What Returns

So now winter is a place you visit,

but don’t belong to.     You pass the time

in a room that isn’t childhood, but

does that matter?      Your mother

is still down the hall & you are still

watching men on screen break

into other men & the once snow-field

of your body becomes a flood that ruins

you each night.

You thought you were finished

with desire & what a relief. To not want

to reach outside your skin. To touch

what isn’t yours, or anything at all.

To not be a tongue in a glass jar

in an ocean.     But the pills make you

dream in oceans.

You wake up crusted with someone

else’s salt.         You become a boy

who touches the backs of stranger’s

necks in public, in love with the soft

of his own throat.

This makes every man on the train

into something that could kill you.

Don’t worry, that’s a good thing.

It means you got on the train.

It means you still have a body.