Five Years Gone Read online

Cleaning

  Today was autumn cleaning.

  I took the old ghosts out

  of my closet, shook out

  the moths and tried them on,

  black leather and dust,

  just to see if

  they still fit.

  I remember what it was like

  to wear that, to be that

  person. The gloves and

  the coat and the persona

  are all too comfortable.

  So I take them back off.

  I pack them carefully away,

  running my hands one more time

  over leather soft as moth wings,

  and hope that maybe

  next year

  they won’t fit.

  Echo

  I’m looking at school photos,

  a smiling, side-by-side progression.

  Lockstep, good boy,

  ending abruptly

  with a milk carton.

  I’m sorry, no,

  I haven’t seen that child

  since nineteen ninety four.

  I don’t miss him.

  Origami

  I am origami

  folded up tight,

  inside out

  pattern hidden inside

  just a pale side showing

  a crane within

  a butterfly within

  a paper box.

  I was crumpled

  now I relax,

  shaking out the tiny

  folds in myself,

  smoothing, loosening

  and opening up

  into the larger self.

  Out of the Loop

  If I wanted to be in a Jane Austen novel

  or back in high school, cliquing my heels,

  I’d do that, and not settle for your half-

  rate drama games and girly gossip. You

  are too scared to play the game right &

  too petty not to play at all. You’d best

  take a risk or step down before I get too

  bored and decide to remind myself why

  I spent my high school years convincing

  my peers I was too scary to mess with.

  High school violence is passé composé

  and I won’t break the seal on the present

  I was given leaving eighteen behind.

  Leave me as you found me, closed up

  tight and shying away from every cop

  and every flashing light and flinching.

  J’ai fini in pretty script on teen years

  spent running away from my own

  misspending, broken and down to

  pennies in my wallet, no pictures.

  I’m just a mask, hollow and bloodshot

  eyes, and not the god of dead things

  I once thought I was. I’m perfectly

  satisfied with mediocrity right now.

  My cubicle is safe and quiet and has

  three solid walls and a betta fish.

  The rush is just not worth the cost,

  my tongue’s bitten through and the

  mask worn to polished shoes and a

  silk tie and maybe a raincoat.

  Altered Ego

  I think a lot about redemption

  and the light at the edge

  of the horizon, below the bloody haze

  of dawn. I’ve taken warning

  but I refuse to take cover.

  I will face the sun proudly and let it

  burn me if that’s what it takes

  to recover my self

  from the shattered shell

  of my uniform.