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Metastable

She tells me I've earned a sailors drink and when I've fallen asleep she sets our sail southward in secret again I've pretended to raise our anchor We may be running low on booze but we'll always have the wind and this weight

#poetry #poem

Do you know how your heartbeat works?

You were standing out on the sand and I could barely hear you say, that you were at least pretty sure, it must have to do with waves. And even though I'm made of nerves I don't think I can really say. When you walk and plant your feet here does it always feel the same? I left you a thousand footprints, I came and went in waves, I hope you find a story there from which ever the tide lets stay. I can't trace out all the causes, or even a single grain. To me this is a forgetting place; it took the way we came.

#poetry #poem

The wind is something I watch

And something I used to feel

#poetry

The design is nothing more than the reason each pattern ends

we watched a documentary about space, they used to weave circuits into programs. you used to think of computers as plumbing, but now you saw carpet beaters in rhythm, setting dust free and stared heart racing your face didn't move but inside you were folding doubling creasing you recycled threads from underneath my feet, pulled them when my eyes were away, like i couldn't feel them slip (it started to slip like a landslide and then fell apart like flowers blooming) the fraying doesn't feel like anything. but when rewired, where polarity reverses it is sharp, it runs along every stitch like toothache what broken script are you building Yourself into, with each unwound nerve stretched tight, and every rib woven against the others?

#poetry #poem

A method of Grounding

Density * Panic *starts in the belly, indigestion but it doesn't flow from below the diaphragm to above, but pops I dreamed of falling many times before the first time I fell and when it was just like I had expected each time somewhere in this accuracy I couldn't remember which had actually happened (I tried to count so hard, I counted in my dreams) The counting is to say, I know I will be fine this time too (I... and the (where ever) landing will be [!] fine, always fine new fall, place, start, and new hole in the sky [!]dark, for a moment at least but probably longer, but[!]

each time before the count, and sometimes even before the pop when I just feel a light-step, always gnawing and grabbing and *

#poetry

spoken

Every word I've ever said was just a breath of air. And when you moved with boxes tall all you did was lift.

Lets just go; work things out; All you do is twist; I only wanted to; and you only need to know what's fair; I would never; you would; you only ever.

I don't believe you, about me

but it sounds so well rehearsed (so terribly many breaths).

#poetry

A strategy of Inference

what did You have before that first sight? thin and grasping. what were You when you were reaching into nothing- before the first thing fell into your fingers’ bite? when we talk and i trail off, self undreamt- where am I and what i was before everything became bright i try to stay the same from dream across dream but I know that when i grasp for where i am, I am of this world what ever clutch I find myself dreaming in- whatever light

#poetry

distension

Another dream of you- series of morning fibs, woke up with hunger distention in my ribs dream crust eyes, cold left side, grasping for retention Not really you, just that ghost in my attention rearranging rooms furniture in my chest I feel you I feel you i feel you with every breath

#poetry #feels

Please look at me so I don't have to sleep another afternoon away

Inverting Amplification

I wish that I could break down elegantly; sugar glass; that I could write a machine that breaks into softer pieces. Instead of being full of {“Come See Me!”} aerosol rust. Its dangerous to leave this alone for so long and try to look too close. Its only been once that I’ve watched my words rattle lose 10 years later. [“okay!”] I remember every “no” I ever gave you, every mote of dirt I convinced to settle on my face. {“Something’s Come Up”} I’m angry and I want you to have to restart, too. [“ah well if you want-”] You untether my cobwebs; unwound my roots and shatter my dusty enamel.

{“Sorry, Gotta Go.”} Flayed for the benefit of your knowing. [“but can we still talk?

#poetry

Damocles-Shibari

You said that (people took sex too seriously) but not to me. You shouted it to the world as you walked out my door, Not when you used to stay; not before And revisit after reprisal, thirteen schemes per apology. Broken bone plate from a confidant-paparazzi. a contract and a wailing; Damocles-shibari. You don’t come by anymore (because of what you know) because of where it can go

#poetry

material 82

When I met you I didn’t know what distance was I could eat for miles and not notice anything but the feeling through all of the strange twisting of material and time my belly has never held a thing like this that only grew as its world collapsed to nothing, but the space outlined by you and I grew; wide, and then narrow Somehow, inbetween, there is a heart beat, a gaze that grew; weak, and then bright.

#poetry

Tiny feral cat

She says, you know there could be fleas I wonder, but could it really be that you don’t deserve a scrap of love to keep us from an itchy pea?

