kingsoftrain

i.

I strike a match and my pillow thinks I'm out of teeth.

ii.

An insomniac's rainbow

and
or Jesus

walking
his dog.

iii.

You can't die
from wetting the bed.

In Ohio you can choose the violence you want to see. God is a very long commercial for death. Death gets you nowhere. The slow crawling that my skin fakes keeps my ghost awake. I keep forgetting the future.

There's a place I cannot get to.
It exists
and that's

why.

My ears
changed
with each
child.

Selfishly perhaps I wanted to hear
different
bones.

Death, that puzzle.
No pieces.

Single-use loneliness.

An arsonist's mother
in her birthday suit
ah goodbye
to the last
of the salt.

White bruises.

I can be sick in two dreams at once.

Eating is a violence.

You can't
hear the bomb
if you listen.

I die and still

god is closer
to death.

okay so it's Sunday afternoon and I got gone a little early and this next week at work is gonna be A THING but I have some thoughts on thoughts that are inner and outer and they are about death and grandparents and marriages but I'm not sure that is going to be enough or even apparent BUT here I go...today I was trying to pick with my daughter a father/daughter song for her wedding in June and I KNOW it is a strange and gendered and traditionally odd thing bc we should ALL BE DANCING WHEN THOSE WE LOVE ARE LOVED but also fuck all that I just want to be face to face with my daughter while a cool song plays and that isn't wrong BUT anyway back to my original post point etc etc etc I lost sooooo much time last year and my daughter was in Ireland and I didn't want her to worry so I didn't really check in with her while I was sick bc I thought correctly she needed to be someone outside of her parents or something oh lord I am not being very progressive in my wording but STAY WITH ME so in thinking of a song I had Timmy on me last night and he was trying to fall asleep without having issues breathing and I somehow got on a strange groove of TikTok marriage toasts and I got sad bc everyone is rich and did alot of great shit with their daughters in other places and me and my daughter were always kind of in the same place doing the same things and that meant alot of toys and set-ups and battles and folk songs and me reading The Nation and The Weekly Standard to find some sort of median and GUESS WHAT there isn't one except to be an actual progressive and actual helpless progressive BUT ANYWAY it got me thinking about time and how time doesn't change except to say it's time to change and anyway our father/daughter song will be by Josh Ritter and I have to say something about me being sick last year and about Gen being sick this year and that thing is this...we are two different people who learn differently and have seen death on both sides and on the same side and she was there for me when I was sick LIKE REALLY FUCKING THERE and I will be there differently for her this year and I think that's why my grandfather died right after my grandmother bc they were there for every difference and worked really hard to make it the same for each other or something or something and after that my aunt died suddenly and she was if anything A DEFENDER OF FAMILY and I think she kept my grandparents alive long enough for them to be seen and that is an immortal thing how did this get here but also I know how this got here and am going to call it a place

Thought
god
would
notice

The glow
brushed pain
of skin's
one
man show
and the lost

sob
faking sleep
in the erections
of underused

(dream sequence
(crucifixion

extras

for the absent
tattoo
of touch's
forgetful
scar