Surveilled fluorescence at my temples,
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
This desolate white—arches forming at my cuticles,
Four dimensional, the Nile running through my body.
Sediment washes into silence;

grit settles in the gaps of my teeth, my eyelashes blacken.
Gummy cuts and chlorine burns.
Rubbery knuckles and the smell of gasoline.
Metal in my ear, ringing—

My sad is copper sulfate,
A blue shriek in my sternum,

A pressure frame inside me,
Too far away to burn him.

Leave my sad to crystallise,
Please just keep your distance.

Through my stalagmites of sorrow
Take the line of least resistance.

I carve companions from the rock,
Each one a salty clone.

I’ve made societies down here
To sit with my alone.

Like sparkling water, your breath punctuates every gulp—
Sharp and cold, I come back for more,
At your behest—like saffroned ice cubes on the eyelids.
A sober delight.

Scrubbing the grout in between the tiles with black salts,
Pale like drying sunscreen, piercing my palate with cedar—
Where did the subtlety go?

Oh Lord,
how few normal people there are in this world!
Only me and my imaginary friends.

My niece
made me bangle
of letters, stars, unicorns|
and colored beads

Then it hit me
that's her poem to me
a set of random things
that sit beautifully
side by side
around in a circle

and I noticed that
that's the first time
someone wrote
a poem
about
me

Does he know he’s a poet?
The oceanic, the mystic,
The boy who sees his own reflection in his eyelids;
He sings Esther’s song on his way up the mountain.
With granite on his back,
And marble in his pockets,
He carries his alms for the Oracle Sisters;
Does he know the crevices of his brain are indeed rivers?
Replenishing his worn soul with rubies.
The ocean boy,
Disillusioned by his youth,
And with Crawfish swimming between his ankles,
Must he sojourn alone, in this desolate plane?
Or will he think of new landscapes, with a new Sun, new water, and a new friend?