Open wide, love: she’s coming out
has the world always been this beautiful?
some days i wake and wonder, when i read the poetry of your life
have i become god?
because surely...
have i really truly been living in a world this full from the start?
was i just looking down at my feet this whole time, eyes trans-fixed on my collection of step by step guides, to hitchhiking and rollercoastering and ping pong paddling?
"don't step on your toes!"
i read your poem and feel de ja vu: "that one's not allowed to be about me," i think
"why not?" asks gravity
"i'm not nearly powerful enough," i say, self-assuredly "if i could return someone's voice to this plane, then i'd be...no no, i've already said too much"
gravity chuckles
but then i remember about metaphor
and that the heavens have always just been like metaphor too, that gravity made this big little place our home with(in) us in it from the start, and
we have always been her eyes learning how to love
how to make this world more and more like home without knowing what that means yet
if i was god, i'd be me and my mother even and expecially when she forgets how to believe in herself and i remind her how to break the rules.
if i was god, i'd be that stranger's smile, or that homeless man who likes to make up a new name for me every time we meet, because secret powers are cool man
if i was god, i would esp the love i felt for you every time i couldnt follow through
and i'd feel the weight of your disappointment in myself too,
(maybe a little extra too, just in case — as a treat)
because if there is a god, the Cis must be able to know it too,
the kind of grief she is fated to feel for everyone all at once
in a word capitalized, where we see her every failure written on the cracks in our window pane (no, stop love!—
because if there is a god, she carries the burdens we cannot understand, just until we, her eyes can help her to see (we're working on it, so (please) hold my hand!
love means a slow rupture-and-release from how bright is our self-reflection
that love means breaking until you are so overwhelmed by how deep are your cracks that you hyperventilate and you wonder if this is what breathing feels like to a mother in labor
violet contractions
that to live means to beg to be drained
from the pain I've soaked myself in so I can stay
on this home called earth with my loves.
that to love means we've been more than okay
for a while
for an hour even!
and if there is a God,
it came crashing down all too late
as he kicked his head and learned to turn away
from her game of charades (forgive me).
and if god is listening,
she says i am listening,
(it's okay mom, just do your best to stay awake
we'll be okay, i say
as i hold him in my arms
high on her drug,
just trying to love,
she turned me on too
and for the first time i believe i knew how not to run away
i felt strong, like i could,
like a man thought he should
then i let her run away
like she taught me to
teach me, ask me, keep me
so that love means making home larger and smaller in the right certain-kind of place
because some people just don’t get it (and that’s not your fault so stop saying it is!)
displaced in time
it just doesn't make sense
"why did he lie?" they beg
the length of our days in the hospitals, taxing
i can't help but stay here
because that's where your love is most loving to me
while all my funeral singers prop me up the world around
as they make a living for the living
the world still learning
how to accept a bad deal
though i was never one for card games
because it's all i have to give (don't apologize, dear).
that love starts inside out
like the thunder came down before lightning
(we won't speak of he who must not be named)
your Love trusts doubt into oblivion
my landlord-grandma knows, a phone call a day keeps the Doctor away,
even when she forgets (how to love) her own name, and that "look at this possum!! he's definitely pregnant!! dont you think?" she says, her paranoid Nest turned sight seeing nature walk "they're giving me an epidural for the back pain in my leg" she gasps "am i pregnant again?" she worries "who rang the door bell?" she peeks out the crack of the window shades
and if i were god, i'd come up with names that are puns only after the facts land
like how i wouldn't be a god, just god
because these clothes feels the right size for today
(i don't get it, but my friends have eyes for days so maybe they can help me to see what you might could say, if not that's ok (update: o lost in transmission?))
because god would live jumbled up in space and time, from a son and mother trans husband and wife, two lovers turned into one another, working her way backwards through time Benjamin Button style, speaking through the little prince's voice, 404, lost in transmission, oh god was it all a lie?, abandoned by grav—
have i become god? because all i find myself as lately is waking up each morning and reaching for perfect words to tell the world
even though
i hate the word Perfect,
hate the word Hate
(help! set me free dear, from my spiraling),
and i do not believe for a second tha—
just breathe for me
have i become god?
because all i want to do is to tell my weirdo friends in our life-long group chat with funny made up names that i only understand half the time:
bc i know that's what god would live for if she lived in me.
but oh lord was that text too overbearing? did i use too many words? did my message get through? (mom, i love you too)
mm you can just tell me with your eyes, it's ok!!
i'm not sure i can handle the weight of your words anyway,
they blow my away.
she wouldn’t mind i dont think
if i used her voice for a moment to let me let her speak
and forget the difference
forgetting without forgetting
that’s The magic if there is any capital letter out there
that’s the good stuff that is
You taught me that "that’s" is two words rolled into one (ooh, now i have lots to think about)
That "this's" is the entirety of madness, my sweet lost sailor at sea
That a fear of sui... or schiz...
Its ok to say and forget a word (mom, are you there?)
From the start, it was never your burden to bear
That words are like people, they get stuck in your head (that's what folds us into each other time and again)
And speaking is like pooping (or puking up garlic)
Just lay it all out there
With no for the consequences
this is a breath
You taught me how fear points.
You taught me that sometimes I am an old man in the hospital with dementia who can’t tell his mother from his wife, but doesn’t need to — not to know what love looks like.
You taught me that it was always me leading her, them teaching me, her guiding him, you twirling me, until the difference doesn't matter anymore.
And that it does (not) really matter what I believe.
Because both-ands in parenthesis have something (different) important to say.
So quit your begging — now, get on your knees.
if i were god, i'd love sex too, so