Sorry, cuz I’m high cuz I’m sad cuz my spirit is weak,
I eat halfa dozen Dunkin Doughnut’s doughnuts from the dumpster.
Everything I do is fast- eat, piss, stare at the concrete- fast-
Sticky throat, tight jaw, cool wind- love that.
Yeah, there’s a god if you want him- don’t sound like a sonnet.
1 in the am, riverfront, catch the new edition of the stairway manifesto,
parking garage rooftop, boilin over a confessional:
I love you I miss you oh god please tell me I’m wrong when I’m sinking and everywhere water is rushing the weight of the dam collapsing my lungs I know it’s wrong- but tell me god it’s not you when I’m lying alone in the folds of the carpet and unclean dishes feeling my skin on the velvet, for if it is, I know I’m gone
Kyrie eleison, my wayward son, the boxcar Confucius practices his penmanship on Union Pacifics.
I pay no mind, I mean, I don’t mind, the aerosol gets me a little high I guess.
Way past 3am, by now I should be this that and the other thing oh well.
Still thinkin of ya like:
I know doubt is a sin, but I know that you know that I woke up thinking bout us and babe- can I say? This mysterious guy routine is not my thing- I mean it is (that’s obvious) but are we really getting closer?
Patient is the night.
Summer bread, baker’s light on, under awning, 5 am predawn, I call my boyfriend.
But I’m scared to comedown.
Will you still be around?
Will I be back to writing letters and waiting?
Dear God,
I thought I saw the northern lights today,
At 6:05, highway 164,
But it was just a sign from you to say,
“Remember me and all what’s mine is yours.”
I loaf around the house and wonder why,
I cannot give my life so easily,
Abstinence, devotion, all I try,
But to desire I cave so greedily.
My school, my art, my smokes, my work, my food,
I’m strung out on my crutches till I’m full,
I’m running ragged, everyday I lose,
Deeper, deeper, deeper in the hole,
I think to me, the world it sounds like this:
I love you god you are the one I miss.
Love,
Shelby
Ways my higher power speaks to me:
Reverberations in sidewalk puddle pavement,
Bathroom graffiti at CBG’s drying in the basement,
CRT snow,
Actual snow blowing in through my window,
Constellations of coffee grounds sunk low in the mug,
Scattered fractal patterns hidden in lines of the rug,
A mystery cassette B-side left on my doorstep,
Grainy visages in film I haven’t even developed yet,
Call or text? Nope,
Just the ring of dust in the dial tone- oh well.
One day I’ll become a mute and stop moving,
sit in the rocker all evening guitar blues humming,
pick freight train songs misremembered from my mother.
Until then…
Animals who moved in after I stopped moving:
Impatient ducks asking about the lack of bread in the feeder,
Dealing texas holdem poker to local anteaters,
“Get along with the ants!” I yell, “Leave some soup for the toad!”
Hogs sniff truffles buried in the carpet,
Ox chews grass growing up from the hardwood,
Yup,
Native habit is the cancel out the phaneron,
Bum cigs from pigs and smoke out a zen-a-thon,
Plus the fish loves jazz and any excuse to dance,
Jerry-rigged the speaker above the tank bumpin Scott Joplin rags.
One day I’ll become a monk and stop moaning,
commune with the birds,
spit the finest Kierkegaard quotes the monastery ever heard,
Until then…
everything & nothing 