The Sea a Battered Dream

Sky meets everything makes horizon liable
 
for flight then plummets of grace     Surrounded by people feeling nah
 
there’s chatter I can’t make out half-listening to
 
the dead The voices are calling & it’s rare when
 
I am even half-ready Rain bangs
 
against forest to get attention back Let’s not
 
ask about presence & breathe absence in deep
 
There are no trees where we live but
 
today we’re somewhere else Amphibians talk
 
syllable by syllable in the pitch of dark The sounds fuck
 
w/ the inner ear until composed into
 
communiqués for worse or for better Wherever
 
we are let’s find a coastline to skirt alone Some things
 
need to be said along a fluid border    
 
I stood still so long to protect
 
existing ground but now the distance travelled
 
from your voice to mine is
 
a space that cannot be ordered Not like it’s smooth
 
Me not interpreting your oppressor
 
language in the way that you can’t process mine Tripped up w/
 
straight ahead statements betrayed by
 
loaded syntax there are so few clean springs
 
left when the best ideas have run dark red w/ slaughter
 
Heavy sure but forgetting to lift
 
is a recipe for ghosts
 
There are already too many to talk to It’s hard
 
not to step on shadows from birds up there &
 
now I find I drink so much
 
since amethyst is gone So much loss but I like the way
 
you smile when you catch me ringing death knells
 
It took another city’s festival to make me at home enough to show
 
heartbreak Of course it is a place that isn’t a stranger to storms
 
 
This rising sign spells danger in glue & glitter Chart’s
 
been sent & god is it messy togetherness brief the forgetting     
 
takes so long Let us keep going even if
 
these shoes aren’t conducive to lightness
 
There are those who were thrown off
 
boats out there others sealed under the ground
 
They are not the deaths that do haunting
 
I’ve named love the way I would
 
a housebroke pet so it would only answer to me I knew
 
better but in the end it was me who gave up
 
& simply obeyed the commands That happened
 
So not the type to care about idealized pasts but
 
what if some woman was the father of your country What if
 
someone else was the mother of mine What if
 
we didn’t need this at all & it was always just there It was
 
Thankfully the crash of horrors
 
is interspersed w/ extended downtime
 
Once it cracked sweet by our friend who wished a sports riot
 
would turn into general strike That didn’t happen
 
Back to the bells you like the way it
 
makes me smile when you scream Out Demons Out
 
at the on-ramp for a bridge to an island
 
Now it is time for a swim Reptiles in water don’t struggle to
 
get each other Leatherbacks touch Loggerheads
 
meet in the sea Wherever we are
 
will remain unnamed by refusing attempts to own
 
Crushes comrades gossip confidants float on
 
where the sky starts All we can really say is something like toward