Poem of the Week

I am held within these claims: that I have kissed unlucky

things, buried pets, eaten sugar-free ice cream, endured a first 

blood test, made friends without benefits, and lost them

found new ways of saying what is not ever enough to say 

ways to fish, to drink, to park, to burn, to burn into 

something new, with this life I have been careful

too much, disciplined to the extent of (dis)remembrance 

infrequent colours pissed into the wind, I don’t remember 

when I decided to fold into my self, or when walking

foot before foot to the feeding ground of murderous birds

became the way to admit that words can be a giving up

outcome of years rearranging a subterranean scar 

 ***

and I have been called many things late at night

greener grass, scientific utopia, dream of ancestors

what about rainy weekends, what about poltroons,

the doomed cults full of hyper-rational people

who’ve miscalculated the heights of doors, how many 

stairs are left, and when stood up from a tumble

find polite applause, find the romance of liberal 

consumption on the news, anyway, any sharp

thing is a short distance from possible to voluble

father, what about a foot laid down hard on the gloss

of the business-suited, the testing birds that remind 

me I am just as committed to expression as to freedom