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[he-breathes-butterflies]

“The Boy, 2″ by Tannar Crossman

Trevor sang disturbed silence, and when he reached the forte his nervous voice opened up on the part of the song he knew well. And I remember that's when I started paying attention again,

and I remembered the day after Alex died and we all sat in choir class. I remember I had never heard 70 high schoolers so silent, a pin prick spine chill I could never show you. I remember sitting next to Zander and Collin and Nash among the basses, and thinking about what they must be feeling, and I remember thinking how confusing the chain of events was. One of the most well-liked kids I knew was dead and Thursday didn't feel like Thursday. I remember being shuttered, being struck against that wall in the back, working our way through songs like automaton, like automatic, a string of words and pitches.

I remember a few days later in gym class when he wasn't standing in the way of my locker or saying “Oh, sorry, my bad." I remember thinking he was a pretty cool kid. I remember I was playing Call of Duty on the first snow-day I had ever witnessed in Montana when I checked Facebook to see people posting things about Alex,

scrambling to check on all the Alexes I knew, going to the memorial service, hearing a lot of people speak about someone who, all things considered, I didn't really know, and leaving for State Speech and Debate, being so distracted on the bus and not knowing why.

But most of all it is the silence of that choir room I remember, the silence of that school, so unsure of how this sort of grief worked, sitting in AP English not caring about the assignments I didn't do, and my teacher standing in front of the class, excited, on Tuesday, about Faulkner.

And I remember I saw her eyes shine and I felt dizzy, and she said “Faulkner isn't important today. He will be tomorrow, but not today.” And going outside, building snowmen, a snowball fight despite what the rules had to say about it.

Because those snowballs were like God, and we needed them. Because something had to break that sleep and rock us, even if it felt icy cold and stung a little.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide / No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette” by Tannar Crossman

Who would design a lighter so that it burned your fingers if you held the flame too long? This Scott guy died earlier this week, can’t say I knew him. Crazy sound, though… God, sometimes you forget—you live in a valley so long and then one day you look up and there are mountains. It‘s crazy, people in big cities write home over what Blodgett Canyon looks like on a clear summer morning, and here I am thinking it looks beautiful, sure, but I’ve seen better. I remember last September and driving to Taco Bell. I pulled over because I realized I could see the mountains again; I forgot how much I missed them. I took a picture; I was like “holy shit, I can see the mountains, what a fucking miracle…” There is smoke now too, hence the lighter. My breath burns the wings of the eagle I’m holding in my hands, and I’ve gotta laugh because the package says “organic tobacco.” Like, thanks, now I don’t have to worry about those nasty carcinogenic pesticides in my cigarettes—what the fuck? It’s funny, though, you gotta admit. What they won’t do to sell us some poison, amiright? Cheers! *sink* I think I washed this out. Either way, I’m willing to bet you any money that whatever is left in this glass isn’t as bad as what I’m going to drink out of it. Here’s looking at you, Kid! *clink*

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Redemption Maddie” by Tannar Crossman

I’m always glad when we skip Christmas morning Mass. In high school I was the only one who went to church. Before I could drive I would walk a mile or more to get there. Source and summit Doug used to say of the Eucharist. I remember a few months before I stopped being Catholic I told a friend I could never stop being Catholic because of how important the Eucharist was to me, and it really was important to me. That’s a funny thing, how quickly things go from being important to no longer mattering, like what is precious in life is balanced on a thin, wooden plank, suspended over a cliff, and, when you get close enough to try and reach it, the plank snaps.

I remember watching a short film where a young girl was trying to get pregnant. You see, when she was younger she was watching her little brother, only she wasn’t paying attention and he fell in the pool in the backyard. And the only way in her mind to forgive herself, to be forgiven this destruction was to bring new life into the world. So she had sex with a bunch of boys and none of them cared much about her, like she was offering a free service or some shit. But this one kid had a crush on her or something, and when she had the baby he asked her “What do we do now?” And she looked him in the eye and said “This isn’t for you.” And the film ended. Anyway, it’s strange the things we do for family, like memorializing a 15-year old Indian boy with a padlock I locked to the bridge as if it was a monument to Christ’s sacrifice. Or the padlock on my backpack I found the night I helped my little brother pack for his first year of college. Like going to Christmas morning Mass when you don’t want to, shuffling past Father Jim after he lays a single hand on your shoulder in blessing, walking past your youth ministers without taking the Sacred Blood.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Paper Lantern, 19 / Dialogue at a Stone” by Tannar Crossman

Today I say that I should go and stop dialoguing at this stone- sided house we’ve built out of bodies and lives and times when I never said I loved you. Hammering tiny glasses in this frame. It’s stupid the way we fail in these things; I still don’t tell my brothers I love them.

