on breathing out

like hitting a tennis ball with a heavy racket,
like walking backwards,
like wanting to hold someone
just because they don't want to hold you anymore;

like the lost elasticity of skin,
and speeding trains pulling
breaths out; lost airs
idling at stations,
where everything is
not quite there;

like putting miles and miles between yourself
and everything -
taking cities like aspirins;
like running and running,
diminutive sobbing,
like turning your other cheek
forcefully toward a plethora of open mouths;

like a wind-forced smile,
like morning stretches,
like talking in one's sleep,
like dreaming in answers;

like finding a pit,
a small hollow that will collect your weepings,
knitting blankets from the anagrams of your tears;

like a dead end you are happy to die in,
like the mouth of a river closing around yours,
like the one hole you can feel whole inside of;

like the driest night,
with arid eyes,
like turning to pupa in another's pupils
and sliding on into that receding black hole
you have been avoiding for all of your life.