There are 206 bones in our bodies
and mine
are just like yours

I’ll be eaten and reclaimed decomposed and desired if I want to

There are 22 bones in my feet
and I’ve named them after the poets who have walked before me

I will burn if I need to
be dust
if I choose to
desire smoke signals of yesterday

reminisce in my own future

I will be a figment of my own imagination if I choose to
 

I will be rubble
.drift wood

.dead weight
.dead set
.dead end
dead poet’s society

There are 206 bones in my body
and each one will be fine bone china tea cup discussions of what could have been
use my fibula
to mark the chalk outline of what went wrong
reform my skeleton into a shape of something

you think you can come to terms with
like

how did he?

why did we?
why wasn’t there?

when was it?

why didn’t we?

There are 40 litres of water in our bodies but most of us still can’t find a fucking flow

I will build a dam if I want to

I’ll build a river
an estuary
a lake

I will build a tear duct the width of your mother’s face
I will not let her tell me we can’t hear your voice anymore

I can’t hear your voice any more than my own sometimes

My heart

beats

me up
all day
and I know you know what that means

I know you miss me
but I wish you’d missed
 

And I’m not ready to shoot
the breeze with you
.not ready to fall with you
.not ready to flow
.not ready to go
.not ready to be that bold with you just yet
.not ready to decompose disintegrate or dissolve

I’m not ready to feed the dirt
just yet

so I guess I’m not ready for fame just yet

I’d rather be anonymous - but breathing

Alive - in secret
a “bad poet”
but livid

average
but dealing with it

I’d rather be another number

than a statistic
there is a difference

I’m not ready to fall just yet

There are one thousand miles of veins in our bodies

and I’ve given each vein a name
so when I’m gone
you still can’t use my name in vain

And there are 36 breaths
in this poem
that I may have never taken

and they

are the best shit

that I ever wrote