honeydunce

Shampoo Suicide - Broken Social Scene

it isn’t evicted
but
it isn’t yours anymore.

the ladder i built from your wine stems
is held in place by abandoned hubcaps
along the side of
32.

passengers always turn their head here so
they always miss it.

remember a summerlit bathroom
the soft beds of my palms scraped to rhubarb
you were cradling and blowing,
my foot against your thigh
you said
“you have my hands,”
and then
some bandages and
sent
on my way.

if it is a day i’m awake in
then
it’s a definite,
missing you.
you are in my mouth when i talk too much
in my gut when i laugh sometimes from
the ground on up
the conversation i can’t have but
practice for
tireless
on the porch at night
hoping the neighbors don’t wake
with the sound of an old break breaking
a cough to cover it

here is a body
filled like an ocean
here are the things
i can’t make beautiful for you
here is the woman i had to teach myself to be
here is what i don’t understand
this part is vast it is
my unbent interrogative
extended
into
lifeline

and there is a woman
i work with her
from the start i found myself
avoiding
there is nothing wrong with her
she’s quite a sweet thing but me
i’m walking the other way to get past
today
a sense snapped the mystery
in half
she wears
the same perfume
that you did
she smells
just like my mother
and it hurts
and it fills the file room
the memories come swiveling back
i can’t stand it
the fight against missing you
the limb and grasp i couldn’t have
but the glimpses
so glorious,
i thought my lifetime
could live from them
but really
things are getting starved

these days i’m
making shadow puppets with my ribs
drawing from the yellow, the unbelievable
wondering
what is your sleep schedule
do you really miss me
could you pick my voice from a line up of recordings
i cannot be sorry that i look like your
first love
i have questions
that pop and dim
on cued circuits,
they are my streetlights
there is nothing i can do
about needing
what i never had

there is a balled up stitch of cloth
tangled in the breastplate
a white flag
a breath that beats the smoke signals out
i hope you know how to read the sky
even though
i know
i have nothing to say
i dig out a certain valve
drop it in the gape,
i update the milk carton
i call the radio stations and request you
i drag myself to the highest point
the lowest tide
i find the moon and wail
and wail