No Gas, No Fire

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:   

It is what you fear.

I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,   

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

-Sylvia Plath

Canine Skyline

Roaring Even In Sleep

When pieced together

We fall apart

Every ending is

Ripped from

Somewhere else

Nothing complete

Without tears of the Other

Ritz To Rubble To Ritz

There doesn’t seem

to be a crack. A

higher pin cannot

be set. Nor can

you go back. You

hadn’t even known

the face was vertical.

All you did was

walk into a room.

The tipping up

from flat was

gradual, you

must assume.

–Kay Ryan

Carnival Apocalypse 

The floor is littered with debris

Abandoned artifacts collected by the graveyard

children cling to their parents

oblivious to the machines spinning above them 

Their older brothers running between the flashing lights

strapping themselves into boxes and screaming.

I’m nauseas 

inhaling burnt cotton

and drinking beer from plastic

My phone wont seem to function

And the alleys don’t make sense

What can I do but wander?

Watching the chaos unfold through blurry vision

Searching the crowd for searching’s sake

Listening to everyone except myself