There is a bending in all things
that ends where they're most comfortable.

I'm still fucking slouching.

Five years gone
a boy lost himself
crawling from aching skin
and gasping for love.

He bought into a better fitting suit
he couldn't afford,
he stood like a man,
talked as a man talks,
and cried only sometimes.

Sober and static as a stone
he wasted art like time,
married a couch,
and lost himself
slipping somehow through burning years
into my skin.

I can be a boy, too.

I can drink myself messy,
I can love without air,
I can break down to the bone
and rend my cheeks
looking for another way out of this aging skin.

I can bend into all the shapes that suit me.
To hell with being comfortable.

04/29/2018

Posted on 04/29/2018
Copyright © 2025 Matthew Zangen