All Of This is Foreshadowing
Haven't written a poem in awhile. Churned this out to try to get myself writing again. le sigh. I feel awful, and I'm sorry to who this is for, but I don't know what else to do with you anymore.
All Of This is Foreshadowing
"(Hold on to the corners of today,
and we'll fold it up to save until it's needed.
Stand still.
Let me scrub that brackish line that you got
when something rose and then receded.)"
~WEAKERTHANS 'watermark'
Pictures rub into my brain like scissors, cutting away at the excess;
Brown balancing men over a bookcase;
or standing alone in a Church parking lot
Sunday after Sunday (proof that I am so forgettable);
In the dark, the dry papery smell of breathing;
Standing in showers, and imagining that each string of water is
weaving and tangling through my limbs -
Thunder snapping its fingers in the autumn sky;
High School music class
(which I hated) because of
Huge instruments in laps with curls and contortions like molded organs of the body
(I had to get out of there, the thought of it hurt);
The teacher tossing apple cores like a longshot into the trash bin-
These apples grown in cinnamon soil,
inside, its seeds mahogany like crisp tiny furniture.
Wishing you were here to share the sparkling ground with me,
So I shared it with you instead.
I sent you a box of snow but when it came
there was only rain.
The box collapsed like the body of that mouse
Snapped bones tenting out the skin,
and me kneeling alone and afraid to wring the inevitable
life out of the wrapping death like a rag;
Across from the gym,
Seeing you weave your young fingers shyly together and rest your elbows
on your thighs like a passage from one side of you to the other…
Onwards through thought until years later
plucking the grass thin like your eyebrows,
arching your back and looking up through lowered lashes,
reclining with your thighs apart, and parted lips-
I remember thinking that if you were a to-do list,
Your pressed and dressed eyelashes (flicking sharply upwards like a checkmark)
would clearly say, "I've been done."
(hands now hanging like a broken bridge between your knees)
and me kneeling alone and afraid again, mourning the loss of you,
And quietly afraid to wring your life out of mine;
You said, “shhh. I’m here.”
Which, honestly, wasn’t nearly good enough;
I finally realize that it is time to begin again.
I don’t know you anymore, so I might as well make it official.
(It's spring.
The lake is cold, and I don't go in.
The waves peel slowly backwards,
like pulling up tacky tape
with white adhesive strings stretching behind it in a sticky plea.
don't go.)
(I will take a deep breath.)
(0.)Now you will forget everything and you will not care.
You will emergencyejecteverything you remember about them out of you-
You will only remember missing thesepeoplethosethings before they’re gone. Perhaps only for this fleeting moment-
One. instant of resolve, and they are gone from you,
there are suddenly small empty spaces in your brain,
but (do not be afraid) the rest of you will move to fill it in.
Two. (I can do this- I let out a longslowquiet breath.)
I'mSorry.Goodbye.You'reGone.T h r e e.