Staring at a cement parking bumper
My fears squirm out of it and punch me in the nose.
I want to shed every eye and hide from view
Until they aren’t looking to me anymore.
I am a child trembling like a pencil between Parkinson’s fingers

fuck you, he said
then dissolved into
the rainy evening.

she shut the door like thunder
then fell against it,
melting into the floor.

eyes clouded with tears,
head in hands flashing hate,
she prayed to God:

Jesus, why is this so fucking hard?
let me be stone. let me be the ground.
solid. unfeeling. undisturbed. Jesus,
why is this so fucking hard? just
get me the hell out
of this body.

with stacks and rows of words
bound with glue in glorious
long-form i sit and study being
mocked by the fact i’m still told
what to consume when deliciousness
surrounds me like a child in a candy
shop i’m handed a carrot and told
to eat while gazing with longing
at peach rings and runts
my computer open before me
and books written by fools with their
heads in the clouds but academic
degrees they fancy while in the
company of hemmingway and salinger
i drool, for, like that child, i know not
how to ignore exactly what i know i’m
missing