i did not remember it being so uncomfortable
all the puddles of people. blinking hesitant crowds
waving, wavering.
some of the boys were against the outer walls of the back shed sweating eachothers lonely drunk sweat
downing big clear bottles,
while the few girls that hung around moved themselves to songs their many drinks had made
and me, resisting the temptation to wander off into the alley or down the street, like a secret or like "i have to go"
i stayed for the tiny dancing smoke that lept from one place in the air to the other.and thought "maybe thats why i came to pulsing rooms and yards like these."
for the smoke that left the mouths of pretty girls
and followed their future lovers
from conversation to conversation
"do we not mingle because of unmatching histories? or perhaps we are our own fathers and mothers' overly sexual tendencies and innocent urges to keep you close to our face?"
sorry that i have pretended to know more than everyone there
oh but we all think we sometimes open like tiny child hands, and so do i
I.
The swimming pool was not under the ground.
It was one whose temperature was almost the days,
like all things in plain sight of a summer sun, and barely hidden by clouds.
When i felt the water reach my back,
i knew that i would sink.
it was something i decided while still indoors,
smiling at the size of the pool from a window,
and remembering instances where i once jumped in impulsively
and slammed my feet into the plastic bottom that vaguely resembled the tiny bodies of grass beneath it.
my cousins spoke above water
their voices were muffled and distorted by watered distance.
I sunk and sat like a stone.
II.
and i felt it coming too soon
like a small fire in my chest
like a stampede in my spine,
like a tear in the heart
like
un-birth.
i felt the need to breath
and i remembered how long i had been at the bottom
and rolled my tired bridal eyes to the surface
and i grew angry at how short a while I lasted
and i clenched my grown-up fists.
i tried to make-out the clouds through the dirty water,
But I could not see them, and I thought that I could cry
convincing my self i dont need so much air, and that if i could just a stay a bit longer i can learn to enjoy the distortion
and maybe i can be a fish, and maybe i dont need to see the real clouds, and maybe i can train my lungs to even be this empty
III.
and i considered how likely that You would catch me like this
when You come back.
i wondered if You would look at me with the look sometimes i see You make at me through my mother,
and would You see that i cried in the water, and be able to follow each tear with your finger as it floated around
Or would you watch my stubborn and guilty breathless body
standing at Your same perfect distance
saying to me that my eyes were meant to see the clouds.
IV.
I gave into the rise and lift after the fires spread to the tips of my sad fingers
and their hands waved at me.
I felt some million sorry’s and came up gasping
I could feel the faces of my curious cousins staring at the splashes I had made,
But I looked at the clouds and breathed You in.
You have been like foreign breath ever since, but breath nonetheless.
im spent right between all the spots on your skin.
theres no life left in your knuckles i am convinced.
not even the dryness in between your fingers
could make me wish for closeness.
i considered your reluctant wells for eyes
and maybe how i could be in love with them
less than a Kings love
but still like morning night day spring summer forevers
in the past week i have probably learned more about my own behavior than i guess ever
