Welcome to the Nervous System

pt. 1
Welcome to the Nervous System!
where your heart is a gardener in a stranger’s blood
and where you’ll sleep in outstretched country streets
who’ll run for miles like an open wound on the yellow prairie
whose tremendous sky will devour you
slowly, your rapture
your god with open arms, your girls with open eyes
your numbness. pain. and joy.
white matter and gray matter smudged on their fingers which
they used to gag you, to shove down your throat and make you scream
to make you scream out your white matter
the patient’s lower arm, the patient’s back and torso, the patient’s roaring dissatisfaction, the patient’s poison synapse motor fluency life crashing death cells brain
pt. 2
STILL MOUNTAIN.
still birds on white trees
still breeze
you sit under a tree and eat your sandwich and listen to the unicorns
in your shorts with your hair damp and sweaty from the sun
who loves you and will keep you close
bark is stuck to your skin, you can taste your sweat and it’s stinging your eyes, you’re tired but you’re resting now
you don’t have to think of going back ‘cause the unicorns are playing and the butterflies are rising above the humming forest and small river at your feet where there isn’t another human being
pt. 3
and you breathe lightly the stale air in your bedroom
while winter calls to you from outside your window and the heat must be off ‘cause you’re freezing under the blankets so you pull in closer and feel the weight on your eyes
and you’ve got butterflies and they’re soaring in your stomach and blooming from new cocoons you planted there
you lift your arm even though you thought you never could and stare at the pale freckles and goosebumps there, where the only thing warm is the space behind your eyes where you’re shrinking
you want to use your telephone but you don’t want to bother it and
the light takes your mind with it and you sink back into the dull thoughts you wanted to supress
and your room is shades of gray and your eyes are shades of gray
and you imagine that if you had some coffee you might be happier today
and you imagine someone else is there with you and step out the door
pt. 4
there are small families of fawns on your lawn, damp and speckled
they’re eating the grass from under the metling snow in a new spring - your bathtub is filled with ducklings, your lungs are filled with smoke and bunnies
so you call in sick for work or school or unemployment and lie down on the grass with the babies and stroke their soft fur and kiss their noses and they’re too warm for this world because they’re still in the womb but you hold on anyway
and catch a train with them out of here