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agoraphobia.

Sharks, heights, being
struck by lightning, and
blade in the gut, bullet cutting
at the rib, and plastic bag wrapped
around the face—
this is what scares you, what
scares you most.
And how smart! How sane!
Look, imagine this:
Brush of fingertips, and eyes
that wrench the soul from the body,
and walls that sway and shimmer. Imagine, for me,
if you're willing to
take a moment
Birds falling out of the sky,
an imaginary cloud—or worse: star—
you cannot build a ladder to. Imagine craving the knife;
imagine gathering dust as a protective outer layer;
imagine collecting roses:
not to give away, but to swallow, to fill the throat,
because even sweetness can suffocate; even the
most docile bruise. Don't imagine
"I love you" because this is getting blown out, and you'll
be left rummaging through the wreckage, digging through
what's emptied from the belly onto the kitchen floor.
I'm praying for small crimes, because the stillness unsettles me
and they say, "That isn't right," and maybe it isn't, but
imagine you're a sea:
where does the body end and the heart begin?

sleep, then remembering.

They say, you've your youth and your
vitality,
and bees must have collected you among finger-pressed petals;
turned you into something sticky, sweet, and nourishing.
And here I am, wondering,
who have they mixed me up with?

I watch honeybees and hummingbirds spiral
drunkenly away from my gravity-loving, poppy-head.
What they've tasted is sick and sweet, and the poison is in my roots,
the poison is transferred to their bellies, and they
cursive words of the world's ending
into the air. They blink black, gold, ruby, and green.

My bones are old. Milkweed without milk. And I'm fooling everyone;
like the bashful doe blinking her long-eyelashes—who will eviscerate
long-teethed predators with her sharp hooves. I miss wet

soil like a lost baby, and this is why lovers never work out.
How can you? and Why do you?
I can't say, but my body remembers
the stomachs of stars—how God placed
each laughably necessary piece into each burning pocket,

I swear!
feel the trembling pulse of my wrist, the upward swing of my knee,
how my heart stutters under the sternum,
tell me this is not recognition of flying into the womb.

Lover, officer, Father, mother,
I confess this: my body is an attic ablaze with fire—
can you see me? dusty imprint of a ghost girl in the window—
I can hardly salvage the photographs or the old hats.

This is how you call the devil: reach to the softest point in your throat, tighten at the ribs, extract the soul you lost in your father's car parts retail shop to your uncle. He'll come. He'll see you. He'll know you'll need someone to pick you up, to love you. God doesn't answer. The women at church, who coo and brush back your hair, who say, 'What a beautiful child,' don't answer. Mother wires your mouth shut.

The devil plants a seed in you and for all the world, all the stars, you grow a garden that smells like rot. Drag it with you so everyone can see, you're loved, you're loved.

Every: Nothing Matters is a rush of relief.

Baby, you're an angel and you're the freest you're ever going to be.

empty, empty night—
who stole away every bird?

Current Music: flickers - son lux

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good-bye, me. who never amounted to anything.

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