"How many licks does
It take me, to sleep at the
Center, Officer?"

You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,

spend less time breathing than contemplating,
jailbreak daily from your ribcage,

harbor kitchen spoons to feed your escapism.
hide the entrance
under stale white hotel sheets.

Born to be an actress
with no script, you ponder this
in every mirror.

In every mirror you inherit this vacant body,
enough money to live in a studio apartment
in Washington, Vegas or anywhere

men would pay for three phone plans,
calf-length black socks and pseudonyms.

A room at the Marriot to trade scars,
connect you again with your skin.

At a political dinner
roasted hog, blueberry pie,
gilded knifes protecting the spoons.

Dog mouths are wet for scraps.
They bark beneath the table,

"Unoccupied bodies, should start charging rent.
Have you considered being a *** worker?"

"...Oh come on,
you never even turn on the lights."

Have you considered being a *** worker?
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than associating with your own ribcage.
You're an actress
no script, just a character summary.

Limp, age 12, non-verbal marionette.
Snaps her strings when forced to dance.
Clings to the ceiling tiles, like the shadows she hallucinates.
Let's the puppet fall numb under strangers.
Ragdoll to be used for kindling.

When you play your part
You'll inherit enough money to afford a studio apartment
in Washington, or Las Vegas; anywhere with men paid large enough salary to afford your vacant body,
three phone plans,
a hotel room for you to stay awake in
Listening to dull thuds against your wrongfully warm corpse
Invited hoping the stinging could form tendons
adhere together like rubber bands
Snap you back into your skin.
You cling helpless to the ceiling tiles
Watch the ragdoll make mistakes.

"Have you considered being a *** worker?"
A homeless woman asked me,
*"Unoccupied bodies should start charging rent.
Let a man who can afford it pay for utilities.
You might be homeless
but you won't be wasted space".

Fading asleep
Three blurry forks in the road
three of everything
Until i blink.
I crawled up out my passenger side door like a submarine hatch
lifted the heavy weight with my back
Didn't think to roll down the window

I called the band to laugh at the irony
we just wrote a song on falling asleep
crashing our car, dreaming in autumn.
In the song, I dreamed of a girl I'll never have.
But when it happened
I was dreaming of the leftover sheppards pie at home.

Swerved into a rock wall,
Kick flipped my mercury on it's side.
I wore my seat belt
woke up drivers door to the ground.

An old man stopped to warm me.
my grandmothers ghost
in his passenger seat.
offered I sit in their car
out of the cold
Until the firemen arrived.

I saw my mother's blue SUV coming
And waved for the elderly couple to part.
tears in my mothers eyes,
she hugged me tight.
The police showed
To Check out the scene.
as I was alive,
They mostly watched me.
laughing hysterically
At how prophetic poetry can be
and how lucky I have been
And how my shoulder angels are my grandmother, and a gambler named risk.

When My partner arrived she expected me crumpled bleeding.
Smiling false safety through the phone
as I bled out
But I was fine.
she stormed towards me.
her friends stepping outside the car.
her girlfriend in the passenger seat
in the fetal position.
Throwing a tantrum, because she wouldn't get to sleep with my security blanket tonight.

she held me greiving.
I felt like this was an alternate universe.
where I survived
and this wasn't the real story.

The tow truck arrived as the cops collected my Lisence,
the medical professional
okay'd me to sleep tonight.

The firemen flipped my car onto the rockwall from being sideways.
The tow truck grinded my car across the wall into metally pulp.
They collected the bits and dropped it off on my driveway a mile down the road.
my partner drove her friends home
to return to my bed later.
check i was breathing throughout the night.

My car, crumpled. Missing an eye. Looked like a corpse.
like a reminder of what should have happened.
you could feel all sorts of spirits
when I opened the trunk.
contents compacted against the left side.
when i woke up, all i saw was laughter.
At the irony.
the shock.
how many more times
I would need to die
before I perform a magic trick.
if i turned my car into powder
turned my story to a falacy.
how long before their panic attacks become a suicide?
And I'll stop seeing three of everything.

Half a million dollars moved
by political giants
say our chimera hearts
are lion about some parts
look about my parts, see fur
see teeth, see claws
Lions? that's right,
We are.

Pounce on scorn
for these gender norms
we're pressing eulogies in binary's
for transcribing our identities
to hetero70's minded
heredity enemies.
fixated on tellin' me
my parts are prescribed
like sedatives, sleepin' on it
'till I'm good and dead,
like the rest of them.

I love a lion
Son of a lion
daughter of a lion
daddy was a liar
mommy was a fighter

but I'm not lyin'
I've been rhymin' since third grade.
back than I said I was a lesbian
to try and get laid
nobody knows who they are that young
Our personalities grey
and unsung
media does an oli-oop
propaganda elected a spoof.
a Caricature opposite from any revaluation
Who was it
that wanted to watch Disney villains
start performing Macbeth
wrapped in a flag, carrying a privileged crest
white owls, burning bathroom signs on crosses
Tinder deleted her account
For the wrong parts,
used the wrong Lions stall.
They viewed her as lyin'
Aren't we all?
Aren't we fake for six months?
Jack-o-lantern carving out
new masks to try on?
The tea lights stay the same
keeps flickering sin
and shout.
If the wind blows just right,
I watch them sometimes,
burn out.

Rain forest warm,
predicting a storm,
hippos, giraffes and more
Parumping the water hole.
didn’t take us long, to slap a crown
on a fools heart.
Everything the light touches
made the lions cold.

had to many sad boys in your bed.
(To tune of: Nants ingonyama bagithi baba from: Lion king intro)

Moat of toys,
prey on canniballs,
venison visceral
Drop your bridge Shallow moat.

Midus touch,
rabbit didn't quite touch
lucky enough, your trust, bust
The weatherman cuts.
Can't fight a storm with a pack
Of lions, and djarum butts
Cool Cats don't like the water
won't splash,
might soil their tight pants
Sea captain called
old Horizen won't dance
"listen to your old man".
not worth a penny of your sand.
but if we weren't so green-headed,
A compas might save our hand
for marriage
we don't want plans
They don't understand
want to roll around with simba
Giggling in the butterflies
when they're gone, find another man.