I Feel Redundant

I'm not
I'm not
I'm not okay...
I didn't expect to slide this way.
I think
I think
I overthink
But I think it's because I feel like a fool.
I feel
I feel
I feel redundant,
Like I've made these mistakes
And had this talk
And went on chugging past the signal lights,
Like a freight train stuck to her rails.
I know
I know
I don't know why,
But I know it's shifted
Shifty...
Shitty?
I've always despised starting over.

Sometimes
Sometimes
Sometimes often
I'm too tired by the end
To start again.

O-Chem With Dr. T

Colloidal words pool

behind his lower lip,

dribble steadily from

the corner of his mouth.

They creep in rivulets

and stagnant puddles,

sticking our soles to the floor,

sticking our souls to the floor.

Students, now statues,

glazed like donuts but

bland as oatmeal.

Snowflake Disparity

The snowflakes groped me today,

Audaciously bypassed my sloppily knotted scarf,

Slipped beneath my neckline,

A glacial caress.

I was immediately violated,

Despoiled by precipitation

Dribbling obscenely down my chest.

Although analogies aren’t in vogue,

The gusty grip of the weather was

Very much unlike your eyes,

A mystifying melody of a color,

Warm as cinnamon rolls and

Bright as a newborn crocus.

The wintry whisper was

Altogether contrary to your left arm,

Whose pulse I can feel like

The rattle of an old radiator,

Stalwart, welcoming.

The frosty infringement was

The direct antithesis to your

Plain befuddlement,

That gently glowing chuckle

When I said,

"You smell like pasta spices,"

And your buttery delight when you made me

Sheepishly repeat it.

So often I wish I were a painter,

A photographer,

Employing anything,

Anything but this clumsy language,

These spatters of uncaring consonants,

Anything to open wide and just

Receive

The sanctity of snowflakes under the

Lamp-post’s luminous sigh,

The ebb and flow of your breathing

Beneath my stethoscope shoulder.

Saturday, Six AM

Spring break sweat,

Something inside all citrus-squeezed,

Juiced to a pulp.

Rope around wrists,

Salty-sweet captivity.

Labyrinth-laden,

Looseleaf languish,

Anguish,

Anger,

Bitter bile.

Serpent's skull beneath the bed,

Ambiguity, so she said,

Double standard...

... so he said.

Noise

Here there be noise
Perpetual noise
Caffeine twitters, radio waves
The whoop! slip of
Inebriation on the rocks

Here I keep stock
With spreadsheets and winks
Plaster my walls with
Post-its of tomorrow
Tomorrow
Tomorrow

Here there be noise
Of maybes and can’ts
Laptop keys, rolling boils
Garbage truck,
Electric cello,
A chatter and thud of
Final grades

Here pass the days
A buzz of mundane
Mundane, then
Snap! and crackle,
Mad dash for high tide, and
Out of milk

Mmm.

I’d forgotten the fruit,
Sticky-sweet soul spillings,
I’d forgotten the taste.
You know,
The taste of dirt roads and a place to lie,
The taste of if and hidden holidays.
I adore my own nervous smile again,
Thank you.

4:48 Psychosis Revisited

Images emblazoned on a ticking-time-bomb mind.

Thoughts are only passersby- the poking, prodding kind.

(4.48 Psychosis, when desperation visits, and God, it's only 12:08)

Cranberry juice from concentrate, the syrup looks like blood.

It crawls beneath my fingernails to mix with flesh and mud.

(Don't worry, don't worry, I only take a moment to shed this insanity, less if you'll mock me.)

Back when names had power, people knew where they were flawed,

So what can I do with "Lasting" and the fatal "Judged By God?"

(I miss the tangerine glow of a night-light. Watch me... watch me... vanish.)

All I do is play with words, in style soaked with rum.

It's all my inner worry about who I may become.

(4:48, when desperation visits. I shall hang myself to the sound of my lover's breathing. Body and soul can never be married.)