From "I Strangled Mine" 2011

Mud and Sand

I ran out of things to do.
And You decided to start doing things.
I found something to do.
And ended up forgetting all the rest
Of the things I used to do.

I remember before, when

Little needles pin pricked my innards
Drinking down Mud (?) that billowed
from strange and foolish holes in the ground
IT
Entered the worn cavity and searched-
For my mother’s breathe on my tongue
For ice and salt to melt away skin
For tones heard only while underwater
While being slightly drowned by a young boy next door
Sounds that can only be mimicked and heard when
That huge autistic boy flattens your head into the hardwood
And your tongue tastes birch and splinters in your teeth
Mud and Sand
Iron and wood
Alone and fucked

And so,
I ran out of things to do.
So I locked up and out.
Crouching in that
Porcelain stove and covered in that rain drenched soot (mud?)
That I mentioned before -
The kind
That sticks to your skin.
Like wet sand. Half burning from the salt and the wind.
Picking up handfuls of it
And mixing it in with what little hair you have left.

And
Drinking it down
From fine canvas water bags.
Algerian (?)
Like -
What ancient men must have
Drank from
In that old desert
That we call something different now.
Sand and mud and soot and oil filling every orifice
Enveloping my tongue and yellow stained teeth
Brown tinges
From the SMOKE

And so
That Murky spit mixture falls from my holes
And onto your forehead
Baptizing you just like on ash Wednesday
A black mark in our bedroom
A cathedral of pure paranoia
And narcissistic Evil and Darkness
(Real Evil. You know (?))

It drips slowly
Like a thick syrup
Bit by bit on your tiny little head
But
You still sleep and bleat and murmur
You sleep empty bedded and cold
You sleep and sleep and sleep
While I traipse around our house
Deeply afraid
Of unseen killers and those who kept
Walking up the stairs
I finally wake you up
Scared and indulgent
You tell me to go to bed
No one is around
I never sleep