I think of all the air I’ve breathed
Happily ******* it in to the maximum, and then
That time he forced it down
Swallowed my “no” with his tongue
Both instances equally oxygenated

Why are the somber, sober selections always
unequivocally deeper in their loveliness
Scathing crisscross critique
Harsh words cannot dampen my fire
Hot and smoky I inhale

Steaming in this teepee from my fourth grade field trip
some re-creation of real civilization
absent was the metallic machinery
I long for stars brighter than
Plastic Hollywood

Ten and I convinced your mother I had died in a car crash
The first instance of my violent imagination
My conscience, sloth like, inverted blame
Like a sock turned inside out
I wished what I said was true

Years later I started the slow process of intentionally dying
Stupid girl I was. Unoriginal like the others
Only sewed up my holes. They asked me if I had a plan
Spitefully silent and still
I did not reply because I did not care to

The rolling hills of my temper
Emerged as I exited the binding comfort of my home
Young adulthood in all its glorious newness left me devoid
Of confidence in my ability to breathe on my own
Therapy and tablets forced me to care

Today I am high
I spew words
You don’t write poetry she says
Playing with words like string
It runs through my fingers, loose then taught, then a mess of tangle on the floor

As ******* as my tongue
Lapping up the air

The flower grows through the concrete
that flat dark oppressor
who’s overtaken our world

The land used to be soft
supple and sweet with the
loving soil

dirt roads and dirt houses
earth surrounded us
made us remember where we come from

on the open faces of children
the clenched hands of adults
were left traces of the world

work and play involved the same
essential ingredients
and together they made life

pavement is clean
and leaves no mark
except ****** scrapes on our knees

Now it hurts to fall
the earth cannot catch us
with her arms bound

But the green is coming through
now and I can see the breaks
in the grey

The cracks are getting wider and
we might have hope yet
of wearing that warm ground

If I can find a patch
of some dirt
I’ll roll in it till I’m covered

And walk naked through the asphalt
world till my muddy footprints
erase all the bloodstains
from scraped knees and plucked flowers.

Slowly decaying in the sun
Passersby laugh and point
Like an overly ripened fruit
Sending my sweet rotting odor
Into the still air

I try to stop
this chemical process
but decomposition is inevitable
I am becoming soft
and the skin is beginning to curl

it burns
the sunshine
pushing like the knife that cuts
me into pieces
turning me into mush

the kind that ends up in the garbage
or on the sidewalk
a biodegradable heap of fiber and juice
soon to be squashed underfoot
or eaten by some feral animal

I am nothing but an orange
Round and repugnant

Her skirt
Shockingly short
For the office

Her top
Too see-through
For her age

Her nose
Pitifully crooked
Don’t you agree

If only she were a bit different
we would have an easier time
packaging some manufactured respect
to sell her.

The man began to cry
Four feet from my ears
Which stretched and strained
To catch his conversation
In their elastic curiosity
Great fat tears
Sliding down the mountains and valleys
Cheeks and hollowed out lines
In the corners of eyes and lips
Wetting the paper skin
As shoulders shook and hands trembled
Some words about a daughter
A young girl not seen for a while
The tender sorrow brought to
An unintentionally absent father
Pain is the color of the water
Draining from the ducts
on this man’s lash line
his white overalls
stained with the sun
of labor done with his hands
not his mind
his face now drying
salty residue in the hairs of his chin
lapping up the remains of his Americano
I lose interest

I want to deal with paperwork
not people anymore

Give me bureaucracy
I’ll give you productivity

No more empathy
or patience with the patients

Need that nine to five
cubicle and a coffee break

Bosses will love my
enthusiastic filing

Can’t service another person
just as mental as me

I need a new kind of crazy
The normal kind, please

Twisting these unruly thoughts
into something presentable

like the knotty hair
my mother used to battle
each morning

in desperation I write
aiming for wisdom
landing on forced