tectonic plates

they’re you
lidded eyes and touch typing
singing out braille songs across
a nation
that isn’t yours to love
land that isn’t mine to carry
i’ve stolen away into nights,
to cry for a world
that doesn’t want me, that
calls me a name that isn’t mine
that says it is home

a land, still, that we need
       tectonic plates
with force enough to collide
infertile soil and barren ground
       the same, together
to make amends

to make amends
for the human race
that boils away like cancer,
inside the lungs of a
world
that never asked for consciousness
that never wanted us
to try to love it, to grow spores
and choke it with our
anxious, selfish ways of
       loving
i hope i’ve been better than that

       to make amends
for the angels that didn’t know
how to love me
black smoke wafting
from those that left
what we know of being young

to make up for
a heart that didn’t know
how to sit by the ocean in winter
when the grit of the world stung,
       cold
winds shrouded;
when i called,
even echoes didn’t hear

i’m crying for you,
can’t you see
       can’t you see?
i’ve found you in places
i haven’t known in years,
caves i used to skin my bones on
crawling into
still, hollow spaces
i couldn’t find a way out of
       rocking
these caves moan out
you carved drawings
on the slate walls of my soul

i see you fumbling down corridors
they close up behind you
you never were
i see myself on your lips
your arms, until we fuse
two flashes of life, gone
we are unsung, but to each other
       words
passing down static lines

you fade, here too
i’m folding down my origami statues
riley, i’m paper again
i’m unwritten stories
wet pages ringing out
violin string words

now, now, i’m standing still
my mind resounding
a thick contagious sound
it repeats
on each toll, i feel
there’s a chasm
between my skull and flesh
and acid tears pour
leaving me parched

i’ve told no one
i used to wish for nightmares
to let me dream them, and
leave those who were haunted be
i’d forgotten that,
       riley,
until it seemed i could be
so good again, so strong
by the easy dank depths
the musty sanguine slur
of you

i’d pray every night
for all your dreams
if i thought it would work
i’m not afraid
of you loving me
or of you wanting to kill me
us all, to save us from ourselves
i’m not afraid of you
disappearing
to grainy shadows and streets
i’m not afraid
for your soul
i’m afraid you won’t come home
home is nowhere, but in you