Matters over Mattress

It’ll be much easier
to lie on a bed of Nails
than the one you made for me
Matters over mattress
Our bodies used to curve;
Two serpents, swerved
And bent into softness
With a slow hiss
But goodness,
Your venom!
Rather, I’ll be spread out
Balancing on 2,000 tips
Simultaneously feeling every
One digging in
Aware, and glad
To know I can feel this happening
That I can just choose to fall asleep
And in my dreams
I don’t worry about you visiting

I can make my own bed
Imagine my own comfort
Outside of your demands
Use my own hands
Context over texture
The rapid squeeze
You don’t understand
Whisper hiss
Buzz and grind
I’ll be making sweet
With feels and dreams
Conjuring fields and streams
And take up whatever space
I want in this bed

ICU

I see you
You show me pictures of how you used to be
And I don’t care
I don’t care that you’ve changed because I’m here with you now
And still, I love you
I, too, look back and long for the me
Before the damage
I understand.
But I can’t stay there
And neither should you

I look at pictures
to remind me how good I’ve had it
And how I can make new ones to joyfully reflect on
As the arbiter of my life
I have sought and carried out
disseminating seeds of joy
For future me,
Who should love memory
Without bitterness

Do we not know that things wear and break?
And someday everything will have once been better?
When you lose control of what is happening to you
Gain it in another area
The person you were is still buried below your altered surface
And you don’t need a picture
to show me who you were
I see you

Riding Thin

tenth pabst

collapse

this too will pass

pull strength

out of thin air

clean the bits from my hair

give it one more stab

in the gulch

where

the hurricane spins

a lot of people

ride thin and fall in

and still manage to swim

but I drown

until

I come around

and when my feet hit the ground

with purpose and sound

I give away

the urbane

to embrace the the slick terrain

one shoe will never know

if the other is completely blown

my audible groan

will let you know

at last I am home.