elixir of life

i have drank so many televisions
in the dark. sleeplessness used to be
so much more intimate.
i would crawl down a ladder 
into my mother's mouth. that was 
when my father walked the monster 
all night long. there we would
drink the elixir of life together. 
her feet like fresh stones. my eyes,
quarters in a well. i understand why
men have been strangling trees
for centuries in search of a youth potion.
i do not think we want to live forever.
i think we want the old glow. the bruise 
alive & sugared. the way each moon 
used to brush our hair. sometimes i still
wake up in the middle of the water.
i think of calling her. asking her if
she remembers the box tv. if she remembers
when the two pine trees who peered in
the window at us. if they are still ghosts
walking outside & brushing their heads
against the starscape. i follow a "90s/2000s"
nostalgia instagram page. i look at it
much more than i should. i don't even
think i want to go back. i want all of 
that smallness to be here & now. 
to be carried like a little bean in the palm
of the story's hand. i follow in the traditions.
i gulp down whatever flowers i can. an infomercial
long & stumbling. the windows, open.
my mother with a birthday cake face.
the filling, birds. the pine trees, cut down long ago.