Art in tired calculation in The First Life

He always has tired eyes.
The weight of day to day and a new place pulling at his lower lid.
He has freckles in the morning.
His skin gathers poor sleep and let’s it rest upon him.

His shoulders have seen sun
Hip bones like mine.
I can wrap my arms all the way around him as he towers over me…and checks to see if I’m on my toes.

He stayed up to talk.
I think he could have sat in the rain with me for as long as I wanted.
We could have listened to the world outside in silence together.

He doesn’t sleep well.
Turns and twitches.
He is the same in sleep as he is in his waking.
Constantly humming with a thousand to-do’s and restless.
You can hear the lists churning through his brain.
He doesn’t dream, but he doesn’t give himself time to.

He tells me stories that shaped him.
How he fell asleep to the NASA channel as a kid, in his dad’s girlfriend’s unfamiliar house. That he needed the comfort of noise, but being young, he could only fear, and not understand, the vastness of space.

He’s kept projects he’s made.
Pieces he’s done.
He writes things on paper.
He wants to be moved but his lists keep him rigid.
His art is in calculation.
In exaction .
In knowing where each piece goes because each piece has a home. Nothing is a guess.
He’s like a clock…
Where I’m like…a sun dial.