Afterimage

illusion, based in body...

negative afterimage (reversed colors)

Abandon

sometimes thinking of the title first isn't very helpful

angels

big fakers

cross-dressers, hermaphrodites (oh, wait, I appreciate that)

come
here

and

tell me a story, spark
or intervene,

can you really fly?  tesseract, shining glasses, food like damp sand

let me know how you home,
hold my hand, please

(although I don't think ya'll are well-mannered,
I probably don't think in yr book)

do you really love so much you fall,
as mermaids rise due to a like

eccentricity?

it starts

shocking

what to do
with all this

what helps
the terror?

stop teasing me

subject to interpretation

play "keep away"

I did it too, and you took "snaggletooth" the wrong way,
though now you can smile

but don't back away from your constant insults;
it only made me push away

the falling light
pulling away
oh, we are the fallen,
slipping in and out of love

no, I don't take you seriously

[ok, this is a pretty wretched poem... hmmm]

gedanken / gedenken

thought, commemoration
to bear in mind
water-bearer -- is that an insult? --

something about completeness,
its impossibility;
as an ideal...

"you make me com/plete/ly miserable"

wretched need,
distress causing self-destructive behaviour.

"que sera, sera"

what will I think?
what will I make?

I'll remember increasingly less,
increasingly inaccurately;
I'll make a delusional narrative, a version of events,
in the service of remaining a little bit sane.

oh this language barrier,

"well loved" is an euphemism for "used"

systems' exclusions and inclusions

is that smile for me,
that grin, that grimace, a result?

does loss commemorate love?
what do we mark when we recall
slings and eros?

unsettling

the weather is perfect here
but there and there are different versions of paradise

we may have lost the election;
no one wins wars

it is not a battle for hearts and minds
but for engagement

*

this little limit has proven inescapable