plea from bedrock

The 1 train is crying every few feet,

Much to the dismay of her passengers.

Dormant penitence rises within me as dawn

Illuminates my skin through the windows like a road map

Igniting the veins of malfunctioned transit.

It’s a shame.

I still see the images of foam at his mouth and

His arms grounding him to the mattress like

He’s nailed down at the shoulder blades,

Fighting through his ribs

To be released, and I really can’t blame him.

Will we always be walking around in old clothes?

If I didn’t know better

I’d imagine he was thinking the same then,

As I cried out to not lose him right there,

In the bed we tore our sick adolescent skins off to make.

I started with the scalpel at the hip,

He took it to the center of his head.

“Bullseye,” he said.

Why is it? What could I have done?

Was I so complicit?

Should I have grown speedwell from unraveling seams?

Or were we just too young?

Or something in between?

I’ll ask him one day

When we return to our bones.

I’ll roll over and see hazel in double,

Pure as spring light,

Like I never once blighted it.

I’ll dress in evergreen and love like ivy.

Taste it, weightless oceans;

My autumnal city before springtime’s catalyst;

Hold it, sweet naivety in burgundy bed sheets;

Riverside, wondering if I’ll ever be loved again in such a cosmic way.

I know this is the metamorphic cycle.

I know this is just my age.

But if I tear down him, my world, my father, my hometown,

All in the vein of this roving voice

Please, if any man truly grows into his dichotomy, please,

Let it be him.

Melt that ambrosia upon his tongue in place of me.

I failed to fill that plate every single day

And found my feast of gold to be a mirage

In the scorching dry heat of freedom.

- M. Rose