the everyday things

I can pick out from among the people around me
those whose lives realize my dreams

I need some good news fast
before things get real bad

all the things you think you’re good at
well, you’re not

all the mail that comes
the letters addressed to someone

just outline where someone oughtta be
life like wind happens to me

an incident on a day in a life

When I was twenty two years old I walked down the stairs
to the employee bathrooms and put my left foot up on the toilet seat.

I took out my standard-issue, ergonomic, safety box cutter
and set it for three-ply corrugated fiberboard.

My left leg suffered the twenty four incisions.
My left arm, too, three more.

I rolled down my pant leg, I put on my jacket,
and went back for my remaining seven and one half hours of shift.

After having promised not to do it again,
a few times,

I made a game of writing “suicide” where I would otherwise draw blood
every time I thought to do it.

After writing the word four times in two minutes
I forfeited.

So it came to this, a dull burning on my left inside calf
while I asked passing customers if they needed any help today.

the normal frustrations

the words on this page are sickening
especially the “I”s

I wish to be removed from this setting
lifted letter by letter

and placed inky blot
by spidery bleed

into a deafening fire
so that I am finally consumed by Rages

and made mute, and made unconscious
and am unmade

the normal frustrations

the words on this page are sickening
especially the “I”s

I wish to be removed from this setting
lifted letter by letter

and placed inky blot
by spidery bleed

into a deafening fire
so that I am finally consumed by Rages

and made mute, and made unconscious
and am unmade

"What have you been up to?" "Just working."

I become a stretch of road
I am six miles
I look futureward,
down my asphalt,
my traffic obscured by glints of sun

With my feet
I blot out patches of the pavement
back and forth, in paces,
until I walk
in the Alley of Shadow
upside down on the walls
same as the ceiling and floor

the day is weeping

If I close my eyes, and tilt my head back, and mouth the words, to a, dirge
I can pretend we are around a table in an afternoon, only if.
I can feel, only if, the sun, and I am breathing deep, and I am singing.

The day is weeping.

The arguments are less convincing. The sun drags behind it not a million colors-

all the colors. I feel, only if, in black and white, advice steeped in depression
era fancies. If I close my eyes, and tilt back my head--

The day is dead.

Such busyness is lead. It’s finished, waking up, walking out the door. It’s
finished. Reasons to believe that I could be wanted, for labor, for, labor,
to learn. If I’m not wanted, let me know.

The easier to let me go.

-- Figures

Let me pant a half breath’s worth of explanation.

Look,

I almost died.

Well I almost decided to almost die, look--

I was called for an audience with

the Dean of Students.

It was not even a semester in.

I wore black slacks

and an ironed, green, button-up shirt.

I wore heals.

I walked slowly.

I walked step step in

step step step out

step step in

step step step out--

Look,

let me just say

the second time

there were between 12 and 18 lacerations to the face

my

face

and both times

it was near finals. Look,

I tried, okay?

I worked hard.

I earned my admittance.

Let me explain,

there was a man

with wispy black hair

face down in a mound of foam that ran from his open mouth.

I had every ambition.
I stayed late, I woke early.

I cared, I tried,
I sought help
 
not once,
not three times.

I came back every week.
I came back every week.

I read, I educated myself,
I reached out, I attempted to educate others.

Look,

I believed in myself.
I did. I once did.

Hadn’t I earned this?

I believed in a meager but livable dream for myself.
Until, there was this man, see, he was

sitting outside the cafe with a discharge packet and these birds
and he kept turning his orange bottles in his hands--

I recognized the hatred and defeat on his face--

I nearly cried as he pitched full pints of water at the birds
and went back inside to refill the glass.

When my confidence evaporated under repeated lashings from the sun,

I looked to you,

and you let me down,
not because you wanted to,

because you were face down in a mound of foam that ran from your open mouth.