Huron says little to me now

Two years after your death.

July, and it remains shipwreck cold

heat turns the beach from sand to ashes.

I wade out and into her—

the clarity stuns me

immersed

until my body is

as your body was

once your soul exhaled,

cold as the bones of Shackleford’s men

cast away from the Endurance.

How did you endure?

The route of your path so different from mine

I grief shriek to burst the surface

And emerge thawed by finding hope

And comfort in time.

That stranger on the shore

knows nothing of it

mouth gaping stare

lotion in mid drip

just some fun on the fourth.

wed. aug. 2nd, 2:44 am.

Strip your senses of all you’re worth and tie what’s left to the flagpole in front of the church. Atop the bell tower, perched on the sunburned arms of the cross, crows whisper conspiracy theories. They saw you, across the street, through the rib cracks in the shades, sleeping in an attic. But they’ve also seen your real bed, lying naked and cold. The birds wake the church bells and the church bells wake the town, but you’ve been awake for days, empty, watching your hands shake like shivering children.

For Devin:

thurs. aug. 17th, 11:43 am.

I can tell—your eyes are cloudy and the smiles are only muscle memory, working against gravity—most lips are afraid of falling. Hair isn’t, but it is already dead. Beautiful and dead. I want to be dead like your hair—a silent waterfall, flowing over ancient rocks and smashing into some iron river, exploding in a plume of watery smoke. Only silent. Silent as your eyes, watching the neighbors sleep under a bruised sky, eyes held open by strings that turn to dust when the sun burns the skin of the horizon.