I do keep you

It's all in my back
my memories of you.
You with the parting hair.
You with your candle.

I do keep you.
Haven't had time to untie anything.
Even if I did, I wouldn't.
I keep you. In the levator scapulae muscles,
the ones that hold my neck, connecting to blades.

Behind me is a giant stuffed bear wearing a bath robe.
He is mine.
I named him Wesley.
Behind me to my right is a painted goddess in red acrylic oil.
She doesn't have a name,
instead she clutches a shard of broken glass.

Maybe she too has wind swept emotions,
Episodes of mania, grip slipping nights.
Like when I locked myself in the studio,
fighting the slave owner psyche.
My heels felt like hooves.
A saddled horse, kicking holes in the closet door.

I was drawn to the hammer beneath the sink.
Took it to the large mirror in the hall.
Beads of light crashed to the floor, spilling heat of rage.
7 years of bad luck, felt about right.

And again, I think of you.
How you danced in your quiet house,
How I drank confessions from your temples as you held me goodnight.
The January snow muffling mangled sobs.
Your bar stool's red swiveling seat.

My heart space tunnels, gliding awareness past darkened wine cork collections.
What was a metal ball shoots down tilted pin ball lanes,
rounding corners of birthday clubs,
lighting up ocean side promises, continuing on,
through my chest, through Wesley's stuffing,
out the walls of the room, a black hole,
expanding endlessly in every direction.
I'm a book, open on a picnic table,
hit with digging wind.
Hardwood underneath ripped up carpet.
Your nakedness under new t-shirt blue bedding.
Your rolled up tubes of toothpaste.
Your YouTube Valentine.

"Anybody ever tell you how beautiful you are?"
 "I adore you. "
"There's a place for you here, always."

While in Bray, after the Italian chocolate, there was a climb.
Each of my steps landed inside your own.
Then later a beach of round stones.  And portraits.
The little girl child flying face first into the rising tide.
Chordoroy legs, train rides, frisbee tosses and laughter.
So much laugher ...I wonder why I had to burn you.
Playing with fire, fingering the wax
I'm kind of a pyromaniac.

A siren screams down the street
The curtains my father installed hang translucent, matching the clouded sky.
The albums crated in soft, clear light.

One time, you didn't go away.
Disintegrate, Bleed out, or burn to ashes.
Once you remained through the bucking, back stabbing fear.
Through the attempts to smash and incinerate,
emasculate, ruin, flood.

After my typical upheaval, you returned.

At first it was distant sound.
A yodel bridging the valley,
humming, a buzz. An omen.

Then a package arrived in the mail.
You began on the day I fed you your first avocado,
Ending with telling Topanga night drives, glue stick pictures of me stretching the length of a tree.

I softened to the echo.
On our way to the Getty
Lydia's backseat felt like warm water,
A steamed salt bath.
You pouring tea.
You in your coveralls, shaving, suggested we put the mattress on the floor.
We did.
It's underneath me now.