[Britt Bustos, Associate Editor: "This poem's intuitive and reflexive train-of-thought piece resonates with me as a fellow wallflower, and its bare-knuckle honesty throughout provides a homey comfort that asks itself hard questions about Marxism, traumas, and shaved heads. Along with these moments, the poem guides readers through the woes of moving a home and the heartbreak that accompanies it to new places."]

Everything I own is in boxes.

Sliced my finger on cardboard 

 

trying to unearth Debord

for a paper I’ll never write. 

 

My blind dog is confused,

she hits her head against 

 

corners trying to make sense 

of the senselessness. Next week 

 

she’ll grieve as I disappear.

My former partner will hold 

 

her together as they hold 

each other together and we grieve 

 

separately. Across states, mourning

our recklessness. How we changed 

 

a future together into two distinct

parts. Two bodies growing separately 

 

diverged, unlike Frost—just two

separate roads. Like wildflowers  

 

carried by migrant sparrows, 

I hope we find land beneath us. 

 

My dog’s vision went 

with my wallet. The veterinarian 

 

spoke, and I remembered nothing

other than the fact that her last name 

 

is Swayze and the portrait on the wall 

of a black cat that was dewed over with a 90s 

 

fog that looked a lot like a memorial 

of a cat whose attention was not to the photographer 

 

but maybe a fireplace or a coat-chair where he made 

a home. My former partner will cry throughout the day, 

 

and I—approach everything the way my mother

taught me. Laugh, move away 

 

from the subject. I prepare a

syllabus for my fall students and wonder 

 

how I have no time at all

and absolutely no cash. 

 

I don’t want to talk

about Marx anymore 

 

or unions or money 

or stasis and conditions. 

 

I just want a home 

for myself and a companion 

 

or two, overlooking a calming 

scene, mountains or water, a cityscape 

 

in a quiet corner—I wonder

why I chose to blow it all up? 

 

My body outpoured in a hotel room

in Seattle with poets and capital, 

 

the sun overlooking the corporate

graffiti and just past the skyline— 

 

mountains. I drank the way I did

when I drank and read poems 

 

from the gut,

flora and body, 

 

sins and traumas,

my body: a container 

 

broken at the seams. 

 

I don’t want to write

about the body anymore 

 

or its contents and memories,

how everything relates back 

 

to a prison; how I can’t

talk about prison without 

 

my father’s suicide attempt(s) 

in a prison coming to the forefront 

 

of my brain like an intruder who shoved

his arm through the door of my childhood 

 

home, who I hope is not in a prison and I hope

is free from any system that led him into 

 

our prison with the cockroaches and bodies

smiling in prints of 35mm, which I treasure 

 

like a rebellion. 

 

My friend is drumming in basements across

the country and will make one last stop 

 

in Columbus, to help me move. 

I still function like a punk 

 

but I have responsibilities now,

students who send emails about 

 

grades as if I am a cop, and I

try to remind them, everything 

 

is going to be alright. Affirmations,

calming words to repeat to myself 

 

when I can’t breathe—I remember

the timbre of my dog’s anxious voice 

 

as she barks at the unknown. and my former

lover’s attempts to calm her. 

 

I set a journal on

fire, a small red book 

 

like the one

held by Frida Kahlo, 

 

the same one held

by Mao Tse-tung— 

 

because there were

too many numbers; 

 

recollections of days— 

I needed to start 

 

again. Ashes and the scent

or burnt glue did nothing, 

 

so I shaved my head

and looked in the mirror 

 

to see my age in a new light.

If I plucked away my skin, 

 

cell by cell,

I would still 

 

be here. 

Bummer.