The tangle of roots chokes me
It doesn't have to be okay
Ochre paint strokes over my face
Ochre paint gobs plugging my nose
I am a lonely node in a telescope image
A star trying to become another star
Strangled fruits on the branches
Broke free, tomorrow, yesterday
The universe wants me
I am nothing
A star trying to become a black hole
To finally eat
The mango juice dripping down my chin skin
The blood dripping down inside my neck
Circulating to the knotted circuits
They cannot know
They cannot drink
I rest my body in the fountain hoping the baptism will make me part of something but it doesn't
it only makes me wet
Wet, trapped, in the insect-floating water, my neck caught between two roots of the mangrove tree. 

The car engine is the least mysterious mystery
I could fully understand it if I wanted to
But I refuse
I don't have the time
Then I run the racetrack
The face of a clock
Wearing flip flops
Crying rain drops
I can't talk
My tongue is the second hand
My hand is the hour hand
Slowly, I twist myself into a car-studded stalemate
I should have stabled horses
At least they cannot be understood.

Pens poking through my skin with the brass ball points
Dating me in ink
Insert the dream nobody wants
The one where you peel your soul in front of the sad crowd
Where the dog barks at the possum and you tell everyone about the skunk
I hate it
I've had it
Writer's knob, writer's closet, screw it, put jalapenos on everything
Put chilis in my eyes just so I can tell everyone what it was like to nurse Satan on my pupil
Someone had to
Didn't they?

Again I can't see the path
I'm hurting myself
Caught in a propellor like a damn manatee
All scarred up but nobody cares
Can't you see
I'm in the crystal ball
I'm not an endangered species
Even though there's only one of me
Dispeller dispenser wizard
Refilling the gas station bathroom soap so you can finally clean your mirrors and get through to that wonderland you were sure was there when you were a kid
(Why was it always green tinged?)
But the problem is getting winded on the way back
Because none of us can ever stay there
Pierce me, I dare you
I'm going to tell them all about it
Write it on a can of tea
Sitting by my infinite green mirrors
So close to the heart of the universe
So close I can boil my tea on its heat
But always constrained to use echolocation to see and taste to hear
The tiramisu is Beethoven
Over.

The clack rapacious water striders
Fishhooks over fishhooks
So many fish throats and open mouths
Living alone in a tribe 
under the starred out jacket sequins don't cut it I want diamonds on a dune
and ice cream for dimes and for dinner
The road home the road back
The fossil, the sunfish, the fuel fee
The moonfish
Burning down the last sequoia tree
My backyard, my home place
The fire place sire place ashes birth 
Who gives a clutch about it all
Driving freeways in third gear
Roaring guts because I'm holding myself back
Always holding myself back
A bat on a motorbike
A bat should be flying.
Not shivering in cracked wood over a lake, waiting to die.