I’m sorry I missed your birthday. Wow, 19. No one can stop you now. I wonder how tall you are, taller than the ground that came up and swallowed you when I barely knew you but somehow loved you so much I fell down on the stairs; it’s stupid this rhyme scheme is what high schoolers do when they don’t know real poetry.

What, don’t you have anything to say? My God, you always were quiet, and this rock seems to sit in your throat and my gut and… Damn. I don’t have anything to say either.

Catch ya on the flipside, Kid— And you would never wanna be “Kid,” but fuck it. You went and left this restaurant, stuck us with the bill, so I’ll call you what I want. Kid, kid, kid, kid, kid!

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Oh, and a comic about chaos and discord” by Tannar Crossman

I walked into River Park at midnight, dead winter.

Trails were slippery then,

but even in the ice and snow I knew where to go.

I walked as defiant to the moon,

through brambles growing over the path,

branches laid bare of any leaves they might have had.

There was a washed out area some way in;

some people had built stick huts there.

One time a friend and I hid in one of those huts.

She wandered off on whim into the woods, and

when we noticed we followed, but she hid.

I was pretty pleased when I found her first,

I saw the huts and I knew, I said, she would,

and she did and when I found her we decided to play sardines.

You ever play sardines?

It’s like hide & seek, except there is only one person hiding.

When you find them you hide with them from the others.

We did this a while and then upped the stakes.

We decided to evade the other two and get back to the cars unspotted.

I gotta say, we thought we were pretty great, bushwhacking through the undergrowth,

until we got back to the cars and realized Marcus just left.

He just left, just went home, leaving Nathan waiting for us.

He was angry; irrationally he had worried that Hollie was lost

(in a park where I am certain no one has ever gotten lost).

Perhaps we should have all known then what we know now,

that his patronizing hand would form the basis of any relationship they had,

a man frustrating in his inability to let anyone drive.

But on this night I am not headed for the huts in this clearing.

A little ways beyond there was a crop of young trees and in them was a circle of stones,

impossible to see, stumbling around with a phone screen as a flashlight.

Finally I found it, and I stood there looking at this section of a medicine wheel that someone somewhere had once built for some reason,

and I wondered why I had come here.

Hollie had said that day, when we found this place,

that we would have to come back and write some poetry,

which was strange because she doesn’t really write poetry;

she writes prose and makes watercolor paintings

of the characters she writes about in her stories.

But I stood there wondering if I had anything to write,

if I should try. I sat down on a snowy rock and regretted it instantly.

I pulled out my phone and began typing something,

typed some lines, but at some point it was cold,

and I thought why the fuck am I doing this. I

can write all of this at home and it isn’t cold.

I fished through my backpack for my lighter.

I took a deep draw and looked down at the medicine wheel.

And I laughed because I was standing by a medicine wheel smoking cigarettes,

And you gotta admit that’s pretty funny,

So I said my body is my temple and walked away.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Kat: For the eyes of the / cruel time keeper” by Tannar Crossman

8 I dance from my room this morning singing birds, like let the weather have its way with you, like life goes easy on me most of the time. I take my flour-white candy 1 2 3 4 5. 11 Shooting star that you might be, that’s just a fancy word for fireball, and the ground don’t care much what you call yourself. 3 River rise hard in the spring and falls now like a season itself Rock done threw itself off, I swear; I ain’t had nothing to do with it. Poor bastard was just there, then he fell Water came up and swallowed him, honest.

3.5 A man drawing something saw me throw the keys as far as I could into that damn river. When Jesus arose Golgotha could never again be a place of death 6.5 farewell my black balloon let the weather have its way with you dancing this time feels like falling. Jump start this shit, the shadows have cables in their hands— 1 2 3 4 5 sweet as candy. 8.5 Old hack-shack could never stand the wind; fuckin’ hurricanes coming in here like they own the place. Za Zdorovie! 6 2.5 7 8 9 Stings my cage, my oh my, stings my hands, my arms— not a drop, not a drop. Mark these pages, grimy finger prints for the next holder.

3 10 11 vodka bathe the arms, sterilize. There are new lines to memorize, but was there enough for the pages? 8 It was never designed for this. Shooting star that you are, the ground don’t give a fuck. This ship wasn’t made for that; the fuck were you thinking?

