HOLIDAYS

In an art house cinema

we sat in a dark space

your thin body

folded into a filthy chair on wheels,

my limbs propped on a ledge

with wine and crumbs on a wobbly table.

This was supposed to be

our only interaction.

I was sure that the 16 years between us

could in no way bring us together.

Then it’s Halloween

in the French Quarter.

It’s a midway

of robots, werewolves, zombies, drag queens, men in suits.

Of the two of us

I was the only one in costume.

That was a big difference

between me and you.

I was

willing to dress up.

Then Thanksgiving

when my greatest trick

was cracking eggs with one hand

and serving up a roasted turkey

while wearing an apron

and my best skin –

the one I bring out on special occasions;

the one I used to wear to church as an alter boy.

The one I always show

when I want to hide the muck in my veins.

We eventually meet in Chicago

on New Year’s Eve.

We’re swept away

back to an elegant hotel room

where the mirror

captured, with the determination of emulsion,

our forms, my hands on your hips,

your flawless waist, your boots still on; elated and drunk.

Then Baton Rouge

where the crumbling starts to gain traction.

The traffic pours

directly into my lungs.

Being lost for mere minutes

throws me back into the body of a young boy

under my father’s belt.

I’m lost, crying on the streets

of my home town.

Doorbells go unanswered.

Sunrise highway

groaned with screeching cars and horns.

Sometimes I day dream

about travelling back to my younger self

so that I can tell me

don’t grip so hard – you’ll choke everything.

Would it matter?

Does the ghost of a mouse

morn his demise

after a snake lunges from the weeds

swallows the fur and the tail whole

coiling its limbless body

until the ribs crush the organs

the black, glossy eyes

stop blinking.

Should either regret such a religious experience?

Eventually, it’s Valentines Day

and I show my love with a cactus.

Something that doesn’t die easily;

that needs very little water and attention.

I think those thorns

sent the right girl the wrong message.

I think the wrong message

was all I really had to send.

The timeline

is also marked with Los Angles.

A small, flimsy padded card table

with candles, wine, and our last meal.

The last photograph I would take –

the one I can’t bring myself to delete.

The one that no longer looks like you.

The one that tells me nothing of who you are now.

Too permanent

and too hollow like bird bones.

Finally, the birthday present to you

from you

was to no longer

need me.

It was the best gift

you could have given yourself.

The one, in a moment of clarity,

I insisted you take.

I should have never invited you

to that movie;

not the one on the dull screen

in Orlando, Florida,

but the one that keeps replaying

over and over on my bedroom wall

with the repetition of a zoetrope

and the faded plastic slides of a carousel.