I Saw My Body Impaled on a Goalpost

I Saw My Body Impaled on a Goalpost

a physical form of education
I rejected, having run enough
by the age of fourteen, still
running away from every
feeling I have that resembles
a crackling foundation

clouds of cigarette smoke
from the bleachers, a calling
from my people, the rejected,
the vacant stare smarties,
the bloodshot eyes that stared
me up and down, the distrusting

I saw myself with my throat slit
after returning home too late,
breaking curfew for fear of
not being sober enough after
finding the abandoned 12-pack
in the middle of the barren road

my mother tsk-ed and put me
to bed and never uttered
another word about it
and a week later we saw
ourselves through the front
windshield of a banged up LTD

in reflection only, we were
spectators and we still
speculate the moment of impact
and who survived, still see
the blood on the glass, still
feel the crash in our hearts

I saw myself running the track
again in a dream and I jumped
right over the edge of it, looking
back to see the vultures excavating
the stories behind my dead eyes;
I was so tiny back then