Most mornings I wake from my sleepless nights
and catch myself particularly deep in shallow thoughts
of impossible futures born of better decisions in a
past that never really seems my own.
Incoherent branches of thought grow and snap
under their own weight;
their fruits sunken with decay before touching
the sands that nurtured them.

In an attempt to brush away the *******
I step into Minerva and her soft tan leather bodice
and stare through the top of her body at the dead stars
whose luminescence have yet to match their
state of existence.
Beautiful, yes, but even this does nothing for my nerve.
Born of immense pressure to endure countless millennia
engulfed in the flame of their own energy in order
to survive…
The thankless agony of bearing light

You know,
you and I could make a star.
I, the invisible pocket of dense gaseous creativity;
you, the insistent force of gravity surrounding me–
allowing me a leap…but only so far.
Your eyes whisper psalms (off key, mind you, but I’d never tell)
to the frozen vacuum my chest cavity houses,
and embroider pillows day and night so that my fall from grace,
however un–or disgraceful, ends safely enough to preserve my body
for science.

A tree outside of Minerva aborts an arm
as a lizard does its tail when threatened, and I wake with a start.
Moving from daydream to daydream remains the only way my mind
will allow the retention of my sanity.
Am I a star or just another tree feeling winter’s pressure?
I sure as **** wouldn’t cut it as a broom at a rodeo