The most wonderful and horrible feeling
used to be felt used
to be seen at
the bottom of a brown
squat glass bottle - spiritual
at the mouth, pathetic
by the end.

Now the most wonderful and horrible feeling
is experienced in a goodbye embrace,
not a “see ya when I see ya” hug, but
rather “I am going to do everything
I can, but you never know” appropriately
setting expectations way. By the way, I
appreciate the candor.

On the matted carpeted floors of a college
apartment lies the Midwestern body
of another faggot pretending to be
a real boy pretending to be a man. Splinters
in a sphincter, blemishes on the sun
no one is perfect, he is perhaps
the furthest one.

Soaked in fluids unknown, swollen doors creak
open to the sound of the 5 am birds. At the twist
of a top, only a seminal moment in retrospect, the
final act began. He burned his lungs, he severed his
last leg, he looked to where he thought God would
be and relieved his bladder. What did it matter? “Stirke
me down” he thought. It was not a prayer, not a request.

Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest.

Last night he rested his head on a breathing back, watching baseball,
the Fall Classic, he knew he was back.

The pretending had past. He had to outlast the rising water.
He fought against the tide. Drowning in the hull, he reached
out above. Down below he was pulled. The pretending had past.
(He) You’ve passed.