everybody say trees

I've been hearing an obscene amount of tree analogies lately.

In the socialist forest, the tall trees are cut down to an even height with the saplings so everybody can have sunlight.

In the fascist forest, all the saplings are plucked out and thrust into the wood chipper.

In God's forest, the roots (you) derive their nutrients from the soil (God) so the trunk (you) can grow big and strong and then people who don't shower can hug the life out of you. Literally.

I'd like to be a big redwood. Or at least a beech. But I'm just a little sapling and all the world's dictators want to shove me headfirst into a sea of blades. And God probably wants me to grow taller. My nutrient-sucking things seem to be lacking in sucking power, but I sure am not. Ha!

jim morrison looks like you

i sit with your heart in my hands

your tendons wrap themselves

around my fingers like noodles

tremble with each staggered beat

your blood tickles my palms

it splats onto my shoes

explodes like red fireworks

i asked you if i could have it

but you were too distracted

your leg like a jackhammer, pulsing

to some silent song beating against

your eardrums

i took it as a yes when you nodded your head

to the beat. took your heart through your skin

i carried it everywhere

in bags i picked up at flea markets

the labels read fifty cents

the cargo was priceless

but it bloodied the pages of my books

and stained the crumpled maps of

all the places i wanted to go with you

you sit on a bus

reading stephen king

and glancing at the nameless faces around you

gripping the knife in your pocket

eyes are glued to the hole in your chest

like it swallowed your skin in one breath

but you don't even know it's there

the rubber blue

i remember a girl
she threw a blue ball into the air
but it disappeared against the royal sky
and she froze like she was waiting for something
to fall from the clouds onto her open chest

the wheat wilted around her knees
dry and heavy with heat
it sagged onto a dusty path of the
same wheat hue
there were no footprints behind her

i remember a man
he traipsed along the path
a straw hat refracting spotted sun onto his wrinkly brow
spears of wheat pricked his overalls
and his hands were hidden in his pockets
he crawled toward her, age weighing his steps
and i think she may have been afraid

i’ve never seen her face
but i’ve dreamt of her smile
i’ve climbed onto her shoulders and lifted my arms
i’ve felt around until rubber skidded against my fingertips
grasped the ball and held it out for her
she still waits, frozen
for something else to hold

like Jenny on the hotel balcony

stubbing her body against the cracks of the pavement

she laughed at the blood pricking her skin

she shook the gravel from her hair

and laid back down

she looked at me

and i saw a thousand colors i'd never seen before

swirling in her eyes

they made me dizzy and i felt sick

but in that moment

she was so beautiful and

so broken

and i couldn't turn away

she looked at me

and her brain flipped me upside down and back again

she laughed and told me this

and i watched her watch my body cartwheel

as i sat in the trunk of someone's car

she glinted in the streetlamps

and her finger traced confusing shapes between the stars

she swore and writhed as invisible ropes snaked towards her

and her stomach racked with alien coughs

she looked like an angel

she moved like the wind

and i couldn't bring myself to look away

a single tear met her lashes

it clung to them like she did to me

but she flicked it away and

i felt it sting my cheek

her smile quivered, strange on her lips

city slickers with scales

sacraminnows swim into plastic cups

and miss the polluted sunshine

as they drown in country air

i'm not a sacraminnow but i sure am a small fish in a big pond called everyone around me is more eligible for scholarships than i am.

i wouldn't mind swimming in sacramento for a little while. but i know i'd drown in smog. also in debt. so nevermind.

electroclash musical terrorists

the devil came to me

asked me for a gin and tonic

he sipped it, swore it tasted like heaven

and laughed as he licked his lips

he asked if i could dine with anyone

living or dead, would it be him

i said of course

and he said lets eat

he had a slight tail

it brushed my foot beneath the table

but he apologized, blushing

said that doesnt happen often

he wiped his mouth

held out his hand and asked for a dance

my fingertips burned a little

but i took hold of him anyway

he had two left feet and two right feet

they forked like his sharp little tongue

he crashed into the coffee table

and i galloped behind him

he liked to drink

and so did i

and soon we were singing

and i heard coyotes howling

some call it daring but i call it living

they tell me i think too much about shaving my head

fear i'll look like a boy or a maniac

but i say screw them

i'll hear that buzzing sooner than they think

i miss you so much closer or something like that

we buried a time capsule

you and i

we hid it beneath the dirt

like we did with my guppy

his scales peeled off into your palm

as you cloaked him in ivy

there was a photo of you

and one of me

we hated them both

all squinted eyes and crooked teeth

we uncovered it a week later

i, too impatient, ignoring

your pleas

we looked so much younger then

i need you so much closer

i and love and you but mostly i'm just confused

sometimes i think of leaving, brooklyn, of venturing out and walking on the sidewalks lining your blacktop veins, of jumping off of high-rise buildings just to test the wind, to see if it catches me before i land like a spit wad on somebody's head and we both explode with an aluminum thud on the roof of an angry taxi.

sometimes i think i'd like to try you out, brooklyn, to feel far away from everything familiar. not to feel independent and rebellious, but to feel alive, to feel awake. and also maybe a little rebellious. i've always been the good one and i think i'd like adventure.

sometimes i think of you, brooklyn, but not always. more lately and i'm not sure why. i think i'd like to get a taste of your strength, but i fear you'd eat me in one ferocious bite. i fear i'd be living out the rest of somebody else's life, and then someone else would maybe live out mine and feel the same uncertainty.

sometimes i think i think too much, that i don't listen as much as i hear. my head often wobbles on my neck and once i looked down at my feet and felt it start to slip off so i jerked myself up and felt dizzy and things have been swimmy since.

things you do / things i hate / things i like

1. you look at the wall when we speak seriously and i can never watch your eyes.

2. you keep a song beneath your tongue, but i don't know the tune.

3. you ball your hand tight when i accidentally brush it.

4. you walk with a limp from a wound that never happened.

5. you drum against the air and sometimes i think i can hear the beat.

strange

it was another one of those strange ghosts

his lips moved but he didn't say a word

his nails dug into my brain

when he picked it up and shook it

he pried it open with his teeth

shoveled it into his mouth

and spit it all back out at my feet

he picked a thought from his gums and

tied it around my wrists

his tongue flicked phantom songs across his lips

and i hummed along

ache

you miss your mother

she died when you were young

her ghost is in your eyes

you smile when you talk about her

but phantom moonlight shadows your face

and clouds cover the tiny sun in your pupils

you look at me and i wish that the small sun

would emerge because of me

that i would be blinded

instead its rays stay buried

and your eyes are dull in the instant they

flick up to meet mine

you always pull away first

and i avert my eyes so as not

to stare at you too long

your face shifts when you laugh and frown

and i love to see its wild dance

but it is static in our encounters

you miss your mother

you drift into a shallow sleep and dream of her

your pulse hammering against your wrist

i cannot see it but i know that tiny sun

is lighting your eyelids, tracing the veins

in the red light of your mother's sweet memory

i know you would never dream of me

if

if i were an old man by the sea

i'd roll my socks off and

step into the sand and

wait to sink into the grey water

that creeps beneath the beach,

growing close to the sunset and

melting into the tide.

@overthinker

even if you find a way to

split the knife down the middle

you'll still only have

one sharp edge

pound

drum a steady beat against my chest

hard like you do when you chant for foodfoodfood

a fork and knife knotted in your fingers

crack my bones with two hands

as if they were glowsticks

shedding splinters of light that dance in the dark

dig through that mess of organs and clutch my heart

like you'd pick an apple

be careful of the worms inside

now hit it hard with the heel of your hand

it's choking on its own veins and chambers

bruise it until it pounds again