These Small Tragedies

1.

I want to challenge
the cost of carelessness,

send away sordid sentiment
of anniversaries, and

calculate the space between sorrow and regret.

I close my eyes
and attempt to eat fire.

This is how you must have been,
eyes closed, legs slowly spreading,
smell of sterilized instruments and cotton.

How could you lay so still?


2.

My thoughts are maps now
I scan each continent,
looking for forgiveness;
I am absent minded,
I get side tracked somewhere
around Antarctica, I slip
into the mathematics of memories,
the geometry of bodies,
the algebra of longing,

All subjects I failed in school.


3.

I have a mission to trade shoes with you.
I envision the doctor, her warm latex hands
and her exactness, her soporific voice.

She is telling me to relax.
She is telling me to relax.

Brien James Dawson is a pirate and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He was Crazy Horse in a past life. Besides writing, he enjoys sword fighting, re-defining the way we socialize young men, and day-dreaming about fucking Sylvia Plath.