Here is everything that we have agreed upon by proxy of a handplant- tagged by the immeasurable pull from the nurturing phobics who stretched out the elastic waistband for as far as a holiday dinner can lean. Choking bones and purple flesh are not to be dismissed as the framework for a biographical poem, but is the nature of the cursing as mechanical as a heated pool releasing an icy frost-dressing it up as heated steam? I too slam the table, but with a half full fist instead of the corner posting that jars the sternum from the thickening beef. Slippery words were lobbed, not out of desperate politeness but rather of abrasive relief. And then dessert was served, and we all ate with urgency, for some it was uncomfortable, for me I imagined that my whispers were the breeze hopping along the driveway that leads towards the stained leaves of a shadowy street. The family room would eventually yield a nervous chance to reconcile with what I had feared for far too long, as a benefactor who had reached down to fold a sibling’s napkin-nixed by a silver gleam. I was a homegrown adversary of a pendulum that swung back and forth between poisoned love and reassuring contempt. Still, dark paths eventually lead to well-lit highways that vanquished all but wasted time. Pills and chats helped-as a hand holding a swinging door, feeling as if we were finally civilized only to be rammed by a cart that dirty looks suggested must have acted on its own-for accountability finds fingers stretching to avoid a cold sweat, or worse yet, confidence overruled- the lap holds many secrets-none of which it is designed to keep. Suddenly the scales on the forehead and the strands of falling hair are beyond the farthest reaches of being plural. Most certainly, I can accept an aching forearm and the twisting burn that swims with the white fluffiness and the setting colors of the rushing blood. On the couch, I am pulled back to the shower and the doorbell, perhaps the bottle of wine was more than capable of standing up on its own receipt. The lonely highway is never offended by the turnaround, self-preservation is understood as silence that is indiscreet.

I can still remember the pinecone and the pine box. The fairied gift or my chipped toys, neither made an impression on the lots we were drawn. It was daytime, but the currents in the new address were cold, unapprised of the shiny, jagged keys that sifted ownership from the compulsions that had defiantly outwaited the beldam. I often assigned feminine qualities to my bubble when the pressure could no longer cushion the upcoming applause or expand upon the errors that restarted the dotting of the pen. In the unprepared darkness, the mint covered scent squirmed its way inside the lemon brown shade, dull and lethargic as if trapped at the bottom of an edgeless pool-untreated for lime and algae. My skin can be just as casual as my nostrils when it comes to trading access for curiosity. As I stumbled into the assigned bedroom, what I was breathing in became the basis for certain decisions that would offer to flay and to glean-finger tipped residuals and unsharpened spears of syntax. To this day, I am not sure where I fall on the spectrum- somewhere between choices and whims–maybe even schemes. Eventually, the preamble warms, and lays down its settlement on the shapeless undersides of the adapting hymn. At dawn, inevitability takes up a high position despite the grievances of the hardened bracts and the latch of the eternal lid-or perhaps it’s the orphaned thoughts that are most local-if my head is indeed cocked-then let the lethargic wait for an unabridged crossing. With each new dilation, the pablum readies itself as a sheet that cannot keep your illusions from absconding and at the same time, cover the refractions at the edge of the bed. Graciously, I request a parlay with the woodsman, he already houses my remains, so perhaps he will do me the courtesy of resting easy when I feel the need for a final howl–thrown towards the dodging of the adversary-or a nod for the old home–of an even better friend.