before you tell me, i
want you to know i know better
than to believe in this bleeding
to heal me, learned this the
hardest damn way, a
hundred cut cloths run red,
i know, i know, i know,
and my hands go wandering
to old wounds anyway
still pick at the scab that
stretched over your absence,
whisper languages buried, throat
still catches when i tell the story
of the torn up tickets, stop
saving meaningless things, dangle
my aching soles over the
edges of things i thought
would go on carrying me
most days, the stories seem
weightless, as natural in
my arms as a lover’s head resting,
but then my shoulders shake,
forehead damp as i let swell
the worry: am i so busy carrying
yesterdays i am dropping
my todays to the cracks
in the asphalt
were mine a mind of
the sciences, i wouldn’t dream
of peeling steel edges against
the shell of my wanting skin,
yet always i am mining, mining,
mining for meaning in the
wounds picked up along the way
michael king 