the weather channel.

these days we try and act like we're
mannequins on zip lines -
some things seep into yr skin
with these winter winds, i guess.
i see figures out of the corner of my eye but when i
whirl to find them they vanish
into my own crimson reflections.

no more shortcuts, no more
leaps and bounds and dismissals.
he called me to come taste the sunny day like
a drop of molasses sweet and sharp and slow
but i was on my feet for ten hours
dipping and bowing like
a marionette instead.

i crave this anonymity though i've been
bright-locked and bright-eyed for too many months
and i sort of just want them to stop saying hello.
you know how the city as a mechanosphere of
diagrammatic assemblages
keeps us sliding into each other
in daisy chain circles at night.

we used to marvel at our eyelashes but now i just
fall asleep. did i ask
yr permission or yr name?
please tell me how to drift across
an imposed terrain till i stumble on
my own dragging shoelaces and
crash slam fall into a mouthful of dirt.

these days we try and act like we're unstoppable, unstartable -
mannequins on zip lines but
i think it's time to smash some mirrors
& leap laughing into our seven years' bad luck.

fumbling distractions

i'm not even old enough to drink but i'm too old to drink these days when i lie down and the room starts spinning. let's just ride all night instead till the sun shines vaguely behind this grey sky backdrop and we can jump into crunchy piles of temptation and autumn leaves behind the veggie stand while the one in glasses just shakes his head. i think i've got crumbs in my hair and ice between my toes. i can't believe yr married. i'm ready for new staircases leading nowhere, to landings with locked doors and haunted verticality.

no, like, really, it's night after night of ripped tights and twirling, and it's easy to forget the taste of lined paper, needle in hand. dustbin treasures and yr puppy dog grin in the mirror. we spin gears and back away. (what are you going to be for halloween?) i'm ready for ashtray grimaces and tired feet and endless highways and nothing but bright colors and luck to keep me safe.

eyerolls.

and when i jolt awake in class mumbling in tongues, when i wake from sticky fragments of ludicrous dreams to find myself shivering on a hard wooden chair staring at slides, and outside it's snowing but blue-skied and those staircases are all imploding, and i'm wondering why everyone looks like ghosts with webbed hands and teeth to spare. almost everyone. let's all dress like sailors and sing chanties to these vaulted halls while those young kids drink toasts to our irreverent twisting limbs. you took off yr glasses and i thought you were something new. (but you can't fool me with that combover). shriveled insect guts and the generational divide. transposed sunny days. this codeine keeps me up and this caffeine gets me down, cotton balls and numb fingers and graffiti on the walls. we want to see stars together, fake rippling stars, but my one condition is you must clear me a path through that ketchup delusion we pretend we can't see. (i keep studying my toes, and yr wrapped in a shower curtain whispering lines of whitman to yr windowsills) time to decode, dear, time to unload.

crash bam boom

the heavy noisy quiet after a crashing storm has grumbled away, when the rain is still plummeting onto heads of passersby and the streaks of lightning are growing less frequent, and i suppose that gash in the sky must be mending. the smell of paint fumes and wallpaper remover, the dismantled sink on the porch. i used to get sore from carrying books to the library but now even sick and dizzy my muscles feel good in these following days. so many boxes. so many alleys. so many stairs. that dumpster just filled up our cabinets. how much can one neighborhood throw away? my striped shirt is sticking to my back and this quilt is bigger than my head. how 'bout i age one year real quick and you start letting me into small crowded places with loud music so i can batter my liver and my eardrums simultaneously. do we have a deal? then we just tumble tumble tumble into metaphors of flight and collapse, burrowing and lampshades. i saw yr bike on the bridge so you must have been foraging nearby, but where's yr young oh so young earnest face when i look for you? intellectual discussions where we nod our heads and try to use the biggest words we can think of but really we're all daydreaming about snacks or sex or ceramics. write a song about soggy sneakers and doodle pictures of bikes in the margins. the time is now!