I speak to the world.
it talks back, but not in the same way--
it tells me to watch
all the little movements--
my eyes drink in slowly
the ceiling fan
it's shadow reconstruction
spinning on the wall
I listen as this life speaks.
creaking floor underfoot
it's words are lost on my heels
they do not understand.
bedroom window to the street
I can barely see through
the curtains are drawn closed.

this world shows me sense--
it swallows me whole.

night turns in the sky
like a restless sleeper
so I am awake
cool air greets me
from the idling fan
and the floor whines.
I cannot see the back yard.
cannot hear, feel the world
through the distractions--
these cardboard walls
the paper sky
my mannequin skin--
a projection of the time blinks,
red numbers resting on a black shelf,
in spite of my confines.
11:31 PM
I can not move it back.
11:32 PM

I wish I could play the piano
or something else lovely like that
so I could come home every night
and play the keys that make you cry
before we sat down to eat--
I'd set the table
and you'd wipe your eyes

we'd eat quietly,
conversing through scraping forks,
porcelain against metal
and sidelong smiles between bites--
words are overrated anyway
and what's there to say?--
I'd watch the strays you missed,
liquid tragedy crawling down your cheeks
drawing mascara highways
and I'd imagine driving on one of them,
hydroplaning dangerously close to your skin
as a piano plays somewhere up high--
I suppose I'd need a boat instead

I wish I could paint landscapes
or something else beautiful like that
so I could travel to the mountains
on rainy weekends
and bring them back for you
I'd hang one on our wall
you'd watch the birds' still circling
high above the snowy peak
right before you fall asleep on the couch

I'd spend my weekdays
pulling stars from the sky
with old paintbrushes and older canvas
while I wait for the moon to fall into the lake
so I can swim in and take it home
I'd show up on our front porch steps
all sodden smiles and dripping clothes
holding it under my arm
and you'd let me track water in
all the way to the bedroom
so I could hang it above the headboard
where it'd stay for simple nostalgia
"remember when we caught the moon?"

From first call to final rights
The door badge a colorful arrangement
Announcing only loss
We lose the plot
We march in procession to the grave
Our uneneding disposition
We only wake for the deceased
The mourners
The bereaved
All that remains
And how does it register?
When we speak the language of death

Mozart,
deaf,
died, eventually.

Picasso, pervert, died; Whitney, Winehouse, drugs, dead; Elvis, Methamphetamine, died

(on the toilet).

Van Gogh,
missing an earlobe,
died.

Plath,
head in an oven,
in front of her kids,
Woolf
Patron saint of insanity, I guess
waded into a river and-

River. River Phoenix. Drugs.

Natalie Merchant wrote that song about him in 1995.

Flash forward.
Me, twenty-one, drunk.
Proprietor of a collection of lackluster poems.
Sold their small, nonbinary soul to the Devil
in exchange for a fortune,
gone.

born to be free
never to be tamed

is she a woman or a wildflower?

l.r.

A castle made of glass, and
I'm surrounded by cutting glaciers,
and rocky tumultuous mountains.
How does one break the thinly
veiled tension that's so thick you'd need
a knife to cut it into pieces to serve to
others at your table?

I'm going to continue to spin
in circles, staring at the sky right before it rains.
I'll also trace my toes within
the opague veil of sand covering the fields
and marshes containing various
sea birds and rotting meadow grass.

The cake doesn't taste the same as it did
at noon in your apartment while we sat
naked on your countertops taking turns
feeding each other the frosting with our
fingertips laced with chocolate sprinkles.

The end was inevitable, but the destruction
of our love I don't think I was prepared to face.
At least, for my passionate and aching soul,
the calm after the storm finally arrived.