April 22, 8:05AM

I stick my tongue out

to let your shadow kiss

but a paltry taste of what

I thought would numb my knees

from the pain

I felt would give me bliss

if I just stuck it out

and held my lips

clamped, remind myself of our good times

during the bad ones

and how you were always there

whenever you weren't

or whatever we should've held

close to our chest

yet our mouths betrayed

and the dams buckled

but they didn't break nor bend

just forked little rivers and little lakes

for our chimps and turtles

to live in

or whatever we should've said

instead of the silence

that ferries dead words 'cross the styx,

saying "we could've built something else here"

something whose shadow

is thick and strong and black as onyx

making itself known into the skin of the earth

branding "I am all that will ever will be forever and ever amen"

and by god I'm not making any sense

anymore, just following that tug

that leads me, incessantly, knowing

I don't know where I'm going

I play the script

and paint over this mold

with peacock green

a sheen only fitting

the cotton bloom

that can give one pause

because it looms in some forgotten corner

you thought it never could

and hang myself in my head

the way normal people do