Every morning I paint over purple rinds
Of exhaustion beneath my irises.
Every morning I curl my joints inwards;
I have nowhere to go anymore.

In the end, where am I?
Slandered, spoiled, sea-sick,
Misfit, ragtag, falling star,
Washed up to age-old shores
And confined within their limits.

Nobody can join us, nobody
Will join us, it’s a matter
Of admitting that you’re broken
It’s a matter of building walls around
Your own disembodied pieces.

I watch only through breaks in the smoke,
When on occasion the edges
Fall into sharp clarity,
Like a kaleidoscope of bad dreams;
My dull eyes take in the present
With regard to nothing but the past;
He falls in love with a girl who is
Beautifully, dangerously naïve.

Like the flicking of a lighter,
Life sparks and jumps forward--
Not the steady flame that follows,
I am the curling hush of ash.