i'm sorry
that i can't be the strong one
who stands up
speaks
gives some explanation

but you can't fit your hand
up the gaping hole in my back
to move my jaw
either.

today

my grandmother, wringing her knotted fingers, said the funniest thing:

'my hands are so bad, even my arthritis has arthritis.'

i laughed and she said, 'see what you have to look forward to?'

maybe i do, but my handswristsarms will never be as beautiful as hers,

arthritis and all.

burden of guilt.

the words
fell from my lips

turning to tears running
down my belly my legs turning

to glue

as they surrounded my feet
sticking me to the floor
unable to move

a reminder

of my attempts
to help them.

nosedive. part III. [rev.]

the other possibility is that the ledge upon which you stand is slowly crumbling beneath you. you're losing your footing. you can feel it happening, the slipping, your feet no longer firmly planted. it's a slow-motion landslide.

in the freefall, your body spins in lovely somersaults, the wind and salt caressing your hair on the way down. in the space between the land and water, you gain a certain, clearer understanding.

unfortunately, you realize, you can't swim.

dark red lines over a deepening yellow bruise

lessons.

she is consumed
by an obsidian gulf
churned in its irregular currents
while the black glass water's edge
eats the shore
regurgitating white sand
and conch shells sing
their hollow song
determined to redeem her.

nose dive. part II.

standing on the edge of the cliff, your body inherently begins to sway. you rock, ever-so-slightly, the kind of sweet lulling that you knew only as a baby. it is in this moment and only in this moment, on the brink of everything and nothing, that you are again allowed to experience this. a strong gust of wind could take your feet from under you, ripping you from solid ground and thrusting you into a tumultuous freefall, and you are fully aware of this because you have nearly gone over on many occasions. but you are no longer afraid. you've been here before. you know this like the back of your hand. so, you rock. in this calmness, this methodical numbness, you hear the water below whispering your name. what you want, more than anything, is to step from the edge on your own accord, leaving the land, leaving so perfectly that no one will know you've gone.

you will fall into the ocean.

and you will let it wrap you in its waves, quietly pulling you under.

the anarchist's schedule.

today
i read the writing
of a seventeen year old boy

chicken-scratch pencil words
silvery grey in a tattered sketchpad

written like a schedule
date and time stamped

a list
to wrong all the rights in the world.

you're right, dogs are suckers.

under any conditions, good or bad
they keep coming back hoping for love.

in my sleep, anger blooms like white moonflower.

churn.

lightheaded vision spins the room
as nausea rises up through my throat
toward the opening of my lips

it attempts to swallow my tongue
before

sliding back down, defeated,
falling to its dark, dank depths
of stomach matter and intestine
to the place where only
guilt and shame can live.