first poem i have written in ten months

p.s. might be triggering around death / substance (ab)use / bodies after death / blood / broken bones.

three and a half deaths

1. the spin

the witnesses would say later
that it was one of the greatest
escapes,

one of the most fantastic capers,

died doing what he loved,

the way the shoulders
pitched tents of red
motor-oil slickness,
salted by windshield glass,
the way the
scapula grew wings,
rolled die bets against
the skin,
airlifted the tiny
sliver gap between
the neck and spine
to let breaths
escape from
every pore they
could find. you'd think
the more the air exhaled
the better,
but sometimes i guess,
i guess
that if you let too much out
maybe
there isn't anything left.


2. holiday inn

we were eating the free breakfast
in the lobby, the great escape
from spinning distance between us.
an adventure, you said,
a getaway. i caked a mountain of salt
on the dried yellow eggs,
stung the pores on my tongue
like i imagine the way you said
heroin feels. i think about that all the time:
what it feels like, like you said,
to feel every pore on your body
in sharp focus as if in the crosshairs
of something. every pore screaming.
when i look at you sniffing
the sugary cranberry juice
like a bloodhound, i feel
like there are crosshairs on my
forehead, on my shoulders,
on my back, neatly woven
into the grill of pubic hair.
someone's shooting. shooting up,
shooting at, shooting into.

3. the waiting room

"bleeding into the brain," you said.
(  +  )