I,
am a walking
headache.
My figure parts beams
of others' light
my coming--
like an aura
that signifies
a migraine,
accompanied by--
the passing
unnamed,
unnecessary,
blips
of luminesence
that,
is my signal
to both come,
and to go.

They blossom
up from the soil, in which  
they were first grown
on a different street
for no one, is planted here
underneath  
the interstate.
Out from the floral spread
of the prosperous, Third Ward,
is a grievous sight
and I, am enraptured
by this scene in the city
of swollen summer loads  
and multi-storied canopy
that flourish, like the  
common wood violet.

When I was eight,
I would press myself  
against the creaky floorboards
of my home  
and listen  
to their tired groans  
of protest from my weight  
atop them,  
as I ripped the caps
off Sharpies,
and let the ink  
spread across the plastic wrap
like a flare.  
I’d stick my confused
colorful Picassos
into an oven
and watch in awe
as the wrap  
would shrink  
and fold in on itself  
appearing smaller  
to the world.  
Now,
at twenty  
I no longer listen  
to the groans  
from my creaky  
childhood home,  
I listen–  
to the murmurs  
from the black  
cellophane wrapped  
shop windows and signs
of tired buildings  
tired of wearing  
faces, to great  
the masses  
of the world  
that don’t show.

Here, in this village,  
I, am unpigmented canvas  

my suburban skin,  
unfamiliar.

Where the trees
bleed colors of resurgence  

into the vacant
and vibrant damp,  

dark, earth below  
to begin and paint again.

As I stood,  
on the wet street  
in solitude, behind
the external lens  
in my hands,
I could hear the passing  
of painted, ticking clock hands
as they whispered and waved
through static noise  
from precipitation  
around me–  
        I wondered,
if a past soul  
of mine, contributed  
to a time of white flight,  
when a financial crisis  
sprawled like a crack  
on a windshield, from a chip  
in glass, created  
by another battle  
between politicians.
My present soul,  
              resides,
in Heidelberg,  
where  
stories of others
become painted dots  
on buildings  
climbing walls  
like spiders,  
their painted eyes
against the stark white,
doted house
seeing all.

I live,
under the quilted
periwinkle skies,
of my room.
This is where
my clothes
amass themselves
and spread their empty
arm and legs,
like a stubborn,
overgrown child.

Sometimes,
I think
that getting a piercing
would make
me feel better
as if--
poking and prodding
my skin,
my face,
with surgical steel
and permanent ink
like I'm some
eighth grade
dissection lab,
would allow me to remove
and dispose
of all the useless parts
that make me
from the ground up,
like an architectural,
design.