Suspended, intoxicated,
Their faces spell out a word I can’t read
But I hear them, I hear them
And I let their ringing voices, their systematic joy
Lull me into another daydream.

They infect me, slowly,
Molten lava flowing to a standstill.

Have you ever seen hardened lava?
It’s dark, expansive, a plowed field ripe for sowing.
But it’s sharp, did you know?
It’s glass, obsidian razor blades that tear at your skin
Not only sharp, but silent, too-
You look down, and you’ve lost a finger.

You lose the point of your cheek
The slump of a shoulder.
Before you know it,
You lie there, disconnected pieces bloodied and pale,
In a field of expansive black.

I am shredded, pulverized
The words batter at me, hail and rain on a bowing windshield.
Between the crack of my lips
And the rats nest pressed to my faded walls
Is a numbed mass of slush
Protected by a barbed wire fence.

Sleeping Beauty’s castle in a wall of thorns-
But to keep out, or to keep in?
Protected, or jailed?
I slumber, curled and warm,
A feather to blow, a dandelion to destroy.

When the prince comes calling
When the clock strikes midnight
When they ask me to spin straw into gold
I swallow another pill.
I drift into another night of distraction, of
Reaching hands and wax lips that melt
A rainbow of crayons onto my lap-
Anything to avoid tomorrow,
Avoid the fists and knuckles of responsibilities
That press, suspended against my throbbing temples.