this week

(has been)

is

a split fingernail

(or horizontal cross-section in layers).

this week is plucking hairs from

brow, peak,

& burn.

this week is

slithering down into the empty space

between the chair's legs.

i can't quite touch down.

the thrusters are going

& going but i just can't land. throw me

an anchor or something.

i just want to see in something

other than sewer vision (like

tunnel vision but far worse).

the storm

is stumbling in along

the (montauk) point.

i can't complain

because i think

(not too) long ago

i would have just been dead. i think that some lines should jut out

& puncture the space on the page

(let it bleed out, the ink that is).

you remain

spectacular

when the trade

is voodoo & the medium

is language. i think i'm just out

of words. is that possible?

i talk a lot.

either way my creative license seems to

have expired (get it, a joke!).

i'm just

done.

two or three (or something)

more weeks until my

campaign at wake forest is

half

over. that's not scary.

i just want to

forget.

i just want to

be forgotten.

jesus, this hurts.

&

if i recall correctly. that halo

you slapped on my

head (over my hair, folding

& reserved)

was makeshift

& from those

fluorescent bulbs

leftover from

the house we built. that must be why

i'm covered in

glass (dust).

surely, that's why.

times (like these)

remind me that

sometimes joints

& bones & (small)

muscles aren't enough to

move you. sometimes

it's birds & syntax &

profundity. but not

even those can help

when your pancaked against

the ground

& the entity (that urges

your flattening) is unknown. like

an angel peeling feathers

off &

inching them down your

throat. it

is paralyzing.

& you don't know what to do

when your voice & limbs

go numb. i

don't. i sure

as hell

don't.

"i'll give you something

that no ones gonna' give you;

my sleeping skin

& my heart deep down in you.

i'll never tell you

but you're my little scar.

goodbyes are hard &

they're hard

& they're hard. "

[land of talk] "it's okay"

poem: "vespers [in your extended absence you granted me...]" by louise gluck

excerpt:

"I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots

like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart

broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly

multiplying in the rows."