Joshua Keiter

The journey begins with a death
An uncontrollable heart rate 
And labored breathing if any
Wheeled out into the too warm autumn sun
Thinking it’s been a mistake
That you were faking it
Because you are a really good liar 
And nothing is as it seems
You’ve been inflicted with imposter syndrome
You can’t answer your students simple questions 
Even those on the verge of depression
Instead you think it’s a cold 
You’re taken to the emergency room 
A good excuse to not teach the next day
And they give you a shot of Ativan 
Which you remember your friends taking in grad school
When like you they have a pile of papers waiting to grade
And you go home but hours later
You’re shaking knowing you’re going to die

Because death could not be beaten
I beat death at its own game

A conversation at the top of the stairs
In the middle of the night

With a figment of the response 
To 20th century devastation

Personified as a humble pastor
Saying there’s been a lot of death going on

But what if we beat death at its own game
And that was when my brain knew

Though still addled with delusions
Of seroquel and catatonia 

That despite the fact that I was the cause
Of everyone around the world dying

God was saving every single soul
In a million tiny bubble acts of stealth

That nothing can separate us
Even a burrowing tunnel leading to the glow

Of a television snake eating its own tail
From the love that shuts our eyes in sleep

At the end of a long naked journey
That can only bring us back to where

We started in silence and ended smiling whole

Will eternity be made entirely 
of water or of sand? 

When I was barely hanging on 
burrowing into the center of the earth 

to find the ouroboros had already 
been there and devoured 

my tail I could have sworn 
the rain outside harbingered 

a flood of the end times 
when all the while the world 

was renewing itself and I 
had only a few more ordeals 

to endure before I came out 
the other side until then 

I stared into the frosted cubes 
of glass and cycled through 

my memories to safety.

I tried to build a bridge
out of the wall that kept falling 

apart and reassembling itself 
over and over like a broken record 

but it turned out there was no need 
because all around us was only 

undifferentiated matter and not even 
a gulf of polluted water to traverse 

we could make do with a leisurely stroll 
or a tin can apparatus to communicate 

even sending photographs to be developed 
on the laundry line out the window 

But when the music breaks and confetti 
litters the stage like our tears down our face

all I know is the recognition that we experienced 
the same as we together sobbing embrace.

And that’s that
No you can’t 
turn around 

in this drive thru
We’re all going 
in one direction 

and that’s towards 
a sour sugary grave 
topped with whip 

and pink powder 
taste the rainbow
and synergy of 

a billion billion 
Instagram posts
that no one will ever 

get around to liking 
only silently tagging
themselves slurping

Many times a song
gets stuck in your head 
and it’s there to stay 

Years later you may 
be thinking of a person 
you haven’t seen in years 

and they’ll appear as 
an off rhyme chord change 
and suddenly you’re 

singing falsetto to yourself 
up and down the stairs all day.
Sometimes it’s worth it 

to make up new words 
for a change, perhaps 
instead of her name 

you might substitute 
the way she smiles and turns 
her head when she sings.

If I was one for 
arriving at metaphors 
before they’ve hatched 

a kind of reverse 
Easter bunny, or 
the moment in those cartoons 

when the ACME box 
arrives and you know 
an explosion is coming soon 

I guess I would say 
were it not for the chip 
on my shoulder 

a literal micro potato chip
you would know 
I’ll always be here 

evidence both for and 
against the Big Bang
that keeps leaving debris everywhere.

I’m not sure who it was who said 
you can tell who is a true friend 

in your life by how much time you spend 
apart when you get back together 

you pick up right where you left off.
That is how it is with you and me.

It wasn’t always so. Anxious, I spent 
hours wondering what you thought of me 

when I could have been taking care of me.
It’s true you can only love others when you love 

yourself. That is how it is with most 
sayings like that, they are true because they are

true. There is plenty of time for guitars 
and mandolins and ukuleles and 

front stoops to say everything, or nothing
at all. Just being here means we’re okay,

that neither of us are lonely, if we 
don’t need or want to be.

When recovering from a trauma 
of unknown origin and indeterminate 

duration, the best you can do 
is reflect on where you were 

one year ago: this is when I awoke 
in the hospital, this is when 

I knew the seasons were changing, 
this is how the world raveled itself 

back into something resembling a shape 
outside the circumference of my head

Sometimes the thoughts are fastened down 
to the bed, catatonic and nowhere to go

Sometimes it seems the story keeps moving 
only this time you know it’s a fiction 

an unbearable episode made endurable 
only by reclaiming the pulse you were born with.