poem 2

my hands building your house

here are no windows here

no curtains to keep out the cold the cold the cold

or the invasive sunlight

no windows in this house your eyes are closed

your eyes are closed to the ice and the snow

and that's perfect because it's the way things are supposed to be

it's perfect

because there is only enough room for you and there is for me.

i am building your house

with my hands my hands my hands

i am placing bricks setting mortar

spreading out with my palms my palms my palms

sticky but unsure

looking out your windows and walking down your halls

you hang paintings to hide the stains

they're crooked, you know

right where you don't think i could see 'em

missed a spot with the whitewall

to the branches that blanket me as i hide

watching you wearing nothing at all

the ceilings are peaked

so every noise bounces right back to

make us flinch and remember, forever a reminder.

and i will try to start the fires in your hearth

more often than not the wood can't be lit

it's too dry

the matches refuse to burn to burn to burn

and i

will follow you

follow you mindlessly follow you endlessly

down and through on legs not meant to last

to the passageways vining

vining escaping pining

through the cellar the stairwells

where i lose you

to nothing, nothing at all.

I wrote this in the library after reading Roth all day. It was 2008, that much I remember.