we both saw the lighting storm
and we both held metal rods
under a tree
like we deserved it or
like we just wanted the tingle back,
confusing amends with self slaughter.
we could just enlist–
bring kerosene to the housewarming and
tell your friend,
            pour this here
gesture to our clothes
and necks.
hold hands. 

 

watch us try to put

the other out first

so you believe you can

long without conditions.

consider love and

freedom exist at the

same time.

here is what I demand:

eye contact.

a witness.

an extinguisher.
your fit in vocabulary,
whether fresh or stored
or researched but 

directed right at me

so I can hear the way your irritation wrestles,
the way you covet remorse and old marks
and I have a new cane to brand you;
mahogany wood  hand carved,
if you ever just laid down to take it,
my sting.
let your silence make way for screams
and welts, not fair?
well. that’s what I deserve.

 

but you don’t believe in any of it
or that you are growing a handlebar
mustache and I’m squirming, in bondage,
under a metal rod under a tree,
amorphous so I can slip free
and the sky is finally black enough.
the antonym of black is everything
at once.
consider love and self-sacrifice

exist at the same time.
consider my ethics and organic
expression.
consider I’d be real dumb
about it.
consider my skin would melt like
altar prayers, wax and I’d be
wasted    sending rain, a lake,
a splash your way.
me, avoiding water.
me, melting.
me, disintegrating just to rise in
white like an osprey or
an egret,
perched and
habitual,
seasonal.
graceful, large, eyes on
the prey.

consider love and altitude
exist at the same time.

“the long flight”