My head is a great hall. Empty just long enough to reconsider the purpose of a room this size, until it’s full, like the first 15 minutes of a house party catching up with people you probably knew before. Second or third first impressions, how quickly it crowds. How alive the room with electric breath.
Once I was an assassin on mission in the street-heat, jungle-city. We walked around with katanas and fell for grey hotel sleep on the floor with the snakes. I sliced one in half, I swung at the other, I got bit on the knee. When it was over they took me outside in a bin with the trash, and my leg went numb. It was a free ride, beautiful city.
I met a panther. Waiting for me, hidden in a half-torn junkyard shed, post-apocalyptic. Nothing happened, we looked at one another, familiar. He rubbed against me and I could see the aftermath world dust flecked in his black by the hot gold of the sun through tin roof holes. I woke up, feeling my sheets for a message.
And if
I started from the start
I could climb a mountain
and I’d live at the top
live at the top
And if
I was a builder I could build a house
In a pyramid shape
invite my life to dinner
and we’d stay up late
And if
I could find a fossil
From the T-Rex times
I’d tell every single story
for the make-believe minds
And if
I could make a movie
It would co-star Fox
the dimensional dog
the forever time hops
And if…
There was that one time
with my eyes closed
I was chased by a tiger
Hiding car to car
crushed glass in the dirt
from old stories about
broken windows and
other accidents
All you see is
clouds of dust
My memories are little myths
Just an inch or so outside
reality, where
The cloudhead hangs
Heavy to my shoulders
airy burden, and inside
We exist sometimes, but
The story stops short
and I’m stuck
Staring blankly,
at your covert sigil
I could disappear
On any given day
Catching my breath on the regular
Comes up a little short
For short spans of time
Stuck on other roads I could be taking
Sitting in 6pm traffic jams on 476
A hard day’s week
It’s hard to fit in
Houses are collections of
little rooms
I wander through
A brand-new spirit
In the spirit of renewal
I came home for once
For resignation
And four months later I’m not
so far resigned from
the shell I left behind
Still lingering on old conversations
Hopeful on new ones
I’m never actually asleep
on an airplane
I only halfway disappear
with the cool air of
100 other sardines
breathing on me
My eyes are closed, sure
but I can feel every lumberjack
brushing by, leaning tower like,
inches above my face
for their confined travel errands
I’m right here
I’m anywhere else
making epiphital connections
under the hood
I’m wearing a hood
and my headphones faint the roar
in two worlds
The lady next to me is a Dr
I know because I’m a spy
and the font on her laptop is set
to outer space
I unlocked a memory
of my ex
calling me by my whole name
and i let it in
The couple on my other side
doesn’t understand how headphones work
I could help
but I don’t feel like talking
in my liminal state
I exist in
every when but now
everywhere but here
in a daydream
in a secret life
I’m found
in some mistake
I’m lost
in all my worries
A fantasy of unfinished thoughts
like this one
I dreamt a lot then
I was always
being left behind
I was afraid
in my awake times
that I was only worth
leaving behind
A temporary mindset
everyone else on this flight has a travel hobby
like the guy next to me sleeping
I’m watching 3 movies at the same time
keeping up with the stories I made up
mixing the lines
i should ask my neighbors all to use captions
it’s rude they didn’t offer
they should know I’ve lost
my book in the hotel room
swept in the sheets of a sleepless night
weird shit happens
when you’re tired
carefully careless
standing around
staring into a space
it’s cold around the edge of my lips.
looking for a sign
like seeing a shooting star
streak across my iris in a reflection
leaving a chemtrail of toothpaste and dirty mirror weather.
it’s all in the drift
daydreams between the space of everything
I’m staring into the fridge
I’m spacing for a sign
that my life has finally started.
Trying to revisit previous lives is like looking your shadow in the eyes. they just aren’t there.
I still have a lot to say on the matter
but I’m avoiding talking to you for
both of us
There’s nothing left to surrender
so I took small steps today like
the first few steps out the door in the fall
right when the season starts
You don’t know if it’s warm
but it looks warm through a window
so you go outside without a jacket
then run back to the house
I wasn’t ready
But I made it further than I thought