a pile of leaving.

the rising sun making shards of this
morning heavy with scattered light

a sigh, an inevitable dizziness
like we've lost our home in the night
or spent it arguing about an absent rib.

you're not convinced
of expirations
suggested sell-by dates
my very breathing.

your elbow in my mouth
has punctured our silence

my eyes have been writing songs again
have been bursting open

don't want to kneel
to this ordinary noise

the rising of the sea

so empty, we float full
of precious things

find our way out of the dirt
onto the dust on the floor.

all lies begin in my head.

all lies begin in my head.
one truth begins
to unravel a thread
becomes caught a button torn loose
a thumb, fumbling—straighten
the hem smooth the collar wipe a
palm across a brow before reaching
for the door. they say in case of
fire, check the knob for warmth.
i say it is okay to see
if the wind will blow it open, will
either fan the flames or hush them
to sleep. buttoning or unbuttoning
the truth. once lying
down,
it is all the same.

and i have come to accept.

see the line. see that it can be straight,
curved, thick, thin, a wave.
see that it is a loop. it is open
or closed. the door slightly ajar.

and i have come to accept that my life cannot be
a straight line but i must do all i can
to just keep the line going

this line is an inspiration. i am having trouble
calling it such, not wanting to connect
the ancestral palms that have been stained
with blood, bearing sword, cross, stone.
but i want to own this. want to be inspired by those
words i won't say whose but to be driven
in this noble pursuit for passion, for faith, for one
continuous breath that connects a rabbi in a
pretty brown town for whom people waved
palms in some kind of medievally chivalrous ceremony
one sunday--maybe someday--

because that is the myth we are trying to connect
with, the harry potters and the justin underdogs
and how, sitting across from you on this thor's day,
the color of water in the sky and on your chest
and i know that my palm pressed against it will
go through, it will go through the center of this
nebulous, this mythological, this effervescent, this
effortless, this extensive, this figured out by now,
this makes your soul soar, this called this new kind,
this world will understand, this love.

this making sense of
this bridging
this breathing

this these two chests rising and pressing against
fibonacci's attempt at halving this distance between us
halving the atoms between fingers curled around a nape
saying never will i reach you but with this i will try
i am here and i cannot stop painting panting
cannot stop this line