an electrical surge of implanted perennial

a tree hides inside

globular structure of light

flick on dim of roots

This is what was waiting. Behind all those Brooklyn traffic lights and spray-painted stop signs: you. We must be reminded of what hides in order to remember what we have been seeking. Get lost in order to be found. Even when it rains, there is enough sun saved up for you to get tan lines beneath a thunderstorm. Don’t be so afraid of love. As a child, you climbed enough trees to grow splinters from your veins. And when you cut yourself while making meals for others, one could certainly measure the sap stored up in your blood to classify your species. To the ones you matter to most, they call you Major Oak. The one who loves you loudest calls you Sacred Fig. Stop running so much. The roots of your gender are endless. You may need to replace ink with lead during this phase of existence. You are in constant revision. Even when all the lights have turned themselves off, there is enough glow in you to survive a forty-two hour blackout. Remain because the ones who came before this one prepared you to grow up.

this is where stars go to die

You thought it was a shooting star. You thought you could squint your eyes into a version of evening and wish upon and wish upon and wish upon

You thought this is where love derives from

You thought this is a sign from planets to validate your existence

You thought     this is beautiful

You thought this was a necessary explosion of transported lust

You thought this was a sign of romance and rust of musical movements

(but)

This is actually the death of plasma and gravity

This is just an American-made jet fighter

This is a collapse

This is just a calculation of patterns

This is an adventure of sky and planets and you are trespassing

This is actually just a whisper of meteoroid

This is just a British drama with or without laugh track

This is just a novel

This is an airplane full of over-worked travelers and screaming babies and some guy who is flying away from his life down below

This is just a song by Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith before the stabbing

This is an explosion of heat and third-degree burns and unless you can donate your skin, stop watching

This is just a scratch in the sky

This is strange and innocuous but also toxic and may cause permanent damage

This is just a bully of light

This is just a formation not an evolution

This is just a repeat from yesterday’s indigestion of cloud consumption

This is not beautiful

This is not marvelous or made to help you arrive at a conclusion

This is not love did you think this was love this is never going to be about love

This is not smashing; this is just smashed

This is drunk

This is sky addicted to flash

This is just sky

This is just a light

This was never going to be about wishes or wishing; you can remain down here for that.

light can be turned on just like a body

There is no sound to it. Fingers pinch handle of light or body and illumination arrives. This is on. There is stimulation of sight as visibility fills in the cracks of dark. When hands learn the hips of another, shadows scatter and suddenly the entire earth is turned on. Electric. Decorative. Emotional. The tic of seizure’d fingers carve out the light from a body. The twist of charged particles. Thrill of power lines replace veins. Shock. Accumulation of hours from charging. Correspondance of wattage. Jolt of fire from  bulb or belly or breastbone or behind earlobe. Choice of dim or scream. Push of color from mood or bruise. Blur of contour. Murky twists shaped into wall from hoisted bones. Call this lamp or sex. Name it fluorescent or foreplay. It is track lighting; it is excessive and blind. This is sun; this is lava; this is the reflection of your tongue against the puddle of my throat. This is radioactive; this is neon and plasma; this is the composition of carbon … of gleam … of moon … of torched anatomy.

how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen wrote, “Ring the bells that still can ring/ forget your perfect offering/ there is a crack in everything/ that is how the light gets in.”

I cannot recall the age in which someone tapped me on my shoulder and I became egg-like. I cannot recall the moment when I learned how to swim out of my own body into something safer like a cage made from those egg shells held together by yolk. I cannot recall that first beating of ink against paper of blood extracted from body of memories sucked out from Winter shivers.

How it gets in/ is through the ruptures of skin/ climbing their way out of me.

*

There is a city and at night, it crawls into my bedroom and sleeps on top of me. It honks open my eyes; it stains my belly from oil-slicked subways and all those footprints of folks too afraid to turn themselves off at night; it leaves track marks on my arms because when there is nowhere else to park (to be still), movement is continuous and angry.

In this city, I rest my body over an informal puddle of leaves. They are wet and easily molded over me. Sometimes when I feel invisible, I cover myself in these leaves and feed myself to the trees.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. I’m not quite sure if you are trying to tell me something. I’m not quite sure if you love me still. I’m not quite sure if this job defines me or if I’ve lost my definition. I’m not quite sure if I will make it to Spring. I am not quite sure if love is just a wind pattern blowing toward the northwest. I am not quite sure if this body is allergic to milk or me. I am not quite sure if I understand your intention. I am not quite sure where home is. I am not quite sure we can even decipher our own spoils…

Turn the light off, please. It’s slurping up the energy stored in our walls and soon this house will crumble. Unplug all the outlets. How much water do you really need at night? If the light really wants to get in, then remain still enough for it to catch you.