I cannot pronounce the name of the city I was born to
But I know there is a story scratched into my eternity
It makes me sit without shifting
Meet the gaze of a stranger and let the corners of my lips to relax into a smile
Because I know
I don’t know much
I don’t know shit about marriage or how to change the fan belt in an engine but I can certainly learn because I know how a thing feels
You’ve felt it too
How it has shape and a barren smoothness, black as pitch
Terrible to observe
A weight that cannot be shifted between shoulder blades and not a thought can hold
But I’ve witnessed that feeling thing become submerged under a glow called phosphorus
“Bearer of light” when my white skinned grandmother kissed my sun burnt cheek
The weight shifts whenever I remember my father crossing the picket line at work despite the nails they hammered into the coffin of his reputation and the others they used to pop the tires of his 78 Thunderbird
This man told me after his father died "it's ok to cry" although my grandfather shed not a tear in front of the boy my dad was
Because hard men were scraped together by depression years and dust bowl fears
They were made to resemble the bomb shelters their daddy's dug to give them the shadow of safety
That shadow is all they ever chased not understanding that the Son is what gave those dark lines their shapes
So I'm allowed to stand in the peaks of calloused hands that came before me
To crouch in the twilight before the velvet crushed night
And claw like nails and knuckles on bedsheets during a fever induced dream in that magic hour
Unaware that we are only trying to catch a shimmer of the perpetual sunset heaven is
when we finally close tight our eyes to sleep
We take none of our bones with us
They clack like dice in our coffins
Trying to convince us life is all snake eyes bets
But I can't believe that
I still get so angry every day that it makes my tongue feel like a nest of barbs
I'm almost convinced they must show through my cheeks even when I attempt to swallow every single one of those sharp words
I've felt God's fingers be pricked by the nettles that once made bedding in my thoughts
Washing the whisper of wasp stings away
Proving through synapses and tissue there is true weight in faith
And that is where I wait still
I stand in the tension within the snapback of every handguns hammer
Before it clap cracks to it’s original place of rest
Filling the space and time between the nothing but air footfall
Of the last ledge before a final drop
Where every introduction I give comes out formed looking like an apology because I saw you standing there but greeting a stranger always seems like a waste of breath
Understand love is still filing down the hard edges pressures formed over the years
Please be patient with me
I'm still trying to trade my hard pressed diamonds for drowning waters that feel more like embrace
than suffocating mistakes
So here I am
Because hurry up and wait is the mantra that's burned into every kiss
Stay is the speech between each pair of lips
And my soul screams light-speed
Within each stationary prayer
The amount moved is mountains with each wordless utterance
While I stand perpetually blemished by time’s stain
No memory can scrub me clean
Hurry up and wait is the mantra
So here I am
ILLOGICAL REST.