Fuel

You would never think
I would be this shy, would you?
Pink hands, soft words, just a
smile, she once said, you always
have that goofy grin.
Shy, like the last autumn
leaf attached to the last
aspen, holding onto holding onto holding
on but in the end
we all fall, into space, into a great
wide emptiness, into a tragedy, a
relief.

I have forgotten how to pray;
how to
kneel, how to
sing, how to
beckon reason from a
faceless god.
I have forgotten how to ask for the things I need
like food, shelter,
peace,

Wine
on Friday and the air is already full.
From my first floor flat I listen
to the leaves scurry about the porch,
scraping like fingernails
on wood, moving about in a small
whirlwind, the trees watch this and I
imagine them growing
envy, with their dark branches and deep
roots, trees that
stood still long before my
birth.

No, I am not
as cold as my skin nor as blue
as the blood pulsing near the surface.
Maybe just a season then, the silent
collapse of the living,
The transformation to something that was
bound to happen
anyway, maybe then
I’m
Fuel.