Confetti settles in the crease of the carpet.
I wake up with pints of honey buzzing
in the center of my chest. My eyelashes cast shadows
like tick marks on my cheeks. No chaos.
The backs of my legs are tender
from crawling through the window to the roof.

We watched a paper mache moon from the roof
the night before. Small towns are boring liked threads from the carpet
but the people have hearts that are tender
like living peaches, always buzzing.
Just one picture of us, five sorry teens with internal chaos
dancing through string lights and breathing shadows.

Harris has a fascination with those shadows.
Her membership would be awarded with a dive from the roof.
She always loves the smell of checklist chaos,
or formulating plans while lying on the carpet
of her room. Her emotions are pulled taut and buzzing,
resonating fear when she forgets how to be tender.

Julia’s wire existence couldn’t try to be tender
She is a fat slap of clarity across your dispositions. Shadows
can’t cast new shapes across her buzzing
body. Her ******* pointing toward the roof
and her feet sinking between carpet
folds. like every time she is around it’s chaos.


Britt’s eyes reflect blue waves free from chaos
and each word skips across his tongue gentle and tender.
His clothes, Goodwill and kind-of-used-carpet
and camera casts light to evade shadows.
Short prayers dare scrape the roof
of his mind. Send heritage and denial buzzing.

Nelson is 7 years of swallowed gum and buzzing
alarm clocks, warning the world of chaos.
He climbs up rusted ladders to the roof
to shout of love and it’s lack of tender
tendencies. He is a fall breeze where leaves force shadows
across the laundry line, too weak to leave a hole in the carpet.

I glide through my days alluding tender
my mind scoffs at the chaos of my daytime shadow
but under the roof, i'm just a chalk outline pushed into carpet.