time bomb

i could fall for seconds
before i hit, i'm
that nervous around your
voice, don't worry, kid
i'll shiver for a while

if i felt young again
would that be good? because
i do, and it feels like
going bad

i'm a kid rebel
i am underwhelmed
if i look for trouble
know i cannot help it
no, i cannot help it

may 26, 9pm: CVS

like i say, i barely
recognized your face
when you toppled from your
shelf, caught up in yourself
crying for some food some rest
some piece of goddamn sanity.
your apartment's the down the street.

i guess you relented
from your eyes, they looked so glazed
though your hair maintained its
shape through all the crying
oh, the aisles look so small
next to an elephant this tall

how are you? i wish i knew
sometimes i think you're
crying down the room, it turns
out laughter but it
scares me nonetheless
twenty-one years and i don't know
where you live

you took your bottle
of magic little pills, so i
hope you eat your fill
and at the register you opened
up your eyes

guess i'm prolific

i am
string cheese, strangely
it's not the first thing i'd think
but i'm peeling apart like
an orange from its peel

it's not nausea or coronary
call the coroner
he'd be interested in
this skeleton of a school

real

nowadays i'm so wordless
it's like i'm crushing
syllables and sunsets
into parables and lies
i don't know who to hate, nobody
everybody's second-rate
because i can't admit i'm inches
past the line

(one two three four.
who's left,
what's the score?)

we're dropping like flies, like hammers
you're sinners, bathed in glamor
and i can't find my lines
i keep losing life in rhymes

nowadays the roads all cross
like dreams unsure of living
and i can't, i can't
even tell you what i feel
somehow it should be special
but it's not

(one to zero,
you versus me)

lilac roadkill blues

yeah the road it opened up to him
and swallowed half his
mind to take the test
on behalf of all the rest
and he just went on living, living
like a fool

and the songs they hollowed out
they left him high and dry
like all the rest
to take the test
of whether he could find, find
a better sky

so he left and took his clouds
and his old forgotten shoes from
last september
remember
you gave him half a flower
just because

and he got back in for curfew
just in time for one more drink
remember
last september
back then he didn't think

get lonely

i had this vision
i was underneath the ground
and the world came to meet me
but it didn't make a sound.
when the doors
finally gave way
there was no one i could see
not one familiar face.
so i opened windows, and i
turned the fan on loud
just to swallow all the silence of the crowd
they went down smooth
like crows
oh, nothing wants to grow
not with rain, or sun
or salt

my little light

and these signs, they're all blank
like the checks i must sign, here
take my life
take my friends, take my brain

it's like being forced to burn my throat
with all your stomach acid
i've got no pensieve and i
i can't remember all your minds
and i'm failing forty subjects just to stay in line

and i
i can't write poetry when i'm sad
because what i want i never get
and half of me wants to let you go
because the other half is scared

so it comes out like this