Sit up stare, glance glare, finer fare in your mouth
I have found south, of center, reenter nervous system
Shyster verbal hysteria, mass panic and malaria
we are just trying to breathe

A hemplock of blocked out tired stares
abandoned to space
A time piece on repeat and redial
been a while

I am expanding outward and recoiling inward
what is this
   feeling

Cilantro breath over broken windpipe words
Adams apple crunched between teeth
  dragged over the reef again and again
   the feeling of sharpness piercing skin

   Burn it, every last page, a thought not worth
thinking
   Turn it, every last letter is shattering my
empathy

A dim diagonal dark spot in the road, hitchhiker unload
a train screaming down tracks shaking
   the rain off the juniper you're
    hiding under
A monumental blunder, burning clothing in the dark
trying to find a spark, a moment of recollection
  gone, all those moments in time
   pharmaceutically lobotomized