Exhaustion Theory

                          For JoJo, after “Feel Alright”

I watch a couple braid their hands on the A train; not sure if they gripped each other so tightly because of the fear
of the pretty human sitting next to them.

This city lacks the space

for me to yell or sing at my loudest shrill when I am lonely. How likely they confuse my sadness for exhaustion
if I let them, I never say a word. There is an echo 
I wish to own, midnight air in Ypsilanti parking lots

can tender this sweet to my tongue. Too often I think about grief. Once I had
a home built of gingerbread sticks,	                                                      once I wasn’t afraid

of coins slipping the clasped pockets of my fingers, once, in a poem, I wrote

“I understand leaving” and everywhere around me

appeared a loose hinging doorway readied for my spilling. Sometimes I create
a list of things I cannot do just to feel a little 
more like I am not supposed to save a country.

Sometimes I want

a hand to hold like a hummingbird destined to escape my birdcage palms. Sometimes I pretend to cry
at the safest part of the movie. 
Sometimes the credits roll and the lights dawn and I’m still in the front row,

weeping uncontrollably.

Read more from Issue 19.2.