And all I can think of is the noise I might make when expressing physical pain

I see myself in you

in the way you are a smudge of light in a dark

space, strange lit-up bug hovering

beside the entrance of roaring

vacuum

anomaly of energy

I read your poems and

I keep thinking that you’re talking about masturbating,

but I’m the one talking about masturbating

and the vision of a golden hand reaching up

through me as if searching for

keys on a hook

hanging from the roof

of my mouth

it still hovers like some drug

vapor, and all I can think of

is the noise I might make

when expressing physical

pain

because I am groaning

beneath the heft

of this life

and I labor beneath the laboring

body, coral bones of

some ghost as they batter

against the oppression of

our strange and

stratified timelines-

Life lines

I’m going to have to tear whole

cliffs to

sand with my fingernails

I’m going to have to bottle sweat

and sell it to myself as a cure