the worst feeling in the world, to me
is feeling stuck.
it's worse than having to dig out the wheel
in the limbs of sloppy rain,
or the shock value of biting the inside
of your mouth.

it's the opposite of the realization you have
when you remember the mouth heals quickest; and then
there is hope.

imagine the life path of dreams -
with a lush natural fence on the threshold.
one step over summons vines from under
that lash and snag and gnarl and gnash
and you're frozen stone: forest
desert arctic all in one.

the stuck swallows me inside
an imperial chamber
that i am not in the slightest bit worthy
to be surrounded by.

a perception of the world
in your mind...
it cracks,
shatters, hiss,
obliterated.

i welcome struggle into my arms as i go
to the bittersweet valley below;
maybe i will find the seeds that
will allow me to grow.

adrenaline eyes
licking embers while they glow
during a fragile time
only broken by time.

but something clicked
with a frightening genesis
that roared, then turned over
on its belly and asked a favor,

"when you breathe in,
think about the things you need.
when you breathe out,
think about the things you can give."

you can look all around and see.
you can touch you can breathe and hear.
you can mostly control what you eat,
but not everything you see or hear.
when the words flow
like glacial plains uninhabited but still alive
because it moves.
when the sights set
like a stone curse locking my joints
I can try to ignore, distract distractions,
don't have to try to reminisce.

you can take the interest from the stars.
you can give a break to someone who hurt you.
you can sleep along the side of a body,
but not the edge of a canyon.
tracing a yellow alien and ourselves
as a foreshadowing of what is to come,
or dressing the dog up like a lobster
and it wasn't even Halloween.
people talk about the right way to live
as if it's a one-size-fits-all but it's the
yellow alien that we haven't met yet.

I can try and try
to peel off all this tree bark, but
Why? would I ruin my best friend, This Tree?

I should be peeling off of myself...
stripping down the thick scales tensing up
on my shoulder, plucking the dust from underneath...
there are a lot of ugly parts underneath...

but
maybe some sunlight
will make them not as sore...

snow:
spins around
my house
a gale of feathers oh so white

icicles:
creeping down
easy sprouts
they come in my windows
and take me from you

blizzards all night
and even in the day
tendrils of this frozen glacier
move me so far away

it's faster than a car
it's faster than light
i cannot get off of it
i can only go under

you have to get in through this tunnel hole
you have to get down on your hands
and knees.
it feels like a mausoleum
at first.

you don’t need a key,
we can get in for free.
don’t worry, when you’re with me
ain’t no such thing as currency.

on second thought I might never leave.
we can swing and twist on long rope trees
and sing all happy merrily
and breathe in the bees
that pollinate your teeth.

there are crystal geysers
that pour on our heads and long ship trains
that ship us to bed but when we lay,
the lights turned off still feel like they’re on
and you can never hear the ringing of the
smoke alarm
since nothing bad could ever happen
when we are all wrapped up cocooned
in piles of morning dew.
been saving this one for you.

do you think you can hear me in these
soundproof rooms?
there is something that I really must tell you.



in all the million years we’ve been alive
I never thought someone like you
would be my size,
so I’ll take you back to my house
and we can jump on the bed.

we’ll read the entire library in one night,
go 4,000 years without one single fight,
not scuffle / abuse Great Jellyfish sight
embellished by the fishermen’s spite.

we can adventure down creations of white
snowfalls created from Memory Bank Kite,
rollerskate along each other’s dendrites,
dispose of antique and rusted searchlights,
and gaze at Our Planet on obtuse satellites.

we go deeper down
with bottles of our secrets lit aflame
that illuminate all the cosmic scenery with
a feeling I can’t see you but I know
you’re there and I can feel you staring
at the lush willow branches with me
atop the stardust glistening green
like your eyes when you look right at me
and I can see them when you stare at other things
like the valley deep, as deep as the sea.

you can insult yourself,
but when you’re in my house, I’m sure you’ll find
you can forget all about the other side.
and at the break of day,
we won’t even notice the sky changing or
the tectonic shifts that uncover even more
avenues for us to descend
because we can create what we want
when our bodies begin to reveal to our brains
that the greatest gift alive doesn’t lie in the stains
of the past we have passed all of that now,
not able to tell if we are land our clouds
and the feeling I get in my throat is so
good.

in this tunnel of ambient rays
the collection of resilience grows.
Oh my Darling, how I love you so.

it’s been a year now,
full of carbonation bubbles and they still spit and sting at my face
every single time that                                
i am fooled enough to look.

it’s been a year now,
full of termite-eaten wood but still
no evidence.
i don’t want reverence.
i want you to forget about me.

       even after all this time
       i thought i could escape this slime,
       maintain the years of my prime;
       i could throw up.

              to tell you the truth,
              no one has ever followed me
              this far
              before.

went inside the hourglass to pull apart
the flakes of sand and what was found
inside had passed since the time
needed was just spent.

walked along the acrobats
and models so of course right now
there comes a gap to have to get across.

a rope swing can only break when it’s
       tugged too hard // cut by the stars
the veins down my arms have traveled
too far

but,
with a good shelter,
nothing seems so bad.

I      
                  where has this happened before?
                    leave your shoes on at the door.

at the beginning
my lips were cold,
smothered down by an impending hold.
too scared to sing a song,
wouldn’t dream to sing along.
come dress up with me
take me outside
and dangle me over
your favorite waterfall.
i will drink from its rays
until they freeze up my pipes
and you fix them for me
without being asked.

                                                behind the sky
                                                 is your house
                         and you invite me every day

II

but i will never visit you
because you are not really here
and your soggy smile
gets me upset.
by coincidence we made a bet
that was intangible for you.
although i should confess, Father,
even before the time capsule
cell eroded to the surface
and laid the past out as a hostage.

