The dark is not so harmless;
It passes.

Waiting for another turn
For the worse
Waiting for the Sunday cue
Waiting for the 25th
26th
27th day
waiting for the pull of pain
in marionette head,
waiting
and posing
looking good
and
being selfish,
social backwards juggernaut with
shoes around
walking creases through the songs.

It’s the leaning on the nearby wall
That I can’t stand.
Just come and tackle
If that’s what it’s all about
Just swallow me up
Drain me baleen
Fire up the frenzy fingers
No music lessons just
Dirt and fingernails
Time and consequence
Space, indents, margins oh
You know.
That in between stink.

I’m supposed to watch the lights
Across the hill and
Pretend to see something.
Manic little barbed insulin alohas
Barter back the spaces for rent
Hand them down
Getting tossed between halos
Cocked up enough for curve to hurt
When they bang the hips.
A side to side
That never stills,
A brand new blur
For an old ache
We talk in story
Flurries and rumors
We talk in crime
Yesterdays and through
The thick-tongued drug haze
But
At least we talk.

Hear me out.
It will get closer
Before it bends away
It will take more of everything
Before it leaves me alone
It will be a beeline to haites
Via some valves in this hubcap heart of mine
Spittoon-shaped and rocking
The slightest easiest push just spilling.
I want to be a soldier
But I cannot stop giving up
Picking at the hardened wax
Left behind from past ignitions
Chippin’ bits of ghost

I’ve said it so many times
I wanted to see you
But I didn’t
I wanted my footing beneath me
Yanked from lips and I wish
I would just eat whatever I buy for the cupboard
I let so many good things rot
Watch them age with a detached sadness
Reserved for those too-high moments where you feel like
And you know
You in fact yes
Are going to die
You and everyone
Anyone
Else
And these trees will still stand up after me
And that dead branch will never reach the fence
Those vines instead will make it hostage

Do we have cups around
Just so we can overflow them with
ash and ourselves and
The last drink winking in the bottle
Do we lie to have secrets
Something just for us
Do we drive places so we can get there
So our eyes do see again
Something unusual
Does the babble make sense
When it is so quick
And the art of listening that I deem reasonable to preach
Is anything but practiced

We think we’re so brave
Stoning all those mirrors
Before they could find us
I never want to be called crazy again
I want the palms of everyone who ever has
I never want to hide again
I want to believe what I smell
I want to understand what I feel
I want to write it down
And say it to you
Regrets forget themselves
And wings grow from knots in the wood
All those things I tried to be,
I will not;

I will not

I won’t

not me.