My greatest fear
is of
becoming finalized.

That I set, and set hard. 

That one day I look around
and say, “close enough” or
“this is the way of things” or
worst of all, “whatever.”

That I fall into contentment
from this tightrope
and settle for it.
As much as I itch
for it now and again, I know
comfort is my enemy.  

A founding American liar
said we were owed 
the pursuit of happiness,

then made us believe
that meant
we were entitled as well to 
its capture.

I’m one who knows better.
Would not know what to do with it
if I caught it
except to let it go and 

start chasing it all over again.

Call me crazy.
I do.
I whisper it
to the night.

That itch,

I think,
makes my sun rise
and set.  I think it keeps me
whirling about
so that sunrise and sunset,
journey’s beginning and end,
are always just ahead of me,

always just out of reach,

always one apparent
stutter step away.

In the rough and tumbled
road rash we have made
of this country, all we do 
leaves a mark.  

Inside, we’re
shining in red and green: 
home to the spirits
of blood and money. 

Our hides? Mostly scar tissue,
mostly from how those spirits
bang us around
for as long as we live, 

partly from how
we bang against each other
by accident or intention,
seeking comfort so clumsily.

It’s not easy being here.
Not that it’s easy being anywhere
but we claim so much for this place
that really it ought not to kill us

just for being here.

A wildfire roaring
beyond the river 
that will protect my home.

In the middle of flames,
improbably there,
incontrovertibly there:
a door. 

Through the door —
can you see it? It’s what might be
Paradise

as described in my long-disused
Bible.  It has it all: flaming sword, angel,
fine strong tree with a serpent
lounging among its roots.

It’s so dangerous, scream some
onlookers. It’s so clearly
not real, scream others.
Stay put, idiot, that’s a real fire
over there,
scream even more onlookers
less eager for 
spectacle. 

From this side of the river,
it’s a glory door, all that was
ever promised is through there,
right down to that exciting
and vital snake. But seeing the fire
— what if I burn? What if I don’t burn
and can’t turn back?
What if the door closes behind me
once I’m through?  What if
the angel strikes me down
before I even approach,
saying, “you know the rules…”

Smoke rising, flame rising.
I’m safe here for now
on my side of the river

and I can’t help it,
I stare down at the water
accusingly, furious
that it makes it so easy
to hesitate when
all that’s at stake is
how I choose

to burn.

I will end up talking.
I always end up talking.
I end up talking when I shouldn’t.
I talk like I’m going to die if I don’t talk.
I’m going to die anyway but not silently.
I’d like a listener but talking to myself is ok.
I don’t listen to myself when I talk.
I don’t expect anyone else to listen. 
I’ve never been afraid to slow down and stop when unheard.
I keep talking in my head.
I keep a talk or two in my head like I’d keep extra bullets.
If my mouth were a gun I’d be locked on full rock and roll all the time.
I have a gun as well as a mouth but I don’t know where it is.
I left it in my parents’ house when I moved out.
I should have left my mouth there too.
I should have swapped gun for mouth or both for two more ears.
It’s been said that you have two ears and one mouth to show you should listen more than you speak.
It’s never been proven.
If someone really said that it was someone who never saw or heard my mouth.
I told you I would end up talking.
I always end up talking.
I tell you so much when I talk.
I tell you so much I never intended to tell you.
I tell you again and again it doesn’t matter if you are listening.
I only do this because I’m trying to bail away what’s always rising inside me.
I only talk to keep my lungs from filling.
I only talk to inflate myself.
I only talk to keep afloat.
I only talk so as not to drown.

What they thought
was benediction
in solidarity with all
was in fact
valediction, a farewell
to the march as it
moved past.

When it had passed
he stepped into the dust
that still mumbled of all
who’d just been there.

He bent to the carpet
of tracks and looked 
and listened and even
touched his finger to it
then put it on his tongue
as he’d seen trackers do
in old Westerns.

He had no idea 
what he was supposed to learn
from any of that, except

that there was no trace
of himself there in that relic trail.

He’d known that before
he made that elaborate show
of seeking knowledge there.

So: here it was revealed.
A misinterpreted show,
all of it: the speech, the life,
the effect he’d had. They 
were gone, he was left 
standing in the dust behind.

Squaring his shoulders.
Wiping his eyes.

Picking a direction
other than theirs.

1.
If you own a switchblade,
that iconic weapon of despair,
are you honor bound
to use it 
when you suicide?

2.
Would pills
or other medications
be more sensible
or potentially easier
on the survivors?

3.
How much are you liable
for what arguments for and against
self-harm you inflicted upon
a friend before you acted?

4.
Does any of this feel like more
than a social media art project?
Does anything posted online
move you anymore?

5.
Don’t you wish right now
you’d never breathed at all?

I grew up in Springsteen territory
dreamed early that I was born to do something
somewhere else
but when it came time to leave
the highways were pretty empty
they weren’t
jammed with heroes
either broken or whole
because no one ever left my hometown so
I went on alone to the next town
just like it
and stayed there pretending
I was one of those aforementioned heroes
when in fact
I was 
promise
unfulfilled and 
in my boots and jacket I knew deep down
I had just posed and then posed and then
posed some more and now
I’m stuck in the pose
the bones ripped out of my back
my tender exterior hardened to a shell
I can’t move 
but I look
like I used to
look good
standing still