Metallic pinging behind my right ear
Reminds me
That this
Is the first quiet moment
I’ve experienced all day

Feeling the rain more than hearing it
6:24 dark and threatening
It’s so cold in this ******* basement

2 hours and 36 minutes away
Crouching in plain sight
The work day.

Delivering food for the food bank, which is punk as **** frankly,
It’s a wasteland out here
And people need to eat

(A human right, if I understand the constitution correctly. Happiness is a lost pursuit in a body that’s hungry. You say food is a privilege <yes, you said it and believed it>, I say it’s life and liberty.)

Two 15 pound bags at a time
In exchange for baggage a mile high
Stacking cred against labor to build tone in your thighs

My joints wonder how young I think I am
Remembering the time my leg seized up and that old man just stared until I saw him see me and I smiled, I’m so silly

Hurry before all this pain ripens to taste
Slug it down like tequila
Try not to make a face
Born at the finish line, running in place.

2 hours and 26 minutes to make the coffee and absorb the caffeine
While I’m still me
And there’s nothing else to be

There’s a certain blurry gentleness to denial
A Tylenol bottle cotton plug of protection
Muting the inevitable rattling,
A scratchy puff, a cloud,
Shoving it down into the bottle
Until it’s wedged Somewhere Else
now just a half a whisper you can almost hear
On a tv with no subtitles

I like it here.
Swaddled against such unpleasantness
Nestled and unfocused.
That’s the key.
Focus your attention on anything for too long and you’re *******
The spell will be broken
That little whisper
Now a shard of glass
Now unforgiving and sharp edged on your naked awareness

Now, it insists
Now
Hear me NOW

NO, ****!
So many wishes spill out when you lose,
The blood of your unreason stinging your eyes like black pepper
Like a floodlight in a dark room
Pluck it out or shove it down
It will find a way to find you
Outside or inside you
In front of or behind you

You can’t escape this time
Or can you?

If you sink to the bottom you can hide awhile
With the anchor on your ankle
And the waves on every side caressing, pressing oh so gently
Like a kiss, like a smile.

Bliss endless and tidal
Like denial.

It was unexpected
I can’t be expected to be right all the time
I said
And poured another glass of wine
It was reasonable
I reasoned
That I should have more

Are you feeling it are you feeling it?
It’s the ghost girl in the bathroom
It’s the dreams and screams and half moon
It’s the ghost girl in the tide pool
Are you feeling it?

Did you pass out
Or fall asleep in the deep end
Are you holding onto defense
Are you holding on at all?
So much blue in this ocean
They said it would be green
Its blue
I’m through with you
I’m through

Are you feeling it, are you?
It’s the ghost girl in the bathroom
It’s the meaning that escapes you
It’s the ghost girl in the tide pool
Are you feeling it?

I can cross my eyes
In the middle of the night
I can’t be expected to always be alright

What’s your problem?
Is it so bad you have to run
Run away
Run away as fast as you can?
You’re already so gone
Gone
A stranger’s eyes have found a home inside your weary head

Deep inside you
The city burns
I don’t know what it is about this place
That everybody
Seems to be fine just killing time until the end of days

Sleep to forget
Sleep to dream about anything
Anything at all
Sleep will save you
From all the monsters that await your waking like the executioner awaits the gavel’s fall

What’s your problem?
Is it so bad you have to
Lock
Lock yourself away in your dreams?

Count your heartbeats
As long as you’re inside this cage
You will never know what it is to be free

We are all mothers
As we care for one another while going about business as usual
Our greatness in the guidance of the women whose scalloped hands stirrup our feet in the rooms and halls and roads of our lives
Who we notice only when we focus our eyes on our own faces, on our own working hands, on our own burdened hearts.

It’s the early morning that does it for me

I don’t mean to seek it
But I am sought in these quiet empty-full hours -
All or nothing out-with-the-bath-water seclusion.

(Delusions of liqueur
cocksure
Every flavor of azure)

Oh god what I would give to extend the great expanse of 4am, ribbon slick and taut as a ******

And me, warm and creative.

It’s the early morning that does it for me

I’m staying up with a song.

-Call-

Respond

Eyes and lips and abandoned ships
Mirages of **** below long, fluted throats
Gliding between notes
and me too

Ready to drown you.

(It’s the early morning that does it for me)

As you give yourself over to the caresses of the mistress
and dream of flying over perfect fields of wheat

and then land

and then wake

≈furrowed≈

disappointed to find
a cold pillow where a head should be asleep

I release my held breath and meet you
Half way

I was singing
I say
And collapse in a heap

Wet hair
Bare feet
It’s dawning and day

Closing my eyes
Sunset at sunrise
Holding onto a secret key

I dream of the sea