Burning

Something about fire but I guess it slipped away
I can feel it stuck, twisted
pulling hardest from my
neck pulsing with every breath.

Whatever it was that I forgot.

Imagine all the hurt as a rock just behind your heart. It’s not really that it’s there; the problem is how hard you’re clinging to it. Feel those little tendrils stretch with each breath, pulling away sticky, snapping like pulp as you let go feel it dropping, cut, let go.

The careening off.

That manilla envelope promise lie feeling.

I wondered why all this time was getting sucked away
hours where nothing felt real everything
suspended and saran-wrapped, and I
guess they call this a split.

A drive through the valley. Churches and colonials and all of those same curves. In the morning before school, in the fog, pack another bowl. Standing outside that 7/11 in Radford in the gross light. The pain in my chest, the hook from my spine up and forward. Holding me in close and down.

My footprints on the dashboard.

The stage of the little street.  I’m bigger than you/than this.

The wet cliff curves in the mud in the rain.
The river road past the armory.
Plastic balls hanging off the expensive pickups.