on dead selves

Fear of death is blunt

force trauma aesthetic

showcase of unsolved mystery

we must wait

I have already died

over and over songs

repeat the loop

chaos, vanishing order

There cannot be closure

when the door is stuck

mortality the grease

resin fingered untouchable

I wear pants dark stained

with cows blood

cutting cheeks like I learned

how to carve a pumpkin

Handed, wait, thrown

organs bigger than me

to sort, willfully sorting

to solve entropy

The mystery is where

that cow went when the shot

shot between eyes, big bang

waking up new and again

Asleep in forest then startled

awake by the sound of shot

shots, rattling ears

humming history

The jaundice killed me first

milk-stoned, choking

on sterilized air

spit up reincarnation

Related but unknown pulled

me grasping out of pools

rivers, spent

formative years on lakes

Tethered to the boat

life jacket cutting off

circulation waves, water lunged

hands lunged, resuscitate, reanimate

Pneumonia strangled me,

breath bricks, carried

across the street to hear

my heart race

I die when my heart palpitates

each between a notification

of life after

and life before

I am stuck in dying

pinned to the mucus

intercom dialogue shouts

DO NOT FORGET

Temporary temporality

hyper focused on the bridge

jumping, head hit

on rocks, another one, high school

Now even rocks remind

me of unachievable height

train tracks, lead climb,

slipped gear, forgot knots

The irony of falling

hundreds of feet, feathered

by petals forget me, not

another HWY 22 fatality

Now I fuel up on ghosts,

haunt the blood

in my veins, red release

still I drive to the blue ocean

Kaleidoscope selves dead

and gone and here speaking

in my navigation

undeclared desire for exorcism

In new moon fire, we burn

old names, old selves,

old people that will never grow

residue of guilt

child asks about the incinerator,

already death-friendly

the one that changed his body

like milled wheat

A stepping stone, we skip

granite and basalt

across a body salted

with remains of a structure

So I show the video

the door opens, like ours—

the woodstove known

not to touch

He is dead, child

reminds me when the nickname

is uttered, recounts memories

I didn’t know remembered

Bodies change, and I point

to the river

of cottonseed substance syringed

and flowing into muscle

Even knows the

“he” is temporary

kids are boys and girls

a revelation to us both

To parent is to grow

another inevitable death

I’ve already done this

endlessly, into a future

Where hope holds

outweighs fear and I ask

for mo(u)rning hugs

we play I spy on short rides too

death or mine

will be informed by an archive

already collected, I take

the picture of LEGO boat

If everything is death, then life

can only be between

and hard to see

scrolling, and

Driving, and sleeping,

and cumming a little

death, je ne suis pas

immortel but as long-lived

As flowers break my fall