Maya

there is a violence that distance renders. it makes

for great emptiness-es. canyons. i can't taste

the jealousies or the fury, just the throb

of the sliver, the metallic blood in the finger.

someday i will wake up remembering

everything and will never ask another

question. i can't recall when it was that i

decided this: that you would be you

and i would be me, but i would rather

keep this forever, just as it already is,

then let you slip through the frame

of my intellectual-isms again, a small

copper cup; i exile all the feelings

that make me realized. a paper-weighted

moon am i. the kettle black, the open sky;

i have swept up so many of my expectations

already, under the rug. all the thoughts

i was afraid to point to, all the constellations

of damage i have been building up into my shadow,

i swear it will not stop at following me

absolutely everywhere. But when I unravel

there, hung out to dry in the ocean breeze,

when I just sit with my hands held open

on my knees, I feel the universe

shimmer with it's own illusion.