BluestoneReview

it doesn’t look like an adrenaline rush, stretcher racing sex in the supply closet show, looks like eating smashed refuse, gutter glitter left rotting lonesome on the curb asking the concrete for a cuddle Me clocked done, fleeing the hospital, looking feral, like some taped up scene, summer storm nail gun, can’t fix wreck, after just twelve hours I am never alone. I cross the street between two on their way into the melee, think of my loyal hands plotting a last cross stitch over bruise and razor’s handiwork graffiti scarring over a beloved canvas of cells, latticework ribs fanning out across the back, arching under the overhang of skull’s clean pavement, kept clean last labor, signed, I am always, sincere, 7:00AM and here comes a constellation of Silence, all proud and self-satisfied, too late Swagger, I want to crunch you like a wasp between my teeth, swear off anything that comes too close, tokens leftover from this Carnival of Labor swear I’ll trade these whispers in at the prize booth on my way, for the collapse of tangled sleep, for a rocking chair, planks on a lichened porch, in some country so far, under this Earth that all the stars are different shapes, but at this moment, already some kind of filthy hungover, from the newsprint headline heavy morning afters can’t take me anywhere, anymore, unless it’s someplace less whiskey sharp promise you will hide all these love notes in the drawer without the scissors I want to show these pages torn from hidden rooms inside of rooms to my Dead.

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