talk about the weather,
storm into a room
shattering the peace
that passes all understanding,
like the fragile vessel,
like the broken pottery,
some claymation caricature,
living life large,
narrow stream
and in you barge,
and rant and rave,
until you realize you are in the wrong room,
the one without a view...point,
who anointed you,
with oil that flows over your beard,
and hand sanitizer does not
count, as you listen to that song by
Blunt, and stare at every girl as they
walk, and by mouthing the words,
in hopes that the lyric comes more than
true, for that one moment, face and eyes
that
met,
angelic wings will lift you,
from where misery holds you...
no chains,
no ropes,
only hands are holding you
by your bare ankles,
the hands you no longer
recognize
as yours.

I feel like a folded symbol,
inside the chipped-cherry boxcar
that is my damp, June mind.

A fetus seizing in the womb,
hooked up like a cheap monitor.
A foreign strandedness, wrapped
by a boa of dark country back roads
and sterile air skipping across grass.

If I stop, If I sleep
the sweat seeps from my pores
like a sterling grey squad,
oxidizing in the fog,
swimming around headspace,
guns melting with claymation cheeks,
howls into the night, darling deadbirds.

I am now happy and remember
only other happy memories.
Over a decade of depression
and now this.

I feel unfinished, unwanted
by the quickness of life.
I feel like a grain
caught in a gust so swift,
I may never adjust.

I, the empty-headed boy,
causing jet-black glass
to appear on sand,
to remove my footprints,
and incase them, phantoms.

we are dinosaurs.

me and my friends:
are chalky ***** figures.

spine-braced--
in a claymation display.

you will never truly
know us.

we are:
not
living.

we are:
the insides
of buildings.

we are:
a main exhibit

watch:
the stutter
of movements.

cold,
lucid,
lizards.

every shroud
thrown on

only invokes
the wrath
of the architecht

after all
what is a body
but a bag of bones
wagered to
break
or tossed on turtle shells
to predict
great things.

They prefer if you don’t come in the normal entrance,
Where your actions and demeanor may generate
A semblance of disquietude and anxiety for those clients
With simple dislocations and the de riguer colicky infants.
Instead, you are directed to an inconspicuous doorway
Around the back by the dumpsters and empty pallets
To an unadorned room with to fill out the requisite paperwork
(Which proves quite difficult because you’re shaking;
Most likely because the room is so cold,
Or the folding chairs prove ancient and unstable),
Upon receipt of which they allow you
(Although this go-round
There’s no inked footprints or photo provided)
To take your baby back home.

As children, we learned those truths we needed to know
At the feet of claymation wise men
(Proffered to us through the good graces of Rankin and Bass)
That under-appreciated misfits will receive their reward in due time,
That Mommy and Daddy will sit,
Smiling as without a care in the world,
At the kitchen table with brother and sis
Over a piping hot breakfast forever and ever, amen
Before they adjourn to the shiny tree
Surrounded by legions of dolls, brigades of fire engines
(For Santa shall never disappoint any good boy or girl),
That children shall always bury their parents.
I now know that the snowman lied,
And that when he is removed from refrigeration,
He shall not reappear as the strong, substantial man of snow,
But become merely a puddle,
Then mist rising from the sidewalk,
As invisible as the ditties children sing
While jumping double-dutch,
As fleeting as a hug in the dark
After you’ve chased the monsters from under the bed.

We eviscerated our love as if on demand,
Like fictional characters with scissors for hands.

If life were a movie, we would have pieced it together,
Using all our hope we'd rebuild it stronger and better.

We'd have a book of movie quotes we could use for a brain,
Then we'd just have to get these claymation hearts animated again...

We'd have them personally reassembled by a Halloween king,
And expertly stitched at the hands of an undead queen.

Our spirits safe, inhabiting invincible dolls,
We could rewind time, so the bombs never breach the walls.

If it was something we drank that made us feel small,
Could there be a tiny cake that would reverse it all?

Could it be the golden ticket to the show where we met?
Or would an offer of friendship bring up confusion and regret?

You may believe that I'm only enchanted by the path not taken,
But I hope, that like me, you too are a dreamer awakened.