Some Days

I want to lay myself down,

like the simple object

of a transitive verb.

I want to have picked

myself up, only to have

laid myself down.

Both mind and body.

While the rest of me —

goes with the wind

touching the leaves.

Tethered, green,

and free.

Loop You

I was waiting

for someone

to love boundlessly

and now we are

one repeated loop.

I cross the street when I see a college student.

I have a hard time with youth,

even though I still have one hand caught

in their experiences. In cafes, on the bus,

I carry earplugs. Their dreams,

their talk about first entering work

make static in my chest. There is

not enough room for their disappointments

or their enthusiasms in my many-self

I have grown within me.

It reminds me of the man
who ate an airplane,
boiling the upholstery
and shaving the metal thin,
so he’d never have to leave
the ground again.