see myself holding mother, sitting on the corner of the bed. pretending to sunbathe at the wide open window like i was 5 again. see myself hiding in the gym shower stall, 7th grade girl with no bra, just white undershirt...see the long lean body leap from the curtained wings wearing julliard's costume, flowers on my head and holes where skin should be.
and when i got to heaven, i was sitting across from you, coloring with a paintbrush while the shrooms were coloring me. and the walls were singing and it felt like being undersea, it felt smoothe and quiet, like Low side b. and i think you knew i never wanted to reach 21. i guess i gave that up at 23. silly really. and magical too how we had telepathy.
now i've gone and grown up and i'm wanting all the normal things. how odd it feels that this is me. i've got a stethoscope, and notes to know, and bills to pay, and parents to lose, and sisters to kiss, and cats to feed. i've got someone to love, and sometimes it feels like it's all killing me.
tell me are you still a poet full of lust and hurt and drugs and wine? are you full of stories and oreo cookies lit up with candles on a paper plate? are you still there at the driver's wheel parked at the moonlit lake? driving with the lights off, watching the dainty deer? are you the awkward boy with the clumsy tongue and hands? searching for the power button to turn this girl past on?
are you still the manhands with the ability to pass no? to crush me with crooked lip smiles and extremely fucked up teeth? are you sitting there plugged into propeller and radiohead pretending to not want, not cry, not care?
have you retreated to lake champlain? to hide your ugly among the beautiful watery scene? whatever happened to descente bike shirts from madison ave? my claddagh ring, my Winsor-Newton paint box? The Seiko watch is dead.
i am here. sometimes i feel like that girl. i enjoy it all over again without the edge of bitterness. it goes down smoothe as wet silk, as gorgeous chocolate milk.