8: Eight Intrusions: Adolescence

Originally written on July 23, 2017, “Adolescence” is the eighth part in a series of eight. All images in the sequence originally captured at Yosemite National Park.

Just how
old are you?
When you have
the visions then
when that tinnitus
returns and
draws blood then?

These calendars
years old still
speak openly:
of what moon
do you fall?
From what night
are you covered?
Of what position
do we find the hiding?
Obscure camera
derived.
Persona obscura.

Placing items
mutely upon
cliff of shadow or
shadow of ledge
littered with
jumping, and
thoughts of
invincibility.

Wreckage breathes.
The language
of purple silks.
Tampered bondage
shredded all told.
Tempered resolve
licking like dry.

Parse through
alternatives.
Or
pass through
alternatives.
Or
pause through
alternatives.

Destruction.
Abandonment.
Superficiality.
But nothing hits
the way the boy
hits and the way
the boy does it
it hurts and bleeds
that scrape still
a scrape persistent.

Gull meat to maw
mellowing in
the ache of heat
along and in every
context: the bells
of childhood sound
and the brightness
is a ruinous spell.