Shuttle Bus 17: A Poetry Collection

You Let Me Down

You let me cascade to the floor,

Waves descending beneath my silhouette

However, this numbness secures me in a forcefield,

Keeping my clothes from soaking in this wetness

You told me how careless letting go can be,

Yet it was you who veered too close to the other lane,

Making the car flip in semicircles

Officers had to scoop my guts off the pavement, as they searched the deep blue for my remains,

You were distracted for far too long,

Inside your glass igloo, as sirens pelted it with skipping stones

Resentment is a hydra, and my passionate plea was the sacred blade, that cut into this flesh like it were the skin of tree limbs

The beauty I saw in those childlike indentions turned repulsive, these intentions turned cold-shoulder,

Your porcelain crackling into forked tongues, scraping my cheeks until they bled black

This existential pain did not exhale, for my veins turned rustic before it could even leave the epidermal

I tried to cough up the mucus, but it restricted inside my sacs as if it were moss on wooden steps, the acidity being a murky lake, your tassels were ghastly, with a hue of charcoal smoke,

You once wrote a novel for me, with our memories attached inside,

I threw it into the fire, but my body broke out into boils, craters, and hives, like a failed moon landing

So I must accept this is second nature,as each flashbulb memory make a quill in these feathers that leap out of my shoulder blades

Before i may fly and jump from this terrace, I mustn't let go of your entity, but my own self-tyranny,

You did not kiss my palms as a lover, or hold my hand as a friend, but rather I see my gray chromed eyes amidst your irises, my blonde hair trickling like volcanoes between the Star's sun spots

You were my own, my own present gift, how intrusive, yet becoming it is to release, antithesis to this detonation, self-destruct

How easy it is to lash out at your parents, how easy it is to give up on classes, how easy it is to take that faithful plunge.

And I did.

I let go of the steering wheel, my wheels fitting a niche between the metal beams, as i soar into the muck.

I let go that day. Of this implicit bias I had toward the future and the disgust of my past. I unbound my feathers and learned to leave the nest. To fly.

I let go.

I let myself live.

Down I escaped, the windows rolled to their minimum, as the strands of weed and carbon fill the passenger side

Smiling, I released the gas, reclined my seat, my arms crossed

In my eyelids I catch myself as a falcon, taking its first staggered steps through the straw and into the beaming ray of spring,

The water rejuvenates my corpse, as I inhale my last intake, hold it to my chest.

The glistening orb floats to the shoreline of a nearby coastal town, where it learns to take its first steps.