I. road signs
There is something cathartic in summer
In California driving along the
(almost) empty street, dim lights
Fading for a second. I hit the edge of a leaf
(Or something else, I am not sure what).
I drag it, whip it back and forth, and my ears hear
A loud rustling, growing. Growing
I tell it to be quiet, I wish I could
Scream, tell everything
Be quiet, let me be
A little girl in the car ahead of me turns around
Round face pressed into the back window, giggling.
Smiles are meant to be mirrored, so
I return one of my own, an echo on my face is enough, isn’t it? for
Her. I would like to tell her so many things
(I am not sure exactly what yet).
Her face fades away
I wonder if this summer will dissipate
Like that, too, brief flashes
In the dullness, like that, too.
II. making rice
This night on a (very busy) Sunday
I watch my body break into pieces,
Mourning the loss of a grain
Fallen before me.
Trembling, I search to excavate crevices
In the granite, to build pyres out of hardwood,
To lay down to rot among weeds I had trampled.
I call to the grain (quietly, as to not wake neighbors)
The grain returns — It returns! –
So I don glass slippers,
Bleeding lavender and singing sky,
My shoes drown in grey concrete,
I craft radios in my mind.
I was here, I write on my porch, an engraving like the ones
Children carve with sticks in stone and forget
So long I had watched my hands
wilt (no more, I declare), so long I had
consumed porcelain (no more, I think).
I sit here, this Sunday night,
cobwebs strung across the door.
III. unfinished game
When I dream at night I crash cars and hum ballads
I eat eggs for breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch
Taste sweets for dinner until I lose myself
In quiet murmurs and kisses and
There is nothing else, press pause — I awake
A non-player character lost in a maze,
Perusing instruction manuals, tugging on steel wires,
I am just disembodied remains
Following entrails (you) left behind.
I dream at night, harsh words in hush tones
Here, I speak, hearing voices preferable than
Sleeping with silent ghosts.
In my dreams, I cut myself into pieces, watch (your)
Shock flicker across (your) face
When (you) find out I am a figment of
(your) dreams. I press play,
Leaving scorched marks in my wake,
Eyes roaming, hands untethered
Finding (you) has become just
A puppet of my insomnia.
