Things I Did...

Crawled into a rabbit hole
only three feet deep
to hide my perpetually
tearing Man Ray face—
my legs sticking out
like deformed tree roots
trying to suck up
fluoride-free water.

Thought I wasn’t a person,
not even some sentient
machine-god set on surviving
the worldwide web of fire
it created—
lost the documentation
of my soul somewhere
in the small hours
I slept into a new age,
the damp silence of
my underground airport.

Threw anger against the wall
& lost every wrestling match—
saying “mother” because
my uncle threw his humanity
out of the window
on some highway between
here & Arkansas years ago.

Climbed up the bank tower
& spoke with the crows
in Cherokee—
the language transcribed
on the license plates below
& in every vein of the leaves
turning brittle as I turned them
over in my hands.

Thought about what he
would look like
in his underwear—
made an impeccable proof
in the darkroom
behind my eyelids
that bathed itself
in too much acid
& disintegrated.

Listened to dead voices
calling me out from speakers
& my oldest-dead mother
scribbling the pain of
divorce poems on my
forearms with red crayon—
unable to sleep from
the pyramids race-building
across my closed eyes.

Spent eleven days
in self-imposed isolation—
crowding jesus out
of the picture frame
by outlasting him
& still re-forming.