the undoing

the undoing

it’s psychic surgery

the common fall off a cliff

it’s this personal city of memories & presence

flipped on it’s horizon

it’s dismantling the we into two separate words

it’s my job to do and be done

it’s me calling to you *home*

yet unable to flee or sleep in

it’s calling my mom, my sister, so many

mutual friends to tell them,

telling myself repeatedly, we’ve broken records

it’s six years of rollercoasters and this is the endless drop

this is your saturn returning in libra

mercury not yet fully out of retrograde

it’s that mountain in front of me

and the whole world on the other side

it’s all the sad songs i want to put together

the mix playing slowly on a tape towards the end

it’s a box set, a series

the last thing i think at night

it’s the thoughts that make sleep such a distant shallow dream

and make waking unbearable

this is rock bottom & it keeps going

this is an aquifer of sorrow

this is a reservoir of emptiness

a quarry filled with confusion

i thought i was a water witch

i thought we were divine

you want to make this goodbye the exception

like i wanted to make all of our hellos

and still i climb your bed in search of smell

and still i count grief sheep

you are the extra bone in my body

the one that aches and helps me fly

your body is not a house but *home*,

you are the birdcage under my ribs

it’s nothing i’ve done wrong

there is nothing i can do

except cross out the partner before your name

cross out the offer in my gestures

and now the veil of dawn must lift

and now the wind in virgo turns cold

now the eyes turn to clouds & swell

the moon loosens its mooring & breaks

you eat & sleep, work & dream,

and i am lost in the stopping of this world

you take shelter in the gaze of another

as i crawl out of my mind

but there you are, all shoulders & sweetness

here you are, so unmasked & familiar

and there you go, off into your ramshackle vision

and here, in false hope, i stay and stay and

still. i am still.

9.6.11