it was only six days ago i felt you smile
heard your fingers spell the words.saw you say,
you forced me to stay in love with your memory
like the soda machine at the fire station
“if you walk upside down on a cloud,” she said.
“you could look right over the edge and talk to god.”
saw you say,
move your heart to stay up there with those clouds
floating high above our sleeping bodies
our cotton candy corpses, close to him
“Your MELD score is still low. You’re doing well.”
outside of your house there’s a floating brass frame
holding everything you claimed to be true
holding everything you built yourself
and you said,
look across from the death bed.
turn your head away
my hands are cracking open
you don’t want to see, do you?
the truth is the only thing that’s ever scared me was a song
your voice
inside a church
midnight choirs
“let me feel your hearts,” she asked.
dual beating system incomplete
beeping, chirping like a bird
lepers in florida have aqua tinted lungs
but
in California
there’s a white sun out there
i’m desperate to hold it
feel it
know it
be defeated by it.
turn me into the ashtray of a million cigarettes
smother me with poison and smoke
burn me alive for this
“You have time.”
dry and crack my blood
wait for the organs to harden
and rip them from beneath my fried flesh
snap my bones like twigs and inspect the blackened marrow
my hardened liver
covered with lacerations and scars
crush it.
but my heart.
freeze it. feed off it. break it into little pieces.
plant it.
let it replicate, regrow into red blood plants and trees
twist and curl for a million years and it will
overtake the highways
the skyscrapers
the crops
the earth
it was my death day.
so i saw you say, “it’s the 27th. welcome to the club.”
happy birthday, love.
Matt Sven Calvert
