It only hurts until you say goodbye

It only hurts until you say goodbye

That sort of nearby kind of I love you
breathing a little air like daylight or some shit like that.
It feels like forever-dreams you make when you’re twenty
words that don’t add up the way your body changes shape
words that don’t make barter with gravity
with standing, face bright light-like photograph-white
you can’t take back even if you wanted crippled legs
no more standing
no more doing a good job of pretending
wet, the ruinous nature of years
the ones that haven’t sucked you dry.

In the morning, you whisper
in the early unsettling
it only hurts until you say goodbye
or I love you.

long enough

The stuff, it's out there, everywhere you look and smell, the sounds pushing against the windows or rattling beneath the floorboards of the old house. If I stop myself I can almost feel the wind moving through the trees, through the warped and stained slat fence where the neighbor kids have pushed the knot holes through and they're scattered like acorns in my lawn. I hit them from time to time with the lawnmower and they pulverize into dust that reminds me of sawing wood when I was a boy to build barns and sheds on the ranch where I grew up. It was damn hard work then. The kids use kitchen knives and spoons. I hear them like woodpeckers pop-pop-popping.

The stuff, it's out there, the information, the words and ideas. It's out there and I just got to let go of my body long enough to realize it again.