He is the changer,
stranger danger, danger made
strange by
familiarity made
grow-esque in dreams,
peen hammered dreams,
that rattle
if you shake them hard enough
when you are awake enough
to know that you are still dreaming
and a wise man once said
lock the doors if you want
to live long enough
to know that death is upon shoes sans
so change your songs
regularly. And your socks. Someone is
searching for you and
one day they will be there
by the grace of God
to help you close the door.
Holding your breath
in my mouth
makes me giggle
because it is so obviously not my own,
the taste is
rank. The rivets are flying out of the sheet
metal on my dream machine and
ricocheting off of
the bullshit kindnesses and courtesies and
whorish humors of chums. I don't know whether
to answer the door or
ignore the
the
the
the answer to the question being
the seeing of a threat that has yet
to bloom and the warning of
an answer I am prepared to accept
because I cannot protect myself.
The knock. The knock. The fucking knock.
Kiss me, would you? The only thing
distinct from dreams. Tell me I am a wake
and I will carry on, alive, my heart
carrying more weapons
than a zombie shelter and ready
for everything worse than
the knocks of hand that
do not exist
against my door and windows locked.
Locked and locked and locked.
And still they get in;
beautifully
intricate
ways they have to pray
to locks and slips of steel against steel sleeves,
each entry able to make a new angle to the tilt
and unable to leave.
