from memory box/lung
Erica Lewis

lay all the edges together :: you don't know where the excess will be

in that nothing at all beside the piles sometimes i swim with you

in that ocean-sized room forced to hold on with our feet we fasten

no more to loyalty because we lived there once and were never at home

if you are honest you know the question and the answer yes we will

find other places and other people to care for us but you need to live

with the question



the concept of letting go in various forms :: i am adding to the smoke

all this emotion broken into if i close my eyes pour this over this

something in the corner of the room shifts and we understand it

to mean ghost i thought you meant someone had nailed you down

to one of your cares again but maybe it is the light outside and i am very

excited by this time of year the devolving bits and pieces the voices

you hear the coming together and falling apart of things the thing is that

we all eventually fall apart but at least i know how i feel about facing

my own weaknesses



the shadows on the ground grow smaller and smaller :: you unapologetically wear

the things on your chest i would have swallowed the entire ocean to get to

the bottom of it but i am silent now and just hover over the things these partial

happenings the little bit of grey between them the window was down and sand blew

into my eyes but i was the electricity i was always the electricity



i think of life after the wound heals :: i am wondering if this takes

away from the power of we as zigzag lines some moment inside

the flutter maybe it is a hair then that separates skyward as excess

baggage i used to catalogue the words in my head like birds like you

thought of the years i think about you all the time as a man who

walked by but if it’s up to me you never did learn how to want