Bird Sounds

A large

dark bird

torn apart

in the middle

of the road.

I think of the

sinewy parts

of chicken wings.

Dead flesh.

Of how it must feel

to have feathers

embedded in

epidermis.

So stupid.

Kept awake by

bird sounds.

Most days,

things are silver.

Gunmetal.

Pallid.

My leaves fall off

with the season.

I am hard,

skinny branches

thwacking together

and beating against

a window

in the night.

Chewing the skin

from my lips.

I am dead swamp grass.

Dry.

Rustling.

I am a husk.

Itching from

the lack of moisture.

Frigid.

Frozen and slow.

Lonesome.

I am overcome

by the noise.

Overstimulated.

Speech in my skull.

A slumgullion of

CAPITAL LETTERS.

A vernacular

of oversensitivity.

A clitoris chafing 

against tight fabric.

Provoked to

agitation.

When I look down,

I see my shirt

is a different color

than I imagined.

I've been too consumed

to look at myself.

The talons of anxiety

have exposed my innards.

A bloody inflection.

So much lost

that my limbs tingle.

Exposed to tiny terrors.

I can see the allure

of walking into a river.

The gentle splashing

as my feet

part the current.

Maybe, the Allegheny.

The Ohio.

My pockets full of rocks.

Weights on my ankles.

Not succumbing.

Not selfish.

Just seeking silence.

A need to be nothing.

To unfeel.

But, existence

is polyphonic.

We carry

the love of others

like burs.

Like a bird eats seeds

and shits them

someplace else.

We are never isolated.

I dream of numb,

but in the morning

I just go to work.