After she tells me
She can't do this long distance thing again.
I'm too worried, angry, sad.
My heart's getting poked apart by an icepick.
I'm picking up my uniform to start
as a waiter tomorrow.
I didn't finish that letter to Paul.
I know what his reply will be.
Get on a plane. Get out of there.
Pack your ****. We will not lose you.
Get out of there. Get out.
But I can't send it.
So I'm lying there
kicked aside,
the pillow I was pretending was her.
And I just start thinking about
What paradise is.
I'm anxious all the seconds
I'm not something worse.
But I know there's somewhere
Where it'll stop.
It'll feel right. Like this is the
Way ahead.

I'm trying to build a window.
These aren't metaphors.
I'm not calling some empty headed person,
A beautiful vase with nothing to fill it.
I'm trying to say exactly what I see.
Rhymes, alliteration, technique are
Accidents.
These words just spew. I can't
Stop my hand
It's like a dull knife in the middle
Of butchering an animal.
It's barely controllable.
God knows if it'll go up or out,
If soon it'll cut me.
I like all this madness of action though.
It's almost a sport. Your heart
Doesn't race
But your head vibrates like it is.
You quiver and struggle to
Plan faster than instinct.
But are constantly reminded
That the whims of nature
Are so very out of your hands. Like this pen

I am more free now than I've ever been.
Money, time, the horizon stretches out.
But.
If I had wings,
It would feel like they were set on fire.
More than clipped.
I'm not thrashing. Like
A cut bird would be.
I'm frozen here.
The air is bubbling and I can't breathe.
There's barely bone left to walk on.
I could maybe stumble. Get a job
Daze through workdays.
But my head is frozen. Thwacks from
Bats. Shrieking cracks coming through.
I can't think Everything is so
Blurry.
The thwacks aren't rescuers.
They're not breaking me out . They're
Waves crashing on me. Adding to the
Ice.
Every piece of mail,
"Have not met our
Academic Standards."
And I am deeper in the sea.
They're so many whistles to go up.
Friendly porpoises saying I can still go
Up.
But the waves are pulling me
Down

What supports
Crushes.
The beams that hold a ceiling,
Bear down on the ground.


This was gonna be a whole yin-yang thing.
How I got squashed by the inverse of successful habits.
But **** it.
Most of it was fun.
It only got bad when I tried working too hard.

I need to be a real person.
Not some work-aholic
Alcoholic machine.

God this is hell.
No I can't see the light at the end.
But if I don't stop scratching at the walls.
I'll be stuck here forever.

Life hasn't hit me too hard yet.
Winds of change feel like a freight train.
But they pass soon enough.
The deafening noise was a low,
Middle of the workday growl
From the air going about its business.
But I had decided to scream over it
With my indignation that nothing better
Could be ahead.
I was the train. Lights off and shattering.

Maybe I should look more at the birds,
That try to fly against the wind.
And are halted mid-air.
They rock and flap.
Sometimes the hawks screech.
They should know the hunting
Is just as good behind them.
They could so easily
Fly ahead of the storm.
But still they look into it.

No. But we probably have the
Same zip code
One day soon we might
Share an address.

I yelled at my grandmother this morning.
She was knocking on my door.
So worried.
Asking if I was okay.
Afraid every time of what she could find.
I came out howling mad.
I talk so quietly, she hadn't heard me.
With my head as frayed as it is,
All that rattling awake crossed some wires.
I don't feel it was wrong.
I just shouldn't have done it.
This is what insanity must be.