colors stream round and round
rocking and pulsing and pushing
they burn the backs of my eyes

and my foot steps stutter with my heart beat
as it thumps erratically by the side of the road
the buses, cars and logging trucks
they pass me by
I care too much, ****

but I just
I want to be the pavement beneath their wheels
such a fight
flight is too easy
and too too hard

and so it goes
my hand against the fuzzy inside
ripping up my coat pocket
tap tap scratch
tap tap scratch

beating a beat
marking a mark
a deep humming under my skin
a magnificent sinking
as I'm falling in

my thoughts collide
breaking under massive waterfalls
I can't seem to catch
all the drops of myself

any faith in God I had
it shattered when I was eleven
like the shards of glass glittering on the road
next to my puppy lying in his blood
like Grandma's tears as I held her hand
while she died so, so slowly
like the dew on the grass
that I stared at for an hour instead of going near Uncle's grave
like the ruthless eyes of the Husky
as it ripped into the torso of my one month old sheep
like every prayer that went unanswered
this God thing is a lie
I learned
it can't be trusted

any faith in people I had
it left when I was twelve
like my father
and the step father who screamed all the time
and the creepy old man who slept with my mother
the guy that tried to touch me with his greasy hands
the fool with a shovel and a gleam in his eye
standing in the doorway and swinging
crazy
people are crazy
I learned
they can't be trusted

my faith in air
that's what I have left
even if there is nothing else
I learned
I can breathe

In the day I am too big
but in the night I am too small
I lay in bed with my feet near the ceiling
air currents wisp around my ankles
and the world envelopes me
darkness surrounds me
Words overwhelm me
I think
I think
I think and can't stop
about everything and nothing
It is all too much
I wish I could just sleep

from a young age I was
manipulating them
making them mine
playing them over and over
letting them use me
but really I was using them
then tossing them out
to move on to the next

more and more and more
ripping them off the page
tearing apart the ignorant ones
making passionate sense to them
and spitting them back out
fingers digging in like quotation marks
burning them into parts of speech
adjectives, nouns, verbs
taking advantage of them all
I'm an equal opportunist

I only had one
for my childhood
at least the parts that mattered
the laughter
the tears
the fun and the fear
rolling in the grass
swinging in the trees
growing up
wild and free

he taught me to swim
and pulled out my teeth
made me sandwiches
and helped me shear fleece

he let me be little
while he could not be
he was my protector
from everything

from the yelling
from the fists
he took branches to his body
and a shovel to the face

I wish I could have been braver
taken away some of his pain
I wish I could reciprocate
for all that he’s given me
and more
for I have
the best brother in the world

all was calm this morning
and now it's not
it changed faster than tachyons
how can it be?

how did that blue sky
breathing life into the little white flowers
the ones that tell me it is spring
the ones that seemed to smile as I passed them
how did that turn into this?

this torrential down pour
these ferocious winds
the sideways rain hits me like bullets
or at least paint *****
turning exposed skin red on the run
the wet trash is hurling down the street
faster than the rushing creek
the creek that serves as my driveway

how did the sounds of the birds chirping
turn into thunder crashing louder than the ocean
thunder shaking my house
we're in the Yahtzee cup of the God's dinner party
shaking around
no clue how we will fall

I hate the weather.

the utter exhaustion at the end of a book
after not being about to put it down all afternoon
those 5 hours spent out of my world
feeling another person
feeling so much more than I have ever felt as me
my mind so darkened from this overwhelming feeling
the feeling that my life has just ended
or that part of it has
that part that was so much greater than reality