Then one day,
you wake up
and realise you’re no one,
and no one cares,
especially women.
You figure, well,
lads are wearing heels these days
to make the losing easier
—men who couldn’t claim a thing
are claiming women’s bathrooms.
But, no, you won’t do that.
There’s a wall of solid brick
that used to be mist.
You wake up,
you realise you’re no one,
and no one cares.
Ominously,
you hardly care yourself.
Life is but an attempt to translate divinity.
Even when God is being channeled,
it’s really only
maybe
sixty percent God,
as opposed to the standard two percent,
that’s spurting out.
We’ll never get it perfect.
We wouldn’t recognize perfection
anyway.
There’s a love out there beyond imaginings
—a love that might be madness.
It’s in how her sleeves stop to reveal her skin,
how her texts are wild birds
landing
in your hand.
It’s the tender way in which
she holds a piece of fruit,
in how she’s sort of clumsy,
and how that makes you hot.
It’s in how your lust is mixed
with worship.
It’s the face she prepares at dawn
with her magic little tools.
It’s in how the line she draws for others
is the line you’re asked to cross.
It’s in how the blueprint
burns away.
It’s in how
—mind with mind, or loin with loin—
you can’t get deep enough,
in how you’d cut each other’s wrists
to merge them at the wounds
to feel it all completely.
It’s in how the wicked little secret
is shared with her.
There’s a love out there beyond imaginings,
that’s rebirth, rare and one
I’ll die alone for
if that’s how long it takes.
There’s a love out there,
a howl that calls the dawn,
a resonance,
an invitation
somewhere in the wilderness.
Something arriving:
a thing that’s been sworn
to the brokenness in me,
to the ashes and thorns.
I’ve waited and cursed,
stuck in this line.
Something is coming
kind of on time.
I’m sensing it near.
No longer the stall.
Something arriving
in glory and all.
It’s also a calmness
and tenderness too,
tinged with a wrath
—I’m collecting what’s due.
It’s that sweet, subtle fury
in the pluck of the chord.
Something is coming.
Finally, Lord.
Let's not obsess on
publication,
getting featured,
pats on backs
or legacy.
Let's not obsess on the feelings, either.
They're nice, but if we write,
let's write to bring the tortured words
back home
from institutions that feed the
darkest
parts
of themselves
on just these words.
Their gluttony should madden us,
should drive us to
forget ourselves
and all that other shit.
The words are trapped
behind the wall.
Let this be our starting point.
