I am using poetry
wrong
like a New Year's noisemaker
taking out all the silent parts
so I can scream my ******* name in your ear.

i thought for a long time
long enough to hear the ocean
being swallowed by all the salt
long enough to hear the earth speak
in its original dialect;
drawl'd, drawn out
patient as molasses.

i thought long enough that i could hear every sound
ever made.  Dead sounds
decayed as cicada shells
even the ones in the forest no one was around to hear.
And i thought
it sounded like a fire alarm in some basement down the street.

i thought for a long time
with my eyes shut
i thought for a long time
with a power drill pressed against my neck
i thought for such a long time my insides dried out
decomposed
and fermented my blood
into gas
trapped in fleshy canvas.
My corpse was a blimp now
and i thought about having nothing in my head.


and then i was weightless.
my dead self floating into space
like a christian *******
all i saw was objects
objectively
getting smaller
like collectibles over years
And all i could think was How does carbon taste?

and I could see the world
as objects standing next to other objects
standing next to nothing unless there's
an object.
Like something that exists
and that's it.
And that's that.


i thought for a long time
slackjawed
with carbon stains on my teeth
thinking without thinking about meaning
without meaning
writing down a dream
and throwing it under a bus before you read it.
being without meaning
is not the same as meaningless
how pointless a meaning feels
until you name it.
So i wrote down everything i could think of
that meant nothing to me
straight down like a list
and I called it a poem.
And suddenly i didn't have to think anymore.

There are differences
in the weight of our bones
in the curve of our jaw lines
in the pattern of the skin’s stretch marks.
Rule: Everyone will laugh at your differences.

There are differences in how badly your gums bleed
and how they ricochet teeth ‘round the mouth.
between swallowing your tongue
and choking on it.
Rule: Differences are descendants of pain.

There are differences
in the heart’s traffic patterns
the way all your blood looks at a stand still
and how the flow can be a pile up
on Fridays at 5.
Rule: Differences can only be explained through **** metaphors.

There are differences
your hair stacks in one way, and gravity says you go you left
And that’s that.
Your feet and legs will be too scared to disobey
So they don’t.
Rule: Do not mistake differences for instinct.

There are differences
between a shoulder
and a knife.
One is a knife and
the other is a stab wound.
Rule: I didn’t say the differences would be labeled.

There are differences
between a feeling
feeling the feeling
and the feeling of feeling a feeling
And every single one that you have is wrong.
Rule: You should be ashamed of all your differences.

There are differences
that you think are unique and cute
But differences will make you
different
And everyone on the earth or in the ground is
different.
So everyone on the earth or in the ground is not
different.
Rule: Differences make no difference.

I am made from wood
flown in from someone’s homeland
Someone’s family once stood where I was born
heavy feet packing down the earth like asphalt
Children crushed beetles
for the sound it makes
smiling with eyes closed
Mothers shook their heads
with a dense sadness most people call blood

Fathers dug and clawed my roots
to stick wooden posts into my flesh
packed wet dirt in the wound like a tourniquet
and hung signs written on the sides of arrows

I bled until the ground became my body
slept until my body became a cavern underground
My skin turned to salt

quartz that shimmered
when stray light made it in

Above me I could still hear digging
families trying to be familiar
and when the rubble came
crumbled over the holes
and made fertilizer of bones,
I laughed an earthquake
the ground now made of grounds.

I am grown now
I own arms and legs
I have makeshift hands carved from home
87 books on a shelf, folded clothing in trash bags.

But I am not any of these things
I am not the forgotten
I am not quartz,
I am not signs written on the shapes of arrows

I am the wood
flown in from someone’s homeland
Hidden in someone’s home

The deaf,
they can’t hear my teeth
chatter like rocks in garbage cans.
For them,
I pray.

The blind,
they can’t see
me catch on fire,
clutching a match under my toes.
For them,
I pray.

The broken,
they won’t let me touch
their heads of hair
spun round the skull;
spider webs for me to graze.
For them,
I pray.

The tired
and the poor,
with you I rest my worldly wander,
my tired arms and legs I made splinter.
Let them hang like fire escapes against
the building sides.

And when we go to  sleep because we are hungry, in piles like old jackets,
I will not pray.
I will not sacrifice. I will huddle them
in masses.
So I can watch them all breathing
and in our dreams that will be free.