Nauseated at the beach, we’re watching white birds flock around competing at the prizes. We give ‘em a slice of gum, a loaded trunk with everything you left outside in East Fairmont. Water bottles feed the kids you knew that you forgot that you knew. We’re back here somewhere before you learned to read. The music never changed, your heart just quit beating. We held CD’s in our hands, our legs tied to our shoes. Will you spend the next few hours working, while I rest with my head on the floor? Did you leave the rest to rot in memory? Did you remember to build a memorial? Will they see us in the living room, between the key and your front door? Come off and fall, so that I can pick you up. Our homes are not the kinds of places you’d own. Where the pieces of the pieces go when walls corrode, where the water spills in waterbeds when we’re alone. Come off and fall, so that I can pick you up. Our homes are not the kinds of places you’d own. We were ghosts even then, errant sunlight on our skin. Sunlight, sunlight. And we drove out to the bluffs, raced each other through the dust. We’re all gonna die.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spilled into 2021 and THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE wrapped their fourth …