ALEXIS POPE & JOSHUA YOUNG

from I AM HEAVY WITH FEELING


The world between something
is happening and something happened

crystal under a pillow, rosed
my skin under his thumbs

in dreams I pull ahead further
in days I sit patiently with a mug

keep refilling it please I'm practically
inhuman in this wooden, bruised

easily I order a shitty dinner
the garden last summer, the music

speeding in through the screen
another argument ends

in nothing we can do right now
I've been in a chokehold but

I'm ok I am not dead but
skin remembers and my body

won't let him close anymore
legs tighten frequently unless

I am finally, thoroughly alone
a piece of cedar to burn like

the bagel pops out blackened
scrape over the sink until

I throw it out and throw
it out again cleaning coffee

off the walls another fight
ends in throwing a globe

bent and irreplaceable bought
at an antique mall in Medina

Ohio I am done with you
but New York

you make it
impossible to live

---

TYPO 22