Why aren't you as scared as me?

Many things unseen are lurking in my periphery.

Your absence of belief does not reprieve of this insistency.

Whistling in the night, I walk toward the face I see

In shadows cast by flames so bright that darkness undertakes the

Harrowed, narrowed journey through esophagus and kidney.

A poison quaff of mother's liquor tastes, absorbed, incendiary

Avails but mine eyes to see that superfluous villainy

And its cutting undercurrent of all things heavenly

With flames engulfing peeling back my superstitious fantasy

I'll wrap myself in fear again to mask my shunned reality

I can only walk like I'm dancing
I can only speak in poetry

otherwise
My body is rigid

otherwise
My tongue is frozen

maybe
Truth has never been my destination

maybe
Truth is just a flourish in my journey

Either way I'm dancing
and I'm talkin like I got somewhere to be.

I'm not doing too good today.
I've been around for far too long,

just taking my time, doing nothing at all.
Watching the sun and the moon revolve.

I don’t wanna look where I don’t wanna go,
so I stand at the window, looking in my own home.

There’s my brains on the wall, and the floor.
Scoop em on up and I'll try once more.

I’m doing just fine today—
I got my new medication.

Sunshine singing on the birds in the rain,
sunshine calling my name.

Toss me another fishy, human!
I'll do a trick for you!

But in those fishy depths
I've got some work to do.

Survival Thriving Dolphin Time
but some day I will meet you

'tween the mystic barrier
of H2O and O2.

(actually it's N2, O2, Ar, CO2)

...and as the dolphin descended
i could sense his withering glance...

Wait come back,
my dolphin friend!
I didn't mean to offend
my knowledge is at ocean level
whose makeup; chemical
is as foreign to me
as you are slip-per-y!
Ack...

I'm never gonna see that dolphin again...

the further i stretch
the more painful the retraction
and the more brittle the substrate
it feels too late for
discipline and temperance
to slow this roll
it needs to break

I forgot. I forgot.
There's a war.
There's all those things
I said and did,
but I still dig,
unironically, elevator music,
or the cheesiest 1950s tiki.
Half-Whitest Wannabe
Jazz Enthusiast
innocently appropriating
joy.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
There's a war.
There's an endless culture of consumption
of which i find myself embedded,
but I must head to joy,
whenever, wherever,
or find myself indulging
in murkier depths of idiot longing.
Please.

I need permission.