Day 1: fragmentary

To just stop will mean no more swish or fizzle or bubbling, no delusion of
an interval.
Then, the music.
In the meantime, don’t ask, he won’t hear you.

from “The Book of the Dead Man (Silence)” by Marvin Bell

Door ajar.

I want to wring myself dry of you. 
I want to stand at the edge of your window sill and see the world again.
I want to hang myself from rooftops until I am no longer afraid. 
I bound your wrists and stitched you shut but
when I left the room, I left it open -

I despise the mornings of your shoulders I cannot wake to.
I wish I could kiss our disjointed bridges, the soft hinges
of your knees, the loud crack of your knuckles in the dark,
a bad habit, a self-portrait.

Your life spills from me in tones I don't understand,
a language that isn't mine; the tongue of two people.
I pray for absolution,
In faith I will be consoled to be without you again.

To Visit

I want to see the world from the top of things, 
like the Empire State Building, or a radio signal tower in Las Vegas, or the back of a wind turbine up North some place. I want to face the sunset from a different degree, my angles going obtuse the slightest bit; closer to falling but loving the view. And maybe I'll like the look of tiny black umbrellas walking in hurried huddled masses in every direction; or empty streets with no people screaming for justice or freedom or water or love; or the stifling cold on exposed cheeks and the fog that so quickly creeps. 

I want to see the world atop a million balconies;
I want to sit pretty on a black metal garden chair, its curls rusting on the backrest, and watch a hundred separate lives all unwind like clockwork. People becoming and unbecoming next to each other, giving and taking in their shoebox spaces, never noticing the rats next door love just as much if not more. I want to sip coffee that tastes like shit at six in the morning as I stand on the fire escape and watch my neighbors drag themselves into the world, heavy with duty and last-night's-sleep. 

And then finally,
I want to see the world from underneath you. You're breathing the push and pull of the moon, and I can feel the ocean against me. A slow strangle to keep you there.