I am counting the number of days
since I last talked to my mother;

not to worry, we have not been okay
my entire life, so this is not anything new

by the stretch of the imagination.
It’s funny, that phrase—imagination like

a rubber band, and a million versions of us
in between going farther away as you

stay in your end of the deal, and as do I.
Mother, I wish you used the same material

to make my umbilical cord, so even
after my many falls, I could snap right back.

But you did not. The cord was connective tissue
and errands and the relief of not having period

pain for nine months yet the impending
astronomical event of having a whole new

body to feed, to recognize as your own,
a spitting image of that ancestral buildup

you know well: the never making something
of your life, the token of You and Papa’s

foolishness, barely thirtysomethings yet
fates already sealed. When the doctor

cut through my only tether to you,
no one knew from then on I would be

on my own, and it would take seventeen
more years for me to know that. I am

counting the number of days you will
waste thinking there will ever be

a way to ******* back to you.

My father,
the man
who invented time.
My father,
the latecomer.
Life is like that.

Everything is symbolic
when depressed.

Taking a bath becomes
metaphor: rejuvenation.

Waking up: a gift.
Morning coffee: elixir.

Taking the trash out:
a twelve-step program

towards cleanse.
But garbage is garbage.

And you are you.
And physics, chemistry,

psychology are just words
explaining the phenomenon,

but apart from the phenomenon.
The phenomenon you,

in the dark, in a cage,
writing poems to extinguish

the void. Like cleaning
an oil pill with bare hands.

Gunk and grime slipping
through fingers. What luck,

though. Colors might
Slither through. Occasionally.

And I know that is a symbol,
too. I’m sorry.

Everything is symbolic
when depressed.

He has black eyes
like voids.

He has black hair,
prickly, like grass fields

inked with blood
from animal ******.

An extra set of ribs,
which he developed

after variations
of downfall.

He is big and tall.
Imposing, heavy.

But he knows
how to be weightless.

He is grisly.
And then he is light.

He consumes you,
and then he's residue.

A blank aftermath,
sin without consequence.

Then he reappears
as a promise

broken before
it's made.

He tastes whatever fire
tastes like before it's

officially fire,
the taste of verge.

Sweet but delicate,
the taste of almost.

The taste of nearly
there but not yet.

It burned.
Graciously, it burned.

Coming out of the last
film screening, the empty

mall looks like an abandoned
cruise ship. There's the lingering

sense of brief occupancy, in the
same way plastic toys are lodged

in the sandbox after parents
have fetched their children.

The shops are dim, empty.
They're on break now, preparing

for next morning's
language of want.

Glass doors are locked.
Objects, once for sale,

are inacquirable. Price tags
are sheltered in the quiet

specter of dark.
How I do leave this.

Where is the exit.
I need a way out.

Is there anybody out there.
Someone to guide me.

Look around. Some few hover.
There are people still here.

A man at the snack bar
closing up shop.

Laborers downstairs, fixing
tiled floors.  

The guards. And their
transceivers humming gargled

whispers. And me, a spectator
of the way things are after

everyone's gone. I am built
like this, I think. The after

hours, the empty. These feel
holy to anyone who wanders

around vacancies. Hoping to
discover a place inside the place.

A field trip during midnight when
loneliness doesn't have anyone it

can flirt with, so it eats its own
body and desires itself.

In all this emptiness, I look
for something small. A human,

seeing me, sensing I'm lost,
and coaxing me toward a

narrow exit and out into the
open world, where I'm even

smaller than before. Outside,
I think of inside. The massiveness.

And the people still in it,
bracing themselves for another

12 hours
of this tomorrow.

Their backs heavy
with the burden of
one more evening
shared without knowing
each other's names.
Smoke from their
cigarillos billowing
thin, floating in the
room like ghostprint,
steam from the
carcass of an affair.
A small lightbulb
and two shadows
barely moving.
We're talking two
boys, two bodies
on the bed.
Swimming.
Sinking.
Sailing.
The faucet drips
faster than the wall
clock ticks.
I count.
     one drip, two drips
There are too many
things I want to ask him.
But after *** there
is only endless pause.
He lies there with his belly
rising and falling.
I time my breaths
so that his stomach
is up when mine is down
     three drips, four drips
On the bathroom mirror
there's half a fingerprint.
I wonder if someone had
wiped the other half.
or whoever left it was
incomplete.
     five drips, six drips
I like the sounds you
bring out in me. The
way I'm primal with you.
A creature. An animal
enduring the whiplash
of almost having all of
you, and all of this,
whatever it is.
     seven drips, eight drips
I used to think we have
*** because we like the
anguish of fleeting
****** contact. But now
I understand. There is
a sacredness to the way
we don't want to acquire
each other. That the
passion burns in a vacuum,
away from distinction,
from names. I'd want more
soon. I know myself.
     nine drips, ten drips
But for now, this will do.
I twist the faucet close.
And wipe the rest of the
fingerprint.

I clean wounds with animal spit
so I inherit a lust to escape
human capture. But what happens is
I take in their power of blind loyalty
and approach the incarcerator wielding
the softest gun. I fall for boys
who teach me how to mend my
anomalies, and when I'm renewed,
they find I'm not damaged enough
to keep fixing. So I'm free but I miss
prison. I miss following the cowbell
that leads me home. I forget the past
it took to crumble me. My own shadow
haunts me when I step into the light.
So I hide in dark places to keep him out of sight.