i can’t seem to keep the minutes on their little twine leashes that go deep in my skin when the hours seconds pull away and no water gets poured into this assignment shouting for me with its raspy voice so easy to ignore to forget not like the purple orchids behind this wooden bench which is pregnant with cigarettes and idle minutes not like the purple orchids being preened by the rays of sunset placed between dormitory and some tree
unpredictable: the exact spot, the blades of grass struck by may lightning, igniting field and the oak kept company by bovine brethren, bulls, cows, calves, steers and heifers, dreaming of fresh alfalfa and other happy cow thoughts. first the tree lost grasp of whatever it means to be alive, from the top bough to the bottom root hair and then the cows after, all together, like how when the old tv is on downstairs whispering some black and white western, my brother and i can hear the static whining until someone presses power, ...
disorderly, marvelous, and ours. the granite boulders were a huddle of hatchling turtles. she and i laid on the shell of one and watched the night sky. i might have imagined the stars, constellations, were locked in place and we were the ones moving, propelled by his little claws, the earth a pond or something like a pond. we floated away from orion’s belt and ursa major and minor, stroke by stroke. ...
when my parents could still pick me up, they would unbuckle me then carry me to bed. sometimes i wasn’t really asleep. i had been guessing where we were by our speed and the turns made. grey leather seats cradling me. brother snoozing - soft. streetlights and night combining, laying shadows on faces like a rotating mobile. sometimes i was wrong. somewhere in my stomach pulled part of me in the direction i thought i should be ...
i have conducted a comprehensive survey - it’s true: the heart is a bird. robins are colored almost like blood coursing, blood rushing to the cheeks. they have wings that flutter like how nervous middle schoolers are for their middle school slow dance. i don’t think a robin would make a good pet though it could be caged, caged like a heart trying not to be in love which looks like an arrow arguing with the fingers about to let go. ...