** I usually wouldn’t interject my own interpretation or intention into a poem, but this one seems to lose people quite often, and I’m quite stumped about how to come across more clearly. I am trying to depict the ways in which mania/hypomania impact decision making, specifically the indulgence in high-risk behaviors which often accompany these episodes. In this case the main speaker is getting hammered. I’m trying to track the way in which an emotional high can quickly turn into a low for someone who is bipolar, especially when using substances. There are multiple speakers, but they all relate back to the original speaker. The main speaker exists in a specific time and space and the poem follows that time. The numbers separating stanzas are hours of the day (starting at 8:00 AM one day and progressing until 8:00 AM the next day). So when outside speakers interject it is meant to reflect the main speakers emotions at that stage of the day or to reference the speakers activities (which aren’t super important until he starts drinking), references to a ship are references to the speakers mood, the river is real (and not). The outside voices also reflect a sense of detachment from reality which isn’t uncommon for those experiencing mania; they are literal voices in his head, though they are not delusional, more of an internal dialogue, but by giving them direct voice in the poem I’m trying to push forward the sense that the main speaker isn’t thinking logically. Numbers within stanzas represent either drinks or pills (the kind the speaker is supposed to be taking). If you have any advice on how to get all of this or some of this across in a way which doesn’t involve a lengthy explanation, I’d really appreciate it. Just DM me.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Greta Wrolstad” by Tannar Crossman

“At the river’s first bend we come ashore. And on that shore, stones Smooth, diminishing stones.”

I wonder about Greta; to die at age 24 is no small thing, and one must ask how as much as one asks why. A life so short produced that line, and I must say it was better than the poem I wrote about killing a squirrel. He had it coming, don’t get me wrong, little bastard was scaring my dog something fierce from that old cottonwood, Cottonwood: I’ve been thinking about trees a lot lately, how lonely it must be to live so long and how sad it is that we must murder them just to know how old they really are;

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Fragment 122517″ by Tannar Crossman

How much has been built and destroyed so this cold concrete set could stand. Hundred-year-old wood vault ceilings, the front part of which is the Earth, the air of which is strangled quiet into hundreds of opaque vessels.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Fragment 020718″ by Tannar Crossman

Out damn spot. It won’t go, Lump. It won’t. Language has used me. Goodbye.            It’s all bullshit. We are told of a loving, merciful God, but it will not go. I have nothing productive to put here. Language has used me. Is it useful, It has used me with language.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Flowers, 2″ by Tannar Crossman

Flowers for you, my friend, though you do not want them, though they will put roly-polies in the beds of your nails.

I should have given you wine or proper Ramen, little elephant statues, maybe a book you'd never read this book anyway, is too long for me.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Flowers, 1″ by Tannar Crossman

Flowers for you, mother, In this cruelest of months, Though not the kind you wanted.

I should have bought you teacup roses Instead of pushing daisies on you like this. I wish I had planted a garden with you. Purple potatoes, Frankenstein watermelon, or failed attempts at cilantro.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Flag Girl / don’t climb on glory road” by Tannar Crossman

She preceded the others by several minutes, in the shadows of buildings stretching giants, the great silver curve of a hall built to the fast of the lane and the and the shouts of rude white men holding beer.

She wore a cape like a banner on the back of a people, like a bird caught in the wire, like tempest tossed, like when lambs become lions, like don't tread on me, like roy gee biv, like

She was young, younger than I am, younger than my brother is. She was wearing purple chucks. She was a march and a cry and a war and she was a girl and she was a sign from god and a storm and she was / and I think that light changed just for her, / monolith sub-five/five

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Eric: must declare war with every step he takes (fragment 040218)” by Tannar L. Crossman

War on the vehicles beneath your knees, the tireless bipedal motor that drives you, your teeth, your nails, your very air into what you are.

Cry warmonger to the path they say walk this way, walk in the alleyways of youth, in the melting snow that you know, kicking chunks of ice like Maradona —Hand of God

And curse the feet which find you by this dinged-up royal dumpster, which find you is seedy dives a 3:00 PM. Cry war. Are you still now playing soldier boy? Do you not know what waits for you in the valley! They will have you, and have you emptied of your heart, before them unseamed.

You live by the—

you die by the—

[he-breathes-butterflies]

"04/01/18" by Tannar L. Crossman

Grass wakes from snow like Rip, 20-year winter nap, shaking its sleep, stretching tiny grass arms like that tree over there stretches through its eroding soil out over a only half-thawed river.

