dying is not enough

a birthday dinner in which nothing was ordered

I didn't smoke, but sometimes used the ashes to mark holes i'd never fill

we were promised a permanent escalation of unremembered suffering

dying is not enough

rat show matinee

conversations resurrected and slaughtered and fed in small cups to open mouths

if we breathed hard enough, we'd fill a bag and burn with the sun

swings and chains and the things they spun until they were indiscernible in the july sun

rat crucifixion or absolution or both concurrently or just nails and holes

mood boards fleeing into soil

dull needles and retreating veins

bayonets that sometimes flew

regarding the painstaking removal of every feather

the impossibility of scattering the sun

some day we'd realize our bones no longer cared to hold our weight, an entire life turning to broth, without a spoon to hold what was left

breathing through glycerin

when organs became a soothing device for a rat priest and his parish

one win away until the latex ink and aluminum grows back

one! great! dig!

reflections in severely neglected fryer oil without prospect of warmth

there was no entry or exit, not that I could remember, but strings that sometimes spelled welcome home in their destruction

buying things in the aisle of cvs to bring you back

desk ornaments

what I made resented their purpose of eating the rain, or suffocating birds in balloons, to birth an omnipresent white noise tasked with inviting madness

with hopes of being immortalized in bleeding ink

a brief reflection in the aluminum intestines of a storage unit containing a palace built of kidney stones

the machine succeeded in its dilution, the papers lined gift bags and suffocated boxes that were left on porches

the summer in which all was lost

evacuation rituals

the day after next or the next

in our garden

when our mouths couldn't open, we heated things into liquids and drank them in with paper straws, convincing ourselves we were saviors

in absence of a chrysalis

hey chat, the worst is yet to come

the discarding of a seasonal sheet cake

pillows that resembled me in airport gift shops

if the paring knife hadn't been sharpened, or the ornamental glass plate filled, or those watching it all lubricating another moment

if only teeth could replace fingers or maybe they already have

though the plate had no wheels, it spun anyways, to appease the pools of black and their need for purposeless motion

mappings of past consumption carved by wars lost

things the moon couldn't say

sometimes the streetlights would devour the stars and the prospect of a sky seemed impossible

memories molded into a device to carry the dead or offer the illusion that something like that is capable of being carried forever

and what we ate was pulverized and required no chewing and sometimes we mistook the bag as part of the meal

though the hole in the meat eclipsed the nail, we pounded away, hoping the mechanical swings would preserve the illusion of pleasure

what became trapped under our nails and how it sometimes fell like dander into the eyes of others

a rat king is crowned on the evening news

hands that were left behind the day they failed to wake you

grand prize winner

faces placed in slots

the same bowl that dad ate from

I forgot it all and surrendered to the illusion of flight, despite eating the deep fried wings that bound so many to the dirt

I watched polyester fiberfill secrete from tear ducts in an effort to prove I was still capable of giving people something to rub between their fingers

bleeding gums that sometimes performed death of a salesman

delusions of digesting pulverized plastic from a microwave in defiance ohio

if only they could see what I saw, from a gouged socket

the grates of our grill had rusted through, and food sometimes just sat on the charcoal, in between cooked and uncooked

a great stage collapses under the weight of a cast performing for no one in particular

things purchased in a state of vague deformity with expired coupons

we longed for the novocaine dripping from a captive bolt pistol

applying adhesive to old bandages incapable of inheriting wounds

when the drain refused my offering, I saw it until it evaporated, to remember my insufficiency

the starting pistol blew his hand off, the race never started, we walked home with trophies made of foil and smiled at unworn shoes

toppled statues cherishing the destruction of permenance

donation plate passing at a rat glue trap cathedral

teeth shattered gleefully like stained glass, hoping they wouldn't chew again

no one came and saw our shows and they mostly weren't worth performing

plastic trays unable to carry nutrients

an accumulation of things found in public pool drains

support! your! local! data! center!

we never wondered who built the mobile, only that it spun enough to distort the ceiling

bouquets awarded to dogs that lost the race

chewing last years grand prize in the garden we buried our sister in

nails that could no longer hold the petal mask we wore the winter it all became undone

they performed their horrible play and we watched with our horrible eyes

a great harvest of carrion flowers and premium pornography and footage of a bear being slaughtered at a circus