This is my first-ever life. I’ve never been anybody's,
I’ve only ever been any body.
I’m not brave because I’ve never had to be;
I’ve never had to call my own bluff, or learn
the rules; I’ve been coasting by bad beats
and dumb-luck, and the boys always
fall until I flush, tilt until they fold,
love me until they don’t.
I pocket the chips anyway.
My clumsy hands get antsy;
always dropping hints and pennies,
never dropping hands that drop pilots,
barely dropping hands that drop bombs,
and my fermented dreams;
my sweet turns so acidic, I can't see
the color of an aura over the bacteria and bubbles.
I go to sleep with yeast on my fingers
and get drunk on my dreams.
I’m a bad poet and an okay bird;
I spend my midnights pecking on the keyboard
like a sparrow at its reflection, tapping out
a list of things that might be.
I have this thing where I try to write my way
into myself, but the vocabulary makes me lie;
the syntax makes me slink,
I use semicolons wrong,
and always too many commas,
but if you’ve ever seen the inside of my mouth,
you know that I’m doing the best I can.
My first-ever life is shaping up to be
an entire sentence so run-on
and run-down that it
almost doesn't matter if I get to the end;
inmates don’t get to choose where
they serve, even if it is my first-ever life.