Prologue: Meditations Through Smoke on AdolescenceAs the end drew nigh, the school became radioactive. The wild Nova Scotian smoke blasted our sun red like rouge on a dame’s face. It burned through the window as a reminder that nothing was permanent, and everything was forever dancing away from our palms. Out of our control and into the stars, out of the streets we owned and into our parents’ electric bills. We wanted sex gross and fast, we wanted sweat, we wanted more food, more noise more music more toxins. More time together. Less quiet, because that meant that the dust would begin to settle, and we would have to come to terms with the monsters we had become.Of course, we were not monsters. Just teenagers. Our hair was getting darker when all we wanted was to be bleached to death. We were not monsters. Just transitioning, child to adult, that age when we started to see the world around us, and see that there was nothing we could do about it—so now we did our best to cope with the passive adults we would be soon. And if coping made us monsters, we would demand a world that didn’t demand coping.Something about that year was primal—the way it left burn scars and bite marks on me, wanting nothing and taking everything. Everything I had at one moment had metamorphosed, and that was the way it would be forever: metamorphosis. I thought I was somewhat wrong, cocooning when everyone else was blossoming. I knew how to be a teenager, but I took it too seriously. I wanted more sex, more noise more music more toxins, but only because I thought the world was going to implode at any second. I crashed bloodily into love only because every chance was the last chance, not because it was fun and I had nothing to lose.I would have loved to be truly reckless. Maybe that was how we got free; how we started to feel better. But I didn’t really mind living with a little fear. It didn’t matter if I lived in fear; it mattered if I continued to live with it. I knew how to be a teenager. I liked to sit on roofs and steal Absolut and chop my hair. I liked to lie and to stay out late and slouch when I walked. If there was a little fear in that, could anyone tell? We were all greedy, but not selfish. Deathly serious about everything, but never very smart. How sad it was that once we were smart, we had been extinguished. How I would have loved to be truly reckless, or just truly desperate for freedom; how time got the best of us and the passive adults we would become.j.k.d.

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My Other Brothersmake me forget I’m missing you.
My other brothers roughhouse in a way that takes me back. They remind me of a time as foreign as it is fond; a yearning. My other brothers
hit hard and hit soft, my other brothers kick rocks, kick-flip, kick off the night right with a joint and a little yellow light. My other brothers,
as foreign as they are fond;
my other brothers like an air pump on a hot night with a flat bike tire. My other brothers let me sit on their shoulders to imagine being tall
teach me pit rules
and how to dunk a basketball. My other brothers
let me in on secrets
of wood chips and buzzcuts.
My other brothers look at me straight,
not sideways,
a head cocked like I can’t be placed. My other brothers know a brother when they see him—and really all that means is crowd-surfing
earth-shaking, leaf-raking, painstaking
never ever leaving.j.k.d.

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Scarcity/Demandperhaps it's just time
slipping in oil, clocks melting,
that makes me see things
                    things like fairy dust
                    rising from your every pore
                    spell of desire
your hair, like tinsel,
glitters in the sun, silver
a cherub's harp strings
               is it losing time
               that makes me see these angels;
               skipping life to die?
is it losing time
that births desire? or the
            scarcity of love
            that breeds demand?j.k.d.

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Procession of April 20thAye! this joint be a language of love:
joints I smoked overlooking the exit
dusk had fallen and Momma’s door had shut
joints I shared after rain with friends on park benches
our child selves did not recognize us but
we saw each other
joints I smothered because the world would only right itself
once I was upside-down
joints I would swallow whole
when I had nothing better to eat
joints I would kiss
when no one wanted me
joints passed between hands, between hearts, borrowed or stolen
becomes meaningless once it enters the body
or is one with the atmosphere; who can claim to own
our smoke? our bodies, our plumes?
Aye, this joint be a language of love...j.k.d.

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EXT. INTERSTATE 84 - NIGHTI love the way the underpass looks from inside
when we’re flying through like a bullet
and the way the sharp ugly rocks shine
when the Sound kicks them up to our beachfern by the highway looks like jungle fingers
when it’s framing our blazing trail to nowhere
and you look like a fallen star, fettered
with black edgesthe frame of your car shakes when we get up
to speed, like it can barely contain us
so I don’t know if the thrill is danger
or just you in the seat beside meI love the way the underpass looks beautiful
when we’re flying through it togetherj.k.d.

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The Flower May Bringsthis lush April
like a hiccup burning my stomach
and clogging my throat
this lush abundance, trained to keep back
O, the green invasion—all the critters feasted on the foliage
blackened their bodies
sickened themselves on the flush
before May arrived.j.k.d.

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Spring Breakin that moment, the whole world seemed to orbit around the soundhole of his guitar; each note creating a new planet,
a pocketknife notch on the great oak desk of the earth. a whole home
for him and me and her
inside that guitar, I saw it,
buzzing gently like a bumblebee over a lily,
hovering midair, preparing for a safe landing, but
each note was bullied on the way down, ricochet on a branch,
disappearing into water.in that moment I felt sorry for every cigarette I’ve ever smoked, every soda opened and not finished,
every time the sun lit the chartreuse grass aflame and I did not notice. I made a vow
to the tune of his song, remembering that
every spring soon breaks.j.k.d.

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six haikus on Orion from Taconic Parkwaysome things won’t be caught
in fickle cam’ra lenses
most things won’t be caught.vanilla twilight
over espresso forest
cream clouds and choc’latesome things won’t be caught
like constellations—or you,
night ribbon dancer.much too vast, too deep,
to steal in a gasp. you are
a lifetime of breath.a sunken garden
an operatic whisper
a clock of the stars.some things can’t be caught.
they must be learned and lived with—
fallen for each night at dusk.j.k.d.

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My SisterMy sister and I have tried to kill each other so many times.
We have gotten very close to succeeding; in the womb we learned exactly where to kick, in the bedroom we shared we learned exactly which nightmares woke each other up.
My sister and I are each other’s worst enemy.
I map her path to every corner, follow her to her older friends’ birthday parties—she eats my leftovers and keeps me awake with her voice.My sister and I are not twin flames.
My sister and I are Laelaps and the Teumessian fox; eternally running, eternally hunting,
calling dibs and rock-paper-scissoring
over who gets to take the next breath. I know what she hates, but then,
I know what she loves.My sister and I have nothing in common.
If she's the North Pole, I'm South,
If she's sweet, I'm sour,
If she has ringlets I'm a head of brown bristles. My sister
hates olives. She piles them
on my plate, and I eat them one-by-one. When my sweaters
don't fit, she goes shopping
in my closet.My sister and I would not be friends
had we not been sisters—
but there is something annoying and beautiful
about my things and your things becoming our things
about you filling in the things I lack.
There is something annoying and beautiful about you, Sister,
like a bite mark from a pet cat
or a ringing ear
that sounds like music.j.k.d.

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