Your house in the trees

You live in bird houses, now;

I visit you there,

these late summer nights,

in the heights. 

Brown bags & fire hydrants,

the constant chesty drone,

tiny rooms,

ice blue against the heavy green. 

Are you happier there,

than you were before?

Still,

you're there when I close my eyes at night and open them in the morning and in the dreams, throughout. 

You live in bird houses now. 

I wish you'd fly away. 

You've stained everything,

the things you've ruined. 

I wish you wouldn't, and hope,

someday—you won't. 

When you come down,

from your house in the trees,

and I read to you,

warbly, trembling, finally—

this life, without you. 

You live in birdhouses now,

in the trees, in the thorns. 

Look down. 

There's magic, here,

too. 

It was the wind, that woke us.

It was in the wind that woke us;

in the cold that lingered, 

these months since. 

Not yet gone,

and yet—

it was in the voice of birds,

their bitter song,

those early mornings,

running from memory,

from the reminders,

everywhere, 

and yet,

there was nothing left. 

A chill filled the air,

the rain misted down,

the darkness came,

and yet,

there was something left. 

There had to be. 

Or else, 

"Why?"

Why?

To give again.

to give way—

to lusty abandon.

To chase,

to reach,

to fall short,

again. 

And yet—

this prayer,

these lips,

this swollen tongue. 

Our screams in the void,

never meeting,

never filled. 

Lumps

It's waking up,

the uncomfortable bolus

there, again. 

Swallow, turn it over,

push against tooth and gum. 

Chew and swallow again. 

Choke it down. 

It stays in your throat,

Your chest. 

It stays there, mostly,

rising on occasion,

pushed back throughout,

Until—

There's nothing you can do,

about your dreams. 

Calcify, harden

& swell.  

You wake,

indulge,

chew over,

swallow hard,

again,

and hope it keeps. 

Oxytocin, someday, again.

"It's the dopamine,"

she said. 

And she was right, but more than that—

the shock of seeing his thoughts, reflected. 

Somewhere, behind her eyes,

an inner life that seemed 

familiar. 

That terrified. 

He missed having an other. 

Her smell, her touch—

The electric avenues,

the swelling horns

that seemed to rise

and fall,

with her presence. 

And her radio silence,

since...

The dopamine. 

The dope, I mean. 

The edge of it all,

But—

If was softer, before. 

Softened. 

Immediate.

A dream, or a lie. 

It was a certainty,

made untrue. 

And the question became,

The question became,

The question was—

Could this body possibly be,

       his body?

Could this grow,

and shape, and change?

Or burn up,

or slow fade?

Tear away, 

and break apart. 

This body, your body. 

Our body. 

The impossibility of it all. 

Remembering and forgetting.

Erasing to find. 

Collapse, to rise. 

This mind, your mind.

Our mind.