It’s something not to say and it’s nothing really. I do want you as you are but maybe not myself. They come from bellow to tell me how good I am and I can only look up and let the waters wash over their faces. It’s never been this tough. I like em well. You can’t like just about anybody but maybe I do and maybe they betray me for my goodwill; maybe my goodwill betrays them too. In a world as it is, we can’t help but break each other’s hearts. And though there s no heart to give, I’ve spared you a rib or two and sat concave for some evenings. It was inevitable to find you, but others lurk in the dark waiting to vulture my heart out of its fleshy crypt. I stay awake for you but the night remains so frightening and full of sounds. I’ve got my own ear canals to listen to, my heart beats so fast I hear nothing else. And there you are, something confusing, because it’s been a while and because it hasn’t been long enough; I recognise you wallowing in the waves and I think I can be strong enough to turn my eyes to you and help you up; though I may throw
myself down to you and have us both sink. There’s poetry in all this but we make poetry out of everything. Sometimes it’s the truth and other times our own mythology for ourselves. Sometimes we’re also just as we are, in mind and body. And neither the mind nor the body means as much as we believe; our hearts burst just as we’re about to say it.
Help me up if you can, I can say that with my eyes, my mouth runs late or too far ahead of me; like sparks ahead of the world though the world is nothing else. I feel shame in some things but most of the time I feel love. And often I don’t know for what or who or even if. But I know I feel love for you and that’s enough to let myself float side to side and then inward; the feather cannot fall. I like its liveliness when it plummets and shivers on the way down, as if scared that the wind may blow it up again. The heart’s a disoriented old compass; it knows no geography like ours and our eyes know no horizon like a storm. Where am I when the wind comes from all sides and leaves me static in mid air. Where am I now? Are you there? There may be someone around the corner who doesn’t know to hurt me; I know. It’s hopefully you, back with a small piece of my heart. It should bear enough weight to help me ground myself and steady my bag of bones as I plummet. Let me fall again like I’m unsure, like I’m not ready for the consequences of what you may do to me. If I tell you I am it’s only because I want you to be. I could never hurt you said the shepherd to his flock; and we may all be flock waiting to be seasoned. For now our wool is all it takes to keep a small semblance of life and safety. They’ll come for our heads and I’ll be a few thousand flocks away; maybe wrapped in cellophane like the most inanimate thing you can find. You’ll not be able to imagine there was ever any life in me, any breath worth its air.
For now I’m here, though neither here nor there, with you. And if they try to rip me away I may well cut off my arms and leave them wrapped around you with nothing left to take but a solid stump of flesh and vinagre. Often people are things pretending to be people, moments of something that isn’t quite anything. They want you to know how peopleful they are, how full of something other than shit. I’ll line up all the windows of the city and set them on fire to show you their polystyrene veins full of ink. I may be full of words but they’re only the words I print out and make whole.
