPT

                                           the wisdom of trees

these days, each edge frays, and i think too much, like a stoned clock staring at its struck hands, the pulse of wood too dull to detect.  there’s a vacant question for every answer, a body for every empty box, the wisdom of trees braying outside the window, stout and out of reach. so, i vow to keep you here with me, locket-sized, all your rage and flippancy in check. i’ll hold you like a just-born pup, lift you to my cheek and sing you nothing but sweet notes about tomorrow, how we’ll get there, what we’ll do when we finally have.