to talk to you (poem #19)

No one has been careful with me.

Not even me.

I can talk for ten hours and realize that I’ve said nothing.

That everything is an excuse, 

and you’re just listening 

and counting paint until I shut up. 

I am five feet 2 inches tall but I am also absolutely insignificant in the key of A,—

There is darkness in the sun.

Strobe kisses inside my eyes catch me by the throat.

Where do I regurgitate back this dearest darkness?

Darkness.

Darkness.

Where do you go when all I see is light?

When all I taste are blues and greens?

Where do I grow and trample?

Where does all the growth go when I feel subterranean?

How do I fall in love with my twisted grove?

How do I happy my way out of insomnia?

Where is my conveyor belt? 

My deficiency?

I feel movement in my belly, a world of unfed mouths.

Why am I starving—for attention, for love and adoration?

For empty disappointments and misunderstandings?

When do I sleep?

When do I forgive?