Oh.

Ten and a half, Sat­ur­day, dusk, curled up on the Saratoga hills,
hug­ging my knees, implod­ing,
watch­ing the house, believ­ing the house
was going to burn; the hate was hot enough to make it so,
when I ran out.
The hole in me opened then, or it closed. It flapped a lit­tle.
I emp­tied myself, for, you know,
safety.

Whis­per to the thun­der.
Lasso light­en­ing.
Do some­thing else futile.
When every­thing is crit­i­cal,
noth­ing is not about me.
Every­thing in this cir­cle is sus­pect:
you, me, the circle.

Roll ten thou­sand more days on guard
and all sounds are the white noise of self involve­ment.
Even war gets bor­ing.
Roll ten thou­sand more days.

I look around now at the spent matches at my feet
as if I just woke up, sleep in my eyes,
and won­der if I can hold myself at bay
long enough,
for a minut,e, maybe tw„o,
to hear you as if I believed you
weren‘t talk­ing about me.

Here it is: I want to be off this ride, round
and round, and stand still, arms at my side and see you
and allow you to hold
my atten­tion
and I want to love that.