nerves and muscle (anthony)

(the assignment was to write a poem including the line, "there are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background".)

no one likes us much,
this group of kids,
young, ostracized,
and what are we supposed to do with that?

if no one else will
then we will
carry each other on our backs.

eventually you stop
trying to make people look at you,
but once you start looking at yourself,
you find all the bad things everyone else has put there;
we all have those things cluttered up
inside us,
constricting our breath
giving us heart attacks
(not our bodies — the other half)

and it hurts to feel that way

so we do our utmost
to stop feeling

there are days we live
as if death were nowhere in the background,
yet furtively,
ashamedly,
we glance over our shoulders
to affirm his quiet breathing
before we open the car doors,

and we drive,
when our speed is ninety and
the visibility is zero,
and we're pushing so hard
as if striving to take flight,

and even when it landed us in the hospital,
we never told each other,
"i peeked"