Carnelian

No one swindles the Circus Ringmaster
No one can see into the house from the outside
The Jack Russel can jump four feet high
There is black ice on the walk way and an evergreen over head

It's his job to destroy Babylon, he said
And I feel safer around schizophrenia-talkers
than Jive-turkeys
Hiding, reading books, talking with the priest and the lawyer
and the woman from the death metal band in San Francisco

Angry burners, east coast burners, orange semi-precious stones
bursting purple in front of my eyes
Flat anterior, pressed, he holds and shakes two knots where the wings
would have been torn from my back if I were an angel like the pictures on
ceilings in Rome
scars from when I wept

-- Angry hurtful angels in fountains, harming each other, harming for entertainment
Holding the swan by its neck?  Remember?

Jolting the knots between his fingers, shaking them to mimic their vibration
A low hum bass drum
"I didn't see her, but she was there two feet away from my drum getting off
and I always listen when older people, especially women tell me something..."

Someone hurt you; I'm listening
You didn't deserve it.  You haven't healed.
You didn't deserve it.  You're a good person.
You need to honor that.

It's highly emotional and no doubt physical.
Very physical.  This is real.

I sit on the toilet and watch him shower as he slips into fake Patois.
very fake.
I watch him pace on the porch, checking his phone.
I watch him look up his favorite hip hop songs on the computer.
I watch him watch me test out the new work out equipment.
I watch him shake a sleeping cat from his coat.

Why are you talking like that?  Why are you so nervous, why is this song so sad?
Why are you training so hard, and why didn't we see him climb in there?

Why am I here?  Why did you go away?  Why is there so much distance everywhere at all times?
Why the space?  Why the silence?

She is in her office talking to me over the phone, describing her perspective from paradise, from the world wires.
I tell her, this is hard for me because I don't know what happened; all I can describe is the
aftermath.  Backtracking, she sums it up.  She tells me what my role was.  She interjects a piece of the puzzle that I need to hear again and again, which is 'never again.'
She advises me not to listen to advice.

It's the best advice I ever took.