Boiling over, I am scraped off the bottom,
the block I belong on,
57th street where the crows sing.
Time travels around the city
-back and forth-
like it doesn’t matter
swooping through me each time.
I swing like a pendulum inside
my brain talks so fast
future and past, but all I see is the street
with a man parked under
his life.
I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive.
He might be another.
From somewhere I haven’t met
with guns and
drugs
and sex crawling up the walls
I’d kill him to tell it all
but he can’t.
His mouth stopped with his heart
a long time ago.
Time comes back again
and I am standing in the kitchen
wine pouring from the window sill,
put a pie out to dry
sugar, there’s no room for you and I
still want to be here.
The clock is purring like a new motor
ticking backward
and I’m watching my mother.
In X-ray, I can see right through her.
I see her fear and her
weak little shoulders – I am a caged, feral animal
ready for the world
My muscles grow stronger and stronger
I spit on the caged bars and twist them from
existence
now I’m standing in the corner
face to face with death in all its honour
a coffin, a casket full of
skeletons of the past
that merge my cells together
maybe we never were two
time splits here into thick poles
North and South I spend my dreams
in Antarctica
reaching for the coldest depth
I can find
freezing myself in time
where nothing happens,
nothing changes,
I’ve let life tick its last time by.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 