The Past Hunts You

if I had the guts to open up my arm
and reverse-engineer the blood in my veins
I would strain out the gold and the god and the love
and separate them each
put one in a little jar here, and stopper the other up in a bottle
put the last one in a little cloth sack, and stash it under my bed
then I'd take a map and erase all the names of the places
and fill them in with the names of all my friends and loved ones I forgot or left behind so long ago
I could get on my bike and know where to find every one of them