Ouch

Today I practiced my best learned habit.
Overzealous concerns
about money and my body
poured together in a dizzying display
of conflict and gore.
My eyelids droop
at the behest of these two uncomfortable neighbors.

Poor Poet Rag

My throat makes one more attempt
at swallowing its ballpoint Adam's apple
but the poems keep coming up
I soak the notebook
in milky acid syllables.
A body can't just digest itself,
you need the words for consumption.
Without a howling alphabet
your squares are slashed in half
& every meal falls into hungry triangles.


The rules are emptying my cupboards right now.
I am eating out of the kindness of my roommate's heart right now.
my wallet folds into a set of empty eyes right now
the blinking gasps asking: & then;
& then;
& then?