let them think

I've been explaining myself too much

I asked Pema if I was evil and she didn’t say, “No, of course not.”

We think poetry is over. My nose itches.

I asked the internet questions I’m too afraid to print about the things I cannot see and hope do not exist.

If not for the paranoia, I wouldn’t be a ghost. I would be material, like packing peanuts or celery.

I replied to Chris’ email from my high horse.

It’s simple, I realized. Every choice is between making someone else happy or making yourself happy. Though you must define ‘happy.’ And ‘yourself,’ and ‘someone else.’

Platitudes are how I get through cutting the grass.

Love is not a real word, but rather the meaning you project upon the word you read in the foreign language you cannot understand. I like the direction of those scribbles, regardless of what they mean.

It burns me to keep things to myself, though I must. Until they spool out, years later, into homunculus ears. A previous secret pops out as a yellow mouse: unusual, but there, before our eyes.

I would only ever be able to fly without wings. Through air I would hover and glide.

Before today, the last time I wore my tallest heels was the day I watched a movie and walked to the mall. Today, I buy pants that would drag on the ground, if not for the shoes.

That’s the way I’ve flown in all my dreams. Shooting up, hands flexed at my sides. All I feel is rollercoaster gut.

Responsibility and lack are the two eyes in my head, blinking, then winking.

It feels more natural, these days, to pretend to like someone while harboring a black appleseed of unmitigated disdain.

(The day of the eclipse we went to the drive-thru and the library. We will never see either again, and this means I still have a secret.)

Six years used to mean almost enough, and now it means you cannot stop the dying with unused sunshine.