When the Body Says No but You Can’t Stop Swallowing

^{—after “On Being Suicidal” by b: william bearhart}

From twenty yards away the adult megaplexxx sign 
looks like a crescent moon stuck on its beetle back.

On the bus I use my fingernail to etch figure eights 
into a Styrofoam cup. The mean idea of vanishing 

myself is a seed I can’t unplant. A stranger tells me 
her kidney stones ache. Every flaw in the road 

rattles her like a handful of glass. I pine for
that gorgeous myth of childhood. How I lost 

good sleep worrying over watermelon seeds. 
Thought they’d gut sprout, impale upwards, straight 

through god’s windshield. The thought of being
dead returns unwelcome as a landlord. 

In Colorado I pushed two motel beds together,
left the door wide open. Anything to be held

and unrecognizable. Regarding wellness 
checks: I cut into a forearm length of bread,

finessed the knife like a violin bow. I tried 
to convince that angry cop I never swallowed,

then threw up in his back seat. Had instead 
he been my father opening, for me, a door—

not out but towards somewhere tender. Had he
held me there, so I might practice delight.