a shroud of cool air
wraps around my bare shoulders
it’s 4:08 a.m.
I can’t sleep
I feel loathed to burden
the person who lies peacefully next to me
with the suffocating tendrils of
anxiety, shame, doubt
I fear the poison will spread
restlessness, contagious
painfully conscious

I am plagued by dreams
pain and anguish
blood and glass and teeth
shatter and sting in full color
dead or drowning
grotesque and livid

I’m either
awake and fretting or
asleep and writhing
disquiet as a state of mind
seething in my agitated paralysis

I am steeped in spirit
and it flows far smoother
than prose
apologies

pretty sure you’re magical
you have eyes like sunshine hitting a cup of  black coffee
at just the right angle
to ember and glow
molten and gleaming all at the same time

I only know because you spend hours looking into mine
into me
this started with you
but now it’s me too

I think the longer you stare
truly see something
the more complex and beautiful it becomes

you took me to the beach yesterday
we walked along the low tide
and you waited complacently for me while
I stuck my head and hands in the tide pools
I want to hear them
smell them
see from within them
you looked for bugs
while I communed with hermit *****
we traded pretty rocks
and put -most- of them back

you waited again
squinting in the sunlight up at me
while I scrambled onto the landing
of a derelict rusted husk
of a spiral staircase
leaning at the same angle as the tower of Pisa
so I could get a better photo

you lost me a couple times
you will learn that I tend to wander
I found a flounder head
we discussed over a mysterious carcass
whether it was a seal or a shark
I say shark
You say seal
you tried to hide your mild disgust
as I poked, prodded, and smelled it
still curious about it’s identity

and it dawned on me
you may be the first person
who actually has the patience for me

Can’t tell if my mind is moving too much
or my eyes aren’t.
It was just hailing,
but now an ochre sun is piercing through
the thick blanket of clouds.

—

Now the sky is blue.
The weather has released me.
The clouds fell from the sky
as this weight will fall from me.
I will walk in the woods.
walking on the gray—
on the haze.
It is beneath me now, in the ground.
As the clouds die, they feed the earth
with their corpses
and the earth will feed me.
With me.
Breathe me.

Life and decay are the same thing.

If I rot, will I not
simply become something else?

or maybe not.
The longer I inhabit this body
the more it seems like a simple
vessel, containing the multitude
that is me.
The universe has given me this gift.
This curse.
This magic.

God and science are the same thing.

“Nothing is sacred” and “Everything is sacred”
are the same **** phrase.

Heaven and hell are the same **** place.

No past, present, or future.
Just everything,
all at once.

Now is a concept.
Fate isn’t real
only because the future isn’t real.
Our perception of time is a coping mechanism.

Why else would the past feel so close?

Don’t just live in the present.
Exist. In everything.

The universe is only as big as our minds.
Our minds are infinite.
We are just blind.

my limbs are heavy
I’m frozen
glacially stuck.

time pirouettes around me
flies scribble emphatically in a stuffy room
a soft wedge of light scans the cobwebs
clinging to the wall
a cellar spider hails to me from a box of kleenex

this room is a mental illness ISpy
every little pen cap or thumbtack
every single thing
is another thought in my head.
my heart is pounding with the realization.
another thought here to stay

I spy
the millions of hopes and dreads and fears and doubts
scattered, strewn, stacked, piled
teetering on the edge of collapse
ever growing
yet also collecting dust

I spy
my body
defying gravity
I feel like I’m on Jupiter  
I think I’m becoming non-newtonian
brain still whirring like a contrite zoetrope

three fans drone in my ears
and I jump—
—startled
as the garage door opens
life continues around me

I should at least put on pants.

gender norms are like bottles
they are fragile
and take up space
they can be useful
but get in the way
and if you’re feeling stressed and restless
and wanna do something dangerous
you can take them outside
and break them

the earth is the only love i need
she has no forgiveness
but seeks it neither
she will take
and love [consume]my body
no matter
her change so chaotic and great
that with my stagnation i fall
into her
stillness is impossible
if all around you is moving
infinitely, endlessly
the earth will never refuse me
she cannot leave me
as i cannot leave her
we are entangled
she will bury me
in her arms, in her love
eventually

I feel like there’s too much on
        my mind to write any of it down

everything seems to be speaking
everything wishes to be louder
     all I can do is stare at my toes

my mind and body have been screaming
                         for months
    at me
            in general

it’s too much to write down
    too much to let it out

                                 I might explode
                           or just deflate


I feel like I’ve been treading water
          for longer than I can

and my mouth and nose are finally, slowly
filling with water
            trickling down my throat
                           filling my belly
                as I sink
                       beneath the waves