I Hate Asking for Help and Approval

I do not believe myself. But I will call to you as I hang
on the gray wire line, suspended somewhere
between the old oak cabin and your gimcrack house.

I will wrap my fingers around your metal voice, an electric
pulse blinking strange and bright above the dusty
slices of trees and the bowing curve of the hillside.

Beneath my dangling feet is the hollow lake – in it
the silent, flat liquid of sweat, heat, and piss. I can see
the thousand faded hairs of past campers
knotted into a thin floating net,
turning silver with every toll of five-o-clock thunder.

Is it hateful, my asking?

If I slide down, the wire will cut through my palm, and
my fingers will burn, fray, and bleed.
But I am too weak to climb the long way up

The water’s thin oil film shimmers with the wings of insects.
It is a window for the forgotten things
settled deep beneath. I do not want to break it

Though I cannot stay as I am.