What Happens When Things Slow Down

To the audience:

I come to you

Your judgment makes me see.

how else could I see?

You

Look at me like I’ve got a spark

And this- the impetus to act

I show you to make it true

You know what happens next.

--

Twice daily I try to consider something else

Like loving embraces and holier empires

Extremes or extremities are misleading

Lipstick and brightly dyed hair

are what they are

A Quick Fix Fantasy

a novelty

I treat it like high

I believed it so

it plummeted

down to the ground

it was digging in the dirt

--

i come back to you

with my tail between my legs

and you tell me that

You

are my imagination

with my tail between my legs

i come to back to hear you say it

imagine my surprise

--

I worry constantly about what you might see

The wires to the pace maker or the laugh track in my belly

Precisely what I’m hiding

behind my pounding chest and tittering

I feigned interest

It became interesting

watching the scarred…

watching the sacred…

watching the scarred

watching… pro-wrestling

before you learned the truth

--

You!

My audience

I know as well as you what you are.

But with you

This body, this gesture

They…become…me.