apocalypse baby

you should end back at the center where you started.

all things should return neatly to their place.

i want you to be tender with what remains.

the absence of love leaves no fossils.

your hunger will not return to the earth.

to decay, first understand

the feeling of palm against flesh.

first have something to leave behind.

something you want them to know about.

i am on my knees in the dirt.

i am burying my tenderness - i keep a little

for myself, my friends, the earth.

the shovel sings hard and cold.

i understood rot by understanding growth.

i am sure someone will be here some day.

at the axis of the end.

where love and death intersect

if indeed they ever cease to do so.

to have my hand, you must have one of your own.

get dressed next to me in the mirror.

i understood complexity by knowing simplicity.

how every color makes up the next.

i am not sure you will be here tomorrow.

tonight the air is fragile and the sky bold.

we exist as a handful of everything.

exhale onto your palm and spread me across the world.

despite myself, i want to see it all.

i want to walk into the darkness

and bring back souvenirs for your nightstand.

you should end back at the center where you started.

with your body three-dimensional.

existing in the plane of existence.

and the sky will be bottle-green tonight.

and the hands we will hold, only now alive.

sinew beneath flesh above bone.