pOST.0 (Don't Leave Me)

Giants walking, fiends talking hyphenated spells on wretched little ears. I borrowed these flowers for you. We all want to be discovered by the right people. I want to be discovered. This vanishing act is getting old. Sunday I wrote a poem for our dead fathers. We have these ghosts around us. They shriek and moan and they tell us they didn't have to tell us it doesn't happen this way. Without these verses the forest is just wood and chlorophyll. Undying rest, spare my love this awful burden. She knows not of the whispering you and I do and with a binding kiss such as this we will never grow old. We will never believe in another single thing. It will be this and only this that makes us and the world and nothing in between.

But I cannot refer you to a clown who shares his shoes with a politician. I cannot lie to you anymore. It will be a hard, hard rain that falls on our heads. Yours and mine. Black is white and color is a mystery onto us again. We won't worry ourselves with such finite tangibles. Instead, we've only this tangerine. Will it last us all night? Will the candle last us dear? Don't tell me you love me again. Our breathes must be still. I have only the one match and you still have your corduroy dress to mend.

So did you see it? Did you see that great white beast rolling down the highway in the dead of night? His knuckles were as white as the headlights that lead him to that terrible place. Where the shrieking ivory ghosts leap up from their chairs and shouted,

What the fuck are you doing here!?

You and I aren't welcome here. Their faces twist and contort like some awful circus side show. We run out to the desert where the wind cuts our face and the sky is a cracked painting. Your great-grandmother hands me a peach and asks me to recite your name in Arabic. Again and again she says until my mouth is filled with dirt and Indians build fires on it. They dance around, drums are played loudly and children laugh uncontrollably. Coyotes smoke peyote and witches brew tea.

And there, in the center of their madness is my father. He is wearing purple stones around his neck and asks you to recite my name in the old language. You open your mouth but the guttural sounds of the old language cannot be said by such a beautiful tongue. He says,

Speak!

And you begin to cry. There is nothing to cry about. I hold you all night and the Moon fades into the universe as the Sun rises in the East and stretches it's loud firey bones. We drink coffee with the captain in his cabin and the waves that splash against the boat tell us they're rooting for us. It will all be okay. It was all a dream.