listen:
you are the judicial system of my anatomy.

the following is a lesson on biology.

your words form a bolus
in the back of my throat
and carries through
my entire being;
my ugly lungs and heart,
my awful offals, until
they germinate in my stomach
and watermelon vines


when the sediment of
your sentiments lodge in my
aorta, capillaries,
clog all my veins and vessels,
your police state mouth
will tell me, "you are now under cardiac arrest."


when I pass on
you will weep with
furrowed brows and ask me,
forget and move on?
is my happiness your happiness?"


and from the afterlife I will
look on you and say no.
do not move on.
do not move forward.
keep looking back and become


pillars of salt;


become melancholy
monuments of my absence.


for when I go down I bring