Hour

The evening was so cute when the clouds came out wrinkled against the pink.

            Silence was the channel.

      Pink is the color of my brain imagining how bad things are.

Hidden in you like a pearl (some thing)—there is blood in my heart
and the blood is wet—your kisses taste gamey like old food in
the oiled sea of your mouth, its calm cave—here’s the
kneecap of the world: quick, take this baseball
bat and go for it, fuck it up bad—a year and a
half ago I wanted to beat the shit out of a stranger
so much for some reason, just a guy on the street,
a cholo giving me the stinkeye, a drunk’s
dumb bravado, destroy the windshield of
a car honking at me as I crossed an
intersection—heaven’s curd—how few thoughts does it take
to stop someone from existing?—I'm waiting for
the volcano's flood to rewind itself, to undo
what it did—feeling the base of your
bare ribs trying to sense their vasculature—I don’t want the
product of your body but I do—a bullion cube salting
your insides—sometimes I hate myself so much
my hatred is too big for just me so I have to hate
everyone else too—it’s easy to dream of killing
myself late at night when other dreams won’t come
but I’m not going to do it I don’t think because of
abstractions like heaven and hell and love and meaning,
            so

I’m gonna continue loving because the electricity’s still working.
I’m gonna continue loving because the lights are still on
and the Pentagon still has five sides and Al Qaeda has left the
bridge I cross to get to work intact.
I’m gonna continue loving because my allergy medication is working.

        Mom asked me to imagine that after getting up in the morning
        I would die exactly 23 hours later
        right down to minute
        so when I woke up the next day alive
                    I could thank the gods for their blessing.

--Luke Weldon