​I’ve been running        along the outskirts
of Akron searching     for a place to put
all of this body   feeling like I’m just
a broken brake pedal        can’t stop
 
thinking           about how my father   
is made of gasoline         you should
see       how he makes everything
 
burn      like our hardwood floors     my mother
’s    tongue      the glass coffee tables     clocks 
set 35 years backwards            beige love seats
deflated pillows     porcelain cups      my skin
 
keeps                glowing    a bright
ember listen    to the way       the fire
cracks  then sizzles listen
 
sometimes there’s nothing        you can do                
but strip   to bone  so that there’s         nothing         
more                  to  burn. 

​**Title and some lines of the poem “Keep Clear of Me: I am Maneuvering with Difficulty” taken from the children’s book Alpha, Bravo, Charlie: The Complete Book of Nautical Codes by Sara Gillingham**
​

​constructivism is an obsessable task,
sometimes i wish i were none of it
at all
 
i hate to classify things as bad or good
but how does the dark become something
entirely different in the same space?
 
are they similar?
 
are we? 
 
particles dusted off, painted anew
by some glassy-eyed god or something
 
i want to feel my skin rip off because
how do you get hurt so bad and it
stay intact?
 
just because i want to feel myself burn
doesn’t mean i want to see it
too 

​My mother is wearing her new
turquoise jacket - a warning flare.
My brother, his bedclothes.
I do not remember what my father
is wearing.

A child throws his grandmother's voice
in walkie talkie style cinema.
Girls with blue hair
go where you'd expect them to.
Paperbacks spilling dirty words
on my red shoes.
A woman finds a box for me.

Languidly, I uncurl -
surprise lilies in the rain,
the white bread days of August.
In this height of splendor,
I am tense.
Every woman with thick bangs
is you. Every Saturday
without a second cup of coffee.
Every wish
mumbled into a snowstorm.

I am a tiger, yowling
in a gauze cocoon.
I am waiting for
the avalanche of smoke
that will smother me.
All this pink
cannot live here.

the uncertain consequence of violent waves
like feeling everything all at once
 
these discrete instances
moving too quickly (see: movie frames)
(see: memories) (see: blooming)
 
cut off all your hair while we're waiting here
 
everything is different from everything
 
we speak in polaroids and sand
each new feeling presenting itself timidly
like a bud emerging through the frost
 
you young buildings with your opalescent fish scales
you sky with your never-ending potential