what is the last thing

what is the last thing

what is the last thing you need to hear

—that was the worst thing you could have said

to help being

to know when healing begins, and where

I need to stop taking steps forward

that’s no kind of bravery

what’s bravery
what does bravery change

the next day a tree writhes up through the soil

even its green droop dissapoints
where’s the surprise in this

fingernails into palm. what a fucking
ache

nothing makes it better

try to bury that

Helen (IIII I)

I no longer
remember if it was you
   holding the door open

stop putting longing in me

You have a surface
I’m sure you have a surface              

I keep mistaking sounds, have I said this? Yesterday or a few months ago the leaf in the breeze at my back was\ a man passing on a bike. When I turned. Or the other way around. Wind as birds last \week. (\And I was thinking about the shape of wind, because you feel it in a shape,\ don’t you? or hear it? this convolving into something less than not-present). Someone’s in the halls.\ and I can’t tell if they’re crying or laughing. I hate how I caught myself up in that cliché. That tropes have wrapped up my tongue. I want broken glass there\. I want to swallow teeth. You see? Caught.\ Turns and turns. When I step into the shower I hear \whispers. This isn’t story now.\ none of this is story\. Turn off the faucet and they’re\ gone. When the water’s running again, they\ creep\ back\ up. they don’t reach the drain.\ That voice’s still out there\ gasping. And I still don’t know. It goes on and on.

Sophocles misreading

Immortality isn’t the plan. It is the enemy.

"But aspects cannot be added up."

Helen (IIII)

I can make you


he said

Helen (IIII)

I turn and you’re there
are no ways there
is no sense in this
question is a wound I
never saw you arrive

Helen (III)

| Why | are | you | always[ | stood | in | thresholds]? |

Helen (II)

Or how their passing by leaves stones in the pit of my gut
taste of sleep on the mouth

and afterimage
caprice of eyes so still