Collection; unrequited

In autoimmune denial
I think my immune cells
are silently marching
into a dark crystal ball
they want to tell my future
and to do that
they have to attack
the truth
Haikus from dark days
A cyanide bite
Now red tears pour from my side
I swallow the pill

Drunken wandering
Left, left right, thoughts stagger home
Eyes erupt tonight

I’m medium rare
Blood not boiling, but I’m cooked
Matter of time, now
A game of chance
The dice roll
Imagination slithers to
Snake eyes
The probability is small
But big enough to let hope hold on 
With one white-knuckled finger
It aches in every way
But it’s better
Than the frostbitten ice below
Frozen flakes of the cold future
Crystalized into something so sharp
It deflates a wildly thumping red heart
To even think about
Its tapered pointlessness
A damned river
Even when you
drop
to your knees and beg,
voice flaking with dry words and
sentences like sharp gravel
pulverized
by the punches you’ve rolled with,
the lacrimal pedestrian
pays you no attention
hands you nothing to drink.
Gray, canyon-cracked, dehydrated
nothing can grow
until you water your world.
Where is my mind?
Did my burning legs carry it far
when it felt so lost I had to run?
I’ve been searching
Shining spotlights into the
dark days
I hung up paper signs on every corner
“Lost Mind” they read
I might be wrong
Did I lose my mind?
Or does it not want to be found?
A letter to the wind
Fold the paper wings over, gingerly
But remember, even soft things can cut
Kiss the seams with care, and linger 
Be clever with how you fortify the front

Throw the paper plane, respectfully
Smile slowly as you turn your nose up

And don’t let thoughts of the wind…

Linger
To whom it may concern

1.
To whom it may concern:
I love you,
and I’ve wanted to 
tell you for some time, now.
The thought of you is something I hold
confidently, comfortingly in
the palm of my hand.
I cradle it, I move it around so
I sense its particular weight.
Your presence has a way of resting
against the inside of my back, like you’re
hugging my spine. 
It’s comfortable; I grow 
when I am support.
These days, it’s so reflexive to 
see you and think,
“Oh, if you only knew…”
It’s natural to feel that if you felt
this loved, you’d start loving me, too.
It’s a fantasy, like the ghost image sensed
between sparse and 
scratched pencil lines.
Nothing inside me seems to care
what the artist intends: 
even against my will,
I see what I will.

Love,
Avery


2.
To whom it may concern:
Since last we spoke, 
I’ve dated and become intimate
with the meaning of “unrequited”—
I showed her my hand,
then as dealer she dealt her cards.
Now I feel flushed
down the plumbing, lost 
in leaking pipes that taunt me,
those cardiac canals will haunt me.
But I’m not blinded, sadly.
My eyes still fill in
the ghost against the pencil lines, 
still tell the artist’s intent to
fuck off.
That’s the sad part:
I addressed this 
to whom it may concern.
But now I’ve found out 
the only one concerned is 
myself.

Love,
Avery


3.
To whom it may concern:
The metaphor of a healing wound
feels apt to describe the way
a scar has slowly formed.
There’s no distracting sting when
silly air floats by boldly and
whispers to my red flesh—
instead now, I just reflexively look down,
and with my eyes I bow low to
the off-color shape that 
outlines my mistakes.
Sometimes when I’m stretched a certain way
I feel not a pain sensation
but more the somber memory of
an infection that left a scar.
Know thine enemy; I’m trying…
You’re a foe that won with
your carefree and clueless sword
and like cinderella with a shoe, 
my scar always will fit your blade. 

Avery