April 1/30
when I realized I was showering 6 times a day
because I was trying to follow the water down the drain
that when I start shaving against the grain,
driving over bridges, through red lights
that these are the only times when I ask for favors
this is when I started carrying white chalk in my pockets
and a grease pencil on the face of my 14th story tombstone to ceiling windows
whose pale reflection reads: I will not ask for help
50 times in cursive
more than myself, I wanted to become that old diary
under any given bed that reminds you of how different you were.
how you would barely recognize yourself now. how brave
you were for keeping journals. after the fourth month
my nights became dog-eared choose your own ending novels
with only 4 pages and one outcome – every midnight
you fall into a dream at the wheel
you cut off your head and hide it in a house with glass cupboards I never had
a high level of commitment when it came to being vulnerable
I watched the chest exit the kitchen on a stilted bundle of steering columns
and set the record needle to dig the valleys out of your gums
to recreate your voice from a smile
while it twists the number dial on the phone like the small of her back
the familiar recoil under my fingertips tells me I was never there at all
but keeps calling
I called everyone to apologize for hiding in boats at night
and playing jacks with my life instead of finding a way to fix it
without playing a game, without trying to do so in one flick of my wrist
yet sometimes I am still no taller than a light switch
I still find things in the dark that I couldn’t before
I started using gravestone rubbings as a textbook for living
so when I am not looking, I pretend I am someone else
with invincible friends and a driveway filled with 6 sunsets and 15 middle of the nights
so I can choose what to ride out depending on how little light is left in my rise
how little it matters how many promises I peeled-out in my teenage bones
to never become all the people I disliked about God
there is one inevitable night wrapped
in an extra-small hospital gown where we all become riddled
with terrible holes that we’ll fill, and fill, and fissure until we cannot tell
ourselves from the cliff I imagine is under every step I took out of there
here’s a story about a lifeguard who was so gifted at saving others
he waited for them on the ocean floor. a story about a man and Jesus Christ
on the Lusitania who fought so fervently over who provoked the torpedo
with the biggest promise of safety that they joined the war
just to keep fighting. let’s settle this.
no one ever say inevitable and means well. forget God
stamping “pray for immortality” stickers on an electric driver’s seat I use
as an eject button where I find new ways to get home
from interstates I will put down like a broken conch shell
I realized:
If I could do anything, I’d cash his last social security check.
spend it on a swing set, and try launching myself onto his lap.
his jaw – notched against your skull like an airport terminal – was my escape.
his smile – loosened the slack on my eyebrows like a dark kite on a sunny day.
smiles will dig sandcastles into your skin.
every loved one who grows wings
dangles a rope ladder
and begs you not to climb it.
this is why I got taller
