Where Does Everything Go?

Where Does Everything Go?

Atomic displacement

A Feeling someone

left the room

just before you

got there

Not a scent

Not a wayward

strand of hair

lingering among the dust

not a thumb smudge

on a tumbler

A Feeling

Deeper than skin

receptors

vibration

that hasn’t stopped

echoing

When the Feeling

leaves

Where does it go?

Everything stays

Water to wine

wood to fire

Skin to putrefaction

All collected in the

balance

The missing element

unbalancing the scales

Something goes

Love to apathy

Hate to acceptance

Grief to nostalgia

to melancholy

to despair

to

to

to

nothing

Not every particle

walked out the door

Not every element

covalent bonding

Not everything

stays

The ones behind

know

not everything

goes

Preface at the End

I like to know how movies end

before I start

How much do I invest

if prescience is possible

When death is far away

can I love a little more

My time is that precious

My heart is that sacred

My grief is that engrossing

that a spoonful

sours any milk I kept behind

Would stone instead of bone

gravel in place of saliva

wet mortar for blood

find me any more secure

than a pallet of promises

The condensation is inside the house

windows turned to block glass

no where to see

no one on the other side

only what I already

allowed in the house

I can’t see

Run from room to room

right brain to left

and I still can’t see

how it ends

How can I manage

another day

another night

another forsaken turn

on a wheel

that I want to smash

and recycle into

cages for tomato plants

but I can’t find a door

big enough to let it out

and I kill every plant I touch

Should I be the one

behind the metal

past brought it here

unwilling to future

present

enough

to build

to keep

the ones outside

safe

from

me