the nightmare inside my chest materializes as sea urchins // something / sin something shame / bristles my ribcage / comes to life like / poison / & suddenly water looks foolish against it // but what of these / ocean arms / you say are carrying me? // sunlight / that ray of heaven splicing the clouds / dance of warmth on my skin // or / embrace of air / molecules / alive / in my lungs / filling / invisible but real //

Your syllables   serenade of blades   macerate   serrate me   excavate    desecrate   delaminate    defenestrate me     until one day   your voice tiptoes into the room    as I tie my shoes for a walk at dusk    Did I do something wrong? you ask    words so yielding in their quiescence

Make one change, see how the whole system adapts / and if the unintended consequences are positive --- that is wisdom. / The Wise men reached Bethlehem only slowly, following the stars.

We all know how each passing year roils up from the deep, plangimus mortuos, not tsunamis / from a cataclysmic shaking, but gentle lunar cycles pulling forward, pressing back, gravity, / like water, making us move even among the immovable spaces, those interstitial places, we / all feel the motion of suns becoming moons, swaying atop the foamy swell believing in the / unfathomable ages of geologic time, and yet in denial of all reckoning of its internecine passages in and around us

I’m on an axis: tilt, / whirl, I’m on a reel. I’ve / the sensation of time moving / too far away, too / fast. If a dream is a doorway, / I’m late. I’m petrified I’m / way too late. Look, my hand— / the skin is thinning, I’m / fading, evaporating— / madness, this / descending feeling, a drop deep, / steep down some lunatic / rabbit hole.

Back then, the world existed in 4 minute slices, / radio friendly, and capable of being shined / with the right spit. We never listened to / the words because we trusted the censors, not / realizing they were dying like the rest of us. / Pastries tasted like sugar, and funny colors / didn’t matter in a beverage.