The Zone

 
Hello it’s dark down here like a deck of cards
or a memoir
I don’t know how I got to the deep sweet part of the year
it’s not like heavenly bubblewrap beginning again
unboxed study of presence
I was a higher monstrosity before all of you
paroxysmal the actress had weird nipples
that’s not why the film moved me so much 
I loved the psychosis of numbers
falling in love with them
close your eyes and count down from ten
on a bike in traffic
like tulip for a tongue 
everyone will love you 
on the count of zero 
calorie infinity 
this year we got so sick
crying over ourselves in bathtubs of colder water 
we were too wet in our minds 
for god to slice machine language
I learned to sleep like a baby
which is to say cryingly
I learned to sleep like a dead man
playing dead with microdosed indifference
to the way it breathes
I’m not blowing up rumours of balloon 
with my labour
the university can engineer balladry funding 
like the man who made millions from his gold rush ballads
made more from the ballads than the gold 
I learned this while bowling
I am terrible at bowling
the way a heavy weight slings from my arm 
the let go 
of holding each other in public
pieces of art gallery candy arranged by the window 
a hundred storeys high 
above sea level 
at maximum emotional altitude
today it’s not going to get any lighter 
I won’t feel tender towards a petty
listener monologue of the star 
topping forest
says go harder fly faster 
in the face of despair
don’t spit 
the gallery candy 
fungible in glib ways like on eBay
buying up the tears of Britney 
who danced with knives on reels
available to anyone