real heroes

a guy named barry at cvs keeps

calling me love, looks at my id and says,

 

don’t worry; you still look good.

i know he’s messing with me, but i

 

just want to get my wine and toilet

paper and go home. it’s the same

 

guy that tried messing with my girl

last week. i feel like i should make a

 

scene, but i don’t. i think the words

me too as i angrily shift away.

 

religion claims to save you from

the abyss, but religion is the abyss.

 

thank the gods for the creatives;

oh how we need the creatives.

 

we came out of the beautiful black

water—wet and fresh and squeaking:

 

a bull’s eye in the midst of the

mess. babies don’t have to care.

 

years later, i’m wearing my suit of

wet clay; i’m swinging my rudder

 

to wide extremes across a wide sea.

at the end of the journey, it’s just me.

 

i can feel the light shedding;

i can feel the need to flee.

 

real heroes don’t

feel like heroes

 

 

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we will have words

there’s no room in my life

for new men; because the old

 

ones keep creeping in.

at night, they get the lay

 

of the land. still, after all

this time—they inhabit the

 

dreams of both body and

mind. every now and then

 

a new man will arrive on

the scene: in real life.

 

a good man. a man who

makes me feel alive.

 

we will have words;

so help me god.

 

we will have a new life,

a new touch, a clean rain.

 

and i will be reminded:

you are not your pain.

each time you get better

i will never forget what it feels like to fall

in love—because i feel it every year at this

 

time: the deep stillness; the wind; the wait;

the open sky; the crucible of cooler air, shifting

 

leaves, things coming out of the cracks to play.

it’s a final act; you can feel the beauty in the

 

urgency. it’s everything you’ve trained for—

happening in these few months—at a breath-

 

taking pace: the sugar build, the fullness,

the vivid colors, the dance;    the fall; a giant

 

hinge turning in a door as you watch it open,

smile, take a huge breath, and then close.

 

in those precious moments, everything

tastes better; everything feels brighter;

 

music sounds better; you feel lighter.

but everything in this life is temporal:

 

everything changes, everything dies.

even in the middle of your love, your

 

cells are singing right before their final sigh.

each time you get better at saying goodbye.