[04.30.21]

That generous dose of audacity kept in deep pockets

Will eventually turn you entitled or into a skeptic

Like the way you learn greed entering politics,

Your fix being those stiff metaphors to repeat at the podium.

Rumor of a late bloomer that took on the wrong way to wend,

Caused your trunk to allow wind that can make a branch bend,

You took up less and less space until you disappeared.

A waning moon vanishing into sky ink and pitch.

Repeating ugly mantras in the mirror each morning

Was your wonderful mechanism that never rewarded.

An intrinsic part of routine that planted its leggy weeds

Into scoops of a cold ground and promptly refused to uproot.

The summer you became neglectful, “meet me at the bandwagon”

Was something you learned and shrouded within, took as everything.

Now I have issues with not averting my eyes, straightening my spine,

Driving home too coffee-drunk for my size and out to make happen.

As of late the hinges of my hand are tired, screws loosening

And musculature whittled down by a human-colored knife

Keeping an iron bar embedded in my forearm as

Karma sounds its alarm often, a loving town crier.

Your presence in that state of being gripped with adoration

Was your shot at being the purest form of human.

Silver sleeves left skin encased in something resembling maturity

Replacing torn knees in grass-stained jeans.