tomorrow you wake up and there's a ladder your eyes climb straight down without even trying;
you're not sure why, but it feels like the bottom's been waiting like a starting line.

just a few steps in there's a faded green sign that seems to imply a sense of direction,
your parent's noses side-by-side, facing forward,
and in it's reflection there isn't so much a list,
as a set,
of three things:

I bet you,

the perpetual lost voice
the growing cherry eyes
the you who learned how not to try

will never find out why.

chiseled it's way through wet amino chains and
found itself set conspicuously aside whatever it is
that's been making your decisions as of late.

"I found me", you dream to yourself.

"The first time you get lost, you are almost there", I dream back.


Tomorrow you wake up and remember you can do anything.

watching our parents grow old, sitting on the fence
pick a side
any side

grass is there
a bug is there
hair falls from my sister's tongue
and I know it's mine so I smile

then our parents watch us grow up, fall off the fence
my insides choose their sides
my sister cries and
for a second I almost admit that I closed my eyes in the thick

but

when we let our milky fingers
find their own,
they never let us down,
and they never take us home.

there is a home
in my mouth,
tick-tock, tongue
tick, tock, hum.

hello toothache. you know how I moan?
I moan for me, toothache.
I would be the only one.

Every way you feel
Hey, it’s okay
Be glad you feel at all,
Okay?

There’s a woman with high heels
And a man in a quick walk
He must know where he’s going
And she must be so tall
Taller than me, I guess

If you have to pretend,
I won’t bother you
And if you’re running out of time,
That’s all right too
But I’ve been floating upright for some time now,
I just haven’t noticed yet;

In fact I still can’t tell.

You were almost always a sunset;
this way, you could look like you knew where you were going.

if you disconnect less than a 56k modem, that should leave you with room to feel chosen
by a set of spacey cta eyes searching around subconsciously
under the guise of needing to be validated externally
but not being able to bring oneself to admit this reality
leaving almost every second of every day near-death empty
as if eye contact or a brush on the arm would manifest itself internally
could sink right past your tongue and plop wet into your belly
taking a vacant seat somewhere in between your insecurity
making itself at home until another missed opportunity.

I'm still here.
Wandering my curses
Tossing stones between feeling far too much or barely ever at all
Backstroking ambivalence
to prove I still am
I go
Run after my breath
Catch me where you can’t.