because a bird chirrups & I wonder if animals know / what they cry
for or if they simply have noises assigned to button discomforts //
instead I like to know / what I need & say something else // button: I love
you / output: leave me // you can’t see my moods’ translations / the way
you see nothing in the air & still a bird grasps it better than gravity //
mania gardens my skin into taste buds / I cup your face & sense
pepper // I keep so many of you at once because when I’m flying I have
such a little mouthhole & all this need for food // with the desperation
of a froglet drying its new lungs / I kissed every beast in the pond //
I don’t like to be a textbook case / but my right wing flaps fuck & my left
die // mania: every rock might be a geode // someone leaves me:
I break myself open looking for crystals / dry my organs in the sun //
I have so many insides study as I will / if I tried to list them
I’d forget a few / though there they all are fissuring in the heat //
depression: birds sing precisely because they are unfulfilled / & I could not
stop waking up in anyone else’s nest & starting the day / with a cry //
once I tried to find a local oak strung with animal bones / a broken
electrical line on the path hummed & misted / this watery dread ran me
back // I ran through the rain to your bed / for the human body is an electrical
desire strung with bones / I laid my head on your insides / & heard them hiss //
once I refused to admit the sky was blue / sometimes it’s black or
ripens itself like an orchid // really the earth’s crust is a dish / barely holding
these colors where they can’t fall & crush us // or I turned my being into
a void / barely freckled with light // it’s dark enough now to rest awhile
