SHAPES

come to find, perhaps

that this story had an unreliable narrator all along

a hissing of vinyl threads rises like cosmic radiation

wavelengths I only learned about behind a desk

take me back to the backseat to sort this all out

I press play, a rattling echo, a song about sisters

one we probably should never have heard

so here’s the girl who used to have short hair because she thought it was freedom

wash it in the sink

now it’s long and wild no matter what she does

and if you look closely, her eyelashes are somewhat stuck together 

as she walks into the studio

as if they dried that way

the shapes of people are like branches

arms and legs and heads 

the shapes of pain shooting

you kept listening to those songs long after me

and you felt I was the one who left you behind

I remember the rattling treble and warm mesh seats

pulling into the parking lot of the library

aubrey love, god I remember her face

I remember not understanding why someone would need to knead knots out of their own back

sitting on the vinyl rug on the vinyl apartment floor

I can't - grab it - 

the moments are high vapor

like the pill between your teeth

can't weave the words as I used to weave my bike tires through the houses

want to eject a normal sleep rhythm with my arm branches wide open

free fall into the night hours and wake slippery tilting

life is not a timeline and bars and tone

it is not titles and moments alone

I wake up these days and think, summer's passing

mark the ground, don't step ahead, me with my prime lens

you got a perm

sit there, just to the left of the seam

camera A and B rolling, sound speeding, first question

where are you, curly head?

where are you? why is it about you?

what do you mean to me? why are you the figure of all of this?

why is it you and not the mountains glowing

the jew spinning, the healer singing

the new zealander faking, the african towering

instead the old figures turn curiously sharp

subconscious rising

saturday.

I'm processing, it has nothing to do with you

noon.

we're all shapes and I hope we stay as young as we can for as long as possible

wrap me up in this and tape me