staring at a screen
it says ‘bad gateway’
what does it mean?

I don't know
but I've seen this before
that's why I'm in
survival mode
it's gonna be okay
I'll just take the next road
left

writing poems...
in my head

the well stays sealed.
Pain turns to fire,
fire hardens to rage.
I wear anger as skin,
because sorrow is forbidden.

These 4 walls, the only friends
The hours tick away, but swelling
Winter, hurry — freeze my blood.
Sweating through these supine steps,
           I'll stumble on.

A/C buzz, electric hum.
The room lit yellow, bathing jaundice.
          Fante & Hamsun.
     Folding pages, scratching dog ears.
          furrow brows.
     "**** this color paint."

     "**** the Summer."
         I say it, always.

4 new walls, my only friends.
The seconds boil away, but slowly.
Solitude, please freeze my blood.
Snowfall in my reptile dreams,
               all serpentine

Heater hum, alone again
Wish they wanted my chanting voice, now.
Footfalls hustle. Frozen, crunching.
Clothed in funerary coat
          The wine explodes.

Shake this thrumming midnight buzz,
and rooms lit dimly, sweating blizzards.
          Trudge & debate Blake —
     —use my degree for ******* something.
                    Shoulders hunch.
           "Just me. In falling snow."

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright—"
    
                      Here I stand, a dwindling flicker—

"In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fires of thine eyes?—"

        —I can barely see tonight. And thicker lines
                            have failed to lead me home.

Alone.
And kindred with the cold.

Collaterally damaged.
I took damage to my system.

Using the grit of my finger nails to claw myself into a stable position.
Observing the impact through my palms.

My hands discolored—not bleach.
Discolored.

A damaged nervous system, navigating it like the amazon.
The goals I went to and from are all forgotten because of my accidental backpedaling.

Riding a bike backwards is inferior.
Only going farther away from your destination and all the way back to your shelter.

With all these task in hand…
The success ladder a loopy event.
Like climbing Jacobs Ladder but without the visions of angels and streams of light.

She called me over when her parents left, and invited me over for a date.
Before I was in her room
It was advised to bring some protection.
Latex?

All for her to be done?
————

Latex Gloves.
I pulled out and began scanning my fingers across her room.

At the end of the room :vines.

Vines from trees, flowers emerging through and from. An allergenic smell emitted—carving out the thick toxins as they fell onto the floor like a staircase of crumbling debris.
Like pages of books falling flat onto the floor ill by the plague and far from recovery.

The smell of lavendery-daffodils. Like new laundry, everything was scented in this room, by color and by smell.

No visualization decoded by my eyes all because they were fried.
Red and puffed.

The frequency in the room, making zap-roided sounds.
Electric like all the different shades of blue, a savory sound and a unironic taste.
I would not want to explain because I kept it all to myself.

I marveled at it all and not whatever was in front of me.

I viewed her emotions as inferior to this delight of a room.

Far better than anything sensory she could of course do.

A distraction these walls became
Overwhelming to me was not the best of both worlds.

The only distractions were nothing but this interior design…

Beneath the dusk, with roses in my hand,

I waited where the quiet breezes land.

She came, her eyes, like twilight, full of ache,

No joy upon her lips for love to take.

I hid the tokens of a planned delight, For all she sought was warmth in fading light.

I pressed her close and asked what grief might be

She sighed, "Dear love, thou dream'st too much of me."