COMPLETE

How about a space-a a
vac vv
Vacuum?

a
vacancy f
for me to
t
Try something?
Talk. To as
to ask you wh
to ask a question about
why yo
why you, during those school years,
browbe
browbeat me in the schoolyard,
your knuckles churning
my cheekbones into a purple-blue egg.

Le
let me answ
let me tell you
words now spear
into my tongue. Una
unable to shoot strai
shoot straight out.

Let me ans,
gi
give me time

li
looking at m
looking at me you wouldn’t kn
know this about me. Th
That I sti
still clutch those days
in my fist. Ju
Just like you dinn
didn’t always sh sh
show
how you sin
Sing?
how you would single me out,
silence me in dirt and chain link.

I I
I know I soak up
a lot of patience—I
I’m not what you thou
what you thought of whe
thought of when you said
you wanted a friend who ma
made you hang onto every word.
If you g
If yo
I
if you g
Go?
if you give me a few more
seconds than others, I co
What?
Please I
Please I know what I wan
what I want to say. I kno
I know you don’t fe
don’t feel the sa
feel the s

Troy Varvel is a MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he is an assistant editor at Crab Orchard Review. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Barren, The Cape Rock: Poetry, and Yemassee, among others.