                                         i never felt for you.
                                          i never liked you.
                                          i hate to admit it,
                                        i always lied to you.
                                        get away from you.
                                         get away from me.
                                           don’t come back
                                       until i can come back.
                                     i know it’s ******* you
                                  but it’s crushing me whole
                                 and now i’m blowing away
                                              and the holes
                                                   in the net
                                      are too big to catch me.

III

some days we can make it a game.
some days we microscope our pain.
wrap it up like bday presents
show it off like the pretty pheasants.

no that's a peacock
the boys are pretty
will i be pretty?

even though
it feels ******

i want to move somewhere woodsy
but i can’t go alone, oh
turn up the boom box
        so it drowns out the
SCREAM
                 ING

happy years aren’t
hard to come by.
out of 365 days
there is bound to be 1
that is full of maggots,
and to take its place
later on down
there will be 10 more
that are full of progress.

the rooms cultivate together
the walls fold into each other
try to save it for sunnier weather
but i am too impatient
too eager to get this splinter out
when plumes of toxic feelings sprout

how do you walk away
from the things that protect?
will it ever be the day
the tremors stop melting all the clay?
in my mind the rain stings
it melts into my pores
it triggers the thoughts of
things i once cared so much for
it helps me see
right now might not be how it is
eventually

one day soon
i will lie down in the tall grass
and call out for the bright
warm rays of the sun
to take me into their force
and keep me as warm as i need
to survive in a place that fire
cannot thrive.

misty in the back yard
walking along the perimeter
socks getting soggy

it’s barely first light
peering on the horizon
still no I’m Sorry

the wind whips my face
i cry from the pain
on the soles of my feet
on this wire i’ll stay

balancing act
practice never lets out
calling all the famous talent scouts

make me into the final act
that everyone laughs at
instead

craters won’t move
but some things
have to stay where they are made.
humans are not
one of those things.
the folks who move all smile,
the people that stay
are unusually angry
they can’t preserve themselves.


but that is a strong accusation
kind of an ******* judgment

gray feathers
trickle down in the frigid air.
the atmospheric pressure squeezes me
so tight,
like the room we held our noses in
so we could absorb maximum confidence
and squirm
        and twitch
                and build a fence.

once the hour is upon us
i’ll take my own hand and riot.
i’m used to it.
you haven’t even tried it.

now the floor is to the left
ears fill up with tears
recollecting nearby fears
to string on to a necklace
and give it to the next person
that looks at me with soul.

what about the future?
what about the past?

well, what about the present?

right now there’s so much going on,
like how i can feel the vibration of the mower
in the distance,
the little scratchy nubs all over my body.
i’m trying to see from behind the scratches on my glasses
but my eyes are so drawn to the 9000 shades of color that
are so pervasive and sensitive.

and your talking is hummed and hushed,
like your morals,
because you fail to practice what you preach,
and what i’m figuring out in the present is that
i’m doing the same exact thing to myself maybe slower,
now, it seems, but
somehow even quicker.

and the clutches of that Mazda clutch we crashed
when we were fourteen are crouching to my level,
trying to say hello but all i hear are bubbles
in the pond where your little sister tried to drown herself.

the spiraling candy slide has me nauseous and ready
to spew chunks all over mom’s new ornaments,
and the plane changes again, the doctor’s office
and white gloves reaching inside my mouth to shut off
my anxiety, my perplexity,
to show me the worm inside that’s making this happen.


but all he pulled out was my brain,   entirely whole,
and i snatched it from his hands
and smothered my hunger
with such a satisfying snack,
fingers included!
                            what the **** did i just do?              Was it that Demon called Panic that, personified as moi,
took me on that train
without my permission?
                                    
                ­i really will never know what it is   that i have
               that is so special enough to be able to see
all 9000 colors in the spectrum.

they’re so vivd, it scares me, honestly,
                               and in the dark i feel fine, because there’s nothing
to see, but,
in the light, for real this time,
i wish somebody would take out
my eyeballs,
                                          and walk me like a
                              dog for the rest of my life.

so much farther left to go…
bubbling pieces of my words that came out
a few hours ago.
i was stretching outward $wordfight$,
no one wanted to do it at that point.

we’re coming up on fields that bless
the earth with their areal embrace.
some people take up certain things
to put back in their place.

                    who ever would have guessed?
                it’s a lot of work to water a friend,
                            even as we’re moving over,
                         i can quench your thirst with
                                                  my drowning.

but can it be transformed?
can the piles of bones form waves
and crash into beauteous palettes of marble?
can the deepening cracks in the concrete
be filled from the top and forgotten?
i think they would reappear much sooner.

lately it’s been good to think
and once the mind has wandered off
does it have the courage to stay lost?
because i think it’s funny –
the pain of trying to hard to find a place –
consumes the soul much more, it seems,
than thriving in the uncertainty
of being content while still feeling lost.

can the wires be untangled
if the ends are saudered shut?
can we pull apart the fibers
and recreate landscapes we thought
were places we’d like to visit.

i don’t want to believe the places i’ll find
are perfect mirrors at this point in time
and my arrival will shatter the equilibrium

but if that turns out,
i will hold my breath
and put the pieces back in a mosaic
and color the shards with my tears.

summer always feels the best
and it shares all humans
with no explanation.

summer holds innumerable quests
and they hold within them
lessons and learning.

summer can’t quite compare to winter
with devoid gales holding ransom
to the inside of an insulated wok.

summer isn’t an escape
from rough workloads and energy
spent from winning all that bread.

summer is a connection with self
that permeates all fibers
of the self and rejuvenates the soul.