Eloquent
Take a word
angled heavy thing that it is
remove the straight line
it was written on
and watch it fall
a jumble of
corners and roundness
take it
and give me instead
something
with nothing underneath
a thing that is
its weightlessness
can float and drift
and land
where words are only
things to be stumbled over
take from me
the ink-blotched page
the shift backspace delete
the clumsy things
that don’t mean what I said
when I held you
in my silence
Funhouse Mirrors
I know now
the elephants were never
as happy as they seemed
and why cotton candy vanishes
at the slightest touch
and the smell
that always seemed
mysterious and magical
was really just horse shit and
flame-retardant spray
on straw bales and dust
The clowns are up to
their polka-dot-panted asses
in debt
and looking for answers
inside bottles and pretty acrobats
The lions and tigers and bears
won’t kill you
but the hot dogs might
Seeing an empty carousel at sunset
once
would have made me wish
the day could last
a little longer
Now
it’s just another thing I can’t hide behind
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