The Ache Is What
Moves Me

To kill myself, over and over, To peel my skin and grow a new layer of pink is an art I learn. The ground is covered in untidy plasma and platelets. It scares my mother, it scares my shrink. But the blade is not as sharp as they think.

I'm immersed in a glass of mud and water, I've tossed and turned, and for that reason, I have further muddied the water. My vision is unclear, direction and long-frame sight unreadable, I squirm and muddy the water. "Sit still! Be still!" For in being there. Just there. Not far. Not high. But there. Each particle around me slowly comes down and eventually, like silt around me, the mud settles and the water clears. In sitting, the water became clear to me. Now, just for now, until I squirm again, I can see.

In the silence, I watch the distance take its chair. Your eyes are somewhere else tonight, already leaning there. I do not call your name. I listen to it leaving. I keep my hands open. That is how I know I am grieving. I see you slipping from the frame, water through a closing hand. Nothing breaks all at once. It goes the way light leaves sand. Your smile still visits, but it no longer stays. The room remembers you in a hundred smaller ways. I reach, then let the reaching end. Some loves do not return. They thin. What used to be a fire now moves like smoke through memory. I stand inside the after of it, watching what remains of me. So go, though the body still objects. I will keep the outline, and learn to live without the rest.

Please play the music I once loved. Wanda, turn it up. Wanda, I want it to pulse through every bone in my body. Wanda, I want to hear the music before he falls between his feet. Wanda, I want him to feel it in every bone of his body. Wanda, I used to play with dandelions while burning ash on my skin. Wanda, I used to breathe so deep that I saw stars in the sky. Wanda, buy the heart from the highest bidder. Wanda, put in an offer they can't resist. Wanda, steal the damn thing before it goes cold.