24 (Dissonance)

every now and then a glance
left or right reveals a
missing presence,
dark flicker of
silhouette,
reminding me I am heavier beneath
the loss of a weight
I needed to carry
further

in my imagination, you plummet,
disintegrate, melting
before I can
gather you up into
the illusory safety
of me
I carry a bursted balloon
skin piece of you,
a way to forget I
fucking need you–
needed you

I am rendered helpless,
untethered, in lack of a gaze
pinning me to earth,
boxed in darkness
and surrounded by
the shadows of the dirt,
a you shaped hole
in the fabric of
yesterday

a pounding heart,
in dissonance,
rails against the meter
of my ragged breath,
I shudder,
venture forth,
hoping the night will
reveal it’s secrets

terrified it will

a door falls open,
a threshold–
sans Fifteen-Foot-Farmer—
spills me through, into the throat
of the dark, dumps me on the
edge of an alien
horizon,
flesh of fields swaying like
rye grass, still green and
fresh in the sun,
deceptively sedate.

this is the story I’m telling…

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN