bloated and gray, his body lays there

300 pounds heavy

and coats the curtains and the carpet

and the leather davenport

in some cologne of its own unworldy category

it was three days since

the wife was unknowingly turned a widow

until her eyes were branded

like some spanish bull

by a wretched Adam stretching his fingers towards

the phone on the floor

all the stories she'd imagined telling him -

the Cuban summer with its air mud-thick draped over

chipped pastel buildings you'd think only ghosts could ever live in,

finding refuge from the Havana sun tearing a hole into the sky,

only out once the bitten hostia of a moon is raised over the city

pale light piercing through the canopy of telephone wires

gone as the door unhinges its jaws

the dying sun watches over his shadow

stretch across the sand

he turns back and sees that red boat capsized

slowly sinking in a sea of blood

with no sound tethered to it

just the thin whistle of the wind

and the occasional mew of buzzards circling overhead

his legs trudges on,

chasing his shadow the way a dog does his tail

all the while his skull echoes

what he reckons the scream from a god's mouth

should be

And don't let go

lest all the wild things

we've kept dark at home

will take mold

and grow blinding cotton fields

only the teeth of our guillotines can sow

can you see?

within their matted fur?

now shone by that old cold sun?

oh! how it lights up those

sleepy stars like slitted eyes

in some forever jungle hummed

as part of a daydream

or a river-

a river that rages on

and on

and on

towards that flat line

seen by glassy eyes

not knowing why...

only a pearl of an inkling

that it came from the pain

we had both felt

once we left each other's chests bare

not knowing our fangs were the only things

that plugged the holes we made

before we had met

or at best the string that could've held

the creeks of our palms

twined, tangled, and signed

like the shower tiles for our hair

maybe in another life

the ink never runs thin

and rages on

to blot out that old cold sun

there, we can let them roam and graze

with eyes open

while our lips sink deeper and deeper

into each other, until calling our names

echo hymns we forgot

were a part of someone else's dream

assuring us that the only thing

which shades the contours of our faces

are dancing fireflies

from those thoughts

we promised each other

to never let go of

I wonder

how you are

as I crane my neck up

towards the stars

like antennas blinking red lights

and there, blinking back at me,

is that bright blue one

you had pointed out

with those frail fingers of yours

calloused and shelled

from tours done by the hands of stick insects

around, around, around

circling tree rings

molded fit for our necks to look out from

slowly dyeing our skin lavender

and windpipes rose

from some slow swan song

am I still in your mind?

a razored sliver hanging off burnt ends

of nerves, slowly being whisked away

by the fanged winds you carry

there in your chest and then in our bed,

until embers and fireflies

are snuffed out, asundered

or is there nothing there anymore?

just the charred remains

camoed in the lightless place

we stuff behind closed eyelids

I asked if I can kiss you & you asked

"where?"

oh my little heart skipped a tiny beat

as that query curved down & skipped

to the very end

of your dirt blonde hair

without pause I said "your cheeks"

like it was stupid to even think

I'd say your lips

but I wanted to,

the cliff just seemed

too steep

nowadays I forget we don't talk anymore

even in my head or in the shower

yes a flicker would burn silently at times

there behind clouds of sheep

yet that face halved by an amber lamp

blurs the same way as my first ever dream

maybe its the brain steering my sails

away from an ancient pain

able to tame a sun's shin

by shelfing you at some sacred place

where wool warms & dampens

your baritoned hymns

or maybe I've wrecked already

stranded beneath starving waters

whose fangs had soaked the tears

so all I'm left with

is the beauty of the sun from under here

how it doesn't hurt to stare anymore

I stick my tongue out

to let your shadow kiss

but a paltry taste of what

I thought would numb my knees

from the pain

I felt would give me bliss

if I just stuck it out

and held my lips

clamped, remind myself of our good times

during the bad ones

and how you were always there

whenever you weren't

or whatever we should've held

close to our chest

yet our mouths betrayed

and the dams buckled

but they didn't break nor bend

just forked little rivers and little lakes

for our chimps and turtles

to live in

or whatever we should've said

instead of the silence

that ferries dead words 'cross the styx,

saying "we could've built something else here"

