CALL ME BELOVED

I wanna sing one for the cars
that are right now headed silent down the highway –
and it’s dark and there is nobody driving
and something has got to give.
– excerpt from Cotton, by The Mountain Goats

frost crept up my fingers as I realized
that too much of my life has been lived
through planned out scenarios on television,
over-wrought drama that makes the tears form
and enough anxiety to keep me turning gray.

there’s a place inside where you know they aren’t real
and that you’re about to cry over people that
you can never meet, but that’s the same place that
seeks the pain out, tells you that sometimes
it’s just the salt you need to season your life.

I can see my boots over in the corner – world stomping
scuffed straps of leather that make me invincible
and nimble, boots I’ve written poems over, boots
that have stepped off the continent and tasted
dirt from all over – the boots that brought me home,

the same pair sitting in a puddle of salty meltwater
near the front door. they call people like me a homebody.
and I think my body’s telling me too – my fingers lock up
like a vice after five minutes out in the icy air, as if my
hands are rebelling against the very idea of january.

I want to be more than this warm body wedged into a couch,
making memories vicariously though broken neighborhoods
that play out on the screen like horror shows, scenes written
to keep me awake at night out of empathy’s sake, because
for some reason it’s not enough to hurt for just myself, anymore.