the leaves sway and catch sunlight
and i catch both against my cheek
and chase them down to my throat,
crush them into each other into me
into chamomile: a trickling summer

i drown in sword-shorn grasses and
in return for breath they write on
my skin in languages that have never
been spoken, only sung only felt
only studied with one dirt-painted
fingertip, fine hairs punctuating
pink brown imprints of trodden earth

ants count dozens of steps, climbing
the winding train tracks (and rocks
sleeping beneath) of my wrists legs
nose and untraveled stomach, and i
let them travel; let my body be gravel
become highway become interstates to
ugly and restful towns diners hotels

and even as sunlight burns my eyes
and bobcats stalk past forests beyond
the reach of my oven-warm wind-wound
open palm, ground allows its drinks to
seep into my sweatpants desert skin
and curls: an oasis i carry on my back

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

got caught up talking
balked through the window and fell through the back door
umbrella still in bloom

left rings of condensation as footsteps
and also frostbite in 60 degree weather
and also footsteps for nobodies to follow
freaked out by stale nature
valley-cracked teeth
translucent petals poking through nag champa clouds

lost spider solitaire
twenty-one times in a row

lost all the gaba napping in classrooms
and spinning circles around itself
untuned cerebellum in atrophy against the spins

lost it
won an advil liqui-gel
and quickly quit:
jumped off the peak of its dose-response curve
into the pool of a hallucinogenic july

doesn’t matter:
komorebi’s turned apocalyptic;
sunset's turned subvision

now you make shadows on the mirror and wet-floor signs on the tile
get caught in spiderwebs not a foot outside your bedroom
blast faith through android speakers suffocating in her comforter
drown your plants in ***** water

never heard a silver lining
only eat up deserts
for the cacti that’ll propagate later in your throat:

a seventy-five cent zinnia’s last whiskey-driven photosynthesis
rootbound

just like that the pretty girl in my dreams
disappeared freed my sheets to let them
suffocate as usual and i stayed there
facing the ceiling with cymbals’ collisions under my pillow

and for a haze i stayed
still and subsisting on spit and spider mites
like the sea wasn’t swallowing anything
till i was ninety percent salt and crystallized
breathing out dusty alphabet soup into the aether

like anyone with a disdain for capital letters
my circle sends its love along with mutual virtue parasitism
in distress beacons pinged through a dead battery and twitching fingers
and you know it’s for the best

no falling out of bed or breakfasts till the oasis is complete
under construction in the dusty pillowcase i call home
down the street from the abandoned asylum where i learned
mouth too dry and lungs too sharp

a shriveled cactus with paper spines

imagine a mattress abandoned
on the side of i-390 on the rock salt (somehow from the sea
leaning up against that sloping cliff’s edge of land

locked up in villages unvoiced)
a makadikadi daydream–
a back against the crust of earth
as young strangers whispered and daydrank
just inside
across the crackling barrier–

distant suns stretched icicles
on eaves of barely empty buildings–
houses with no owners watched,
nestled against sidewalks coated over in warning
of a return to rest

noise-cancelled
shoe-gazing

black coffee frozen in the doorway–
against a tapestry of laughter through AM radios and portable speakers

pretending to nap

The whining hum of LEDs
distract from their sneaking shadows
where pallid light
falls dimly
'round corners, walls, and vents.

White is the prescription
for walls, panels, screens
and plastic
or metal
or manufactured wood abound.

If this office were a sandwich
maybe it would be ham and cheese
but instead of ham
maybe it had tofu.

Tofu is not so bad
the taste is fine
but still
it is white
and, relatively speaking, bland.

once trapped in between metal and wood, the mouse forfeits its life to the higher power
for its own foolishness and yearning for livelihood led it to the clamping jaws of death
the mischief goes without mourning, for deadweight is doomed to the side of the road regardless.
the tiny mouth of a mouse can only squeak so loudly, but the sound is drowned out by the snapping of its fragile bones like a branch of a tree falling
this is an infinite purgatory
rodents aren't reborn, and will always be invaluable to all species but themselves.
everything dies, but the hungry are murdered.

i rest in the corner of a cubic room, stuck in my fate.
i wish not for the best of life, or for a new one afterword
i know my valueless existence will be replaced down the line.
the days flash by and what is left of me is rot, clinging to the bones that make me the weak and deformed being i am.
people would save me if i wasn't a bottom feeder.
a perfect puppy, full of life and joy.
maybe just a bird, wing snagged by a predator whilst trying to ****** food.
i'm not ugly, am i?
am i not worth companionship?
i'm not even worth the food i find for my family.
the world was mine once.
to be free to wander again, without having to worry about being fooled or trapped.
i should be too young to die, but i'm too clever to live.

delicate as snowfall brushing your cheek
and wind flowing through on an open-topped peak
but when you go home, when you go home
the warmth washes it all away.

when it captures you, raptures and
seizes your soul, you feel it take hold and
suddenly
you cannot recall
what once was cold and no longer is
but still, a silent strange feeling
lingers
until you are left with your tremors, your
trembling—
the imprint, the mark of a melody.

The gold, velvet curtains
allow the sun to slip through,
contrasting the flat, make-shift fabric
that used to shield these rays.

Light dances on the fresh paint,
that clings to the sad, bare sheetrock
you shamelessly had on display.

With brushstrokes askew,
and a lively orange hue,
we tried to mask the dents–
remnant of her past rage.

We covered those scars
with our framed memories
and sentimental assets,
now side by side and entwined,
weaving our worlds into one.

This newfound atmosphere
clears the congestion in my chest,
and rejuvenates our spirits,
injecting a freshness
we thirstily absorb.

We're granted a reset,
for we’ve painted vibrance
onto a clean slate.

“Thanks for asking, but 𝑰
am fine, just a little tired.
𝑪𝒂𝒏’𝒕 complain, you know?
Everybody gets a bit
stressed sometimes, what with
all that we’ve got to 𝒅𝒐.
It’s not like 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 is any different
than any other day, any other person.
𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 somewhere has it far
worse than I do, so don’t feel sorry
for me. No, 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 your compassion
for a person who really needs it, not
𝒎𝒆.”