something whose shadow

is thick and strong and black as onyx

making itself known into the skin of the earth

branding "I am all that will ever will be forever and ever amen"

and by god I'm not making any sense

anymore, just following that tug

that leads me, incessantly, knowing

I don't know where I'm going

I play the script

and paint over this mold

with peacock green

a sheen only fitting

the cotton bloom

that can give one pause

because it looms in some forgotten corner

you thought it never could

and hang myself in my head

the way normal people do

i force myself to brush my teeth

just so i don't forget my face in the mirror

tell myself "yes this is who I'll be today - this is who I am"

and wash off this cocoon that swallows my head

like they say

sweet is the crown that wears this cotton candy head

or is it the other way around?

or is something else wrong?

the questions stir

something I don't fully like

snaking a pit there

the size of a star

right below where my stomach

sends its busy work,

this pin-sized star's

not too big to make me bleed

but small enough that fields of apple trees

can cover up all the blood

from just a single seed

it threatens to grow and mold

yet never does

just there, ever static, ever dull

waiting

in disbelief, I finish off while pissing

foam spit drowned in yellow

I stare, pulled by my river, forgetting

what someone who was close to me

from another life

told me this morning

how do you remember

the moment you've started forgetting?

just woke up

and the rearview mirror's broke

crossed state lines but you don't even

know where you came from

you've popped out of nowhere dear

all you are is now, blinking in and out

with your eye floaters the fishes of a dead sea

bloated and depressed like a memory foam headrest

and know

that this place, the wind here only blows

for your trail, not you

not for the sweat dragging their nails

'cross your nape

but for the hair that dies on checkered linoleum

and hanged nails cut down from half-moons

nails tap and scrape against

my phone screen

this Moses parting the white sea

his credit card staff

rap against the L.E.D.

*rap* *rap* *rap*

in 4/4, no swing, lost all of her luster

just the powdery taste of lustral and mother

going on

about how

they never had the paint we have to paint with

and how

bad it all was back then

and how

good I've had it since sun down

and how

good it'll be till the next dawn

if I just chose to feel the warmth of that break

and not the cold at the back of my arms

I know ma

but these tiny lungs have been swept

from its feet

up to my throat

and every breath closes the gap

between the burn on the skin

and that fire it gave itself to

-------------------------------------------

Sometimes I get stuck in this waking coma. Or choose to at least. Prolonged days of passivity. Glue my eyes onto the computer screen and not even pay any attention to what's happening. Whatever video's playing is a wall for me, so that I can live in my head. Wall of a house, a castle, a whatever. Looks impenetrable but really it's just

white noise like a fog which comfortably blankets my daydreaming.

Hard to talk about it. Feels mad. Unreal. Brain rationalizes it somehow, and enough days of that, the rationalizations doesn't seem like rationalizations. Just that it was always the way it is. Your true self. This is it.

I get scared when I'm doing good. These brief moments of clarity. And it's the only way I can talk about it now really.

Trying to pinpoint why I'm afraid of these good days.

It's the fall really. Push the rock up so far. The fall's inevitable, it's going to happen, you can't stop it. Then you sink back.

The amount of times I've tried and failed and tried again. To stay here in these moments of clarity. God, it's a lot.

Earlier, I looked at my flower-patterned blanket hanging off the railing. Just stared at it. The side I was looking at was shadowed. A thought creeped up. That this wasn't going to last.

Nothing really does. I get sad when I'm happy because I know it'll end. I don't like my birthday cause when you're going to bed, you don't want to let go. This special day. But still you move on. And the day after, nothing really changes.

I stopped counting when I turned 21. My brain takes a second to remember I'm 22. I'm 22.

Trying not to think too hard about things anymore. Trying to let go more often.

I remember in those moments of happiness, with friends or family. I'd burn the image in my head. Like in a video call with my parents. I'd focus intensely. Taking a picture of every wrinkle and every white hair and every crease of what makes my dad my dad. Cause I know one day, he won't be here anymore. Appreciating what I have now, all I can do really.

The funny thing is, when I look back at those images I branded on my skull in the future, it'd feel like a dream. My brain would've added some extra details or took some away. But the feeling would still be there I reckon. A sliver at least.