what was written on the walls in the third stall
this crowded mausoleum:
say Willy & Michael & Tyler & Matt & Jeremy & Ian
and look at how their names become a song
see: boy stomaches an entire medicine cabinet to fill himself
see: boy becomes asteroid and lands, face first, on the interstate
see: boy origami folds his car around a tree in the forest,
or, boy is the tree and falls to the floor of a concrete jungle
and makes a sound. every time.
see how i’m the unaffected third party.
perhaps i killed them with my silence,
see this smoking barrel of a tongue
say nothing about what i have seen though nowadays
funerals all feel like reunions except in black
and without the dancing.
see all this dirt on my shoes?
i’ve got three states and a thousand miles in my soul so
i’ve had my share of lookin’
like how we survived the Mayan apocalypse
but not the knives or pills or keys,
and there’s got to be a lesson in there somewhere.
there being the bodies. as if the beautiful corpses are any less dead,
so goodbye i guess to all you poets,
and the words that have died along with you;
say that i miss you,
my god, how i miss you all.
say Willy & Michael & Tyler & Matt & Jeremy & Ian
and look at how their names become a song
see: boy stomaches an entire medicine cabinet to fill himself
see: boy becomes asteroid and lands, face first, on the interstate
see: boy origami folds his car around a tree in the forest,
or, boy is the tree and falls to the floor of a concrete jungle
and makes a sound. every time.
see how i’m the unaffected third party.
perhaps i killed them with my silence,
see this smoking barrel of a tongue
say nothing about what i have seen though nowadays
funerals all feel like reunions except in black
and without the dancing.
see all this dirt on my shoes?
i’ve got three states and a thousand miles in my soul so
i’ve had my share of lookin’
like how we survived the Mayan apocalypse
but not the knives or pills or keys,
and there’s got to be a lesson in there somewhere.
there being the bodies. as if the beautiful corpses are any less dead,
so goodbye i guess to all you poets,
and the words that have died along with you;
say that i miss you,
my god, how i miss you all.
Lucas Peel likes the idea of strangers, vegetables, and defacing things in the name of art. He does not like vinegar, rules, or high places, though he is willing himself to at least understand the purpose of all three. One time Neil Hilborn told him that his poems were pretty. He currently lives in Aiea, Hawaii.
