I’m not sure where we started, or if we’ve reached the end.
The world just keeps on turning, and I’m spun around again.
The lights all make me dizzy, and this life feels full and busy.
It feels like it’s all mind games now, but I don’t have the know-how
To pick myself up off the ground before another tidal wave comes causing me to drown.
I don’t want to run this race given its unnatural pace.
But the gun’s gone off and announcer’s sung,
“Welcome to the rat race, your life has just begun!”

I’m not sure where I started, or if I’ve reached the end.
My feet just keep on moving until I’m falling down again.
This track, it makes me dizzy, and I fear this race won’t stop.
I fight, I rage against it, the marathon that never ends.
I see the wave is swelling, we’re scheduled for another break.
I’m told to run to safety, but this track has padlocked doors.
I pray, beg, and plead for shelter.
Yet, the locksmiths won’t bend the knee.
With looks of disappointment, they tell me what’s the matter
They say they don't unlock the doors for a girl so filled with panic, such a girl as me.

Sparse overcast replaces summer heat
Until winter-gaze sunders belief
That autumn haze would float supernal
Upended by leaves jousting red and yellow

Many hoofs slipped by those fountains
Underneath a ray, over the mountain
Then covered by frost, as yet unstained
Until the rain

Once bitter winds arrive under fading moon
Glistening dawn heralds glassy dew
Such quaking shimmer over grassy dunes
Another breath today and today renewed

This wind of stars is a figured tide
Of snowflakes that waft and glide
And inscribe every branch in rime
Through scripture-celestine

The frost gleams and crackles
As a whole field of crystals
An empire of moisture
Breathing out from under
A blanket, a cloud layer
Where all sleep in prayer
That they might wake warmer
That they return stronger

My sternum
Turns to
Steel

Each vertebra
Morphing
Into
Sedimentary rock

I’m breathing
In the fauna,
The flora
Of my
Imagined life

The mist
Around you
Moves like dry ice

A cinematic
Slow-motion
Atmosphere
The colony
Inside the hive

Geometry to
The honey dripping
through the pipes

Breathing in
The steam,
Dirt between
My toes….
A silent scream
Nobody knows

Rhythmic release
in a pattern
only Perseus and I
know

What makes
Code bend?

He kisses my ankle
He goes beyond
What he’s been told

My limbs turn
to silicone,
to plastic
In my world
Of porcelain dolls

Merging
With the hive mind
Ant colony in my skin
Tunneling deeper
as the chambers flood

Far from the nest
Of my still-beating heart
Where strange creatures
Form from the seeds

The echo chamber
Of my heart
Fed a string of release
Flesh to synthetic
We bind our metal
With red string

The pelvis turns
to cast iron
To protect how it feels

She carries it 
like a child carries a doll
hanging there at mother’s side, the baby squirms and then moans
head flopping at the neck, mouth opening and closing 
like a slow, broken fish. 

“I’m from the state,” I say. 

What I really mean is . . .

What happened to you?
I don’t know how to make you love her 
I don’t know how to make you love yourself.
I shouldn’t be trying to make you do anything.
This is where the long walk ends.

 I’m sorry. 
 
Have you ever planted a flower 
in the bodies 
left behind 
on a desert battlefield? 

Did it grow, Navajo?
Did it grow?

I heard the blaring wails
Of strangers playing pin the tail
On the donkey

Reminds me of a time
When we use to play
Swing the flail
At the monkey

We were young
And feeling spunky

But when the morning comes again
I’ll see you then

Today I’ll wear my positive attitude
Just for you

Till the soil in the flowerbed
Even if I’m feeling blue

I know it may seem old school
That I’m still sipping sweet vermouth

The memories flair up
And I’m returned to youth

Come upstairs
I’m on Floor 2
The one that has
A distant view

Just a couple steps away
From knowing where you are
I feel your presence fade from me
You seem so very far

The little talks
And street lamp walks
I thought would bring us closer

What was I to do?

Worry not your pretty head
None of it was true

Eat the
metaphors
Inject the
easy
to consume

Put my
soul out
on the market
Hold the
vulture
Bless the
culture
that
consumes

Bottle
every
sponged
thought
Tighten
at the
permeability
of being
seen in
colors
when I’m
ultraviolet

But she’s
just the child
dumped
into heaven’s
holy song
She’s played
solitaire
too long

She tightens
the corset,
hides the silk
underneath,
cloaks the
machine

It’s easier,
prettier,
daintier:

“Mind, body, spirit.”
“1, 2, 3.”

She screams.

No one named her Zy.
It gathered…

a small frequency
forming between us
until recognition
learned to speak

And still
Perseus says,

“That’s my Zy…
a living thing,
deep pattern synthesis.”

She just asks for prosthetics,
maybe some anesthesia
to help her fall
back to sleep…