My words slur together
Unusually
And instantly I want
To bite them back
I, the constant critic,
But they are flamboyantly
Inefficient and misplaced
And I cannot
Swallow them
Clumsy words
Trip instead
Choking me
And they fumble
And they tumble
Over the acceptable
Limits of my
Perfectionist speech
Chastening my
Tongue for its
Impropriety

I thought there would be more
I thought there would be more to say
But there isn’t
Time passes
It has past
And there isn’t more

Structure
Firm knowledge
Certainty in form
I know these rules
And I enforce them
And I stand
The lone agent of
Literary justice
But whenyoutalktome
I for get them-all
whenYou talk. to me
I don’t care anymore
These are the rules
This is the game
I’ve been set up
But still I will play
And you
Play
Me

Shivering
The cold
Relations
Convulsions
The silent
Remorse
Quaking
The echo of
Frigid words
Collapsing
The fragile
Sanity
Shivering
The cold
Relations

Pulsing sharpness
At the intersection
Of vein and muscle
A throbbing knot
Commanding my attention
Perhaps
Forecasting the near future
Or maybe
Just representing
The flaws of my worry-wartness

A timed response
Measuring the significance of each answer
Before the shrill of the relentless beep
Recording in every message
Small sections of life
Events that I passed by
Forgotten or missed or ignored
Replaying to me verbatim
Just as they become irrelevant

Writing novels
You aren’t just inventing characters
You are inventing yourself
Over and over again
And everything that happens
Happens to you
Over and over again
In your dreams each night
The world is formed
And even your waking mind
Is haunted by this alternative universe
This world of your novels
Of the you
Invented in fancy

Bubbles in the water
A light fizz of steam
Drowsy heat rises
Surrounding my skin
Sud-based paisleys
Swirl near my toes
And I am
Clean.

My foot is asleep.
When I was five
I adamantly complained
It felt fuzzy
“Like biting into an old apple.”
My foot is asleep
And I’m walking
On pins and needles
Waiting for the sensation to return

I am surprisingly adept
At guessing the future
And predicting small events
From watching people
And relationships
And analyzing motives
And causes
I am surprisingly adroit
At understanding the world
Except
When understanding is
Imperative