DIAGRAM :: Kevin Oberlin

2 POEMS

Kevin Oberlin

MAL

Situation	Automatic Thought	Physical Response	Emotional Response	Cognitive Distortion	Changed Thought
back on Shadow, but that was before the war	no longer my world	press my forehead to the margins, fly low	silence where survival’s concerned	and faith in ownership	lots of rocks look like home
a sack of money for a crate of goods, an exchange of containers	where we keep our bodies and what it felt like to inhabit them	I would most certainly like you to touch me	maybe with nostalgia	the package travels because we carry it	exchange is not change, but constant motion
what you break down, what you build	a family	your own quarters, your own bunk, your own cut	except when I conjure otherwise	a thing with roots can’t be moved, that’s the point	and I am in constant motion
fog and fuck sound mighty similar to my ear	maybe you should see what it feels like	I’ve kept some of your things in a trunk	not knowing you’re in love, a stronger thing by far	but why admit it?	skin, only a middle layer
shot in the shoulder again	take a bullet, you take someone’s burden off	also, it hurts	if I recover, expect me to get a few things off my chest	the tight pants improve my range of motion, asshole	don’t make me turn this ship around
bar fight	careful what you say next	a brown shirt, a brown coat	patience isn’t a virtue, she’s a bitch	fighting keeps the dust down	with my shoulder blades I know if I’ve got help behind me
in the black, what don’t matter comes clear	we’ll stop for supplies and make what repairs we can afford	to keep flying	like a crate buoyed by its cargo	life makes its own self interesting, bullet by burning bullet	you take the battle with you

WASH

Situation	Automatic Thought	Physical Response	Emotional Response	Cognitive Distortion	Changed Thought
I wake in our warm bed laughing	two bodies too far above any ground	grip the bed sheets, cocoon in the folds of your arms	something you said to assure me once, "Cover me."	as I attempt to balance our difference	the stars blink out behind our cumbersome shadows
your voice in my head makes me pilot of still spaces	if the water is empty, why seek a captain?	float like bodies do	loneliness, a myth space perpetuates	my fist against the chest of another	if I want to see you wear it, do the laundry
the way a leaf spins as it descends, crafting its erratic fall	where there isn’t any wind, there’s intuition	rudder right	people drop their baskets, look up at the sky	even a cloud, weighted with grief, desires the fall	a cyclone peppers the sky with leaves
when I’m driving I need for you to keep quiet	a car is a crude metaphor for flying	jam on the brakes, let the tires ejaculate gravel across the highway	sunlight transforms vapor into starlight in your hair	inability to wax romantic in light of certain facts	your arm across my chest when I stop suddenly
if you glue the dinosaurs to the dashboard, they will stop speaking	you love me because I give everything a voice	leave my toys where you could trip on them	adaptation necessitates movement	I am triceratops, and I want my food token	is the bond between our hands of earth or water?
after the evening is over, I will drive you home	our home	flip three switches, flood the trees with footlights	causes them to shiver	what was that you said just now? just before the breeze kicked up?	leaf on the wind

"Mal" and "Wash" are based on characters from Joss Whedon's Firefly. These poems owe a debt to the innovation and input of [Leah Nielsen], who first incorporated charts from Margaret A. Caudill's Managing Pain Before It Manages You into poems.