cribnotes for paradise's tribunal

by KJ Hays

lay it out. lay out all of the blood.
take no wrists with your earnest savagery.
go alone.

tell about the fat girl nice enough
to hump you on the edge of a futon.
tell 'em it fell over. tell 'em
you said lean & she leaned & the
two of you didn't budge a single inch
like witnesses to a drive-by stabbing.

love the others there.
love their wound up guts out.
love them with lies from your
past. the good ones that use
words such as happy/love/please/
i/do/promise/joy/years/finally.
weep the tears not possible
when you were alive because
of numbness & coin & quiet.
weep 'em on her shoulder hard.
sob them on his shoulder hard.
cry long after they walk off.

do not take their shit about
opening up your body to play
the rows of golden harp strings.
crumple to signal your wholesale
emotional shutdown for your time
in the wheelchair, for your time
being called a callous monster,
for your time going so so cold,
for your time when no one kept
their broken trust with you for
a short while until their car &
pancakes lives came down soft &
sticky all over the conversation.

pant under the hot scrutiny of
their disgust at your not crucifying
yourself, at your not starving yourself,
at your not marrying the first thing to
fuck at you, at your not listening when
the one tender voice wanted to help you
& all you did was get mad for having to
wait for your inner ear to stop wiggling.

hold your hands to them. show 'em the
cuts from the dishes, from the weights
in the yard, from the broom handle, from
the rats you tried to keep; from the slips
with the hammer, from the fingernails that
wanted you awake way past two in the morning.
tell 'em they can take that line of yellow
wires and shove it around their necks until
their big bloated lips match the night sky.

fail, at your goal of resting, by greeting death in your bed &
you should be able to sneak by the way the promise that this
will not hurt disburdens you of the fact that pain is all the time.
lay yourself out. lay yourself down softly under the snuggle covers.