Near Open Windows

This fear I have lived with so long, it is not merited. He made masks for a living, grew his own food, had a hard time explaining why it all mattered, but it did, and I knew that, and I think he liked having someone around who saw that.

 

There are roses in between the stars, if you look carefully you will see them. I never met a witch I could not pacify, my whole childhood was basically one long blend of negotiation and subterfuge with her. 

 

The cows died, the sheep died, the chickens died, the ducks died, the pigs died, the dogs died, the cats died, even the fucking goldfish died. You never forget your first fight, how a nose sounds breaking.

 

Sex in summer near open windows, laying together after letting the sweat dry. Chalk drawings disappearing in rain.

 

It’s not just that we have to choose sides – that happens – but that we think we have to go to war. I miss drinking coffee and writing poems and not caring about anything else.

 

It never occurred to me the price one would pay for living the way that I live. Weekends in my experience are overrated.

 

Saw James Brown a couple years before he died, sold out show at the Calvin in Northampton, watched the guitarist mostly, wondering what it was like to be so young behind such a giant. Contextualizing my father’s death, our last grim conversation, struggling mightily to put it in a place that won’t haunt me when it comes my time to die.

 

Bluets are for grieving. You go into it and you see how in a way even death is just part of what comes and goes.

 

For what I cannot say, may I say I am sorry? Funny how we still choose coffins, given the silliness of cemeteries (we need the space to grow food) and the irrelevance of the body to being.

 

Something red growing brighter and brighter. Would you be for me a birch tree?