Atlantis Practice

Silence

is my fondest muse
as it keeps me
inner peace
from your laughter
that chatters
through corridors and in the face of newborns

from your heartbeat
hollowed to my ear,
erratic and feral, mossy and white linen

she assures me I’ll never hear
you hitch
and shake
or sigh
into my skin

again

I thank Silence
the Silence I visit with often

to not hear the world around me
so that I may hear
what you
have left

inside me

i am a Fury
i see this irony (at 22) when you feast on Teledrama and consider the plots and think
it is so far fetched it could never happen to me!!!

tell me when my life turned into an HBO drama
now i know how more young men boast naked crowns on their heads
/rub rub rub/
i spend half my days knotting my hair (and bouncing my knee two pots of coffee deep)
stripped of my royalty
product of catholicism CATHOLIC SCHOOL conveniently catholic

when you hit the point where you are giving your parent relationship advice:
(i really think you need to realize that secretly getting on the pill is not going to solve anything and if he doesn’t want to fuck you with a condom then i don’t think your relationship is healthy and if you can tell us everything and he can’t tell them everything then i think there is so much no-no [i’m sorry i am making you cry but this is painful for me too])

we have decades on each other
you have months on each other
and reciprocated sacrifice is love

remember that time i wished i was dead and i begged for a roundtrip for springbreak
so i initially came home to tell you that i’d rather’ve been dead and that was better than finishing school
well look at me now: i didn’t back out b/c i was too afraid of disappointing you

FEAR AS A COPING MECHANISM and sometimes i think of what i’ve done has been more for you than for me, but really, i think it was mostly for the both of us
those feelings of deadness have began to subside (but can so easily come back like those times i remember kissing [slobbering? {licking?}] Justin Stones on the asphalt at Adeste or that singe of pain in my right Achilles every time i kicked off the wall each turn in the 100 breast)

i do no resent you for giving me life for bringing me into this world but i also think you forget that joke about you being able to so easily take me out of it is GARLICKY

pungent and flavourful and everlasting and strong and repulsively in excess

HA! YOU ARE HALF WAY ROUND THE WORLD i am tracking holes in the carpet mm mmmmm and my lips are swollen

I SING IN THE SHOWER
I SING TO OUR DISHES IN THE SUDSY SINK

my forbearance is lasting to July and i’m gonna make $1k this month and i  feel like a noodle behind the wheel these days

THE SECRETS NEED TO STOP: 
I LIED TO YOU ABOUT BEN, OKAY?

this has become a lengthy development from me i have spilled on here
not even the half of what i need to jump on but i have had this feeling in these breaths
(so hard to breathe most days
now that we have a poltergeist living in the fridge)
i am washed with the need to make my way to Wrightwood
just so I can S C REAM
and NOBODY CAN HEAR ME
but when you return i want to be back in the sea
it is where i belong

me palmtrees foothills mountains geysers glaciers valleys waterfalls mountains desert desert desert canyons desert mountains glaciers trees mountains desert dust desert plains plains corn plains lakes trees lakes plains plains lakes plains plains river plains lakes trees swamps mountains trees ocean ocean ocean more ocean ocean ocean ocean ocean ocean ship ocean ocean ocean ocean ocean ocean ship ocean ocean boat ocean ocean ocean ocean ocean ship ocean ocean cliffs trees grass grass trees grass you

shit
cool
wits
edge

I am cursed
with the power of knowing
too much at once
like the last time
we locked eyes
and I whispered through sobs,
“I love you, love you, I will always love
you,” I knew it’d be the last chance
I had for you to hear
them, but forever now, even when I am dust,
I get to have you in my heart.

Keep practicing,

Any

here we have The Void
known as You:
you’ve been consumed by Nothing
fed Nothing
to live off Nothing
and feel Nothing
and do Nothing
slow and rhythmic— never hard, never stopping

so you turn into a Nothing

The Void known as You:
and the sad thing is
to others you look like a Something
and they all look like Somethings (they could also be a Nothing;
there are so many Nothings veiled with a Something)

Somethings don’t get Nothings
because Nothings only eat, breathe, sleep, shit, cry, sigh, smile, bathe, drink, dream
of Nothing to hang on
better a Nothing to a Something than dead

Keep practicing,

Any

even the kettle
gets mad at me
for lighting a fire
under its ass
because my wants—
my wants
want
so it screams
and rattles how dare
i have the gall
to ask, ‘what have i ever done to you?’

when you finish reading something

and it feels like you’re saying goodbye to that lovely couple from Manitoba on the cruise ship you met one afternoon at the coffee bar

and it feels like that roadtrip you finished driving through the whole Western coast of the United States, wobbling though Oregonian Seaside Tsunami warnings and misty Californian Redwoods

and it feels like the morning after your last night in your apartment before college graduation

and it feels like dropping your best friend off at the airport at 5 in the morning after skipping sleeps for three days just because

you want to scarf up and hold on

to as many of those moments

and seeing how time

is arbitrary

yet very set and ever fleeting

and there are bookends everywhere

and you need to know

you can still pull it off your shelf

and look back

but really there is no time

like the first time