I need to write you a poem about dying things struggling to appreciate their other dying things while they and those things are still living, but I cannot. How do we say the lions will take the young and leave the old to time? At this point the mud slides the grass under thunderfeet, so, the rocks, for once, can see the hazy clouds and sigh half-happy to breathe, half-depressed because there is no sun today. My grandparents’ bones are not the bones they were when the tree still stood next to the river. My flesh is not now renewable, and it is not the flesh it was when we ate salted nut rolls and bought cheap Matchbox cars from the King's in Dillon. In some places the rocks do not see clouds, and the grass has no arms; the mud is useless. What sediment there is tastes only jet air.

[he-breathes-butterflies]

You picked up a gun as if it were a hat

Today's title comes from the poem "Scratch Music" by C.D. Wright. In the poems she is addressing Frank Stanford, her lover who shot himself four times in the chest, committing suicide, in 1979. The full sentence is:

"But you, you bastard. You picked up a gun as if it were a hat and you were leaving a restaurant: full, weary, and thankful to be spending the night with no one."

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“the car was a car” by Tannar L. Crossman

Dear W.

this place is on fire I lean over the railing and exhale a little ash into the atmosphere and I bite my tongue smoky mountain fire song apocalypse all that jazz trumpet couldn’t save this sorry place low-lying smooth sax no W. this place is on fire

He said that the fact no one died on his side was points for them points for them points as if this was fucking game

W. what has happened here?

the valleys and rivers of our youth are like battlegrounds the medic at the scene ended with so yeah because what was he supposed to say after and she died

people screamed W. screamed

they say there will be more is it small of me to say I am scared because these people will not stop and I will not stand by not while they are here

over there is probably different or the same I saw a map today of the most racist countries in Europe there were a lot of racist countries in Europe there’s a genocide in Myanmar did you know W. bastard Duterte is killing people in the Philippines Syria’s bad too Chechnya… Chechnya the other day a boat that went to the Mediterranean to stop people saving migrants needed saving itself at least I know there is some justice shit

Jesus, she told him someone died

he stood there and said it was a success and she told him someone died and he said that he thought a lot more people would die before the end Jesus

Jesus he said that these people wanted violence and they were meeting market demand fucking asshole

many sides however you look at a man when they force him to his knees and put a bullet in his mouth it still looks like a man forced to his knees with a bullet in his mouth many sides my ass

today I saw a comic a Korean War veteran and a WWII veteran were reading the newspaper and the headlines read War with North Korea and Nazis in the streets the Korean War vet looks at the WWII vet and says what year is it Joe

how did we get here W. how did we ever get so bad were we always this bad could I just have missed the swastika tattoos beneath their clothing could I have missed the Confederate flags they kept in their houses I suppose I could have I wasn’t really looking for them

we are only human W. we are a small piece of a big universe and this is a big world with small people we are only human sometimes I’m just not sure that’s enough they say we are mightier together mighty W.

but Jesus fucking Christ what an awful mess all I have is a voice twisted lie we must love one another or die bright light of shipwreck air of atrocity if it is true we must do these things we must cut our throats voice

it may be time for bed now W. it may be how do we sleep with the smoke Hollie and I drove back from Missoula today and the fires must have flared up to our right we could see the sun setting, but in front of us it was pitch black I could see the smoke obscuring trees a hundred yards away how do people sleep with the smoke I can’t see the stars tonight but wise men tell me they are above us still a bit of an empty metaphor isn’t it

I exhale some more ash and tamp out the coals I’d toss it over the edge there is enough fire now there is enough sleep

[he-breathes-butterflies]

“Dragonfly Dance” by Tannar L. Crossman

We came out of the smoke by Divide divide my time in half this is the valley of my youth the true valley of my youth I remember catching tadpoles in the pond up by John's cabin and I remember cleaning the ditches dozens of fishes, plucked from puddles veritable slaughter

but that was back toward Wisdom, wisdom such a big name for a place filled with so few people, so much life and sure they had some, and yet I think they voted red not that that's bad, you understand, just your priorities sometimes

my cousin used to live in this town, mountains above an interstate before he moved to the rich hill next to that bloody poisoned pit my cousin’s getting married tomorrow

but first it's been a year since my cousin's husband blew her away, laid her down, before wasting himself by the kitchen sink full of emotions and someone blocked the drain turned the valve, spilling over now drowning

you know my mom still forgets how to breathe when she tells my grandmother this is why we can't stay and my grandma still struggles with this, her voice still shakes, matriarch immovable that she is she was like a daughter, was a granddaughter, shit

you know the smoke isn't helping any can't even keep these tiny vampires back about half an hour now smile for some cameras, and we will be heavy and we will breathe through this damn immolation and we will walk my stars how we will walk.