12/12

I sat down for dinner at 7:22

The same time I sat down for breakfast 12 hours earlier

Who knew I would know the taste of milk just before expiration

Hearing the sounds of people running downstairs and jiggling keys

Flinching with every moment that it comes closer 

To the time my door is opened

Passing

The internet serves as a record of my friends 

Dwindling with each year 

When you realize you’re too warm 

And too lazy to take off your jacket

It’s the feeling of someone walking too close

There are the conversations you overhear 

Not unwelcome, but uncomfortable 

You wonder if you should slow your pace 

but no matter what you’re both in stride

 

Coping

When I finally have the chance to breathe 

I can’t stop thinking about 

The way you see me 

Inverting previous admonitions

From condescension to care 

I wonder if I too am inverted 

If the miles between us 

Cloud your words 

Making fickle mist with every breath

You see me

Painted like a desert 

Wrapping on the edges 

Yelling to you

As you turn away

You got tired of hearing me

You used to reach inside

And hold me

And now you don’t even watch

You listen to my ramblings with slight acknowledgments

And when the slightest words catch your attention 

You turn away

Strange Fruit After Billie Holiday

Your limbs are tendrils 

Flailing in protest offbeat

to the beat of hearts 

Working

  to understand

  your speech. 

 

Seek the neverending sending of messages that

teach upstanding misunderstanding of 

 

Your hair and why it crinkles

So early after water stipples hit 

Freshly 

Burned 

Skin 

Cells that work against it 

Turn you thick to sense it 

Coming 

Before 

The wind

 

Your reaction

Almost human

Flesh

always brazen to the thought of the world we’re in.