Sweat in shade sweat, shade
and speak an octave higher to four-legged foes
biting your knees and knocking you down
singing in iambs, awaiting the slaughter
and dancing, always dancing
amid triangles on triangles of smoke

Waterfalls cascade, not topple
and human pyramids stay sick and envy
consumes the crowd like a virus
so they bark and sweep like clean linens on whipping posts

Drink faster, leave town
before you encounter sticky blue fingers
before they stain your blouse and cheeks
before they make you grade papers and sing hymns
before curiosity kills your wonder
and your joints buckle and crack
with loud snaps and ringing bells

I don't think you understand the geography
you keep running in circles in my head
while I keep pushing you toward the door

Under the auspices of healing
we whisper incantations in the dark
warm breath in cold air lit by moonlight
employing physics and drawing circles
doing everything we can to hang on

Caught in the pressure, twig snaps
tambourine shakes on twos and fours
I am bouncing on the ***** of my feet
muscles tense, coiled, and ready

I refuse to fight your ghost
or engage in debate with any demons
I will let the wave reach over my head
and crash down behind me
I will float in your salty embrace
under skies gray and foreboding

Hanging in the orchid room
some smoke from someone's
clover leaf traffic jam
and disappearing words in
highlighter yellow scream
out from behind your eyelids
thinking, a memory, past fear

I don't know what to tell you
except that she's gone
and you've been sitting in
the same spot for three or four
hours and the ceiling is
falling around you

She only sleeps in specific
increments and watches
her feet, dangling off the side
of the tallest building she
can find, sweat dripping
through the marine layer below.

Reaching out
with all those side lights you love
and flickering shadows
and hopes of change skewed
by black hole pull
of inevitability

It's all different lights
warm glows and small orbs
and harsh white flashing fluorescent
and explosions

Clicks and snaps distract
absent sounds yield sharp neck jerks
and you react

Island can't stop sliding
even when dull pencils
stuck in sand push back
strong, even when your
toes are curling inward
and holding on tight

The sunburn highway is
crowded today and we're
stuck in traffic, caught
behind a particularly
thick cloud, compounding
beach  breezes and midday
shivering beneath towels

With sweaty hands clapping
beat and fast punches, the
overnight foliage blooms
and dies, laughing hard
in the bright room with no doors

Did you ever ask
how long it takes to write
you out of every verse
and all the lines and pages
crumpled in the wastebin
and beads in your hair
and lips drawn like mannequins
and some unsavory sounds
muffled and escaping under the door

Tap tap slap with accent
and headache and eyeroll
while matching shirts stain
in the same exact places
and the low powerhouse hum
hovers somewhere between C and D flat
while beachy melody traipses
over mutual bored expressions

Everything is borrowed, have you ever
built anything with your hands?
Why so soft and exhausted,
you *****? Why don't you stand and fight back?

Unknown monsters disappear
into shadows and thick smoke
leaving a trail of tired descriptors
and false intention

How many more of us are
dissolving into a creaky
puddle of salt and sweat
and glands and ducts
misbehaving, how many
of us are deserving of
a whack and thump
of never repeating
and never being happy

I need help I need
some serious help my
organs are failing I
smashed the glass and
confetti falls from spackled
ceiling oh wouldn't it be
nice if there was someone
to catch the little pills
rolling down my chest

What does it mean when no one
answers your call when you
can't pull yourself up anymore
and you cry out because you
failed to remember that failure
is a virtue, and that nobody
will ever remember you fondly
for playing with fire and violins

You scared the hell out of me
girl, you best remember how bad
it is for some humans in this world
and how you'll never jump any
hurdles, there were none for you
to even try.

They just ignore what they don't
like about you. They forget it
exists until it shows up again
and again and again and you can't
stop it because it's part of you
and no matter how hard you hack
it's still hanging on by more
than a thread.

Sticky red-faced and wanting
collapses in a pile on floral upholstery
exhausted, bleeding, and alone.