Diffuse

Somewhere along the line I started

Trying too hard.

Some days I want to turn everything into a poem, but

Those days nothing gets written down.

Some days I just want to speak. Perform everything

Like it's spoken word or it's slam or it's something,

Even though it's just words.

In the end it's all just words.

God, breathe in breathe in.

Don't exhale. Just breathe in, in,

Don't stop. Let your breathe diffuse.

Some days I pretend to be profound.

It helps me sleep.

It helps me dream.

When every word is precisely significant -

Well, that's a comforting thought.

It means this, too, will fade.

God, breathe out breath out.

Don't. Just don't.

Thoughts diffuse like

Light. Through the blanket

You threw on to keep it from waking your parents.

Starlight doesn't diffuse. It doesn't lose itself through the lightyears. If only

We could be so strong....

God, just shine, shine. God.

Don't stop. Please never say you'll stop.

Unfocused. Like water spreading up through paper, diffused.

Softening it's resistence to the world

Making it unusable.

Making the ink blur, blur. Smear and dull.

Let's run away. Let's exist in letters and pens,

Let's case ourselves up in envelopes and send them over oceans.

If I was contained in these pages, would I be happy?

As happy as I seem between their lines?

God. Don't ask that.

Just write it and be done, send it and be done.

Don't live in those - that's not the way to breathe.

Let go, let it slide down the mail slot.

I want to turn all the lights off. One, two, three.

Let's be black for a while. I have this crazy idea

The night sky will fill up with lights.

My phone is going off. A doorbell song

A jarringly slow jazz number cut in elecronic tones.

And that means love. That means life, means reality.

It's something hard to hold onto, those tinny little notes.

They cut into my skin.

Ah. Breathe. In and out, for once, breathe.

Be even. Let it all flood in and recede

Simultaneously. Don't ever fill up.

God, don't let me fill up.

Let's take the bus again. I like it when the doors close

It feels like coming home.

Like locking the deadbolt.

I don't mind the one twenty-five fare, just

Leave me the transfer slips.

I'll pin them on my wall with your name.

Fading out. Like radio through mountain passes,

Struggling to hold on. Wanting desperately to float away.

Don't try the tunnels, they never work.

They never, never work.

God. Ah. Ah, I am alive. I forget sometimes.

If I lived within this keyboard, would I still?

Would the letters slowly diffuse over my surface,

Form an even plane of words?

Scattered. Like stars, like starlight.

It retreats into your eyes, eventually.

It's traveled so far and it seeks comfort

In those little glass domes. Give them rest.

Then send them back, so they too

Can come home.

Home. Sometimes it feels like my own.

Tonight, it feels still, with the lights on.

Sometimes a thought comes out, and bleaches in the rays

Let's turn the last lamp out. Let's go dark.

And let the light diffuse.

XXX--