Rubber ***** fired,
like grapeshot from cannons,
through a hall of xylophones and
trampolines.
Lemming pianos,
evacuated en masse down
a spiral staircase, piling,
a heap of discordant corpses,
at the foot of the last stair.
The screaming of a star
smeared across space and pasted,
like paint, onto
the smirking invisible face
behind a singularity.

I'm a little disturbed by the implications
of dreamcatchers in cars.
Are we that prone to fall asleep
behind the wheel?
Are we that scared of our nightmares?
If life is a dream
does a person who dies near a dreamcatcher
get caught,
a fly in a web,
in the dreamcatcher and wait to be devoured
by the nightmares inside.

my dog is a doo doo machine
my tv is a brain blender
my refrigerator is a blubber bank
my window is a speeding by car noise speaker
my computer is a magic box so I can see what someone I don’t really know is eating for lunch box
my hands will wiggle around and hold steering wheels and punch buttons for a few more years until they stop wiggling and lie still and then probably get burned up
my bed is a wake up in the middle of the night and worry about life machine
my friends are a get me drunk machine
my clock throws minutes into the garbage can
my calendar lets months rot on the wall
my future is a movie poster about me being rich and famous that yellows and curls off the wall and falls on my poor unfamous skeleton

I am so sick of being that girl
The one who sits awkwardly
Tries not to show too much on my face
But here I am
I watch all around as people
Stare
Judge each other
And it isn’t even me that I am tearing the roots out of my faith in humanity over

I watch
And I listen
And all I perceive is laughter
“Oh my gosh that was totes hilarious”
No.
It wasn’t.
Those people you laugh at…
People of Wal-Mart
That crazy chick
The person at the end of all of your jokes
Harmless as they seem
Those people are people too
They have people who love them
Loved ones losing them to the horrors of the person that you force them to see in the mirror each day
Each breath
Rigid and Choked
Trying to be the person on the inside
“Only inner beauty matters…”

Then why won’t you let them be more than
The punch line.

I know
It’s harmless
Everyone laughs
It’s funny

And everybody laughing
And joking
And smiling
As they look past your soul
Just searching for a witty response
Instead of a human being

It isn’t harmless.


If I fall
And I can’t even breathe
I can’t even tell who I am
And no one is around to hear my cries for help
No one hears…

Do I still exist?

People stop wanting to exist when they feel like their life doesn’t exist.
I’ve been there before

So

Just stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Just stop.
Think for a second.

What if that was you?
What if it was your best friend?
Your everything?
And their existence is laughed off.

Until it shrivels and dies.
No more growth.
Not ever.

We are walking uphill through a snowstorm of meaningless arrows
Poison soaking the tips
And I can’t fight them forever.
So please.
Somebody help.

And even though you may finally hear my cries
And cry with me
You keep on shooting
Not even thinking
Because it is only natural now.

Please.
Think.
Stop.
Think.
Let me go.
Let everyone try to figure out who they are
What they want to be
Without pushing waves of stereotypes
And laughing at their dreams
Scoffing their entire existence away

Funny how we woke up in the morning
and pretended that tomorrow never happened—
strutted naked in mirrors celebrating our youth,
laughing, knowing suns and moons couldn’t do the same.

We borrowed our arms from the fridge
and peddled bicycles with bad breath—
trading war stories ‘cause we knew
if we came back alive
life would still be the death of us.

and by that i mean
i am in complete awe of you.

and that's probably why i get quiet when i'm around you.
my brain shuts down
the only ***** in my entire body that works anymore is my heart
the beat quickens and
i can hear my own thump thump
desperately wanting to hold you close enough
so you can hear it, too

blood pumping to my fingertips,
wrapped around whatever i can get a hold onto
to keep from falling---

I get quiet around you
because
i am too engrossed in the feelings that you inject into me,
when you speak
when your gorgeous ruined torn up fingers scatter themselves across piano keys

just the sound of your voice
it seems to resonate in my ears


and i can't help but feel as though my heart might explode
from all the beauty i have stumbled across
in this otherwise, very lonely terrifying world

It is weird
Because two weeks ago
I thought I was in love with you
That was silly.
I mean,
You are great.
But...
What?

I'll write and say same words I've said
     ten thousand times before
Until I don't believe
     that I believe them anymore
Because riding on this carousel
means spinning one's wheels
into moist ground
     thought I had some traction
     but it seems I thought too soon--

So I am off of the rails
Off the wagon. Off to nowhere.
'Cuz it's, "Onward, lads,
to one more night spent
covering ground's familiar footsteps
and sheeting snowy sidewalks
in the dollars we don't have."

And we'll lay 'em kinda thick
     press our prints in Presidents
pro bono comes advice
from the corners we can't heed,
but por argento comes the cure
we choose to **** our heads with

I'll pick a place, polish my boots
     get far as my front steps
where I'll sit until the summer rolls around
     and sweat rolls down in sheets

Short sheeted best hopes,
shortened thank-you notes
and lists of ****** quotes
lay around and resonate
on floors and facebooks,
tabletops
in summertime,
          when it rolls around

But, now, it's winter
and we're all 364 1/4 resolutions older
     --at 33 revolutions per minute,
     and 16 ounces at a time,
     we can almost cope.

Now, it's winter and the sheets are
          still too warm

Now, it's winter and we sheet the
          snowy sidewalks
in Presidential faces
in the dollars we don't have
and the cure we **** our heads with
keeps us safely insane
'Cuz in a world built by psychopaths,
the sane don't always last.
And, if I'm the last one out?

I'll sing a song and **** the lights before I go.