slow fold inward. body can only crumple so small, into a ball, limbs roll tighter & knees bend. rip the phone from the wall; the receiver fills with sulk & the dresser clock blinks at you, it’s obscene tick. if you could stand still, stare into the sun for hours on end. if you could move. yr mind’s a knot of exhaust; the morning tried to untangle but botched & as result, you contradict. stillness or movement? both. cause crawling cross america’s wilted flesh means nothing more than standing motionless, your hands in your pockets, biting your bottom lip. the fact all yr suitcases swell with silk slips & nectarines differs none from leaning at the kitchen sink scrubbing clean yr wine stained sweater.

lying to reduce my words to nothingness, to create streams of syllables so muddled with falsehoods, even the sound of my voice is a contradiction. my body as well. the mere shift of skin on the couch, bend of knees, click-click twist of my wrist as i open a kitchen cabinet cuts a lie through the air so thick it swells, splits, exposing all the oxygen till it browns. wherever i sit or stand, any moment along time’s sticky filament, i'm utterly meaningless. a mouth emitting incomprehensible vibrations, movements disrupting nothing.

last night i dreamt America became so paranoid of conspiracy that fat legislatures with filthy fingernails stamped a law mandating lucency. citizens were required to exist without whisper, exposed wholly by living in glass houses with clear couches, drive see-through cars through see-through neighborhoods & swallow transparency pills every night while tucked in bed in order to drain all pigment from their skin. as if the citizens held within their bellies a thousand spies, between the notches of their spines, a hundred blasphemous betrayals. or as if the body was a secret in & of itself.

"tell me about your love life"

the entire weekend dissolved under exhaustion’s white flame. no work accomplished only sleep & sleep till i could at least stand, perform the daily functions of brushing my teeth, feeding the cat. my exhaustion surprised, welled within for weeks, then burst suddenly. me, cotton-mouthed & near collapsing at work, a headache that warranted smashing my skull into the brick wall of super-target till beads of relief trickled through.

the night slips, surprises with how quick it stumbles from your body, bed. dawn takes over, spreads its day glow. everything, smoke. all day thoughts converge—sinking & sinking into sleep’s plush red flesh.last night your body was not a body at all but a clumsy machine. you took too seriously the words of a poem touch any of these & something of yourself disappears. so you touched nothing, no one. at dinner you sat utterly still while the waiter poured your tea & when you opened your mouth to say thank you, nothing came out. in the parking lot you shuffled aimless with your friend trying to find the car, find a reason not to find the car, not to drive home where shadows waited for you in all the corners.

the trick’s not existing. no, simply exhaling is easy as spinning. your body a whirlwind as yr friend raises drinks to starvation in foreign countries with names longer than their longest rivers. you spin all night & your friend passes out on a couch. breathing, body shifting room to room—that’s never been the hard part. its everything else. then you remember the night you felt alive, walking five miles to the city graveyard & back. the wind slight, moon flushing light. how even the trees bent forward as if in awe of you.

sleepy in math class. the room’s all chalk, the teacher coughs. eyes open but asleep? no, not actually asleep cause i see. all the students shift, morph into body blobs, sticky gum drops. i want to eat them cause i’ve not eaten since yesterday, but i don’t need food; my body’s full of sand, skin parched. when i move, i make sifting sounds.but life’s good, a comfortable slouch. i work mostly. & school? not so bad; its really just showing up & smiling when the teacher winks at you. i mean, i still don’t sleep, but considering i’m alive & healthy, i suppose i owe God something more than a shoulder shrug.