last night, when I dreamt I was a fish
slipping into the water to guide red, glossy trout upstream
who slid out of the water to back the subterfuge I’d designed to infiltrate and destroy not the lush
foliage walled house or the empty lawn with dining chairs and napkins all scattered, but rather the entity with no face
which made its home there and set up traps and laid in wait and yet, through any danger I felt there was also calm
and the air did not feel too thin or too heavy
but rather as if your warm breath was behind me, and you were behind me
standing with the fish women and their cool eyes gazing past me and hands upon my shoulders, and we were the strong, quiet water

You requested a ride with your phone
since you don't walk at night all alone.
You were tired and drunk
so in the back seat you sunk
dropping your coat with a groan.

I drive around town after work,
because bills pile up if i shirk.
Patriotic America
writes corporate erotica
and leaves me with nary a perk.

Since I can't drive for Uber or Lyft
I'm stuck working first and third shift.
The money's much needed,
but I wish fewer heeded
capitalist lies, so I'm miffed.

FAGSS really get me to ****
(fully automated gay space socialism)
But until then I roam,
only renting (no home).
Hurry up now and rise communism.

Lyft and Uber make me dough.
But only as long as drunks go
out and party all night
maybe run into a fight,
but please, by all means, take it slow.

Uber wants to prevent their drunk riders
from being real rowdy outsiders.
So they no longer sit
in the car that they picked.
Get ready for eggs and slashed tires.

Uber's CEO likes Trump.
On his face I'd like to dump
tons of gross ****
including his ****
before squashing him into a lump.

Hello, I'll be your Lyft driver.
Get in, and be a Lyft rider.
Please buckle, no whimper.
Go ahead, sulk and simper,
but please, can you tip me a fiver?

You're a warm sun in the cool of evening and I don't know how to tell you I love you except for in the small ways you keep me breathing.

I think constantly about whether I'm happy dating you, and it's not your fault I'm uncertain about loneliness, because you didn't make me question myself for a year and a bit.

You're not perfect, you leave your coffee mugs around and have odd habits I'm not used to.

But you don't make me feel bad for not being vegetarian and you are so gentle and you tell me you have butterflies for me and that's not something X did.

You welcome my mess of fabric and paint and uncertain touch and you make me think about accepting affection and I'm tearing up writing this.

I'm sorry I haven't figured myself out but I'm so glad you're along for the ride

I live my life in troughs and peaks
I write 2 papers and shoot off 6 emails in a freshly cleaned room
I let the dishes sit for a week and can’t get up til after noon

My period used to be like this before I started the pill
Sporadic and long (or short) and inconvenient and gut-wrenchingly guilty

I think about my 3 papers due next week and how I want to sketch up my traumas
Instead I open a new document and type this
I procrastinate productively sometimes I guess
This is a trough

i wake up.

the room around me is earth; red, radiating, crumbly.
i sift the bedcovers through my fingers next to my cheek.
an arm, heavy over my waist, shifts with the warmth behind me.
carrots sprout from between knuckles; purple, white, gold.

i wake up.

the piles of leather tomes as if dust was blown away just a moment ago.
warm skin behind me just a little more solid; the smell of carrots and earth a little less sharp.

i wake up.

the walls have receded and sun is pouring over my legs.
only a couple feathery green tops remain and the arm is held tighter to my body.
dusty rectangular outlines on the dresser and floor.

i wake up... and open my eyes

you pulled the tears from beneath my furrowed brow,
apologizing over and over again
promising to wipe them away and stop up the flow.

we used such primal passions to sew us together,
even as the same tore the fabric apart
til only threads remained, shredded.

then you handed me the rake and pointed towards our garden,
telling me to pull out all the nettles and dandelions,
but i set it aside and made my own place aside from yours.

The boy’s hand slips into mine. The cave tunnel is dark, and wet. Not cold, or musty, or anything other than dark and wet, and still. I look down at him, and smile softly, then turn forward as we stepped into the water. Large pebbles underfoot crunch roundly over each other.
Take a breath and everything is green and clear and open. Underwater, all the even lines of an empty public school hallway hauntingly echo the muffled silence. The stairwell opens easily, and strangely so.
The landing at the top is far enough away that I nearly choke looking for it. But we make it and there’s a few feet of air and this door is harder to open. Much harder. We pour out through it, onto the matted carpeting of a library where many eyes swivel to find the disruption.
A crisp lady with cat-eye-glasses ushers the boy into a side office while barring me from entering further. She and a round, stationery man snap back and forth at each other in distress.
The boy and I are in the wrong time, it’s not the right time. ****. ****. They’re sending him back to 200 BC. And me to 2017. No. No.
No, I’m supposed to take care of him, he wasn’t even supposed to be in the cave with me. Neither of us were supposed to be that far away from the group. He isn’t old enough! This was supposed to be quick and distracting and ******* hell what do we do?
The people in the library push us back into the stairwell and it’s cold. Not the water, the color. The light fades out of it as ceiling glow-stars would, and he’s so calm HOW IS HE SO CALM?
His hand is so small in mine and I’m afraid we’ll run out of air before I figure out what to do, but we can’t do anything. We can’t. There’s nothing here. We have to go. It’s the only direction; back into the water and hope they were wrong. I don’t understand how he can trust me this much, why is he still looking up to me? We might drown.
I need to make a move, and he hands me some glowsticks. Somehow he’s found light. I’m sure my hand is unpleasant and clammy and can he feel my heartbeat through my palm? We need to go.
Big breath, into the watery shadows of stairs. There’s sand at the bottom. My hand’s on the door, pushing out. I can hear my blood. It’s open. Oh god, ***-

I’m awake