A Remix of You

blurred music cuts in and out
through the sound of the heater
from the next room
and I can barely stand it

there is something looking over your shoulder
       someone tossing salt
there is someone thinking of you
(thinking of you)

I want to jump up and slam something closed

instead, I float
barely

(you are left with this)
residue

there are so many things I have forgotten to tell you:
       the man on the bike with the cat on his back
       the stasis of my slow descent

this does not end here and this does not begin, either
where everybody hates everybody
(echo)
I couldn't draw a map of my own life
but I could, perhaps, point

(smoke break—we will talk about God in a minute)
geography is inconvenient—this is what our fingers say
geography is real / our fingers are inconvenient
(this is what God says)

some sort of finality [ENTER]
some sort of reality [try again]

or just the moon, staring blankly:
insignificance

       geography is inconvenient
       (we will talk about this in a minute)
       the things I have forgotten are real

Irretrievably Broken

Another instance, another retraction. Fits and starts.

In the distance the landscape appears to move more slowly while up close

everything whizzes by. The middle vacillates.

            The middle is frozen. The way back

is clear. The way back is frozen. The direction is a red hotel sign, swirls on the surface: another infraction.

Then again, I've seen how you fold; I've seen how it's all distended. I've folded and refolded last night's silence, which still would not fit. I've started—

Oops, fell into this again.This silence, this instance, this traction.

Geography is inconvenient. Dark spots linger. Futile clicks. Conceited, stuck-up dreams.

Gravity keeps me honest.

Everything whizzes by.

Find: Gone

… as if the thought were a preformed thing, a thing of shape and substance, that enters the mind and is then perceived in its entirety… not as something like color, but as being

…the heft of it…

and I would press this against us and maybe it would stay

I want to think you into existence. Think you into my bed. And make you stay there.

The heat sings. The cold sings. The honey sings / on my tongue. You are there. You are always there. Only I don't know who you are.

Who owns grief?

I hate you because you make everyone else, because you're so wrong and so right; I want
to jump up and slam something shut (some imperceptible imagined end).
I try to touch too many points at once; you see

I don't need to be found.

… as if the thought were there with me, a thing of shape and substance, dissatisfied and shrinking and not perceived in its entirety… as something like color … as something blankly significant

I need to think you into existence.

Only I don't know whose grief this is.
I don't know who you are.
And you would still be gone.