the trouble you got yourself in
trying to smell for each blade of grass you knew couldn't

On Gravity

I was born to be a runt
Of gravity's great pull
No planet's massive mass have I
And so my days are dull

there were lawns
making my ideas green
and when they came out
I would keep them clean
but I couldn't speak for them

Not the way they spoke for me.

fruitless movement of two conductors
who remove a platform from their feet and
leave their bodies train bound, proving together,
within their reflections
and their jewelry shadows
hollow outlines in the sunset sit not too far
from those just as neatly bound to or toward
familiar distances
some humble, others peregrine
both the distances, and the people,
that is.

doors separate periodically and it would seem usual
discourse could be heard delicately dissolving into upward blues and greys
and in a better place, each person on this train is a protagonist
and though some will argue that in one way or another, we each are,
this train car in particular would struggle.

stepping like she would were she struggling to notice herself
or not so lightly among a station's advertisements
at younger ages she could conjure rides home and
various methods of pavement
shot each in just a different amount of daylight
to be construed every time as a new experience.

(interestingly enough it was now the ride away from home
that offered her this feeling.)

with an almost off-white, blackwhite wall
paper told eyes, still human eyes, eyes
that had seen but not heard what it meant to be seen
that for every winter swallowed, a reborn would find it's way

whether reborn or stillborn, you were still born, they will say
and upside down or right side up
either way
you'll roll past their newspaper noses
each and every one popping your qwiffs
your waves becoming linear
(And now they can trace you)
(something even your mother struggled)
and since lucky ears stay shorelines when other waves, noises,
stumble upon them,
they'll argue, 'when they entered, those too became traces'

they dare you to find them, and you close your eyes for what feels
like the warmest amount of time
until everything you can taste is pink
and everything you can feel is white
and your only smell peptides

four stubborn campfires struggle in your lungs,
your veins are branches, you see?
have you ever started a fire you couldn't put out?
ever had to dig so deep?

your lover's prayers have left puddles and some
stumbled through with bare feet
and maps stretched across far-fetched footsteps,
to pick them up and drop them on me.

from here the sun plays the role of hardly a friend
but not so much a mother
as a sister, or a brother, hiding thoughtlessly

but since she's here for now, stick your tongue out,
take in as much as you can
swallow as often as possible
because your campfires are spreading.