Feathers-Upon-Wind

Billy chews on caterpillars until his chin turns green with guts. He sits on the end of his street and plucks legs from the elastic skin, of the kids laying in the gutters. Flowers bloom from the kids’ heads and leaves spring from their spines’ and Billy gnashes away limbs they’ve left behind. He slurps green bugs out of ear canals and fingers off of bones. His teeth have turned to flint and sandstone. He roasts torsos with sparks from his mouth and howls to the comet above. And all the while the kids in the ditches mewl and groan. Billy eats their tongues and lips and turns their guts into homes.

Sometimes, I remember when the sky was blue, when my mother always talked about the end. Before the end became endless. Eternity swallowed death like leaves swallowed my knees. Mother says we are trees now and should stare up at the sky, feeding our empty stomachs with the sight of the comet frozen in the dark, growing fatter and more orange every decade. Father says we are bears and should hide in the caves until the air grows warm beneath the sun again. The wind says we are mountains and statues, risen with destruction and forced to wear away only over centuries. But we are changing. I watch rocks dig through my fingertips and ice drip down my ears. Bugs call my nose home, born from the hairs that were hidden in there long ago. I don’t remember when I stopped being human, but I remember the night, damp with rain and still hot from the recently visible sun, when the egg like comet hit the sky on its death stretch. Whispers of a UFO spread through the adults under laughter and

My poems run best along long lines because I’d rather write a story without plot. What better way to challenge what makes a story than write a not-story butchered into a poem. I hack off the legs and tail and remove the face, then focus in on rust stains in the concrete. It is now nameless and snoutless. I discard the pig head on a stake in favor of the front left hoof. The hoof is coated in velvet and is more cryptic than an ear. The hoof’s expression is the twitch in leg muscles that the hoof no longer has. I chuck it across the room to make it dance but it only leaves a splatter. I call the blood print a mess or a poem, depending how it lands. All I know is that it smells bad. Now I’ve got neither story nor poem, just a mutilated hog with several names (or named pieces) and a claim on an artwork the hog made.

And God started to talk to Zelda. She always knew she was incurable. She told him, told her, told both of them, but when Scottie insisted, Zelda could say no only so many times before returning to the hospital on her daughter’s worry. Even when she had a choice to enter the psychiatrist’s palm, she had no choice, might as well be a flower dry-pressed in the pages of a heavy and outdated book. Once upon a time she knew just how to act to be released (the doctors also understood she was incurable so they tried to “fix” her in other ways), but as the hospitalizations dragged on, she grew to rely on habit. The electricity and insulin shocked her through enough mental rollercoaster rides that she began to glide through the visits, bouncing all the same tracks, growing ricketier with each new round of what the doctors called treatment. The voices never stopped, but if God was talking, did that matter all that much? Zelda always knew she was incurable. She was glad to be so. Without say in

If I were to be any other animal, I would be a sheep. I would bask in my own stupidity, running blindly in fields of thick wool I fail to recognize as me. My teeth would pick away at grass or grain or whatever hard to digest food sheep eat and I’d eat. And eat and eat with nothing else to do and nothing else to think about (perhaps besides mating because eating and mating are things sheep have to think to do, while I could just fall asleep or pass waste without a single thought, I bet I wouldn’t even know that I did). And as a sheep I’d probably be stupid enough to think that I am always flying, confusing my fellow sheep for clouds in the sky. Though I may also be so stupid that I’d have no clue what the sky is, or the ground and maybe that is why sheep will walk right off cliffs. If I was a sheep, I probably wouldn’t live long, because I would walk straight off a cliff and not even realize it until I was dead.

This is a filler poem Not a real poem Not a poem poem It means nothing Does nothing And has no place here But I hate odd numbers and want to go to bed So it sits here And waits For me to replace it with a better poem If I don’t feel guilty in the morning

I have been Sitting here All night and Now I know The stars are out Unable to be seen As I continue To longue about Useless Swallowed whole Digest me

A lopsided blown-glass dog lives on the corner of my desk, abused and lonely. Had I treated any real animal as I have treated this trinket, I’d surely earn your abhorrence. It never sees the sun, or the moon, or outside at all; never once has it breathed fresh air. With its head cocked and legs splayed for a leap, floppy ears forever suspended mid-bounce, it stares up, uneven eyes ever unblinking, anticipating. Begging. Half a year looking at nothing, half condemned to a box, a whole year waiting for attention. Had it been a real dog it would have been lively, as a decoration it is dead. And it must always be cold, this hunk of glass that has no shelter from the freezing air and no body-heat of its own. And maybe it gets scared when it has to sit in the dark all night, unable to escape to sleep, left guarding a room it has no way to guard because it has no mouth or teeth or claws, and is smaller than my palm, and has no sense of danger beyond falls from high places. And this poor dog

To say that I love you would be a lie But to say that I could live without you Even I am not so desperate to Sit here molding such a senseless deny You tear me apart evoking a cry Turning problems inward and out of view A destructive force but I will pull through As you continue to force me to fly My dearest anxiety you make me Defining that which you try to destroy Building strength from fear and limitation Existing, you are a dangerous sea But in your crashing waves and deadly ploy Vastness opens promise of salvation

I am detached from the physical Raised in violence Silenced in critical moments of development Birthed into hostility Hostile hospitality Lead to deceive anyone who may have helped me I am detached from the physical Isolated from my pain Laid to rest in memory Shame built on years of lies Convincing me that no matter how hard I try I deserve any suffering I come by I am detached from the physical Adjusted to frailty of my skin Begin tearing at my own flesh Having forgotten what it felt like Having forgotten it to be my own Used to disowning myself I have become detached from the physical Subjected myself to the torment Lamented childhood misery Contained to the futility Taught to me When love was most critical I am detached from the physical Visible in the ways I hurt myself