1.
as you grow up
you begin to realize some things

2.
pickle the teddy bear
stood sentinel at the head of your bed
since the days you still sucked
on a pacifier

you believed
that he could fight the dragons
that came to burn your castle down
in your dreams

and maybe even now
you have trouble believing
that pickle
doesnt actually do that

3.
i was five
the first time i remember scraping
my knee on the
pavement
on my way to
school

mommy gave me a
kiss on
the forehead
before putting a band
aid on
the bloody patch

but the older you
get the more
wounds a kiss and a
word cant fix

because no
words are going to fix
the bloodless fracture inside your
mind

4.
a dog
is not
prone to
the kinds
of thoughts
we are
maybe
because
it does
not care
at all

5.
newtons law of inertia states that
a still object will stay still
and
a moving object will stay moving
until an external force acts upon it

i do wonder
what
exactly
made my mind start moving
in the first place

6.
happiness
is more of a burden to be hoisted around
upon aging joints and weary shoulders
than it is a
relief

the smiles that hang upon our lips
are weights
that drag the rest of our faces down
and a lackadaisical happiness
is better than a real one

7.
big words like
ANTEDILUVIAN
and
FECUND
seem to be necessities
for our future success

what do they even mean

a guignol
is probably what you
drink on the holidays
hoping others find you to be
sophisticated
before you find yourself
staring at the inside of a plastic bag

and nugatory
may be the word that describes
your friend
pushing you towards the one
who makes your heart
dance inside the oversized jail cell
of your ribcage
with looks that tell you
if the flowers die instead of bloom
she wont be there

and a lacuna
sounds like the azure glass
of a bay in the caribbean islands
ever so slowly
tearing at the chains of
dirt and stone
to meet its brother
on the other side

8.
pickle
was once the keeper of dreams

i gave him swords
and knives
and arrows
to keep away the monsters under the bed

until i realized

there are no monsters
more real
than the ones
we become

9.
its eleven at night
and im writing this

even though
my math homework isnt done
my tea is half drunk
my brother is crying for a companion
i dont want to go to bed

there may be angels at the four corners
there may be lambs crossing fields
there may be numbers in red
blue
yellow

but

cypresses root between the trenches of my chest
poppies bloom in place of my eyes
and a single white rose sways
in the breeze of my breath.