What if your life was in a cage
And all the animals came to stare
You are a display case
How would you live
If everybody was watching?

i lied about the exorcism--
that neon ghost
still haunts my phone
and though all of us are silent
you sing my tinnitus till the storms get back.

you don't know it's been raining all week
because i never told you;
i'm so scared of spirits and spiders
and weathering small-talk--
your sun and my curtain-clouded bedroom.

in a sunpatch on your floor,
i dreamt of leaping off the grid
and landing back in lake hylia a hero;

now i only dream of daytime drinks,
a summer solitude as dull as the ends of my hair
'cause i can't even throw back my dad's ninety proof
without the sun in my eyes

so the truth is
between zelda and zookeeping
i've been seancing on the dusty carpet
arranging myself around album booklets and ***** shirts

and maybe i couldn't help it

maybe i lit a couple candles by your name
not thinking you'd think of me
or think to shine solar snapshots onto my pillow--
a presence to make me breathless
enough that i can't
***** them out

and they keep me up at night