Form
From
The outside looking in, I must be quite a sight to see.
Chords drip from my pockets
Polymer veins frothing over, leaking tones
One or two wires are special
Their conductors snake upwards
And plug into my skull;
A pair of headphones- Tattered from constant unsheathedness
Armor like this is not uncommon these days
Many of us roam the streets with a barrier of fermata,
Wanting nothing more than to be far removed from the things that pass before our eyes;
At least the ears can be kept safe
For we are not told of the cracks in the sidewalk
We are not told how many times we will whisper
"Into the breach"
My closet is the place I am kept to by a rope.
I need only yank twice and I will be back there
Sitting quietly in a 4x7 bunker
Of my own
I am able to take a few deep breaths
Before returning to the breach
And hoping to return home with my left arm free of collateral
So I rattle my keyboard
And babble submediocre prose onto a document
For what?
For barriers
Barriers are an important thing to people like me
Our eyes have memorized the language of the ground;
We know every imperfection of the world's walkways
For they enjoy the feeling of being downcast as we go through our lives
Our ears have grown used to the climate of our earphones
For us, silence is music without someone talking over
Why must I float in a layer of fog always?
Because I must tread lightly; for the breach knows where to find me
For the breach is the eight uniform cuts on my left arm, aligned like the tick marks of the volume dial.
For the breach is the black spit of my colleagues, who delight in the uniformity of mocking their neighbor.
For the breach is the floor of my bedroom, where I lay, wishing to turn 8 into 16, if I could only find the box cutter.
For the breach is the____.
For the breach is the.
For you hold your lover with your right
And me with your left
I am held by you in my right
And the breach in my left
And my brain expects me to accept its tears with both hands;
Like a gift on the day I am born
Tears
And I do
I accept them with both hands, thinking
"They scrimped and saved"
How gracefully the breach is able to twist the knobs in my head
Like it was born in a coiled strike,
Its three fingers holding my ears and mouth
Shut
But you did me a favor
You held me with your right,
And the breach with your left
And I was able to breathe
And the breach removed its icy digits from my rib cage
And I was able to close my eyes
And think of your hands
And sleep.
