Attachment Issues

Grim Reaper Makes A Friend

i miss what i cannot have
now that i know you
were here all along
a fresh, clean break of dawn
unbridled futures
the peacefulness of past ignorance
movie nights and instant ramen at age fifteen
so soft, no need to lose your baby teeth
stirring a flavor packet into a pre-made bed
sleeping with abandon
barefoot on the bicycle path in summer
headphones as catalogues of possibilities
a subtle dance.

then, the first odd passing
a slippery slope
buzzword bee extinction
hashtag firing squad goals
now, buying snake oil based lubricant
at a trade show-and-tell
just to feel something
tagged faces of friends 
in missing person posters
public wailing made possible by
tiny, yellow, teary-eyed, decapitated heads
lined up as a stand-in funeral crowd
underneath the first obituary of the week.
i miss papercuts.
unpaid and armed medical bills 
chasing children into cul-de-sacs
i am haunted by aunts telling nieces 
to give grandpa a kiss
i imagine their little mouths 
getting sucked into a wrinkle
flying all the way into the future
where they have to pick up 
every single thing
at the baggage claim
and then just live
wherever they can get to
with all that weight.

i followed you here
after i found the worm hole 
in the last bloody knee
of my childhood.
i liked the way your robe
was moving in the breeze
i followed its sway through the years
never asked about your job or age
or first memory
only to find now, as the wind is picking up
that there is 
nothing to hold on to 
underneath.

Attachment Issues

The cocoon attaches itself to the left ventricle. 
I attach myself to the idea of change. The evening
attaches itself to a warm kind of rain 
in which my sticky, molten thoughts
attach themselves to someone’s silken sleeve. 
We, too, must become liquid memory
for all hell to break loose
transmute violently
from one tender to another
to firmly shake the days 
off our crinkled wings
eyespots
and feelers. 
I attach myself to the idea of
community 
or communion?
I forget which one slows the startled shaking
the waves of rapid palpitations
ba-dum ba-dum
not far from rupture
dirtying the night with fear. 
Dawn 
attaches itself 
to an unmade bed
slithers right under the sheets
burrows and nuzzles.
I sleep until the clacking of 
the radiator wakes me. 

It echoes as eddies and ripples 
multiply the midnight blue
air bleeding through the edges of the ceiling
expand until I am all reverb
all wet
practically soaked
drenched 
arms salty and akimbo
flutter
floating off on delay. 

Come 
sit with me
and all I have to offer
a handful of sugar water
a cup of overripe plums
a slice of orange
a spiral for a mouth
an average lifespan
a small dry berth
neighboring a rainstorm
until the next door cracks open
in the swaying chamber 
pop
that is
the heart. 
Death Star

I’d appreciate if I could wake up Wednesdays
wanting less out of existence
you know, just do less pesky wanting.

I have almost no outlines left 
to color inside of
since I have been all push
a blur of shove
all battering ram and 
overflowing 
tenderness. Now, 
when I do my daily tearletting for health
the water just goes everywhere.

Every single 
small sore cell 
reaching out
to break through the skin 
head first
to leap over the finger-steps
hastily taking two at a time
flailing about
stumbling along 
the ridges of these thighs' moon craters
to gain speed and 
hurl themselves 
towards the atmosphere
of somebody else's death star

immediately burning up on entry.


I’d also be fine with Thursdays or Fridays.

*****

Anna Kohlweis is a bilingual (English/German) writer and interdisciplinary artist based in Vienna, Austria.