Thank you all for sharing; these are wonderful.

**This poem could be triggering as it has a couple indirect references to SI and suicidal ideation**

This poem was written a couple months ago during an extremely difficult time. The "you' in the poem refers to T. He has read this poem. In fact, he has read all of my poems. This one sort of goes over 3 1/2 weeks of sessions with him. This is actually one of the few poems that we have discussed in great detail.

From the Couch to the Pavement

Week 1:

Postmortem disclosure-- you want
to know if it feels original. Ask me
ten more times and I’ll let you know.
Of course it feels new. Like a hazard.

You read from Milner— twice.
I lost the content both times. Something
about external madness related my art,
which seems to have gone missing lately.
I was too busy getting %#@&#! by the process.

Week 2:

I add something fresh to my hip
since the bone is an ideal structure
for precision and release. On
concrete, I hop from left to right
and punch the air. What bigger
effort to stop the movement?

I treat you like this because it
doesn’t happen that you’re real.
I feel bad-- but not enough to stop.
If you walk away, I will shove you
into the picnic table, glass pitcher first.

Week 3:

I inadvertently tell a painting that I don’t care.
The ending went badly, without warning.
Connections are exhausting.
You tell me the argument is related
to the actuality of being passive--
that pushing it back a few days is significant.
********. I made a mistake.

Punching the glove box feels good,
but my joints remain sadly in tact.
Not everything is acceptable, even if
it is presented in a container.

I suppose there’s a sense of simplicity
in calendars if you’re dead to the rest.
You hand me a list and allegro molto,
uncertainty. The chords are precisely
congruent, extensions of dissonance.

I am fascinated by the ways in which
preliminary death can be customized.

Week 3.5:

My fixation on guardrails and specific
amounts of pressure caused a cancellation
between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 PM.
I found that the more halves you add,
the softer you get.

I spend an inordinate amount of time
thinking about the steps while carefully
challenging traffic. Get of my way.
Such inconveniences of provocation.