Coming Outside

I spell comfort

c e m e t a r y,

maybe because

of its open energy.

my shoes wait below

a steering wheel,

maybe because naked feet

crave blades of grass.

where the purple blends with green

I sense my grandmother,

maybe because well loved

signals

don’t reside in

object permanence anymore

than souls or words do.

a gentle wind sounds like

water droplets landing

on a harder surface,

maybe because

air is both

breath and pressure.

sometimes, maybe always, both.

what we breathe can be every manner of chemical energy emotion,

maybe because the

pressure gets to us.

between tissue skin muscle liquid

gland organ crevice chamber.

ground doesn’t reach insides, maybe because we stopped

letting legs sit crisscross,

and we need the tv on to sleep.

we need our retired appetites,

our gut decoders,

our vacant expressions

with our vivid ones.

maybe because wants are stubborn,

and needy became a dirty word.

and in our fickleness,

timidity,

boredom,

withdrawal,

abstinence,

paralysis,

we stopped knowing

how to bring ourselves outside.