a dog pees on a tree,
so what, that’s average.

a baby has spaghetti
around its mouth,
pfft, that’s basic.

a woman living below you
beats on the ceiling with
a broomstick and tells
you to “keep it down!”
big deal, that’s common.

pulling your member
out of your pants and
stroking it violently
with excitement,

hey, that’s just everyday living.

but, seeing you sitting there
on that park bench,
one leg crossed over the other,
with your dog
and your book
and your sunglasses
while tears of joy stream
down your face
after something you
just read

well now…

you
don’t
see
that
everyday.

conduits of experience with the conduits of our perspectives. the tube with its inside ribs, ribs of view.

for some, what beats within just beats, the most feral piece of us all caged up.

for some, love gets shoved in an airvent and a doll dressed up takes its place to meet the people.

queerness is a great harvest when the fruits are ripe enough to fall on heads.

for some, the brain is a wet field and we’re lucky its ecosystem trusts us.

there are sadly better alignments for our jolted existences. better than getting dressed up to discover it’s the wrong occasion. the mushrooms are laughing at us and it’s a pain that finds every fiber. the ribs tell us, “he just has his days.”

brittle resistance, put the doll to bed gently and walk away with the carbon monoxide sensors singing. we cannot keep suturing. the worms clearly want it. unscrew the vent and bring love out for a nice picnic. any who laugh are laughing alone, i trust the fungal approval. i plant my fingers and feel them humming.

she disappeared into the shadows of the night,
skimming through the uproarious parties
like stone across the lake
until she sunk into
the gruesome arms
of another man
behind my sleeping back.

and there he was, pounding away
like some big dumb animal
at something I held sacred
as if bonds were meant to be broken
and boundaries were made permeable

and there she was,
taking it,
loving it,
enjoying it,
doing it to spite me
and knowing it would hurt.

and there I was, the last to know
in the dark circles of whispering
secrecy

it’s the all-too-familiar cycle
of passion and appetite;

swallowed by the underbelly of lust and
tormented by the foretaste of my presence

I can’t blame them,
I can’t blame myself,
it’s only nature
taking
its course.

and I can’t say this is written
about anyone specifically,

when it happened

far too many times.

smoke lingered throughout the air
illuminating my father’s face
and shadowing my mother’s
the bud of the cigarette catching fire
the somberness of this second fading in the distance
a memory being erased
the screams gone silent
her hysterical tears scrubbed harshly from her face
the look of shock smeared from mine
but father stayed still
through the cries he stayed still
and he let the moonlight trickle in through the window
reflecting off of his watch
the seconds ticking into minutes
and transitioning into hours.

we sit for hours in silence
in grief, torment, misery
letting the sound of shuddered breath
and last drags of cigarettes
ghostly wisps in the air
fill the room.

i know they’re concrete bumper slugs because the slime leads right to them. the trails are obvious every morning and then the sun ingurgitates them leaving a glittery residue.

it is an aberrant cursive, some curse for their brethren snails to decipher.

the customers don’t believe me. they doubt that and they doubt the fees i’m told to tuck under their paper packet and they doubt the slugs are solving math proofs and they doubt interest is a thing of the heart. but it is and don’t tell my concrete parking lot bumper slugs otherwise.

curses are foldable, or the best ones are, and that is why i become the passive utterances of a wise woman when she calls me to question. i will fold so quickly don’t test me.

with a grain of salt, the glitter stain takes a chalky quality. pique my glasses, tap on my clipboard, make slow circles around the concrete fringes to consult with the grass.

it seems like the slugs are solving the complexity of theorem proving procedures. if we call the Federal Math Department (FMD) then they better know what these slugs are on about.

i would love to liberate them from this parking lot. i would love for them to sit by rivers and make bumper slug babies. lovers pushing strollers would beckon to them and say, “that’s who solved the complexity of theorem proving procedures.”

even the reader is starting to doubt me. starting to doubt the fees i’ve tucked in here. maybe even doubting the intellect of these bumper slugs.

please.

they just need more time. their snail brothers just don’t get it. i have it all right here, just wait until the FMD gets here. just wait until the sun spits it all back to us. don’t doubt it.

a line of claymores hang from the fuselage. the trees wince from the feint. even though they know the cut of wind in winter. it’s a game to get by with a parachute.

i try to use upcycled versions with the holes properly patched.

i bring a little bell pepper with me and whisper into its fuzzy bottom that we’re going to be ok. we’ve gone at least a week without fajitas.

nylon comes from meshes and bristles, from quilts and frayed edges. i heard in the vault of DuPont they have the only nylon doll. she is the bravest of all trees.

my stomach gurgles and dissociates and slips into an anomalous extradimensional space and lurches from liminal backflips. it must be Tuesday. or some other onerous occasion like the first mycorrhizal shiver.

what if canaries made gay love in coal mines? what if they sang with the intimacy of warning? what if we feared their silence before it came?

dicyclomine has a mean plasma elimination half life of 1.8 hours. its wrapper however, part plastic, part foil, part waste, part breached, part fingernail slice, part flattened, part incinerated, part carbonized, part smoke, part dust, part forever, part brain-burn, part palinopsia.

the aircraft avoids chemical manufacturers and places of dangerous business because a falling claymore could spell disaster.

fasten my goggles one more time, kiss my bell pepper, start the slow journey home and apologize to all the trees on my way down.