2b
you’re eating / a piece of eden / for breakfast / and all you can think is about the kids / saving their last crumb / of hope / for a midnight snack / your hands shake trying to outclass the earth’s quake / and all you can think / is who you should have been / good with money / better in love and fastened / like a glittering bracelet / to any single cause / like saving rhinos / or just one equation / an esoteric path to the moon / by kite
you hang yourself / acrylic asking for too much / next to the coffee shop window jitterbug ballerina /mainlining / the day through a glowing screen / you hang there like your own eviction notice / re: you lived too loudly / re: your fists on the walls scared the neighbors / now the city is after your dog-eared copy / of idealism / now the city hunts you down / from every car window / cease and desist / you cannot build paradise here
you are tied up in stakes / bound / hands and feet / to a destiny that just won’t sit still / impatiently waiting / for a clear sentence / and judgement / to fall head first / from its tower of gold
you weigh the worth of your potions and spells in a currency / that prefers bank vaults / to the mysticism of trees / and you consider calling yourself coroner /come to declare the death of magic / if it pays the bills / because you’re not convinced you can hex your way / out of another defeat / you’re not sure you can own / your tireless pursuit of why
a crisis of identity / brews in your morning coffee and the world deserves to know / why you couldn’t sleep last night / the world is desperate to find out / how you made gills / out of knife wounds / and turned cigarette burn scars / into light-catching scales
where some / have only prayer / you were given whale song / where some / have only cruel and silent gods / the entirety of the ocean / serenades you / from the smallest of shells / bestowed by the waves / you are a creature / of the deep / foretold in the tea leaves / you grow lightning bolts / in place of limbs / everything stands in awe / of your slow bid for sky