not adorned with the usual earthen fragments
i am tail-spinning over my own stubbed toes

trying to regain compassion
transform longing to understanding
catapulting myself into your running shoes
and melting my eyes into your sockets

trying to telescope my way through the haze
while i'm still fanning the flames
with hurried hands hungry to hang off of ideals
positioned on pedestals

impossibly serene transmutation back to the beginning
spiral it to the center and start the poem from scratch
none of these words are really what I meant
at least
not how you heard them

i'm trying to catch lies and misunderstandings mid-sentence
while still actually speaking -
you laugh at me because i'm a stuttering train
stop-starting a derailed refrain

but don't you ever feel sad for
the multitudes of could-be tree-seeds
that have haphazardly flown through the wind
in hopes of growing sun-eating limbs
only to land helplessly on concrete - utter defeat

energetic potential of me atop a mountain peak
squashed to nothing at the end of my plummet