TWO POEMS by GREGORY SMITH
Every scream that never / Hurt my throat
For Ainsley Aude // After Turnover, Jeff Rosenstock and The Saddest LandscapeI
It’s been three years since he screamed
{if you kill yourself I’ll do it too,
just to kick the shit out of you in hell.}
Spite keeps me alive in too many ways to count,
a line of empty beer cans colored like
ambulance lights,
or just knowing who to call.
*****
II
It’s five years ago and I’m driving to Dover to meet you,
Blasting something jangly and spacious
{ to let you go,
to let you go…
I never wanted to let you go }
Not paying any attention to the blurs of firs and paper birch.
We never say much when we’re together.
I make a point to say I love to be quiet with you.
We make our way out to the waterfall,
unfold the camp chairs, flap out the hammock,
drop the potluck of beers dug from an after-party fridge
into the gentle, eddying currents.
You fell asleep suspended between two white oaks,
hanging gracefully like a bag lunch on a coat peg.
A riot of blue jays is raising ten sorts of hell
at the landfill a mile away. I hear them while i
kill time kicking mushroom caps the color of bloody vomit.
Weeks later, you sent a picture of me, with my back to you
As I stepped into the river, said your shoulders look strong.
It was always so like you to be looking to catch a moment,
even when I thought you weren't there.
And how like me, to seem ready to carry something heavy.
*****
III
When you spray the practice syringe
of naloxone in the air
it looks exactly like a dove
landing at the
base of a waterfall.
*****
IV
I leave the car in park.
Three years since the last time I didn’t.
One year since the last time you could.
I play paddle ball with the wheel and my head,
10, 20, 30, count the reps
like sheep, waiting for first breath after coma.
Waiting, like I knew it wouldn’t hurt right.
The voice through the static,
degloving everything in me
Still alive.
Windows down,
Deep breath,
Curse the living sky.
{We
are
desperate
kids,
doing
extraordinary things
and we
are
just
like
you.}
*****
V
I ride down to the river again,
listening,
It’s jangly and spacious,
{ losing you is like cutting
my fingers
off }
and I { look at the water }
It’s still moving forward,
just like he said.
the ocean never fills up.
That’s all I needed to hear.
I just needed to know it’s okay
to pour out my grief relentlessly.
{ there’s no fucking way
I haven’t killed myself,
only someone else’s namesake.
I’m letting go of you. }
Salvation was every time
we lived from purple bruise
to the next ticket stub.
{we
This is for
Should’ve
Every worn pine floorboard
Expected
still bearing our blood.
This.}
Grief is hope's best music.
now watch me dance
until the floor breaks.
Some days, I wish to live
The gingko tree on Bridge Street
turned fluorescent yellow,
shedding its leaves overnight,
littering the sidewalk
with sulphuric butterflies
flitting in the soft, frigid wind.
The thin talons of naked
twig and branch
slice the streetlights,
cut the yellow glow
in cruelty.
One day, I wish
to hold a pain
like this.
Gregory Smith (they/them) is drinking wine right now. They still have not finished solving their face-turning rhombic dodecahedron puzzle. You can find them sharing kandi bracelets with Metalheads or backswinging at a warehouse rave. Their debut collection is forthcoming in 2023 through Game Over Books. Their poetry has appeared in The Peoples Book Volume 2 and on NHPR.com. They're an Aries and therefore are here to spit fire and truth, no matter the cost.