Bloodstream {a poem}

Johann AKA

What are you afraid to write
What are you afraid to say
What are you afraid will make people turn away
from you for good, repulsed, shocked
by your judgment or rocked by your shame

What do you hold in and wrap up
in tiny containers, dinosaur bones pulverized
to chalky chunks of prehistoric dust
The stuff of ancestors loose in your bloodstream
a slow-moving threat

What do you keep in that empty room
the one with padded walls and padlocked doors
the one you need all those keys for keys
that weigh you down and jangle incessantly
even in dreams

Or is the room so crowded like the attic
you can hardly fit your body into old dressers
and mattresses no one will ever sleep on again
boxes magazines yellowed pages letters paintings
where does all of the debris of a life go
when the landfills are full and the chemicals
make our lungs burn but we wonder why
everyone is sick and dying around us even us

What are you not exhuming expelling
from the body, the body we ask so much of
What if you knew nothing would be so bad
that we’d abandon you when you coughed it up

Look, we’ve all swallowed our share
of other people’s trash in this ocean of years
Fishing it out is tender work so as not to tear
any vessels not to cause more damage
than what’s already done

For today, all I can offer is this
I’ll sit here with you even if you’re not ready
if you’re sipping air
as if it might run out any minute
as the tides go out and come in again
while the sun moves across the sky
sinks again to some hemisphere we’ve never seen
Nothing you say will drive me away from this spot
You have my word - here, keep it under your pillow
like a promise