Hermann wants to eat nicotine
sometimes. He asks
for a lot. He paces space to
make himself nervous
because some people are
better at surviving than
living. If you wanna get
heavy he'll teach you. He
knows it. Spends his time
falling from the weight.
Got a lead brain. It's a
battle magnet. He carries it
around by the guilt straps.
Don't laugh. You didn’t
see the size of the blizzard
that birthed him. Fits
of snow. Cotton rocks.
Whipped white bullet stretches
pinned with chips of teeth to
his habit of crying for help.
He doesn't land well. Hates
landing. It reminds him of not
living up.
Listen.
I know there were days you
wanted to die.
Days you misplaced all the
right words then waited
to make sense once everyone
here stopped watching.
Nights you let them beat up
your body in bed
because redemption was still
alive in you howling.
Uncompromising.
Gathering strength.
Happiness
is too far to fall.
Felt like ecstasy
when they pounded it out of
you.
Those days of dead weather
high strung out together
and spoke for you.
You told everyone here it was
a good life,
smiled and waved back into
the wails of your wind fight,
into the parts of the past
that haunt you,
all the days you weren’t
being yourself.
It’s why most of the past
still haunts you,
Milk Worder,
Mr. Self Murder.
Hiding is not an option for
people
so good at showing up. You
show up.
It is okay that you showed up
missing.
We’ve all abused ourselves
then looked over
the wrong shoulder about it.
Call it Fatherlock.
You were picked like this.
I know you hate the hope.
It’s all the hope that makes
you stay.
And you stay so far off the
ground.
Hermann will not bow down to
gravity. Falling
he catches up to himself midair
just before the ground
smacks. Pullthroat, they call’im. Sharp
turner. Nothing
touches the ground here. Ground is at capacity.
He sees that. He falls back.
He patches parachutes
together with a kite
knife. It's big enough to raise him
in the updrafts where he
hides himself away in angles
of air outlined by his knack
for believing that this life
is gonna work itself out.