What Powerful Part Are You Missing?

By Dan Oberbruner


I.

What powerful part are you missing?
look!
here!
i can write it for you,
i
n
d
e
c
i
s
i
o
n
see?

II.

shit!
they're following us.
fooling us with words.
notice their geometry?
it's mysterious. i know.
but you have to understand!
you can't understand.
you felt foul in the water.
i stepped you out.
everything good reminds you of autumn.
every good tragedy begins in autumn
and settles somewhere else.
everything loose reminds you of change.
i will see you there if i die trying
something new
on the weekends.
i'm awfully lonely.
shredded paper bothers me repeatedly
though it's nothing i ever do--
which is perhaps the reason it bothers me.
i halve silly
and am spending it.

III.

try now.
it's different.
i swear.
try now.
it's different still
and will never be again.
later it will be the same.
trust me, i'm trying.
i spent years in detention.
i was never in detention.
fell flat? i guess.
meet me in the garden.
now there,
that's a place i can really tell you.
awful.
awful again.
paranoid?
if you mention it.
like:
who!
just now!
where?
i get it.
then i give it away
because i can't handle the concentration it takes.

IV.

my flowers are colors that don't exist--
which attract the bees and other things.
my songs are bird songs.
when i sing them, we ebb and flow.
repeatedly.
i miss you in the garden.
it's been hours.
meet me still in the garden.
see something i do not
and hold it for me
okay?
forever.
okay?
i miss you when you're gone forever.