-- Figures

Let me pant a half breath’s worth of explanation.

Look,

I almost died.

Well I almost decided to almost die, look--

I was called for an audience with

the Dean of Students.

It was not even a semester in.

I wore black slacks

and an ironed, green, button-up shirt.

I wore heals.

I walked slowly.

I walked step step in

step step step out

step step in

step step step out--

Look,

let me just say

the second time

there were between 12 and 18 lacerations to the face

my

face

and both times

it was near finals. Look,

I tried, okay?

I worked hard.

I earned my admittance.

Let me explain,

there was a man

with wispy black hair

face down in a mound of foam that ran from his open mouth.

I had every ambition.
I stayed late, I woke early.

I cared, I tried,
I sought help
 
not once,
not three times.

I came back every week.
I came back every week.

I read, I educated myself,
I reached out, I attempted to educate others.

Look,

I believed in myself.
I did. I once did.

Hadn’t I earned this?

I believed in a meager but livable dream for myself.
Until, there was this man, see, he was

sitting outside the cafe with a discharge packet and these birds
and he kept turning his orange bottles in his hands--

I recognized the hatred and defeat on his face--

I nearly cried as he pitched full pints of water at the birds
and went back inside to refill the glass.

When my confidence evaporated under repeated lashings from the sun,

I looked to you,

and you let me down,
not because you wanted to,

because you were face down in a mound of foam that ran from your open mouth.

escape velocity

make it out alive, or with your life, or hanging on to your life.

hope is a right angle.

made it out alive, made it out with my life, made it out because I saw my life remaining.

hope is a right angle.

I am a satellite, oh death, oh god.

oh death, oh god, oh gravity,

breathe in, breathe out, automa

ton, life is, and I am locked inside it.

a Sea-side-satellite, I came here to live

I came here to die, I came here

.

there is nothing I did not come here to do.

here is my life in a knapsack.

here is my, life, in a knapsack.

oh death, oh god, oh gravity,

from the rail tracks I feel that around me everything is in singing, still

no dear buzz would dare knock me off

track. hope is a right angle.

I awoke here.

shock abandoned me,

I felt my spine dislodged here.

I awoke here

in the agony

of dreams dismantled.