Last Thursday,

I had a belt laced to my hands.

I remember grasping my makeshift device  

with the same reluctance of a four-year-old,

who would curl around his mother's leg

at the slightest sign of abandonment.

I can only wonder how

Thursday can transpire like this—

cutting my brain out and leaving all

but a small cavity for mangled moths

to clap against the walls.

Thursday

became what they call an illness,

that had me pacing my room ‘til midnight,

counting my steps by threes.

Oh, call the honeybees to sweeten my sickness.

The peas on my dinner plate

seem to warp into brown batter—

like the color of my soles.

Old, like the strings tangled between

what they call emotions.

This doesn't feel like emotions!

This feels like vacancy.

I own a motel of a mind—

only the electricity bill

is way past due,

the tap has run dry,

and the insulation has run thin.

The insects, that burrow

through my brain

make me and these moths

foreign to my own sanity.

By the way,

the honeybees

were never sincere.

Dear Happiness:

I am waiting for you,

to peer through the door,

and whisper September to me.

September, the beginning.

I miss, the beginning.