and I am on fire too ready
to burn Panera down
no one really wants this hospital
food its chemicals inside
that make it breathe the bread
is moving if you watch
close enough its heartbeat
in your mouth we are all on
fire this former dead living
animal a baguette string inside
my intestines there are wings
in my salad flapping dead cells
floating and all I can do is be
the sun and burn the whole world
then flush my throat with water
(originally published in Madness Muse Press, Fall 2020)
is this how you spend your days? laundry
filthy as furniture.
the room cold between two
worlds. I am awash in
transition: upbringing /
nirvana
give me a place to call home
I am stuck in the wedge
of
wanting nothing
but your long arms around
the circumference of
my body. here is
the ticking clock
a timepiece
countenance
allowing sea change
along the equator
indecision
east of my brain sees desire in
a sleeping blanket. I am trying
to wrap my mind around
the absence
of the life it
leaves.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2020)
What simulation’s numb you ask
if I want children this time
definitive we boil Kraft mac
and cheese. I toss our meager sweet
potatoes in oil and ramble about financial
self-worth the oven nearly at four hundred
degrees. I can’t stop petting your shoulder
the ashy cat roams in the loam of our love
our newly swept hardwood the house
our home for now so limited already
steam from the inside a pressure
cooker of different timelines. What river
these converging lives to seek meaning
in the biological job postings some of us
are born to call. My dad was sixty-one
when I was born my grandfather clock
ticks nonexistent. We have gorged in all
our broken cabinets to rustle the blue
plastic grocery bag pile. I can’t stand
to live another day preoccupied.
(originally published in Flights, Summer 2021)
Worth inextricably tied to the throttle
I am unable to press forever and
ever, amen, where to lie
down and get some rest? Hallelujah,
livin’ by the bottle without drinking
anything alcoholic, not tonight
at least, not before the long drive
to work, paved highways, praise,
hell on the range is to pay
all your bills at once
and wait a month.
(originally published in Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2022)
Rip the last life-supporting limb off the tree;
no money grows here now, no more sustaining green
glinting the grass, just faces of dead men we never
knew presiding over lives with a capital C,
an initialism for one fewer line stampeding to the future
of individual prosperity. Sprint to the edge of the field;
walk the gravel road until you find another–
sharp rocks now splinter through your soles.
(originally published in The Fictional Cafe, Spring 2019)
driving in circles
around the city
snow caps on all cars
little mountains shivering
tiny motors no one knows
the name of anyone
only a word on a screen
a face forgotten
and city lights
there’s a light rain mixed
with snow
the roads not slick
I am picking
up passengers
at the end of the night
and no further
than I was
at the beginning.
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Rolling Acres mall
outside the record store
white hats enter
to leave shadows
every small step
a rattle of longing
blueprints for after
-college dreams
rosewood a tinge
in glass displays
reflecting fluorescence
so bright you sneeze
rockets then angle
toward the stars
didn’t the Etch-
A-Sketch always lure
you canvas and sky
hunched over red
tablet twisting
striated knobs
handmade lines
stretched star to
star everything
tethered
together
a fishing
wire
baited
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
My horoscope this morning:
You will swallow your pride
to give in to someone else
today, Taurus.
Take a brisk walk
and concentrate on reasons
for obedience.
The stars led me here.
I intended to quit
my job this morning
and found three chickens
in celestial alignment
wandering out
my door.
How wonderful
it would be to walk
and walk out
of town
to wherever the path
ends. Over the ledge
into the greenery
to live off the land
where I would
lay in the grass
and stare into
the night sky
and say
you can’t tell
me what to do.
Light years away
from my current
life. To break
the alignment
of monotonous days
squawking
order
when I want
to be jazz.
A roost of stars
conspiring
light to lead
me back but I’ve
thought and
thought
to find
no good reason.
(originally published in Good Works Review, Winter 2020)
the cat purrs, content
on his own, clawing my blanket
that rests peacefully and soft.
meanwhile, I entertain fantasies
about quitting my job again–
every day, the drab walls
say nothing to me.
the squeaky chair says
too much. another paycheck
arrives, not enough to sustain
me past the day’s bills. I work
for the grim reaper, ghastly
and gray, worm-smile rotting.
there is a scythe to my head
when I sleep that I set the night
before but I can’t even sleep
long enough to meet it.
the cockroaches share my bed,
and I know they will make it
out of this alive, whether
nuclear war or work.
(originally published in EgoPHobia, Winter 2018)
snow has piled on my car it is so irrelevant
this cold undesire to work each day secretly I want
to draw your face with my pointer finger in the windshield frost with
xoxo but here’s the thing this particular morning is a long violin
fog ascending through the city if I can’t
go here is my excuse to go to you
(originally published in Columbia Journal Online, Winter 2018)