Water slithers along the curb. You find yourself snagged
in a check-cashing scheme which somehow slipped past
your barriers of paranoia. Starship captain
holds the door for you and you internalize his pity,
swear vengeance.
You rage about the unfairness of the witch hunt,
waving your broomstick in the air for emphasis.
True love is standing beside your man
even when he is wearing a suit of fecal matter.
I'm tired of all this kneeling, tired of the crinkling
of my aluminum foil armor, tired of every bump and crack
in the sidewalk jolting my spine. I feel like a
five foot ten pile of dirty dishes.
The boss called in the middle of the night and I told him.
Sure, I'll work whatever bullshit shift you tell me to
while the lazy weasels come breezing into the office
whenever they like, knowing you won't lift either of your fingers
to admonish them. I can't afford the distraction
from my life's work but it's too late, I'm already knee deep in you
and sinking fast. My feet turn to sand in my shoes,
my wrists spin like propellers.
Late at night we turn on Alice Coltrane records
and stage epic battles with socks filled with dead batteries.
We record the crunch and wallop on our phones,
play it back over breakfast
while we chug our Kool-aid and chew on chemtrails,
wiping the sticky juice from our chins.
No matter how hard I shake my head, you still cling
to the back of my skull with your claws.
Red blood hair like a warrior, green blood eyes like a fly.
Reworked position, revoked permission,
crotch choked with weeds, mouth full of eggs,
shoelaces soaked in honey, syrup spilling
over the dental dam, hurricane fence
erected around the bed, headboard topped with barbed wire.
The nibble and buzz of a drone alighted on your lips.
Hay bale walls close in. Kansas sod house collapses,
robots blink in the corner of the root cellar.
I didn't realize how boring this would all be.
We'll never escape this labyrinth of carpet samples.
I'm as skittish as a tipsy teenager with a fake ID
at a traffic checkpoint. I saw you in that shower cap
you wore after the chemo and I wanted to sob.
I was a tiny creature scooped up in your cupped palms,
caged within your fist.
Our eyelashes got tangled, you hurled me
the scissors. My face an explosion of skin flake confetti
I'll shred that pink slip to ribbons, chop that lightning bolt
into bite-size chunks. Four to six weeks the doctor said
but it's been longer than that and my flesh still looks
like a Seinfeld episode. Nothing heals I guess.
I mean, you're still here.
Let's go back to our working class roots and watch
Children of the Corn together while drinking Spumante
out of jelly jars. Let's trick one another into sailing
halfway across the ocean in a life preserver made
of one another's arms. Let's scratch our initials
in the snow with our antlers. Let's scoop up handfuls
of bug spray breath freshener from the men's room sink
at the titty bar. Let's let acid waterfalls
dissolve our bones, leaving our skin intact.
Something in my pocket is trying to gnaw
its way out. I think it's you.
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