y, o. u.

oh

it is you

i know you

 

you the person who always goes a bit too far

who drinks a little too much even if

no one else around is as good spirited

 

you the woman who has spent a lifetime being a man

not a very good one

flaccid at best

but one who busts through business pants with a zipper at the crotch

who wonders if too much cleavage is popping out or not

and if not

would this be a benefit

who ties her hair back like flowers cut

to match the bald winter around

 

you the baby son brother cousin friend teenager

the grandfather to the unborn

 

you the loaf on thursdays

toasted on fridays

rotten on saturdays

dust on sundays

that leads to divine breath

spreading recreation on mondays

 

ya it’s you already late for school which

you have learnt

will lead nowhere important

 

you the backstabber the crook the

one time you tried to kill your brother

with a stake knife for reasons

you cannot remember

and cannot ask

because your brother died last year

by cancer that made death wince

with its mercilessness

 

you the nearly aborted

but not

the dearly departed

but not

the clearly separated

but not

 

you the infant who hasn’t evolved

to understand much more than a generous gurgle

even now as someone

is speaking to you with milky spoiled eyes

crying

telling you how they’ll walk wherever you walk

though they are laying down now

like an animal

filled with

another animal

 

you the singer that hasn’t sung

you the dancer that hasn’t danced

you the writer that hasn’t written much

 

you the kid with red spit and green boogers drooping

like a kite stuck in a tree

that must’ve eroded by now

 

you the adult eroding

the one who once knew how to fly a kite

with was it the wind that did it

or the tail that was responsible for the lift

or maybe there was a colour needed

too because though it sounds childish and stupid

there’s certain colours needed for things

to work

like black for roads

and red for stop signs and what about taking off

rising

soaring again

 

you the shivering shattering chair

the suffocating seatbelt

the flyer afraid of flights

 

i swear

it’s you the sun-stroked lover

saying

no snow now

while you’re hot hot in someone’s wife

who will expect old ways of you

that they have come to want

from familiar love

 

you the dog buying dogs for dogs

to sniff later on

uninterestedly

 

you the old hag who is fawned over by hot nurses

because you did that great thing that one bad time

that everyone remembers and applauds

except you

stuck there in bed

drooling

with daylight sneaking into the room

reflecting

beauty of a garden outside

into the puddles

on your chin

 

you that skeleton that blood that shit that that

coming into this

with hope for something better

than what has come

 

i’m sure

it’s you the tired

already yawning

for this goes on too long

 

you self-referential snot you

unsure of who you are mocking

besides i in all

just letters

maybe capitalized

maybe yelling

maybe just a mistake

 

you the one who isn’t

simply one thing but

sometimes strives to be

 

you lucky you sad you mad you happy

you in love you out of it

you masturbating behind a dumpster

like a used towel already worn from imprinted years

feeling everything

with nothing

stuck in between

 

ah yes i’m certain

it’s you laughing at an old joke

that you just got

you laughing at one

you didn’t

you laughing and laughing

with nothing more to laugh at

no one more to laugh with

 

you the career focused

the family focused

the focused

till you go out

of focus

 

you who knows

no one can

know you now

 

you who has just spilled mustard

on their white shirt after whispering

lefty tighty righty loosey

for no apparent reason

who takes off the garment

who looks at themselves in the mirror

who thinks that they need to eat

less mustard to tighten up

what’s left

 

you who will kill the bastard

who said this was a good poem

 

you who will kill the bastard

who said this was bad

 

you you you you you you you you

wrecking whistling wishing wiping whipping wondering waiting

for more than you

that sometimes comes

not often enough

but that will tip uncontrollably after a disastrous date

or surround when the universe is altered

your wishing way for once

until you fall on your face

on someone else’s face

onto no face at all

and then with you pouring you

blood washing blood

spit trying to consume the flesh that breeds it

you will find yourself one with the gods

totally in control

of very little

but happy to have the options of prayers

without needing to use them

 

instead

you face what comes

which is me

looking ugly strange deadeyed

like a birthday balloon deflated by the next day

or a seed that’ll never make it

recalling that it was once the top

of a tree

saying

it’s you

oh wow

it must be you