The older I got, the more frequently my mother and I would push each other to the precipice of what we actually needed to say, only to back off just … - Saeed Jones

Since no one has talked to him about such feelings, he does not know what they are. And yet he is drawn to them, to the dream-like quality of doing something he has never done before, yet knowing, somehow, how to do it.

How did other people concentrate with all these bodies just walking around all the time? So many men and boys, each with bodies to study and memorize.

"I don't watch the video
but I can feel it playing

on a loop in a room miles
away from where he keeps

dying behind my eyes. All
I have left are tiny twitches,

small choices. "Please," I beg
alone in the box of my dark,

"I don't want to hurt that way
today. I already hurt that way

yesterday. Please don't kill him
again.