Words for Humans, pt.3

We are holding onto the handles of bikes

Screaming naivety and bloody murder

Until the neighbours all turn their blinds and

Peek out through the shutters.

I became a rocket ship

That time we ran through the streets

And we felt like we could live forever.

Time.

Like six minutes past five on Sundays

When the world slows down and breathes

Slowly

It drips through your fingers

Soaking into your veins

And runs riots in your heart

Setting fire to your lungs

Some days, all I do is shed my skin

I become deciduous

Like the maples and oaks in autumn

I cover the ground around me

All at once with everything and nothing.

I swear I could live a thousand lives

And rise each time from the earth to find you

Sprawled out underneath that tree in your backyard

Splitting walnuts with the pocket knife I found

That night we shot to the moon and came back with

A comb

Three rings

Tobacco

And a battered copy of hemingway.

You asked me once why I never was honest in the things I wrote

I told you that it was the only time I ever was honest

I was lying.

Now the Sundays drift into other afternoons

And I wanted to tell you how you make me feel

But I was a tree, and refused to say the things

I should have.

Now I write about fireworks 

And ferris wheels

And the taste of peaches and salt water

And how at a certain time each Sunday

My heart begins to race in my chest

And how all this time whenever I jump off anything

I’m still waiting for the impossible to happen

To land on the ground and be unafraid.

I am holding onto the handles of bikes

My skin is on fire and the world feels it too

Each part of me is falling away

I have become autumn and I’m screaming out all the things I lied to you about:

I am still a quarter and three halves from finishing

My heart is a marching band between my lungs

This is how you make me feel:

Like Mojgani and a ticker-tape parade where everybody lives

Like six minutes past five on Sunday afternoons

Cracking walnuts open with a pocket knife

Like hemingway

Like tobacco smoke and combs and silver rings

Like a rocket ship which can fly anywhere.