The day sits waiting in it's pear-shaped
room, one of the vacant eyed occupants of other, older,
occupied chairs.
The day crosses it's knees, one leg
over the other as a white flag,
resignation.
The day wants it's peace,
it fought the world wars, caught it's reflection aged,
tripped over itself
calling itself out, a
tripwire
unravelled.
This day knows it won't live tomorrow,
knows it's wanted blind and poor, so waits
           waits
in a waiting room,
wasting the room's air in an exchange of
          silent
blows.
This day is counting down it's losses, putting
all of it's seconds in a jam jar.

And there are screams never externalised, legs never uncrossed,
paperweights weighing less than those they push to the floor, and
this day is
screaming,
this day is
flailing
from the inside out in the form of folded linen,
inconspicuous on a plastic chair.
This day holds
up the moon,
hears it's laughter and falls through the cracks
in the tide.
His knuckles aren't
connected to his fingertips and
shoulders feet apart
from the spine,
the spine crossing one leg over the other in a pear-shaped room
with fingertips tapping at themselves, writhing into an hourglass formation.
This day is holding
up the walls.
Count this day lost when your eyes skip it, miss it, dance past it
in a waiting room.
Count this day screaming
when you wake up tomorrow.

The dog is nine years
three months
six days old
and still counting,
the old man sits and counts up in
a chair rocking on an old porch,
creaking floorboards faded wooden again
from turquoise,
turning raw in their old age.
Parts of the floorboard have chipped away beneath
the chairs wasted slats
and yet the old man still sits, counting
down
time
like a train whistling at a
trespasser on the tracks
like a stray hair curling from
it's braid
get off those tracks
'cause you know it's not your place.
All we ever do is rot back down to
the floors we came from
and maybe
all we end up doing is completing a week
and then we're not counting anymore,
and maybe
the chair doesn't rock back to dust
and forth to
nine years
three months
and six days old
and we sit on our old porches
watching the train tracks and
maybe we know it's not the
time or the place
but a train whistles at the
trespasser
and we watch the young girl
and we count down, looking away
when it happens.
But we're not counting any more
and we sink into the porches we came from.

The bumper
pushed
right
back
like bangs,
into the skin, breaks in a creased forehead.
Linen from insides
turns into
a toy.
Plasticated hot wheels.
Activated air bags,
prank flour explosions from the ledge of a door,
door handle swings,
fidgets
funny how one day it looks like rain and the other
not just a gale,
a down pouring hurricane.
The end is here, baby
and
nothing left
of
our
...bombsite, breathes,
but flailing and pleading,
a hand.
Where's it's
limbs, breathes,
got to?
Bust its last change at high noon,
fingernails, shoes, chewed, dug into dusk.
Dust.
Politics' lips slapping, struggle shaping, stuttering
W-w-why, Ma?
your best friend who tells lies to keep live,
watching, waiting
assembling dark matter 'cause our lives matter
Like the old man
who fell asleep at the wheel.

Sometimes I still get like that
think I might turn eight, wake up
screaming into the night-
it's too real, I'm terrified of my own insides.
Sometimes I can't remember
if it was a dream,
because since then panic has felt
like choking on water
that tastes like the world is
too real, tastes like not coping
tastes like knocks on the door
telling you
grow up.
This time you can't sink beneath
navy blue carpets so you
see a swimming pool, think
hey, maybe I can jump in to cool my sadness down.

I was the child they taught to swim
when you left, thinking
that maybe that if I knew not to
drown then making eye contact
wouldn't feel like making myself
smaller to fit into tighter spaces,
wouldn't taste like acid into places
where only oxygen fits.

Sometimes I still get like that
time flips itself over, scraping
the pool tiles with blunt fingers-
how old was I the first time you asked me what I ate
today, am I okay,
am I okay?
Sometimes the dream reacurres,
though now living tastes like
trying to swallow everything above
the chlorine surface, and
I can't remember the last time
I was terrified of
my insides.

I'm not screaming at night any more,
though this time no one arrives to pull me back
to the places
where I can
breathe.
I'm comfortably numb until I realise
I'm eight, sadness is cold and
I can't swim.

Found on the pavement
from fingertip to shoulder
laid out
stretched out
onto
a palm
like one of those beautiful
twisted
daisy heads.
Stroked hair behind an ear
and whispered
“you're fading out, honey”
and fire spread
from limb to the door frame
and you shut yourself out
downstream
cut the yarn with oversized scissors
and then
fingertip to shoulder
collarbone to knee,
waist to heel,
bent and folded.
They found you
like one of those beautiful
twisted
daisy heads.