I am lashed to a gypsy boy

by one colossal sky.

when this universe becomes a cage

I remember that his eyes are

black holes, magnetic dripping wounds,

and through them

we could probably tunnel our way ascendant.

I will miss you, gypsy brother

on the sometime day when

your pain is no longer a false alarm.

if nothing else,

remember the morning

I’m walking down the hallway when I think about footsteps. When I think about shadows. When I think about silhouettes projected on the empty walls, projected up there like we own them. We are puppeteers and the shadows are our friends, dancing in time with our jagged jerks and pulls. Yanking their strings to tell the world, Stop, look at me. I’m fine.

You can tell from the imprint on the bed 

that it was a hard sleep.

That, and the fire alarm tests 

that didn't wake you.

That, and the images of your mother's face

distraught and tired

that seemed so real 

you asked for her when your eyes opened.

and I didn't know what to do. 

On a binge up the vertebrae, 

barebacked you curved back to the bare necesseities.

You're always hurting on holidays because you're always expecting to not be alone. Always hoping that there's some sort of magic that roots itself into certain days and moments and you're missing it. Grasping and losing. And I'm with you always, too. I'm always empathizing with your fury because I'm always feeling it. Truly. Always.

Imagine

that river

untouchable,

soft, cool,

unreachable,

that breeze felt but never held,

never captured.

Unthinkable.

Imagine

a place

unseeable

and you

incapable

of finding the steps

untraceable.

Unnoticeable.

Imagine

a dream

unattainable

a wish

unalterable.

 This is not my life.

You were always so worried about parking in the disaster of my driveway, always so worried that once your hand slipped off of the parking brake, you would still end up sliding down that steep hill of pavement. But you let your car sit there anyway as we walk around to the back of my house to break into the screen door on my deck. No one is home, or at least no one is answering the doorbell, and no one remembers that when the back door is left unlocked, someone else in the house left it like that for a reason.

Mr. P made the darkroom in the back of his classroom all by himself. Although the closet was once full of random art supplies, old projects left behind from former students, and other miscellaneous storage items that no one was determined enough to find a true home for, Mr. P managed to turn it into something beautiful. All the way down to the painted-black walls and the soft red overhead light that was more like the faint glow of an Exit sign, he turned that closet into something really beautiful. Enticing, even.