He tells you to be careful,
Your feet always slip and there
Are no more band-aids.
You can’t explain the urge to let go,
To let this gravity go.
To let the balls of your feet make
Their own damned decision
And to let your words to slide out,
Tumbling and fumbling,
Making their own mess.
Strawberry undertones coat your
brain with promises no one can
Keep.
You rub your nose awkwardly and
Roll another joint.
There was a madness and an encore,
Some fog and a burnt lip.
There was so much that was dry,
So much, sticky.
Your eyes were blank and his heart
So full.
It’s a pilgrimage, son!
It’s outright worship.
It’s when your hair sits in pins
And your heart is all over the place.
Once on a lily-pad,
Twice in the tower,
Once so intimate,
Twice even more.
You can try to weave some
Coherence into this tapestry but
He will take the candle with him.
It’s beyond dots and words and
Tears and nails.
It’s beyond park benches that dig
Into your bum
And sand that gets in your ear.
It’s gritty and glittery,
It’s sharp and shockingly harmless.
It’s just a throb within the sob,
The scratch within the hurt.
You can ask me to explain,
And I’ll find a million
Sledgehammers
To slice through this mystery.
But when you watch the dust rise,
And then the dust settle,
Promise me you can deal with the
Redness of the core,
The rot within,
The finality,
And the banality of it all.
