therapist, exorcist

You return to me.

You find funny ways to do it–
first the keys, next the tarot,
then the shivers up
and down my spine:
you always return to me,
the only constant

your death

Today you manifest
in front of me
in the chair in my office.

You use a different name,
wear a different face,
but I sense you in the thinness
of biceps, the lankiness of form,
the rigidity of your frame,
both living and dead

I could find your body in the dark

I know who you are despite
the name your new mouth carries.
Maybe you manifest
as who you could have been
if you hadn’t grown into a poet
who liked the taste of gun metal

He tells me he is haunted,
demons enact punishment

are we put on this earth to pay for misdeeds
are we meant to suffer

He tells me he is too symptomatic to work to eat
                (the thinness of those limbs)

And if you were here, I could feed you:
and if you were here, would you have taken
what you needed?

Will I always carry and ponder your hunger?
What will it take to feed you, boy whose appetite was only satisfied
on gun metal and blood and brains? Candles? Tea?  Time
Tattoos              Chocolate        Writing                        Donations
Walking
Walking?

What will it take
to fill your belly

What will it take?