I used to be my little brothers translator
He was too young
To understand
Or be understood
English did not roll from his tongue
The way his quick-witted remarks do now
And sometimes I wonder
As he grew
If I had been able to filter what he heard
a little bit longer
If he would still procure verbal self-abuse
It only does so much telling a boy not to listen
To something he can fully understand
do you ever think about how your life changes in an instant
for the better or the worse
last May, i woke up to the news that someone we loved was not coming back
and next week i am taking this next step for him
because he never got a chance to grow up
he never got a next time
so I’m living my life for the person who should’ve grown up
but couldn’t
What insanity is this
To wish for excuses
To not do things
You love doing?
Wouldn’t it be great fun to…
Yes, it would,
But here you sit
Trying to think of reasons
Not to.
Because it loosens the soil,
and by soil, I mean
that part of me you might call
soul, hard-packed
beneath the leaf-mulch
of worry and waste of good weather,
by which I mean time and space
to wonder and wander
through layers
of seed and root,
tunnels and nests,
stone and silt and clay
and bedrock,
I mean
the hand
that holds us all.
I think the universe originated in Nicholasville, KY,
I just drove by and it seems as plausible as anywhere else,
some might say that Nicholasville has it all,
others might say that there’s nothing in Nicholasville,
the answer (as always) is that both statements are true,
the aporia really starts puzzling
when you drive into the center,
US Route 27 Business (not Bypass),
there’s a strip mall on the right,
there’s a strip mall and a gas station on the left,
there is asphalt below and atmosphere above,
and on that street there is a house
where a person was born and lived their whole life and died–
—
I think the universe is still a rough draft,
typed out on a Notes app while driving
at a high rate of speed down US Route 27 Nicholasville Bypass,
too fast on an afternoon because of all the brightness
beaming from everywhere, wavelengths crisscrossing
and weaving into sync, it’s hard to slow down
when reality’s immense machinery has Gestalted
and is erupting through all its unfathomable cylinders,
disgorging its mysteries onto the windshield gleaming
then gone but wait here’s another flitting the periphery,
it never stops, it’s just the noticing that stops,
especially when the engine can’t rest
because it’s been green light after green light,
which is usually good but is currently bad,
for once it is time for a red light,
it is time to pause for a moment and add to the Notes,
one wonders how many characters one can type into
the Notes,
how many quadrillions of bits
stacking into googolplexes
before the memory overflows,
before the whole apparatus overloads
and bricks into a silent weight–
Ah, the whole world in my hands. But
the other hands are so much
bigger, grip so much
better.
The whole world.
It’s too much, all at once. In my
hands, in my heavy
hands.
What would I ever do with that much?
I can’t break it all to pieces and
pick it out.
Have I?
Can I?
The world is too big to chew, let alone swallow.
My ambitions are the starving kind. But, still,
I could never eat the world.
I’ve never been hungry enough.
Or have I?
I think I’ve gotten used to the hunger.
We’ve sat and lived and slept and breathed together.
It gets a little less noticeable the longer you ignore it.
Or maybe it’s a matter of skill.
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
Of course I’m good at it.
But I can’t eat my own ignorance.
Can I?
Even if I swallow it down, the taste is bitter and
I am not filled. I am not sated. I want more. I want.
What an admission.
To want. To ignore.
Who taught me this? The
heavy world in the palms of my hands?
Oh. My arms are so tired.
I am so tired.
It’s easier to ignore because it’s harder to do something about it.
Is that true?
An easy life. A life where I don’t
starve. A life, a life at all.
Are you not alive when you eat? Oh,
who doesn’t eat after all?
The dead. The close to dead. The wishes they were dead.
Not the living. Eat.
Eat.
Where is your hunger?
Where did you leave it?
Don’t forget.
Don’t forget. It doesn’t feel any better to abstain.
What kind of hurt are you looking for?
A cotton-candy morning,
pink sky and river water
frame a bumpy log jammed
against the shore. Wooden stage
supports six geese, a chorus
announces the day.
Pastel scene defies slashes
of deep colors, thunderstorms
headed our way. Intense
confrontations rage
on our streets.
I slept in today
the morning crept by
the fan hummed and the sheets tangled
the morning chill fell, the dew on the window evaporating in the heat
High noon light peaked from the curtains
the worlds been moving without me
the house has been alive, foot steps and laughter echo in the hall way
staying still didn’t stop anything
anxiety melts
I go back to sleep
I watched the octopus
continue moving even after
it was dead.
I will be like the octopus
and keep moving even after
you have killed me.
