A4 3B
We are—rare prisoners—sentenced to escape,
this skill to flee our urge to die’s our cage;
we’re rocket ships that veer off course to snake
through vacuumed void or ink a planet’s page
with crashing crafts: we slip the graves that lake
below our skin, and wade in ends that stage
evading streams but cease as waterfalls—
take me, eighteen, eluding suicide
through slow erasure: poems and alcohol;
above my bed tape Clare’s “I Am,” inside
young thirst plunge vodka shots, re-read, re-pour,
my break’s the chow that words and drink devour.
I long to still my drive to halt, subtend
with soil the grain sky-reared by savage weather,
this loam emerging where our struggles blend,
evincing what we are we are together:
like now, I’m cloth unfurled, you’re vibrant dye,
A4 3B
