(To Melt)

God, I am melting.
Sinking, melting, ensnared, churning.
I am turning into a neon glaze onstage,
in front of blue velvet curtains,
diffusing across the floorboards.
The flamenco dancers raise their heavy arms,
and they push down.
The stage fades, the facade collapses,
and now I know
how it feels to melt.

You're not listening.

I'm dreaming of lower fidelity dreams.
So that I can't hear myself melting
in all of the white noise,
an ambient hiss that floats around
these polyphonic negative dreams
(make it stop. make it stop-)
It was quiet at first.
Here comes the roar.
God, stop me from melting.
My skin is sloughing off.
Someone. Anyone.

(Swell, tumult, burst eardrums, silence.)

The first-story jump out of an open winter window.

Bystander(s)

You wonder how a mass of people don't try to save the man who is next in line. Sure, they know it's wrong, but they don't want to be next. So they'll look on and... enjoy the show.

The clouds break over the gas station. You're called over, and without further ado, the officer begins to bash your head in with a crowbar. A cheer after every blow. With every passing crunch, more blood lets from your nostrils and eyes. A hard swing, a cheer, and another. And it hurts. But it won't stop. You know it won't stop until you're dead.

Everywhere, the process of no process is
fractal,
fractured,
fracturing.

You wonder. You wonder as you sip your peppermint tea, curl up near a warm fire, and vacantly look out the winter window.

GIVINGTHANKS

Overstuffed grey coat.
Worn-out meshed hat.

Cranberry birds fly down
Feathers fall around me.

The railroad ends up ahead
Of the curve, they once told me.
There is dirt everywhere.

Nowhere;
Nothing to do but sleep
Under beautiful light pollution,
Under scared starless skies.

I would eat,
But I don't want their charity.
I would say it to someone,
But there's no one to thank.
And nothing to be thankful for.

Insomniac Manifesto IV

i am
such a
tired
ghost

Saccades (Insomniac Manifesto III)

Did I fall asleep?
I'm falling asleep with my eyes open.
I am falling - I am asleep - I am my eyes that are open.
I am at least the velvet, well-intentioned underpinnings
of a fevered brain death.
No. I am just wasted ink.


Every third
of a
second, your
retinas skip.
The information
received from
retinal skipping
is new
visual input
for the
brain's cortex
to process.
The output
feels like
a consistent
visual flow.


But then
1. you check yourself against reality
2. realize that your vision
is so far out of sync
and (realizing why)
3. you fall asleep.

Insomniac Manifesto II

1. (Box.)


This is the most desperate
I've felt in a while.


2. (Boxed.)


I'm pressing rewind.
And I'm listening again.


3. ("Boxing")


Nothing good...
Nothing good.


4. (Boxes.)


Some rest might solve this.
Someone else might solve this.


5. (Boxer.)


Deep conflict, pestilent resolve

Optic Flow

I am drowning in red tape.

There lies a dark grey box,
with many tinier boxes inside.

Sometimes, they let me go home.
The wallpaper is peeling.
The children are crying.

Rarely, I go to the attic.
I put on a record from the 1930s.
Light ballroom music. 
A trumpet croons softly 
over the sway of a sleepy big band. 
The aged stylus mingles
with the dust 
and the warped sounds crackle warmly.
Sometimes it rains from the adhesive sky.
That gentleness quietly falls into the mix.
This is when I sit down and 
flow cascades verdoyant.
And I write. 
And I sing.
And I dream. 
And I rest.

The Pink Dinosaur of Meritocracy:

1. I was up for 24 hours straight.
2. Working, or maybe floating.
3. It's hard to tell that late.
4. I'm here because some people don't work.
5. I am awake because of them, for them.
6. Writing, writing, writing.
7. Validity might be around the corner.
8. But it probably isn't.
---
9. I finally fell asleep.
10. I might've been awake.
11. Maybe I fell somewhere between the two.
12. Or perhaps an infinite amount of souls were floating through me.
13. Either way, you carried me.
14. Several miles, in fact.
15. I only faintly remember
16. Being cast into a tall fire.

1. The idea.
2. The drums.
3. The rhythm.
4. Then came civilization on the x^th day.
5. Speaking of... the crane.
6. I saw it heading south before winter.
7. It was doing nothing important, but
8. It felt the need to roar nonetheless.
9. We wanted to stop it.
10. In some final act of defiance.
11. But then people would be left to wonder
12. "Well, who was playing the drums?"

13. Terror, boundless, persists.
14. Fabric, calico and ripped.

1. It was absolutely beautiful.
2. The way the black and white splashed on our faces.
3. We watched the system fall to pieces.
4. A new one came to life from the ashes, on some other planet.
5. It was absolutely beautiful.
6. The scene unfolded before us.
7. Some sweet song of the decade played in slow-motion.
8. I touched your hand and became instantly complete.
9. I didn't care when I woke up.