The old man stands in bare feet
on the composite floor,
gnawing on raw potatoes;
a crypt of tenderness
behind a barrier of
golden baby teeth
and thin wire rims.
He swallows ardently
pushing whole potatoes,
passed a sixty-year-old
clog in his throat.

One day, that tenderness
will drop like lead
from his mouth;
each word
cratering in the softest earth
“I’m trying.”

One day, on the back
of his blood
he’ll remind me;
with a mouthful of lead
and a snarl,
he will urge me to run.

I am so grateful for the way
you split me open
like an egg,
and let me run from your fingers
to settle on the cold floor.
I understand, catalysis.
I am both reactor and reaction,
sown from furrows dug
into frozen earth under a blazing sun-
grateful.
After so long,
the echo of my name off your tongue
has begun to feel like
honey pouring
into my ears,
softening every link in my spine,
warming the frozen earth-
grateful.

The plant’s name is dirt,
the dirt is sweet-
I am doing so, so well.
I still only travel by
foot.
I still only live under
ground.
You can walk on land,
you can smell it, it’s wonderful.
Oh, my dragon companion-
We discussed how to be nice!
It’s been two weeks since you’ve been afraid of anything!
I love the great renewal of anything.
Eat all mistaken feelings!
I have been in my mask,
not a girl, but a slug!
I love the shape of my body.

Ink runs from the corners of the earth.
There is no happiness like mine,
I have been in the woods.

"The world is flat!"
the dog chokes while
hitting his head against the concrete wall in the stairwell.
"You'll never understand me,
and neither will my parents."
Head in my lap, he coughs.
My hands and gaze are coated in saliva
and something I don't recognize.
The air weighs a ton and shrieks like
'the lasting impact of neglect'
the dog is deaf.
I drop him,
a deliberate show of apathy and
the only tool that remains to me
to stifle my selfish and substantiated rage.
I know the bond is broken,
but I have borrowed myself a razor shell
and I will not emerge again.

The serpent in my gut will hiss for months before it strikes
gripping organs like cuscuta
dripping venom like a hungry dog

Sometimes I try to drown him in the sound waves
but when I lay down again his never-ending
sibilation echoes softly in my skull

Once or twice I thought I heard a word in his relentless sound
a syllable of foreboding
a threat upon a draft

But there is no substitute for anticipation.
And when he bites, my ribs leave splinters
in my laboring lungs.

It swell in the silence that I set aside,
taking on the shape of your body and feeding every corner of mine
untangling all the knots that I’ve nourished in my belly for months.

Monotony takes a quarter  turn
and the knots adopt again their familiaar form
a habit that starves fingers and toes.

The guilt in your bones only weighs you down.
I'd like to twist them open and pour it out
like boulders on the mountain rolling heavily down.

But my hand cannot take the weight of burden,
though it will try to guide you. If you would pay attention
you could feel the air grow light or heavy at your own discretion.

I'll wait for you to feel the boulders rolling down your skin.
As they pool around your ankles, the heavy burden will be shed.
But only you will know when it is time to make amends.

So I resist the urge to purge you of the glass that you've been breathing.
Move too quick and lose you in the darkness of the season-
but: there is no suffering so great it cannot be forgiven.

I'd like to scrub your bones clean and prop you up to dry.
Let the mountain air remind you of the strength that slipped your mind.