Lars lifts opens the toilet seat. The hinge squawks and he mimics the sound with his mouth. A dumb smile folds out on his face like someone unrolling a beach towel. He sits without dropping his pants or underwear. The cops are just about to leave through the screen door. Maggie offers a departing sacrament of right out of the oven of crispy flakey Pillsbury biscuits. They wave their hands parallel to the ground refusing. Maggie pulled the biscuits out too early. The bottoms are tan and dimensional but the tops are sloppy. They look like they have a glaze but they don’t have a glaze. They are pasty but still hot to the touch. The pan is hot. Maggie is wearing maroon oven mitts. One of the cops gets his foot snagged on the throw rug. They walk with their heads down but don’t notice the curled edges of the throw rug. They notice a black pug named Roger instead and nearly avoid fumbling over him. The cops scatter outside quickly like ducklings crossing the street. Lars’ dumb smile lingers and he laughs with a shushing lisp. He reaches between his legs into the toilet bowl. His hand disturbs the water. His nose is bleeding. Maggie closes the doorwall after the cops leave. The cops left the screen open. Maggie reopens the doorwall, closes the screen, shakes her head, and then closes the doorwall again. The kitchen is humming with improper wires. The light is electric pastel blue. The linoleum is too ***** to sleep on. Maggie’s ******* can be seen through her shirt. Lars wipes his nose with his arm and shoulder. He is hunched digging into the toilet bowl. He pulls out a baggie with a twist tie on top. The baggie looks reused. Maggie enters under the frame of the door and her lips roll out like a beach towel. The ******* in the baggie is very very dry.

We can dance on yellow petals
Until they're red.
All of our lives we've been waiting
Who cares what God said
Waiting, waiting, waiting
Exactly sure of what we wanted
Vexed by time
Biology
Geography

I remember the wallpaper textures
I kept running my hand against it that next morning
I remember the bobbing sunflower heads outside
the doorwall
The peeling paint on the window sill
I most especially remember you -
All of my life I've wanted to do this

*Xoxo

Oh, you want to know what happened?
I'll tell you

3:16
It came through the air I guess
It went through trees, clouds, people
The whole ******* universe, I think,
And by some freak coincidence,
It went through my eyes and
into my brain
Where it bombed around for a while
Then it turned into some hot injection
that got pushed like syrup into
my veins...

3:19
My car is shuddering and clattering
As I fly over missing pieces of asphalt
and warped dirt road
With my boss in my ear
As I explain why I'll be a little late in the language of hysterics
3:20
Maniacal skill I didn't know I had
Gets me to where I need to go
As three more fishtail behind
To congregate on the driveway cement

3:21
The house is deathly
But my heart is lively
When I run around back
to find the doorwall left unlocked
Like a cordial invitation
to an old family reunion
3:21:05
Michael is the name I'm yelling
But I swear to God it's
his spattered brains I'm smelling
As I sleepwalk under a heat lamp
down a hallway that keeps
      shrinking and growing

Tell me, God,
What do I know about healing?
tell me...
what do I know about trying to sew two fragile pieces of
white skin together that spurt
red in tune with a heartbeat?

Tell me God,
What do I know about walking I wonder
When I'm finally there
And it's all very riveting
As some ******* grabs my
ringing phone away
And thrusts me forward
into the final resting place
of a young frail boy
where I will surely find him the
color of cod
Dangling from his soft, mushy neck
or with a cylindrical
chunk of his head missing
Carved out by a bullet

3:21:35
Tell me, soul,
What do I know about loneliness?
Tell me...
What do I know about
                 trying to
balance the two fragile pieces
of mind and body that
slowly rip apart in tune with
the drag of a joint?

Tell me soul
What do I know about Michael
I wonder
As I find him nestled in
the nook between toilet and
wall
curled like the fragile fetus that
     he is
so I surround his body with
mine as I sob
finding his arms only
      scratched
but his mind all bloodied with
      drugs, I guess,
Except he recoils from my
      touch
Like a cold worm being tugged at
    from his ***** hole
3:22
Footsteps crash
Voices shatter
I hurdle away
As the paternal problem
prods and pokes
How odd it was
to see the change from
      Frantically to cop-ly.
3:24
There's ambulances coming
While Michael walks off down
     the street because he's fine
And there's crying and sniffling
Oh woe is me
Oh woe is Michael
And it all ends very quickly
As I'm sent away to
     make sandwiches
And weak boys are questioned
     and prescribed to in a hospital bed

Except it all doesn't end very
    quickly
Because for the next three
days my throat swells for
no reason so that I don't
dare to speak
And because for the next
three ******* months
Michael is my everyother thought
and how nothing was gained.