I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

Six feet apart, feet wide apart
relentlessly checking the doorways.
I wished I was six feet under,
wished some seismic sea wave would arrive
and pull me asunder.
I locked myself in the third-floor bathroom
because I didn't want to wander the halls.
There are people stuck in these walls
and I hear them, I hear them, I hear them
       I hear them when I walk alone
  and they're all screaming
         for me to leave this place.
There are people stuck in my head
and I keep them there until I'm ready
to think about them,
       ready to write them down.
This is a warning.
    Do you see the red flashing lights?
      Are you looking at the black and gold stripes?
I was warned in a different way
and now I'm warning you not to stay
    here.
Some people are so naturally ordinary,
and others don't quite fit in place.
Parts of them do not align, so to speak,
They are never looking directly into your eyes
and you only smile a half-smile,
                       because you feel bad,
                          but not that bad.
Why are you still here?
Don't you have somewhere to be?
It's not worth it to meet
  just to see me curl myself in a ball again,
    make a home for myself inside my head
   putting up a picket fence there
          so the dogs don't come for me.
I admit that it's a juvenile fear.
But I promised myself I'd run away
when my fingernails started to rattle,
and I've kept my word.

Why can't I be
the spinny chair
in your office
for two?
There's nothing more
I want than to
matter to you.

Please, Please
let me be what I am
trying and dying to be:
Your lover that you'd
prefer to be some other,
with our kisses
covered in fleas.

I'm remembering to miss you,
but you'd have to
be here at some point.
I'd miss you so badly
I would dangle
your intestines over my mouth.
Can we kiss in the shade,
if we pretend I'm somebody else?

I can be the running car
in your suburban garage.
I want to steal you and feel you,
or just feel at all.

Catch me in your water,
smiling with the goldfish
and the flakes of snow angels
that bleed out every wish.

We can tremble
and mumble,
and stumble
in our darks.

There's no love that couldn't
hurt me now.

Hiding under that mattress
isn't getting you anywhere.
You can dream of foreign countries
but your family won't be rushing to see you
to tell you they love you
and miss you.
Somewhere pressed between **** and
humidity,
your lungs transparent grow moss
and your throat hurts from not screaming.
Soon it's two below
(as it is surely supposed to be)
and your young mind hates it.
Your esophagus has become
entirely a forest
abandoned
for the winter.
The scariest thing is not knowing
if your population will retain
its original numbers.
The trees around you can't hold you
and the cliff you're on
is not going to carry you home.
"You have your own inside you, be it for yourself,"
but that doesn't help.
It was something you loved but the stilts
of support splintered.
Your mattress reeks of ****.
Your lungs of cushion collapse.
Your cliff has crumbled
and your ashes are held in the
eyes of your old pals,
but they become the coastal sand.