And just like that
the hum of anxiety
slowly rises from its grave
at first I can only hear it if I am listening
in quiet places, all alone
but its volume increases ever so slightly
throughout the day
throughout the week
until it's a roar
deafening me
and drowning out everything else
i want to find the off switch
i want to enjoy
the sound of birds chirping
i want to hear the way you laugh at my jokes
but everything else gets put on mute
while I wrestle with the monster in my head

i’ve taught myself
to be silent when
i shouldn’t,
and now i’m not
when i should,

there i go,
obliviously, relentlessly
and uncontrollably making
my voice worthless and worth less.

The geese are a honking loose thread across the sky. I can hear them in my wicker chair like they're sitting right next to me and I think their voices carry at least as far above as down below. So loud. The sound of changing seasons on the wing. You'd think a goose-whisper would be enough to keep their conversation going, but no. I need to hear them in my wicker chair too, apparently. I kinda like that. Maybe they are talking to me. Maybe their sounds are like street-songs for strangers, or God-praise, or apple pie cooling on a neighbor's window. Maybe they made something really pretty in their hearts, and it's so big they can't keep it down their noodle-necks anymore. And so they're singing it out, for the whole world to see, like a big grin, and it's just perfect that I hear it in my wicker chair, it makes it even better, and that's why they're so loud. It could be.

Formed in a field of fire, I cry,

serving thorns of beleaguered triumph, I crawl

to a shorn little wreath of wiring, I stall

to enthrall all the force behind me, I crawl.

Crawl with a ghost's sobriety, in a  thought
I have wrought
what a world denied me, in a joke,
but its not,
it's assuming a piety
in deliverance from fouler hits
isn't a blinder for your civil bliss.

Wake the **** up.

Watch the flare, trace the wick.

Dodge the rain drops, cop's air and spit.

Hopped a train of thought for a ditch

Found a chain of White grapes and whips.

You intervene with glitter glue at the seams,
assume to placate flames below the root of your jeans,
assemble suitable frames amid a brutal disease,
accrue the nourishing famine, staying true to your leaves,
and seeing nothing.

_

capitulate to the critical conditioners , an oppressor
hypernormal in biblical proportions for your pleasure
find the border for brick mortar
pull lever, level threat, fine order,
don't. cross. this. line.
ever.
Never stop to observe the servile nature of your stature
levy thoughtless concern to herd the ******* in your factor
paper shredder for flame fodder, **** your water
crawling out with a name, and an aim to discolor your collar

I have no eyes to see son or daughter,
grass in the field, lacks appeal,
devoured countless when I was smaller

Eyes on the whole deal, now
coal fields, cold meals, thick prose, sick cows,
this thirst, it grows, it thrives, right now
it knows, it chose,
these throes are how these days will close when you aren't loud.

Eat the rich
Eat the poor
Eat the earth
Nevermore.
Wake the **** up.