Crush

by Richard Siken

  of them wants to put you back together. It's time to choose sides now.

  The stitches or the devouring mouth? You want an alibi? You don't get

  an alibi, you get two brothers. Here are two Jeffs. Pick one. This is how

  you make the meaning, you take two things and try to define the space

  between them. Jeff or Jeff? Who do you want to be? You just wanted

  to play in your own backyard, but you don't know where your own yard

  is, exactly. You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one

  safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.

  You have not made that place yet. You are here. You are here. You're

  still right here.

  19

  Here are your names and here is the list and here are the things you left

  behind: The mark on the floor from pushing your chair back, your un-

  derwear, one half brick of cheese, the kind I don't like, wrapped up, and

  poorly, and abandoned on the second shelf next to the poppyseed dress-

  ing, which is also yours. Here's the champagne on the floor, and here

  are your house keys, and here are the curtains that your cat peed on.

  And here is your cat, who keeps eating grass and vomiting in the hall-

  way. Here is the list with all of your names, Jeff. They're not the same

  name, Jeff. They're not the same at all.

  20

  There are two twins on motorbikes but they are not on motorbikes,

  they're in a garden where the flowers are as big as thumbs. Imagine you

  are in a field of daisies. What are you doing in a field of daisies? Get up!

  Let's say you're not in the field anymore. Let's say they're not brothers

  anymore. That's right, they're not brothers, they're just one guy, and

  he knows you, and he's talking to you, but you're in pain and you can-

  not understand him. What are you still doing in this field? Get out of

  the field! You should be in the hotel room! You should, at least, be try-

  ing to get back into the hotel room. Ah! Now the field is empty.

  21

  Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don't make a noise,

  don't leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will

  come back from the dead for you. This could be a city. This could be a

  graveyard. This could be the basket of a big balloon. Leave the lights

  on. Leave a trail of letters like those little knots of bread we used to

  dream about. We used to dream about them. We used to do a lot of

  things. Put your hand to the knob, your mouth to the hand, pick up the

  bread and devour it. I'm in the hallway again, I'm in the hallway. The

  radio's playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I'll

  keep walking toward the sound of your voice.

  22

  Someone had a party while you were sleeping but you weren't really

  sleeping, you were sick, and parts of you were burning, and you

  couldn't move. Perhaps the party was in your honor. You can't remem-

  ber. It seems the phone was ringing in the dream you were having but

  there's no proof. A dish in the sink that might be yours, some clothes on

  the floor that might belong to someone else. When was the last time you

  found yourself looking out of this window. Hey! This is a beautiful

  window! This is a beautiful view! 1 hose trees lined up like that, and the

  way the stars are spinning over them like that, spinning in the air like

  that, like wrenches.

  23

  Let's say that God is the space between two men and the Devil is the

  space between two men. Here: I'll be all of them-Jeff and Jeff and Jeff

  and Jeff are standing on the shoulder of the highway, four motorbikes

  knocked over, two wrenches spinning in the ordinary air. Two of these

  Jeffs are windows, and two of these Jeffs are doors, and all of these Jeffs

  are trying to tell you something. Come closer. We'll whisper it in your

  ear. It's like seeing your face in a bowl of soup, cream of potato, and the

  eyes shining back like spoons. If we wanted to tell you everything, we

  would leave more footprints in the snow or kiss you harder. One thing.

  Come closer. Listen . . .

  24

  You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves

  you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terr-

  ible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself

  a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy,

  and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to

  choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and

  he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your

  heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you

  don't even have a name for.

  Meanwhile

  Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make

  the new street yours.

  Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like

  everything's okay,

  a feeling that lasts for one song maybe,

  the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.

  The way we move through time and space, or only time.

  The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly

  it's not, it's breakfast

  and you're standing in the shower for over an hour,

  holding the bar of soap up to the light.

  I will keep watch. I will water the yard.

  Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep.

  I sleep. I dream. I make up things

  that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

  The trees in wind, the streetlights on,

  the click and flash of cigarettes

  being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight.

  It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue,

  green beautiful green.

  It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun. It's green. It's still green.

  Snow and Dirty Rain

  Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close

  to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me

  with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending

  to sleep, while I’m in the other room. Imagine

  my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots

  in the slatted light. I’m thinking My plant, his chair,

  the ashtray that we bought together. I’m thinking This is where

  we live. When we were little we made houses out of

  cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It’s not because

  our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we

  struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring

  your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making

  those long noodles you love so much. My dragonfly,

  my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing

  for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,

  and this is the map of my heart, the landscape

  after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is

  a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me

  tight, it’s getting cold. We have not touched the stars,

  nor are we forgiven, which brings us back

  to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,

  not from the absence of violence, but despite

  the abundance
of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire,

  the gold light falling backward through the glass

  of every room. I’ll give you my heart to make a place

  for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.

  Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars

  for you? That I would take you there? The splash

  of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We’ve read

  the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen.

  The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left

  broken in the brown dirt. And then it’s gone.

  Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye

  Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all

  in Heaven. But there’s a litany of dreams that happens

  somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling

  on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we

  transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands

  and record stores. Moonlight making crosses

  on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.

  We have been very brave, we have wanted to know

  the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes.

  This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in

  the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms.

  Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried

  in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now.

  Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said,

  so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It’s a fairy tale,

  the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished

  halls, lightning here and gone. We make these

  ridiculous idols so we can to what’s behind them,

  but what happens after we get up the ladder?

  Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?

  Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are

  the monsters we put in the box to test our strength

  against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here’s

  the desire to put it inside us, and then the question

  behind every question: What happens next?

  The way you slam your body into mine reminds me

  I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling,

  and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding

  the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t

  stitched up quite right, the place they could almost

  slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to

  keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side

  of the theater where the curtain keeps rising.

  I crawled out the window and ran into the woods.

  I had to make up all the words myself. The way

  they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed

  through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled

  around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made

  this place for you. A place for to love me.

  If this isn’t a kingdom then I don’t know what is.

  So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields?

  Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets?

  I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters

  kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter’s heart,

  the hunter’s mouth, the trees and the trees and the

  space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words

  frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce

  leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere.

  I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor,

  pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you

  but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have

  swallowed him up, they said. It’s beautiful. It really is.

  I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room

  where everyone finally gets what they want.

  You said Tell me about your books, your visions made

  of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is

  the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you

  there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar

  cube… We were in the gold room where everyone

  finally gets what they want, so I said What do you

  want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am

  leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome

  burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,

  my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

  We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

  FIN