I am a tearing membrane

I don’t want you

to see me like this”, They said in unison. three-oh-five whispers under the door to 307. We used to think, a coincidence like this? Take it. But we aren’t looking for signs or guidance anymore. “I guess... I’ll head out tomorrow early, like 9. I don’t you don’t like to wake up early.” “Take your time, I’ll leave tonight. I just don’t really like waking up (lacking, when I had wished a call or knock would interrupt me. I don’t like knowing, first thing in the morning). “I’ll watch you go from up here, (just hope you don’t sulk, or look up, scanning windows for a shadow of me. Whatever you do just look like I left something with you) I promise”. “You’ll hear me going out, I won’t sneak or hide (and I promise I won’t look and make you do either) when i go.”

Back in the day you once said you could hear me in your head if you thought through something in just the right way, and I hear it now. One of us opens their jaw and all I hear is the unmistakable grain of audio recorded a decade earlier. “I don’t keep (a lot of time thinking in circles, separating egos, figuring out if this is you or me, past you or past me) your memory, well (There’s so many people inside of you, organs and blood split between a hundred homunculi) enough for this to (so one can grow into the perfect replica of someone I don’t even remember) make sense.”

a short dream

The last ship wasn’t much, but neither were the last star or the last crew. We sat 0.005 AU in orbit around the last fading light. This was "T” minus 30 years or so, our expiration uncertainty clocks in at around “plus or minus 26 days”. We spent a lot of time planning. The star is barely warmer than the engines. There’s a molten core under the rocky carbon crust but nothing for us there. Even if “technically, the crushing pressure would keep us alive longer”. Sara comes to the observation deck where I am sleeping. it’s so dark out here you can train yourself to become blind to the edges, and quickly. It begins with the framing of the windows and moves in closer. you're gone until startled back into being. It’s probably the easiest way to spend your time. Sara will probably be the last interesting thing to happen on this ship. She’s small, the youngest one there is going to be. I think for a few moments that she may be the youngest thing in the universe, but, obviously... well perhaps at some perpendicular size scale, she is. An accident. Accidents haven’t happened for thousands of years. It was too expensive, too much of a burden on anyone else. After she arrived, and the sterilizations, and the terms found- things went back to normal. Except that Sara’s father will die of starvation within the next year. Her mother doesn’t get enough oxygen to sit up anymore, but no one knows when she will die. Probably sooner. "I want to open the shades” She just doesn’t understand. “I know the power issues but if we dip li…” Today is not going to be a good day. “We can’t.” Every option has been reviewed for generations. “The reflective blinds are critical to keeping our orbit stable.” The process of opening them alone would take months off of our count down. We discussed the option, of course. There is another orbit which would give us the extra power to fully support another person. It would shave years off of the calendar but eventually it was decided. They were responsible; the community was not; Sara was not. This has not been re-discussed since. “It’s going to be my birthday and if we’re further out we can open the” The disruption effect is minimized further out. The effort required to fix the orbit is minimized close in an elongated orbit solves a problem. “and after the second pass by we just boost back into the circular...:” She doesn’t know the cost- in years. This is a wretched place.

“... and Dr. Parker thinks I probably won’t even lose a full inch if I eat once-restricted a year early”

She doesn’t know how long she has. or that we’re the only ship out here.

“haven’t spent ANY processing time in the last two months and I can keep...” She doesn’t know that when she turns 12 we’re going to open the mechanical areas to her and her world will grow tenfold. She doesn’t know that “and I can fast to pay for the energy of the whole maneuver, I promise”

“can you please take us?” it’s so dark out here you can train yourself to become blind to the edges, and quickly. It begins with the framing of the windows and moves in closer. You're gone until startled back into being. Its probably the easiest way to spend your time. “Please?” "You know, Sara..." I sit up. "An engineer once told me we could last a full thirteen full minutes longer if we sail this ship right through the crust” She laughs, and sound bounces off of every wall and shakes me awake, back into my body on this terrible ship. and we set this terrible ship sailing.

Infinite Game

Play an infinite game with me To my old family home you never saw We’ll walk into the woods and i’ll get to the story of my old friend who lived on the other end of the old trail Lets play an infinite game find that old path You go around I’ll go under straight and thorn and thick bowed out further and far we’ll play and infinite game which makes meeting rare, but every few years we met tired and pale and turn around to trace each other’s trail

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