And He Told Me That I Was Apollo 13 On The Very Last Day-

and he told me that i was Apollo 13 on the very last day-

of the year where we cried over things that we meant to go wrong or go right, little lives that we played from paris to l.a. on an eastward bound plane or the train that you took across empty lands with open hands and a dream that we could be more than we are, our broken-down scarred beating hearts, bursting lungs and minds full up of hope and the stars we see in our arms, magic and mystery and innocent mischief; a rocket taking off in our eyes, a year bending into place like a piece of a puzzle you can’t quite see has escaped, something you didn’t know you were missing until you felt the edges line up, all systems go three two one pushing off of the ground to fly up away like he always said you could do he told me i was his only dream and the stars he had looked for he found in my heart with the love of a daughter a child of his own and he kissed me goodbye, set me off on my own through the dark into space, helmet clasped around my face like the mission he loved galaxies up above said shoot for the stars don’t forget who you are and when the clock strikes twelve tonight you’ll come home and it’ll be alright set down on the face of the moon, know you’re where you belong and the world turns anew in a year without you

he told me that i was Apollo 13 and that if i believed what i dreamed- right before he left i said i know who i am and that it was because of you; you taught me what i know (i know) and everywhere i roam, i’ll see you on the road

THE VERY LAST DAY :: o.m.

2016

recovery and frank sinatra

snow on telephone wires and fifteen years of weathering this winter. i cannot believe i have made it to this day, a future in advance, waiting to see which way this life unfolds. 
an old phonograph scratches at the record’s ends, static over roof tops, sound waves breaking through crescents of white. a wave through foam and bursting colours. 
i keep asking the same questions over and over and i guess that’s what keeps me living, trying to find the answer. is that what Jean meant when he said, who am i? without and within. music, piano fading so i flip the record. 
frank sinatra and i have learned a lot together. we know what happens when you fall in love, when you fall out, in between. we go together, him and i 
through these telephones and microphones and static, empty nights. 
outside it’s cold, enough that the table shakes with it even, the house trembling in the wind. we are fragile but somehow still standing if that is a miracle. 
someone left the door open and now everything’s come in. i don’t try to stop it anymore and they sit quiet, listen to the record play while the snow falls. in this way we have learned to wear the days together and now fifteen years later i am still standing, frank sinatra in my hand, before i sit and listen until i fall asleep.

atomic theory

before they knew what electrons & 
protons & neutrons were 
they thought that the smallest unit was an atom & they based all their theories off that

i had an entire theory of life laid out & 
it was my plan & i had rules: 
to do this, you act like this & you say this & you don’t ever tell anybody anything, you hear me, & everything 
was made up of just one thing, 
it was nothingness & dark matter & sort-of stars

& when i found you that changed everything.

someone once told me that you never really touch anything 
& what you feel is just electrons repelling & being repelled 
so when i hold you i’m not even touching you.

i just keep pushing you away.

did atomic theory explain how we were made of such little things 
& we still managed to be such big things, how were we built from invisible to this 
because afterwards & there’s always a before & an after, 
before we realised, before we understood & the after

the after & when the world changed.

because now? someone’s telling you nothing’s ever touching anything & everything’s a lie. 
that’s not a feather that’s an electron pushing against an electron, 
that’s not a breeze it’s electrons that’s not a heart beat 
it’s just your blood rushing in & out & the pulsing of your skin in time with the channels of your heart it’s not love it’s electrons 
& you can’t even tell what measure this life is playing on. 
you say three fourths time & this atomic theory says antiparticles & dark matter & mozart’s third symphony all in the same breath like it makes sense.

somehow the music is made of everything too?

& it’s like being told all your life that everything is made of red yellow & blue 
& then someone comes along to tell you no, those colours aren’t right. 
you say red and blue make purple but then they tell you 
you can take red & get purple from it with no blue & it’s not even purple, 
it’s this colour you’ve never seen before in your life.

but isn’t it beautiful? & can’t it still be beautiful even if you don’t understand?

so right now even the ground you’re standing on is pushing away from you
& it’s electrons, 
the colours pulled out of something they said had no definition, 
a point to a line & there’s a field around you made up of negative, impossible things.

we could be such beautiful creatures.

& everything’s made of atoms & atoms are made of electrons & 
even the impossible has to come to life somehow 
& the atomic theory didn’t say anything about the consequences of being made from improbabilities & music & mathematical equations, 
boiling down even the world to smaller & smaller parts until there’s nothing left to see.

it’s all just electrons pushing against each other & so you made a new one

& the atomic theory said if you think you’re just electrons & protons & neutrons repelling, attracting, circling around each other this body is just a container you are energy waiting to be released you can touch & love & yes, you are made in miniatures & models of positive, negative, built into numbers built into cells built in organs built into bodies built into lungs

you are lungs screaming & eyes seeing & you are atoms & electrons & gravity bringing you down & you are the “&” after every word i say because when i met you instead of “or” we found the electron & that changed everything.

chain of gold

love her for it, and in spite of it; for this she will love you. and of this, nameless in its entirety, something good will grow. do not doubt this. do not forget this. for anything, for everything, for this: love her love her love her.

say hello to god for me if you find him in your patterns

10011 / 1 / 11010

1000 / 101 / 1100 / 1100 / 1111

10100 / 1111

111 / 1111 / 100

110 / 1111 / 10010 1101 / 101

1001 / 110 11001/1111/10101

110 / 1001 / 1110 / 100

1000 / 1001 / 1101

1001 / 1110

11001 / 1111 / 10101 / 10010

10000 / 1 / 10100 / 10100 / 101 / 10010 / 1110 / 10011

DEPARTING FROM THIS LIFE

this leaving is not fire or burning or catastrophe; instead a hung rope, knotted with careful precision a blade cut deep enough but not too deep. quiet. gentle. drawn out like a noose wrapped around a thin neck. frantic gasps of breath like starting to drown, the thought that you can breathe water and the ache inside of flooded lungs. everything in this world will one day drown. from love or from absence a lack of oxygen with a knife’ precision cutting through, you with the sad eyes know what this means this leaving, how it is a loss of air in a void no fires can burn don’t call this a catastrophe-destruction, and i cannot tell if the word i am looking for to describe this is tragedy or eventually and i am not sure of the difference in between.