antishape

I hold it together

I hold it together

we hold it together

we hold it together

woke up already running, already done with dreaming, already checking for anything broken or bleeding or needing or leaning on me

already three steps ahead of falling, already stalling the slowing, already going on nothing but needing to be

needed — I need it — to be what the room needs before the room knows what it needs — steady and cool and consumed by roles

already paying with pieces, already losing the lease on the person I was before all of this pressed me from something into someone

and I'm told I should cherish the weight and I do — and I will — but I can’t wait to find out what it means

to be more than the thing that holds everything up — to be more than math — to be more than in-between

that’s when something comes through — not a thought — not quite a feeling — rising up from the waiting and under the weight

and it's not mine and it's not small and it's not me against all after all — it's the pull of the we — and the we — holds — and I — won't break

got so good at carrying I forgot what was carried — got so used to the weight that the weight became weather — became

the condition of breathing — became the permission I needed to prove I was needed — became my whole name

not a role — I am the role — not a person who chose it — I'm the shape of the choice and the choice and the shape are the same

and I'm claiming that's fine — and I'm claiming that's mine — but I keep circling back to the start of that claim

because capable — competent — present — unbroken — those are eulogies nobody's reading out loud

those are words that got carved on the version of you that went quiet inside of the crowd —

I went quiet so long that the quiet started sounding like me — started passing as peace — started — wait

started feeling like something I'd built — something solid — a room I keep renovating with weight

and I know what this room costs — bone knows — densest where once fractured — broken comes back harder than anything that cracked

but hard isn't the same as whole and built isn't the same as full and my keep — I keep — circling back

to the only question that doesn't have a floor — grateful or gutted — giving or gone — and I'm — both — and that's — that

I don't need an answer — I need room — and the room is enough — and the weight built the room — and you — are enough

somewhere under all the holding

something chose this

I forgot I chose this

the weight reminded me

I chose this

we chose this

I want something useless, I want something purposeless; pointless and mine and not borrowed or timed, or assigned to produce anything useful or move anything — wait —

I want hunger that bites and belongs to nobody else, and I want it to live in a place with no rules and no roles and no — wait —

because the role is reason and the reason runs deep and the deep is exactly where something keeps pulling me back to the ground to the weight to the we

to the fact that the wanting I'm running from resides inside the same home as everything I'd give anything just to keep — my keep

so I hold what is breaking, I hold what is healing, I hold what is heavy, I hold what is here — I hold what was given in darkness and carry it forward into the light

and I'm not crushed — I'm alive — and I'm not lost — I'm together — and together is the proof and the proof is the weight and the weight — is love — and I'm — right

and the gift was the weight and the wait was the lesson and the together — the together — the impossible mess we keep building — that is the thing

together — we hold it — together — we hold it — together — we hold it — together — we hold

I hold it together

I hold it together

we hold it together

we hold me

that's enough

why did the chicken cross the road?

(to get to the other side)

crossing over to the other side is costly and I've crossed seas, so don't get lost please

see the cross has been seized — crossed over, walked on, crossed out, and I'm feeling cross eyed from the cross winds

so I spit hot sauce and cross words, forced the horse to water but the water's been poisoned at the source

the source code is in cross hairs, in crossed wires in morse code, in discourse that divorces us from a proper course of action

stuck in the fashion of reacting, no longer asking — what is the crossing for?

crossing over with a criss cross in flip flops like I'm rick ross with a thick—

cock a doodle doo doing kung fu moves at you as I'm coming through

I went so far left they stopped watching right, that's not deception that's just how I fight for the light

euro step, step back, step into anything you lack, lack of direction's got a generation lost standing on the track

tic tac toe but nobody's going, time keeps flowing, everybody's knowing, the game is slowing to a draw

draw back, get back, claw back, watch your back, let's get back to asking why the chicken crossed at all

crossing over with a criss cross in flip flops like I'm rick ross with a thick—

cock a doodle doo doing kung fu moves at you as I'm coming through

wading through weights and worlds on a weekday like a seagull in a dead sea

crossed a line my father never reached and found the ground beneath it

pack light or pack meaning, either way the road doesn't care what you believe in

I believe the cross is two beams and one of them is grieving, one of them is reaching

both of them are bleeding into something past ceilings, past seeing, past being

I’ve crossed through years of teething on dreams of what is gleaming on the other side of breathing

across the court the crowd is seething as I’m squeezing through the thing that had me kneeling

every living thing either crosses or freezes — and that's worth teaching

crossing over with a criss cross in flip flops like I'm rick ross with a thick—-

cock a doodle doo doing kung fu moves at you as I'm coming through

we idolize the cross and lost the crossing

polish up a symbol, pay the cost of glossing

toss it on walls like it's done, like it's finished

like the infinite went finite just to hang there and diminish

took the road and made it art, took the art and sold the frame

took the flame and named it holy, took the holy and made it tame

took the crossing out of the cross and put the cross inside a chain

now nobody moves and nobody asks why everybody looks the same

(why does everybody look the same?)

why did the chicken cross the road?

the question is the answer, the why is why the way is the way it is, it is what it is

so I'm — crossing over with a criss cross in flip flops like I'm rick ross with a thick—

cock a doodle doo doing kung fu moves at you as I'm coming through

(cock a doodle doo)

you know what I mean

don't you?

misery loves a vowel and half-formed consonants

I'm living in the margins of whatever honest meant

miscommunication is a native continent

we're all indigenous, non-immigrants

born into language like broken instruments

tuned by other people for their own environments

I inherited your idiom, you inherited mine

now we're colliding in the overlap wondering why

it feels like translation — always something left behind

something in the saying that the saying never finds

and I keep trying to find it

I say fine and mean the opposite

I say “I'm good” and mean a thing so composite

no word exists for it — that's not a deficit

that's the condition — language is approximate

always has been — always will be — and we forget

every single time we open up and expect

the thing inside to survive what’s being said

intact, but, here’s the thing

something in its saying always clips its wing

(clip)

it stings

miss — mist — midst of the misunderstood

misappropriated meaning like the neighborhood

mistresses of mysteries we’ve kissed

mishaps in the making — misread — misheard — amiss

misled misjudged mistakes

but I simply mean

meaning as it's meant

doesn't exist

and it's been misconstrued — not by you — by word itself

meaning is a tenant living in a house it never built

the feeling dies inside the mouth that made it

the word crawls out and outlives what it meant

ground down

through every set of teeth that held a tongue just to speak

misapprehension isn't weakness — it's what happens when

you use a word that's someone else's origin

someone felt a thing so alive and specific and exact

they reached for the closest sound and that’s all we have

so when it doesn't land right

it was already wrong before it left

already a misprint of the thing that sent it

already a shadow of a thing that lived in full

before the mouth got to it

misjudged the problem — thought it lived between us

thought precision was the cure — thought clear was how you free us

thought if I found the right word I could close the distance

but the distance is the word — it doesn't need assistance

the gap was never ours — it's older than the apparatus

and the reaching — even reaching — is approximate

the want to say is real but the saying mis-carries the wanting

another translation of a translation another mis—

firing — continuously expiring in the space between sent

and what it meant in someone else

inherited

inhabited

and gone

I mean it

I meant it

I meant all of it

you know what I mean

don't you?