*Originally a poem of ten parts
8. If I were to travel and return
To what I was back in ‘02,
A thing of five years aching
For a nap in the afternoon
And wondering why pencils
Were so big and letters so small
But with memories of this present
Shoved through my ears,
I’d tell her to invest in Apple,
Tell her that the stock market
Is fallible, tell her that her happiness
Lies somewhere beyond 2012.
I’d go back and tell her
That I love her,
I love her and him and all the others
I’ve killed and buried in the backyard
Of my mind to make room
for what happens next.
9. It’s a lie of convenience
That makes you think life drew a trail
from you to a quiet grave,
between movement and stillness,
that you would trail death to that silent earth
falling gently into that good night.
As if infinity would ever surrender,
As if infinity would abandon your ghost.
If only living were that simple.
Life is both a spinning top
And the memory of motion
After, the fragile potential of history
Repeated. What’s the point of fear
When dying is merely the pauses
Of bated breath in between?
You had no idea that time
Could be so incomplete.
The Written State 