Silver

I check my email 17 times a day, the five, six, and dash keys of my laptop are broken, I rarely pay attention, my body experiences sensations like an anemone. 

A couple days ago someone texted me that there is a praying mantis crouched inside of them. Once a day I notice a baseball sized rock crouched inside of me. 

Sometimes, at work, I go to the bathroom and make excruciating faces at the wall, open my mouth as big as possible, scrunch everything, curl my neck back and forth. I take my tips (doled out in cash) and buy ice cream sandwiches and beer at Derby Mart.

I feel serpentine and wicked moving through a crowd. 

I am noticeably bad at writing anything true. Thinking anything true. 

I am neurotic (at times) and completely exploding (at other times). 

The house is much too cold, the floors much too dirty, my circulation much too poor to play the piano. I have thought this for many years.

Tomorrow morning before noon I will play something new and shiny. I will grin grin grin, my teeth silverware, yes you can use them, yes I will wash them in the sink. 

I stare at videos and images and blinking lights and old photos of semi strangers and dig a deep hole and walk down into the hole and decide the hole is nice and not so bad maybe I’ll live there for a bit. 

I read palms and songs and weather patterns for proof, proof of something excellent and heartbreaking. 

I am an emotionally practical person.

Last night I dreamt of a symphony hall filled with dogs, silent.

I make vows of silence, usually on days like today where it rains sideways. I say nothing important, I listen to the rats fucking in my heater vent. I eavesdrop on all my roommates.

Later, I will wash my hands backwards and upside down. Take an asprin. Lay awake as silence pans through and around me.

I am a satellite dish on my bed, silver oh so silver