Only One Story

I’m returning to this scene like a dog

limping its way home after

being left by the highway,

look, here it comes:

the burning rooftop,

a gun in your mouth,

and the whole world

a shouting distance

from nothing at all.

This is how I like my heroes,

in the dark, locked out of

every house on the street,

broken six ways to Sunday,

this is how I like my tragedy.

This is how I like my love,

green and oozing,

that gets under your skin

and leaves someone dead

by the end of it, this is

how I like my romance.

We always end up here:

here on the asphalt,

here on the black and the dirt

where children used to

run in circles, where nothing

has changed and we’re still

children and we’re still running,

this is how I like my reminders.

Bring me back to this, always:

the airport after we’ve gotten off

the plane and realized our destination

wasn’t something waiting for us, but

something we carried around,

crawl into my ribcage

and call me home.

Jump back to the staircase

where we first made friends

with gravity by falling on

our asses, where we discovered

the banister has a way of

saving you if you grab it.

Back again to when we ran outside

to see Halley’s comet,

or every alternate reality

where we missed it,

when we were taught

the universe won’t remember

your name no matter how many

times you yell it.

Take me back to when we

put the word ‘human’ down

in the dictionary and spent

the lifetime that followed trying

to figure out what it meant -

call up the poets who searched in vain

for a definition and hand me

the phone, here is my message

if the line hasn’t already gone dead:

there is no such thing as

a proper human -

that is how I like my poetry.

There is only one story

told a thousand different ways,

this is how I like my truth.

Take it and raise it up like wine

to a recovering alcoholic’s lips.

Put it down and tell me that

wasn’t the best thing

you’ve ever tasted

in your whole

goddamn life.