it’s wild—

you’ve spilt a spell
            beneath yourself
that you can never retrieve—

the details don’t matter,
what you’ve dreamed of
            never mattered

so just lie awake

your desk cluttered, your
            make-up fake
redundant as it ever has been
resplendent as you are

reaching for the stars
in any way possible
            without an anchor or a chain

sleeping sleeplessly
            (sleepy hollow sleepy hollow)
whence you find a better pen;

a better man (or woman)
reclaiming a head
            you can’t make sense of

until it’s grotesque in
            a jar—afar and appalled,
pickled like the rest
            of ’em (pickled and pruned)—

and ahh—
            Almighty Blah

finally (really, this is what
            it’s come to?
this is what it takes?

of course it is [you knew it
            when you blew it all along]):

            change.

(Venus is the pentacle,
            and she still watches over you
            [albeit from a comfortably
unsafe distance], her maniacal screams
            confused for laughter—

            harmful and harmless, regardless)

Who’s to tell you how to handle?
when it all goes down,
down further than you ever thought,
thinking your way through it

pacing and smoking,
smoking and pacing,
sitting with yourself,
lungs turning black,
it may not be productive,
but hey—at least it’s not psychoactive

maybe the brain didn’t develop right
you breathed in too much butane as a kid

and you’re told you can’t deal with tough situations
though it seems you’ve been doing nothing but!
your whole life

compartmentalize,
your therapist tells you,
compartmentalize—
there are separate dilemmas here,
though infinitely entangled

you can’t let it break you:
your will, your love, your faith in humanity

so don’t close your open arms,
and don’t deceive,
but maybe raise your guard a little bit
with loose, honest fists
and fight through
however you have to.

of capsizing
only a couple missteps away—
maybe a few, maybe just one

i’d tell you to stay afloat
if my lungs weren’t already filled with
the same water
that’s taking you down.

If you bottle it up
and blow it out
you’re doing a whole
fuck of a lot
better than I am

I’d rather break it down
and breathe it in—
for the sake of self-deprecation
and future devastation,
if nothing else

because once you destroy
the person you thought
you knew, you get to rebuild
them just like you
always wanted, just like
you always thought you would

now get to work
on a better Babel
if you can.

aka in replication of the sound of a body tossed from two stories on a late summer night on a dark, leafy street in Montréal—depending on the weight of the bones, et al (nails and hair and other organs and such, etc., etc.), the angle of contact, and the fundamental structure of what lies beneath; the chemistry of the concrete, the temperature of the pavement, the age and tone and character of that course, unforgiving stone:

¡¡shhh-MAKK!!
*fsss glubglub*

tapping through (no that is not enough, ask Rilke),
scathing through (so what who cares, it’s been done before),
screaming through (ok well anyone with half an ear can hear that)—
pulsing through
clamoring
hammering
disheveled
merciless

until nothing and nothing and nothing is left,
well that’s not hard to hear
that’s not hard to tell

it’s after that

…after that

when everyone forgot to give chase
they’ve all been tuckered out and turned off
tarred and feathered
given up the good fight, passed out

it’s then
if you can still hear it

murmuring
below

from the whispery willows where once we
have not yet lain
deep
at the core of the earth’s muck

it’s then you know

you never asked for this
it’s the gift and the curse
you’re grateful and perplexed
resolute yet beginning to accept

it is meant for you
you are meant for it

(the dirt is dazzling
this brine is brilliant)

and you’re at least half-a-step toward
what you’ve heard to be called

peace

even if for but a few fleeting moments,
then it’s gone.

I must’ve read
your letter
1000 times—
the words
still haven’t
changed

it still
ends with
goodbye

yet under it
            under it
                        under it

lies future and trust,
            lies dormancy;
                        lies the things you cannot say—

                        so let ’em out
            let ’em out
let ’em out

           and when you’ve thought
           all those thoughts through

           go to sleep on the couch—

           (bark’s better left on trees)

day 1, this will be fun
day 2, so much to do
day 3, don’t look at me
day 4, closin the door
day 5, i’m still alive
day 6, chain-smoke cigarettes
day 7, i don’t want to mention
day 8, write something great
day 9, out of my mind
day 10, do it again

before a single word—
a sentence, a syllable;
a pair of parentheses,
a set of quotation marks—
has been published,
so I’ll do it myself
because I’m sick of keeping it to myself;
I did this to myself,
just the way I like it—

if you listen,
you can hear the insistence
of the narcissistic mystic,
claiming,
“free
  will
  is
  your
  fate,”
echoing on forever
as he topples
  down
  an
  endless
  well.