Small Brown Door

Swallow hard, swallow to get it all out
On the table, below your feet,
You are swimming so why not let the air in on a secret,
A tantalizing corner ripped from the connection between your eyes and your mouth,
and a fleshy shard, a human.
I can be quiet, most of all when I’m thinking,
About things that are sometimes yellow and sometimes white,
And how they overlap when you tug and send you spinning,
If only someone would open this door.
Small brown door, today, meet me where we used to play,
The quiet places between the blades of grass, the spot of shadow on the asphalt.
People I have thrown away, meet me on a higher plane,
The back of a car, the front of a house, an old yellow chair in the basement,
These are the places that I have been afraid.
But any time I try to seem like much of anything I end up collapsed on my bed, drowning my thoughts out,
Scraping wallpaper and washing bathtubs, tomorrow I will walk
Backwards against the wind, the breeze heavy with reminders, my eyes closed and my hands folded and my buttons tight,
Because I need the air, but oh, god, I don’t want to have to feel it.