Bodega | Lay Me Down

Dawn is at the door, a dog
empties its voice into the dark

—chaos brews in my belly,
bad breakfast. I burn

a cigarette in the absence
of weed. it is not even Dawn yet

& sorrow binds his sick hands
around my neck, makes a fist, breaks

my body, feeds bits of me
to the crows. my cousin says

You are selfish, she says Do
better with your life, & I stammer

because I am tired of explaining
bipolar, how do I tell of its blue

spirit, the purple of its beak, pink
red of its tongue. the dog is still

emptying into the night.
I am mourning. again. again. &

it is only February, brutal summer
is not even near yet. look—

all these blades in the closet
of my chest, how this hunger

twists the song of my life, how
I try to be the beautiful—

boy my mother prayed for, golden
child, but at what have I not failed—

even sex, Lord, even death, even
love, I am failing at love, I am falling

from love—let the thud be
a prayer, a loud prayer to my mother—

Moimi, what do you bear
in your soiled hands—lay them

down— lay me down, Lord, lay
me down, broken piano,

I am a broken piano. lay me
down—I will crawl through

the dirt of wet earth to kiss
you, Moimi, to be kissed

by you, your warm mouth,
to have your lips greet every wound—

how hungry I am to be called
Son, to be boy again, not man—

I am tired of carrying myself, praying
weed to the heavens in wisps,

I am tired of trying—Lord,
I will lay me down, down, down

in the cold earth,
before Dawn.

Lay Me Down