Born a peasant
always a peasant
work, work, work
never stopping
bound to the land
living from it
I sleep thinking,
why me?
I want to leave
I want to die
but what will happen to my family?
how will they survive?

Republican
Yes! Bless The New U.S...
Making America Great Again
With only the best.
I must confess this victory came a little shocking.
I wasn’t expecting Trump to win,
The way the media was talking.
I was walking,

clouds
pink and blue smears
go over my head
like the moon
or calculus.
i long to float up there
where i could eat eclipse and crackers
and differentiate my thoughts.

At the grocery store
In the days of our youth
The green twist ties were the best part.

So easily entertained were we
With these simple pliable toys
Laughing and forming new shapes.

Bleach blonde braids fall across my shoulders
as caramel curls caress my cheeks all for the low, low price
of my life’s savings and a bottle of bleach

They say that time is a constant,
In math world it is an unchanging letter k. 
But I say that it becomes a variable,
A perfect letter x. 
Time can be carefully controlled, ceaseless,
A cascading current.
But time becomes elastic, expendable,

“Take all the time you need,”
They said.
But now I’d much rather be in bed,
Because I’m 76 today.
My life is beginning to fade away.
“Take all the time you need,”
They said.
I hope you’re happy.
Now I’m dead.

look at them,
so cavalier, drinking
future-liquor in a future-

                bar kissing the wounds
                of future-lovers and
                crisscrossing their future-

scars
look at them,
so ambiguous, with

Between her slender fingers she pivots the earth
Amused by how the blues and greens twirl
We let the motion power us
Letting it rock us and push us, haunt us and slow us.
Our lives are dictated by her constant motion.
A motion beautifully blind to us.

It’s my last day with the old giants
In mourning I hike the lost trails,
sniffing the aroma of the bark,
that cinnamon of the forest
Under tepees of wood
in a membrane of shadows,
I stalk the earth, its mammal traces,
its elusive tracks,

Varuna pulled forth the world the heavens the stars
With a roll of his tongue he wrenched time in her place
A word on his lips and the floods would recede
From sludge he said let there be more

When we wake, we stretch to
fill out our expectations of where
what should be & then we look in
the mirror for confirmation is this
me is this me is this & we know it’s

The sun dawns upon me
Again I’m greeted to gasps of reality
Holding onto dreams I can disappear into 
until the day breaks, bright and true
Every morning I breathe incapabilities 
but I still wake with a certain heart

Time is a girl with curly hair that bounces with every step and twirl she takes
She talks with her hands but never fails to find the right word to say
She can be by your side one second and gone the next
Getting lost in the crowd is fun to her

I seduced Time
I brought her thorny flowers, held her worn hands and kissed her softly
I caressed her flushed cheeks and played with her hair, long like a timeline
I ran my hands along her battle-won scars and her strong but delicate body

145: i looked normal for a girl my size, a little extra meat on my bones but nothing to make me despise the body i lived in. Until i started comparing myself to the girls around me. maybe i should lose a couple pounds see that’s how it started.

the void beckoned.
i stood softly
quaking
afraid
what is there is to do in the void?
i pondered quietly
the void answered,
nothing.
perfect.
i replied
i need time
i need time
i need time

i need rest

i’m a mannequin, a marionette man, my actions preplanned. 
i go through my motions, i do a little dance. My movements based off the crowd’s applause 
i give a little wave because 
that’s what i was made to do, that’s what i’m made to do, that’s what she makes me do.

words bubbling on my tongue are not metaphors,
They are a message, a warning of future plights to come.
I should thank this body for that, thank
you. piece of flesh you
distracted woman you

She stood in front of a mirror
Clean and sober thinking about how she feels taller than her own reflection

Then she took an injection

They’ve run out of garbage bags to use as body bags.
Power lines cracked in half like splintered pencils are strewn through the streets
neighborhoods panic as the ground forgets what being solid is again
aftershocks bigger than most earthquakes bend steel and rebar

“What is one factor that affects the Blood Alcohol Level and is an extremely important factor (in order to ‘sober up’)?”

I hear the gunshot, I do not see 
The bullet but I know it’s coming 
Aimed to perforate my skull 
They say your life flashes, once death’s 
Shadow is on your tail and grips you in 
Your terror’s wake. I have 0.05 seconds 

Another black kid got shot by a white cop.
ANOTHER BLACK KID GOT SHOT BY A WHITE COP.
ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTSHOTBYAWHITE COP.
ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTSHOT
ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTS

Ten . . .
Nine . . .
Eight . . .
Seven . . .

you are like the sun:
oblivious to time’s existence
wake up at noon to eat dessert
and watch television reruns.
you are sleepless nights
and grease stained fingers
covered in cuts and bruises and scabs.
you are like the war

Like clockwork revaluations to new forgotten ideas lined up in my mind like young adult novels on my ratty old grey bookcases, I live stories lined up in many different tenses    dog-eared identities taking place in crises fueled hourglass clocks, if there is one thing I’ll never run out of it is

You would think the sidewalks were made from gold
From all the rumors regarding this place
A fabrication that is bought and sold
Tradition is lies into lemonade

The fragility of life will always terrify me.
Sometimes I feel so vulnerable, 
thinking of all the ways my life could spontaneously end –
the accidents
the inflictions
what I inflict.
The fragility of life will always astonish me.

Vanessa and I talk.
We like talking.
The smell of acetone and wine
fight in the warm air.
A lull of
Avett Brothers music fills the
silence.
Our nail beds
burn,
from too many attempts at
“Nail Art”.
The clock reads

and when you talk in your sleep the voice is never your own

and when the world ends and the next begins our radio stations

will still patiently recite their numbers. (dear mx. god,
is this how it feels to be replaced?) In the wilderness,