i thought it was a mechanical problem. i thought it was my dialog. i was ob- sessed with beats for a while. it never felt right. it never had the right rhythm. maybe i was looking for poetry where there was no poetry, poetry where there was only prose. bad prose. because a life without stories makes for stories without life. i wrote them to keep me company, one dimensional backfill for a four dimensional emptiness. rain on dry soil makes only mud. handprints bake into ridges. i can't read. fossiliz- ed youth under- go- ing geo- logical surveillance. layers melting one into another. i remember this. the sad thing is, i couldn't have done any better. i could trace a line from New York to Pennsylvania but it wouldn't mean any- thing. mud pies from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to New Jersey. two women screech- ing out- side an apartment door. cops shining flashlights into a basement window. and i traded his sentiment for my excuse, but you can't opt out. because it all comes around in the end. he sang in the shower. he said love isn't enough, and you know, he was right. i had a sister once. i don't think i ever had a brother. there was one more, but she told me i was a burden to live with. i had reached the end. i thought about doing it in the woods, but i couldn't give away my cat. i still have the bookmarks on my old phone, accidentally filed under 'things to do.' i could draw a line from New York to Oregon, but there's no line back. i was pulled like a thread through a needle, like water curling down a drain. i re- cognize none of it now. pictures of emptiness. there's a terrain of being unwanted. it carves out the back of your skull. my skull. there's meat clinging to the bone, thin shell of bone. you walk, i walked with that rounded spine, carrying with me vertebra dis- articulated. recombined into the low belly snake sliding under doors, leaving the family undisturbed. milk. white. tooth. less. silent. 'you're a burden to live with' she said. but that was someone else. i held onto the tightrope with both hands. i thought my phone was broken. my first week. she didn't call. some thing broke in me. broke open. broke loose. live wire. i held onto it with both hands. it didn't matter any- more. it didn't matter that i was unstable. i got on the bus. i went to work. i paid my bills. no one cared. no one needed to care. i fell free. snake skin. emptied out pickup truck. industrious camouflage. people make assumptions because they don't care, because they don't have to care. and i slid on by. i could sit on the curb and cry be- cause it didn't matter. the illusion was good enough. it was the confirmation i couldn't face all those years ago, the confirmation that i didn't matter to anyone. i faced it. i don't know how i kept going but i did. and somewhere beyond that, in a landscape with color and light, i felt eyes on me that didn't let me go, that didn't let me fade into the monochrome. i was okay because they were okay. they, all but one, had a background they were woven into but they still saw me. my loose threads didn't matter to them. i belonged. and that one, well. we followed each other's threads, i think. so even when other friendships unravel- ed, faded, cut short, we kept each other. the tranquil reflection became the deep and tranquil pool. that's why none of the rest of it matters. i swapped bad prose for bad poetry. but so what? i'm whole. i laid down all that weight. i rest here. i thought it was a mechanical problem. i thought it was my dialog. i was wrong. it was the difference between having no strength and having no one believe in your strength. my strength. but i'm starting to believe. i can look them in the eyes now.
July 2, 2021
