I bit them off
chewed and chewed
and left with nothing
kept on chewing.

My teeth got crunched,
to destruction I lunched
and when finished
I noticed what had disappeared.

My fingers were shorter
and my face was pale.
I woke up to the sounds of tapping
imagined it were crowds of people clapping.

Imagined I was as magnificent as a two dollar meal.
The brown lettuce returned me to what was real.

Cardboard walls and clicking teeth, drops falling
on my worn out rags. If only I had had a calling.

"i love you, but i can't do this right now.
i need a break to think.
we can try again in a bit."

Do you know how stupid that is?
You don't get to pick and choose when to be with me.
You don't get to wait 'til it's easier and less stressful.
Life will always be stressful,
and love is never easy.
I guess I should have expected this,
from a boy who still likes Hollister.

It's in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It's in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It's in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.

It's peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It's like a rotten flag
or a vegetable from the refrigerator,
pocked with mold.
I am aging without sound,
into darkness, darkness.

Anne,
who are you?

I open the vein
and my blood rings like roller skates.
I open the mouth
and my teeth are an angry army.
I open the eyes
and they go sick like dogs
with what they have seen.
I open the hair
and it falls apart like dust *****.
I open the dress
and I see a child bent on a toilet seat.
I crouch there, sitting dumbly
pushing the enemas out like ice cream,
letting the whole brown world
turn into sweets.

Anne,
who are you?

Merely a kid keeping alive.