suppressed sloshes slurp and squeeze though the gaps
in the oppressive thickness of forced silence.
patchy grass islands emerge eerily still
from the murk and muck of standing water

a land blanketed in purposelessness,
like an old man whose life is all spent in negotiations with time,
who sits in a chair and waits
for death to whisper in his half-deaf ears.

the land sits and waits and knows the inevitability of death.
slurp and slush,
the heavy boots feign stealth

silence amplifies subtle metallic clicks,
small metal masses jostle in a tunnel slung across a back.

the grass leans in to hear
the stifled breaths hiding in suspense,
betraying an inner working of fear.

sift and shush,
the soft brush of camouflage clothing against blistered skin.
there is no coldness in the air but the body shakes,
there is no heat in the air but the body sweats.

the air holds nothing but weight
and the body’s shoulders bend under it.
a weak wind carries whispers to paranoid ears,
and the metal mass meets fire and propels to an end

the air is unbearably thick to be pierced by such a sharp noise

it lays heavy on the crushed tufts of grass
that now hold the bones of a young body
that housed a mind old with terror.
beads of sweat still on a motionless corpse.

We all harbor hurts
Deep twistings and breakings
That gnaw at our insides
Trying to find their voice their life
They crawl from our belly up our throats and knock at the back of our teeth
But we swallow them whole
Push them down the slide of our esophagus
Because we are afraid
And we don’t want to let them speak
Because we know they are such deep
Twistings and breakings
They are the essence of the cracks within us
But when we do not open our toothy door at their knock
They find other ways
They claw at muscles and organs
They pull our bodies to consciously unintended ends
They seep out sideways
So mangled and unintelligible
That we forget their origin
And we don’t understand how our actions
Are based from our deep
Twistings and breakings
Long rejected
Left to fend for themselves in our neglect

i sit in the left corner of the couch
swelling with the joy that permeates our clothes to our skin
conversations spinning webs around us
that glow in the light streaming through the window

this is more than enough
this is everything

the first time: my idealogical house collapsed and
i stepped outside of my consciousness, and i wept as
the tectonic plates under me shifted,
destroying the comfort of my taken-for-granted worldview.
it took me months to tell people
--my family didn't know for months--
some friends still don't
i wonder how many still pray that i will come back to "the faith"
that they say i don't have enough of
because of course its that simple
they didn't feel their foundation collapse as i did
they didn't feel the visceral and inexplainable awareness
that unapologetically obliterated everything i thought i knew
they didn't peer into the endless dark space that was revealed under my foundation
i hold nothing against anyone
i have walked in their shoes and prayed their prayers
i know what its like
i know they mean only the very best for me
and i am thankful for that, truly
so i hold nothing against anyone

The second time was more drawn out and painful.
i delved deeper into the cavernous abyss
that i had stepped to the edge of and peered into last time--
this time i jumped in
and i fell for so helplessly long
--my body was lost in time and space--
before i remembered i had a parachute.
my brother's shoulder and a glass of wine
the perfect parachute to slow my fall
and help me find my feet underneath me.
this time i had questions,
so many questions about what it means to be human
and to be a human in this cavernous abyss

The third time was alone again
sobbing shaking and scribbling words in a journal, i want to
understand what this is.
another fissure opened up beneath my feet and i fall
--still deeper into the earths core --
and as i write i realize
that its not the earth's core at all,
but my own

its my own consciousness i have plunged into
all these times
the dimensions that expand so endlessly
behind my eyes
beckon me into them
and i have
willingly let them lead me deeper into myself

however disrupting and disorienting it is
i know myself better
because i am plunging the depths of my being
an i am more me than i have ever been
and it feels right and it feels true

"when my body was mine"
a line read recently

did i let my body slip out of my own skin
before i noticed
was i so oblivious as it dripped between their fingers
so far from my skin

when i was told i was old enough to need to shave,
my hair wasn't mine anymore.
when my rough and wild behavior
was no longer considered ladylike enough,
and i had to tame my wild skin
to sit and dance in proper ways,
my posture wasn't mine anymore.
when my toes were deemed to callous for society
my innocent beautiful little toes
were strapped into shoes
and forgot their freedom for a time,
my feet were no longer mine.
when they called out at my body
when it possessively dripped between their fingers
i realized that i had let my body belong to other people

and so i let my hair grow thick
everywhere
and i carry myself with the joy i feel
and i sit and dance from the inside out
trying to forget how much i may stand out
vulnerability is strength
vulnerability is strength
i tell myself
as i dance barefoot with hairy underarms
in out-of-style clothes and an unpainted face
come dance, please come dance,
so we may taste the flavor of life together

Do you think he would slow down if I asked nicely?
do you think that if I snapped in his distracted face he would notice?
do you think that if I bumped shoulders with him he would change his course?
do you think if I threw a tantrum at his feet  he would take pity and pause for a moment?
Do you think if I grabbed his face and forced him to look in my eyes he would see how I needed more of him?
that ****** man: Time.

like a typical distracted teen with his earplugs in listening to some irrelevant tune
walking unaware of his movements their repercussions,
walking so fast--propelling the rest of us forward in front of him
through a relentless pace.
He affects everyone and sees no one.
none