hold still: before a fall, skim into burnt journal

There are miles carved into my feet and some may call them calluses but I call them love affairs.

Alone, I sit inside these full-length/wide-angled scars.

A woman with a pierced tongue asks me how often I think about death and when I think about it, what thoughts arrive.

I think about pushing myself onto subway platforms and the stain I’d leave on 4 train dashboard.

I think about a stranger’s palm rubbed up against my spine and thrusting me toward the third rail.

I think about invisible diseases in my breasts, belly, wrists and forehead.

I wonder if, when I die, anyone will alert her of my self-inflicted execution.

Soon, I travel to another land I lived in with a woman. And I will bring enough poems to plaster over memories. I can spackle the sidewalks with sonnets and footnoted translations.

I will sleep in that park that houses dead people in its soil. Way down below. Beyond the seedings and tree trunks. I’ve heard their sobs.

I will dance inside a garden full of dandelion wishes and silently pray for sage to steam open my body. There will be a ritual. A creek. A cloaked philosopher wearing musical notes and patchworked bones.

I’m ready to let go now.
I’m ready for the aloneness felt from monologues.
I’m ready to move (away)