What

I don’t want
To talk right now
I’m watching the construction
Of a new McDonald’s
Replacing an old one
I don’t want to talk about it

I’m watching
Sugar, Flour, Salt
Mixing in a bowl by those hands
Mine
I can’t talk about them

When I come home to this place
I am the one who is dreaming
But I’m never gone long enough
From anywhere

I really don’t want to jump
Unless you tell me how far I’ll fall
But you did tell me
And yet I hover

There is more to this
But I need you to write it
The more you tell me
The better

sand

I see people all the time
But I am always different
I see myself through
Other people

At the ocean
I crushed seashells
with my feet
There are whole
pieces
of shells
Stuck in my heels

Every time you step
on a shell
you make more sand
Every time you step
in the sand
it gets softer
But the sea really
does most of the work

I could see myself through
the ocean
But it wouldn’t keep me whole either

You are

If you
are not
afraid
of death
Then what are you?
There is
no such
thing as
nothing.
Fear is not
universal.
It is something
we learn
to obey.

modified

The corn field is endless if we
let it be
A minefield

If a tumor could sing it would sing in the chorus
With its peers
Counting down together
And we would hear
We’d freeze everything over now
So it will all fall off in a week or two
And we’ll work
With what we have underneath

You can’t turn money into lemonade

Rotten freeways are
Growing from the garden
The same one that grows the lemons
We can’t even imagine

Not everyone knows how to make lemonade

We only see the snowfall
Piled up by the plow-full
So we can all get to

work.

Everyone is lucid but the dreamer

East

Even in the late afternoon

When

we

meet

There are no hiding places
Not even behind my eyelids
Every second that passes shows

Your cheek bone-knife glinting
Eyes squinting towards the west
I leave my own body
Any hint from you
Any clue of the future
Always looking east

You are

submissive

to the sun

All Winter
You reel your eyes in at every entrance
And I finally left mine out until they did dry
Then sank them back like stones into my own face

experiment

Twice a day I put water on to boil
Without turning the burner on
The tea bag in my cup
Has been waiting for boiling water
All morning
While the stove sleeps

We could have just gone
Swimming in the river
In the living room
Without the sun

Everything
I believe in I learned in the summer
I gave up

It helps to have a definition
Though its not enough
You have to look for the synonyms and
The antonyms
You have to know what it does
In a sentence
Even when you’re not reading it.

You could have told me
Something I didn’t want to hear
And you did
But I didn’t hear it

So you kept calling me
On your way home anyway
Until Spring

It wasn’t something that I expected
But everyone got me a going away present,

Except you
didn’t even think of doing that
And I
didn’t even think of anyone doing that

Giving me something I didn’t have to beg for
Something I never even imagined
I just packed up my things and cried
For three days.
And then drove for 3 days.

I didn’t even know I wanted something from someone
Those are the best things.

Something thoughtful and thoughtless
Reflexive, not careless
Something I wouldn’t have otherwise missed.

Bloodhounds
only fed
with coffee grounds
will hunt us still
Running in a pack they will speak
We are full
I like a house that looks lived in
When people are human
I don’t believe in
eye contact
anymore

motion

The brain is an octopus or a centipede
It walks and swims
Into so many dead ends like limbs
or a maze you get lost in
There are tears stored in the tentacles
It takes an earthquake to free them
But when the ground shakes
its nothing
Just another freight train moving through
Rattling the window panes but nothing comes loose
The concrete is still cold
The veins, still blue