Float me on my back
down the river
to that hidden world
five minutes off your porch,
if fifteen years earlier.
Shake out my head
to fall with the trees:
smell the chemicals burned,
broken concrete and a rusted hammer;
it takes scars to persevere.
Help me to the shed,
wrap me up in sheets,
and burn where I've bled.
We were just boys,
you'd never hear our screams
over the freeway noise.
Diagrams in the sand,
incoherent as your speech.
Stretch your arms through the fire,
breathe in smoke to make sense of life
under explosions fed to the night.
Take me by the hand
down the river
where we'd experiment with health,
and what we thought it was to be men.
Turns out scars are still the best ideas I've had.
Help me to the shed,
wrap me up in sheets,
and burn where I've bled.
We were just boys,
you'd never hear our screams
over the freeway noise.
Float me, again,
on my back
down the river.
We were just boys
you'd never hear our screams
as the cars raced.
