Catastrophe Jones

starting, launching
into the newness,
and no one had ever realized that it was
only the shell,
only the framing,
only the drywall studs
of a story,
I remember we fell down,
in which we could be
nothing more than
the began selves we already were.
some time long ago,
an oral tradition.
Some of us just whisper,
while others shout,
and still others are looking for something to use
as a voice.
I began a story,
there is no way to edit without a first draft,
and no way to edit once the draft has gone by.
it explaining,
began it under a supposition,
began it with
all manner of Ever changing,
we are pretense,
began it so thoroughly
that there had never been
another way of beginning,
had never been
another way of commencing,
one in which The run-ons we become
are only because
We are not written but spoken,
and there is no way
to remember it rightly.

Once,
just once,
you said something to me that burned,
and I don’t imagine you remember it,

but it cut into me

the way an early, unwanted limb
is cut from a tree,
and leaves a shape in the bark
until finally
the skin closes over it.
You can’t see it from the outside,
but on the inside it’s there,
always,
this open wound
you left with an unthinking comment.

Or worse,

you were thinking,

when you made it,
and so perhaps you meant it,
even if you would take it back now
to see the damage it made.
Perhaps though,
it is my fault that it hurts,
that it still hurts,
that I never told you.
Perhaps I should have forgiven you

long before now,

as you have done for me,
with all my careless slights
and slings
and slices,
all the bruises
and breaks
and blood
I have gifted you
without meaning to.

I’ll never know.
I’ll never tell.

I am left with that hidden un-scar,
twisted
tighter
than a clockspring with teeth,
biding my time,
until I come down to
motionless
dust.