“

We could spend afternoons like spies,
we could melt off our fingerprints—
not even the people we promised to write
will recognize us.

Once we start diving deeper,
they told you not to jump in—
the shock of the cold could eat you
alive, the salt water nipping behind your
kneecaps, you’d go into shock

(it’s different here).

But we’ll be safer.
here hiding away, I’m glad we
kept our heads down in the train station
when the badges came in with night sticks—
I’m glad that little girl turned in her seat
“Mommy, the cops are here.”

——-

I met a deer at the four way stop
near your mothers house,
got out and spoke with him a while
he chewed on my busted headlights—
tied his antlers to my head:
“You look like you belong out here.”

and for a while I stayed there
laying next to him on the ground

“What do you think about the stars?
The mothers at the grocery store,
the fathers seeding harlots?
What do you think about being alive?”

And when he did not answer
I lay there next to him—
pretending we bore the same scars.

I watched the sun dance, back and forth
across the sky
noticed time was moving again.

I felt the weight of antlers on my skull and smiled—
winced as a tear fell over my lips,
“I’m sorry.”

And I swore I saw that old corpse move,
turn to face me—
“You will quit wasting your life
you will live it lovely.”

A shy smile broke over my face
and the doctors checked me—
wondered still at the girl with
antlers on her head. They called me
crazy. They called me young. They
called me stupid. They sent me home.

And you were waiting there.
You were there, with a worried face,
with a heavy heart, scared.
“We’ve got to get out of here
and start living.”

I baked bread for supper,
I packed our lives in bags,
boxes, baskets—
held them in my arms.

So we went out, took a train to an island
where we had new names,
we called our mothers on the internet
to say we were alive—
we were still young children!

flowers still bloomed there and it was still like
home, only lovely

and again the darkness came, some people
of the island mistook it for night time—
they did not know of the things that followed me.

I ran my finger tips against each other. Felt
their smooth surfaces.

The Things came. They came as they always do,
sounding like car crashes, my parents’ infidelity,
every sound that had ever left me gasping
for air like a fish.

And when they came to me, searching for a girl,
and found me, with antlers on my head and life in
my eyes, when they grabbed me by the wrists and
pulled my fingers to them, rubbed them on their faces
and could not feel the subtle indentions that proved
I was their target, they looked down at me again in
disbelief.

“I am not who you are looking for.” My arms raised,
daring them to question anything.

“Question anything. Look for the darkness within me.
There is none.”

And they did look. They did open my
mouth and stare at my teeth,
pinched my arms, listened to my pulse.

They could find nothing but Life and Lovely.

I touched my hand to my antlers. Felt the point
on my finger, I pricked my thumb against them,
and bled.

And there was so much life in that blood,
so much certainty and hopefulness,
so much lovely. That the darkness,
the Things, went back home.

And in their absence I felt a certainty
that cops, death, no one was ever after me
that I spent this time running
from myself.

Finally proving to the shred of me left
that we’re still going to make it,
but maybe we just can’t do that
at home right now—
and I’m sorry.

”

—	“A Child’s Life Is A Wilderness: live lovely” —Brookeworm