abcessed

It’s that tooth rotting out again

The cycle of hurt and forgetting

A fork in the branch

And choosing inaction

Or seeming to

Having wanted dentures since age 13

Desiring the sweet relief of abdication 

That buoying force of

This body is not my own

And yet here it goes again

Conforming to my postures

And rotting

Again

As a battle cry for

Making choices 

In a bath of love.

#11

it creeps in and consumes everything 

can’t hold up your head at the breakfast table

try going for a long walk 

to shake it off

he asks a question 

you respond with a whisper, a shoulder shrug 

it has taken your voice

you watch two movies, have a snack, drink some wine

try to shake it off 

but then you’re back at the dinner table

head in your hands 

just trying to pick up the fork

First Afternoon

Cessna sighs dips its wing tips along the seams,
where the cross hatch tightens towards Plymouth.

Seeing shadows finally filled morphing into 
the cloud overhead and hinting at a return.

I felt dejected, a fixed point against the dipping tone
as propellors beat against the haze.

The shame in paying for this afternoon again,
mother watched me watching on the lawn.

Still, wanting it to never change as I too first felt
changed by not wanting it to change.