in a heat like this you forget you have a stomach, patina’d as it is with shame. the junction of thigh and hip is a bear-trap. what do you and bears have in common? a bracelet of red dents at the wrist and no escape. anyways, keep trying. the four-by-four cube of yourself gives slowly, like a mattress or lung, something to be punctured. there, the air is water-soft. the walls are cream, not pink, but still you wait for threshold to meet threshold, for the mandala-fold of ribs to fall away. come winter this womb of cream will expel you a reborn thing, with fur.

Serenity my impractical refrain
What oceans I have seen could not contain you
Still from long ago
You sleep with sediment in caves of night
Aiding my excuse not to come rescue

While only you could rescue me
And iron out my body crumpled
To let us sleep with tidy sheets
Relived of grime and filth that has compiled upon my years
Believing I can live with out
A single decent peace of mind
Oppression now has swam up stream
And lurks between resembled shadows
Of the memories adhering only to your name

Oh serenity my impractical refrain
Through fault, from which I’ve been delivered
A bitter place I’ve built around my self
Know that amends are only spoken towards your name
Depleted, torn and strewn I simmer
Swept a ‘withered, for oppression now lies within

Arise a faint acknowledge towards me
If ever you wish to return
And I will tend my bed so rightly
For our sound sleep, together, healing burns

Rise in the morning,
Fall back without a fight,
Right back into the night,
Falling 'till the mourning,

As the emptiness grows,
Time simply slips into the void,
The endless repetitions only shows,
Please the people, please the android,

The rain has been pouring,
Yet, the glass hasn't filled,
Though, never has it spilled,
And the answer they are ignoring,

No one knows,
Oh, the hollowness that exists,
The endless repetitions only shows,
These the worlds, these the cysts,

There has been given a warning,
Of this their creations of great sleight,
To achieve such false height,
But, still their hearts they are adorning,

And so it goes and goes,
While they raise their fists,
Right until the final throws,
The world fades into mists,

Meaningless is this warring,
Of a world that remains untilled,
Of dreams that remain unfulfilled,
Look on vacuous, look on abhorring,

As the emptiness grows,
Time simply slips into the void,
The endless repetitions only shows,
Please the people, please the android,

Rise in the morning,
Fall back without a fight,
Right back into the night,
Falling 'till the mourning.

9:13 p.m. on Wednesday
sitting, bolted to this bar,
next to tired tropes and worn out jokes
I've met a million times or more.
And the drinks all swirl together
and they start to taste the same
               going down
               or coming up.
          It really doesn't matter much.

If the streets looked any different,
they'd still bear familiar names:
trees and states and Presidents--
Left turn, snowfall, sitting fences,
               walking home
and getting old. These towns all
look alike, with weeks spent walking
                in the cold.

And the salt on the sidewalks
might season your footsteps--
                                       sure--
a steady, frigid cadence
carried through like a threat:
shallow and petty, from downtown to home.
Alone on the sidewalk,
               it's 7 below.
And I don't know
               what that is in Celsius,
but I know there's no home
              
               for at least
               another block or 2.

I came clean in muddy puddles,
***** slush and snowbound streets,
     in towns that looked alike.
Tonight, I'm headed for clean sheets.
So close the doors, unbolt the patrons
          Thursday morning, 2 a.m.
And it never feels like half an answer
when I push my front door
                                                shut again.

Give me rest.
The kind of slumber
that toddlers protest during naptime
but succumb to with a stream of drool
on their rested faces;
the kind of slumber
that enables my grandmother
to nap in a rocking chair
with a book teetering on the edge of her lap,
the sort of sleep
that wakes me up
an hour before the morning trumpets blast;

give me that,

because I'm tired
of the sheets clutching on to me
like handcuffs
engraved on criminal wrists.

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off
still slay the summers with smiles
                                            like punches
Still walking wounded through the bad joke lanes,
questions clamped under your tongue,
with an aching brain

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
                                                roadways.
Car­rying cards after we fold the game
Poured pretty comforts down our throats--
                      so many candied gas tanks.

And I agree: these couches
                    are feeling more like graves
Will our crutches craft our coffins
'til we bobble routine plays?
Nothing changed before we knew it.
6-year blink, it's all the same.
                                It's just that

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still blur the border between wants and needs.
Still **** our thumbs when all the
                                               lights turn off.
Still check our pulses,
then start laughing loud as
                                 knocking knees

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
We're still too comfortable with our own kind.
Still fall in love with the same friends
                               for just a few days at a time

And I concur: these routines
                 are looking more like chains
Will these crutches seal our caskets?
Would we notice anyway?
Nothing changed before we knew it
6-year blink, it's still the same.

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still chasing sunsets and a 10-cent dream.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
                                           roadways
Still placing patches over fraying seams

Still checking pulses, still on quaking knees.
Still too scared to make up our minds
Still turning parties into 3-day headaches
while we pretend like we can take our time

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place
Still slay the summers with smiles
                                            like punches.

I'm looking for hope, for a new direction,
I'm looking for a sign, a glimpse of salvation

I've wandered too long, but not too far, Knocked on all doors, except the ones ajar

Pride was an alien concept, once I knew what I am,
A void that has nothing to claim,  a life that's been a sham

I sensed the desire leave, the fire in the shadow fade away,
Living in the hopes of tomorrow, before I knew it, it was today

I'm losing faith, as I beg everyone to hold on,
I'm inching towards insanity, as my world moves on

The child is captive, somewhere in the corners of me,
I want it to be my captor instead, I want it to set me free

An ecosystem found upon
An outer crust of dust
Inside abode without a lawn
With tenant taming rust.

Sitting stagnant, songs of stellar
Sing sublime lines
Through minds that remain in cellar,
Never seeing the pines.

Many stagnant years have passed,
Detectives overdue,
The body brought them all aghast,
The stench, the dust, and view.

An ecosystem found upon
An outer crust of dust
Inside abode without a lawn
With tenant taming rust.