The Dutch Bend

Are you really going to stand in front of me like you didn’t just say what you said?

Are you really going to turn your head and flap your hand as if the comment was offhand,

The edges of your fingertips covering your forearms only a little bit

Like you kind of intended it

But knew it was for nothing,

And you tell me you were bluffing

But I know you’re hungry, you look like you’re hunting

With eyes that stare at the world as if you knew no one

Like you were no one’s father

A haunting blueness

And a dangerous flavor

Your hoodie where every thread is a threat

Your sleeves with a secret you’d kill to forget

Yes, that’s what you said

That’s what you told me

You know I’m right here

I know you’re unhappy

Your spirit is shifting from one place to the next as we speak

I can see it

I can hear that you’re not here as much as you’re not home in your own head

But would you rather be dead than in transition?

Just listen–

As you smile, as you cry,

As you scream out to the sky,

Through tears of laughter and violence,

And poppy fields and cigarettes and all-knowing silence.

That classic clairvoyance of yours: we become hollow because in our bones

We know what’s coming.

Flamboyance because you want to have fun with it and

Dance instead instead of running

I know your arms as I know mine, I know your mind

We will rip each stitch out one by one

Held in the hands of the other

Please, uncle

Please, brother

Please, cousin

Before you execute what is because of what wasn’t

Sew me up so I have enough stuffing

To knit you into my thoughts

And I’ll mend your map of madness

With all my favorite knots