Countdowns are two-dimensional
Don’t mean much
at all
to me

To see pixels in formation
Spelling out through transformation
the days and seconds till I
leave

It doesn’t hit
In the right way.

It doesn’t create the right pain—
Nothing beats when hunger pangs

Draw me to the pantry
Filing down the tins and cans
and my eyes land
on

the food that my mom bought for me
My favorites all stocked constantly
Knowing that I cannot possibly

Finish

A single jar of peanut butter
Let alone its twin

Before the numbers turn to hollow eyes
Before I close my door— say my goodbyes
A half-empty jar the only prize

To show that I have been.

There was a ****** at my childhood
playground today.

Don’t worry.
Just a small one.

Fitting on the tops
of the swing set bars

Feathers shedding
on me forgetting
to remember

the simplicity

of having no perspective
in a world of countless lenses—

It seems fitting,
that I’m peering through my glasses
as they crow: Death to the masses
On the pastel purple trusses

of a world I have to leave.

I’ve a capacity for cruelty.
And I’ll be the first to say
I know
It’s wrong

To let the darkness in to play (in from the rain)
Without checking intentions
At the door.

I want

To hurt sometimes

To crush these friends of mine
Pressing efforts into dust so fine

That it’s not.

So wasteful to leave
Hard-earned apples in the sun

Just to prove
They’re yours to rot.

But I do.
I leave them blue.

And in those seconds while the wasps descend
I think I finally understand

You.

Goodwill ate all of yesterday
(**** my indecision.)

But I left with 3 dollars of fresh-spun grey
So
In a way
I’m winning.

It clings to me the way you did
But softer—immune to leaving

the contours of my waist
the curves of even breathing

Cotton oughtn’t
Outlive you but
It does—what can I say

Synthetic suits me
More than cruelty—
But not a day goes by

That I don’t bare my skin
(Breathe the fibers in)
Not so gently-used

And slip into the sweater
I wrought from spare change
Wishing it was you.