mind is an

atom
bomb

I want to be rogue w/ wayward
stories to tell of roads swallowing
           me whole & forests inviting me in

mind is surreal:
suggested thoughts are
so elastic -

tomorrow is tomorrow is tomorrow

capped energy, let's go smiling in swelling tides..

"city lights lay out before us & your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder.."

& rabid stones stood sinking
    & dreaming near gasoline
    shores & soaked to the skin are those
same copy/pasted highways from five hours away
         all-ages included in memory
                     empty spaces, no more visions
                     of green

& driving every two weeks to & from
               familiarity w/ those sapphire stops
               in between (sometimes..)
& still we danced
& still we screamed at the top of our minds

always existing somewhere in the middle of black & white

an urban afternoon of lunacy,
                             of no more teenage angst
                                              teenage violence
                                              took its place
where a no man's & madness motherland sleep
          a few blocks away

& everyone copies how to behave
                a copy
            of a copy
            of a copy

"..she tells the same old story to everyone that she knows.."

w/ streetlights causing midday
much too bright madness this town's
too small for anyone caught in
between realities because what
             you see is what you speak is what you scream

& roads never different
& windows always the same
& this home/my home (my pleasure/my foe)
& familiarity: a catch-22 for my mind..

& where city streets disconnect
    w/ so many smiling souls & eager minds
                                              eager to learn & to live & to live again
& where bullets bend
              through bodies
              through lifetimes through happiness in
              a laugh, in a long morning
                             (a good morning..)
& in a short goodbye in an unfamiliar
town where I saw such a familiar face

& where tides are softer now
I miss the diamond shores, the sapphire
voices of yesterday still burn in my own
           mind & this memory is no longer
                                                           cursed

& the concrete wave every night filled
    w/ strangers, w/ friends, w/ anyone trying to
                             pretend to be anything but themselves

high & hiding from suburban legends
                     far too deep..

& this place is mad
& this world has had enough
madness for one day
& now horizons stretch like
eleven & its trees still
              stand naked
                                 still waiting for a
                                 summer's sun..

"you have a body of melting memory, & at the
slowest pace, the most random places are
now your home, so please take this number
down, please take this stone, please
shatter your reality & reality is all you'll ever
           own

           you blew through the ages, timeless imagery
           imagining a cost to your freedom, a reason for
           perplexing dreams - now it's your turn to run
away in this maddening forest of urban storms -
you've crushed empty sidewalks w/ cemented
                        grins, you've pushed all magnolias
                        from such green fields,

now let me in.."

overpass stories & rats
              that wouldn't let you
              sleep & how every time I
                           see you
                                 you look so much older

(my mind rattles)