justwrite 29 september

imagine losing the cruising altitude you’ve screwed up the lightbulb and it’s not working it’s dark and the curtain comes down too early the sunlight is caught out there and in here we thought we were working toward morning but instead there’s a u and it’s mourning the truth instead of teaching the youth we want to be everyone’s friends we intend to defend our pretend pretenses until the end the statements have been taken and the fine lines mistaken for boundaries we’ve hounded these and other tenses over to the other side of the fences and if I were the police if I were released in a catch and go program I would run I would sun myself in the forest and I would climb trees waiting for the others to appear I would steer clear of suggestions I would make my own directions wishing to be a fish but not eaten wishing to be a bird but with feathers that fade into sky not the kind that mind being blurred into the natural world we’ve hurled our suggestions back into the box and we’re clocking in punching our time cards with glasses full of red juice and other kinds of doublemeant words we’ve heard of herds and we don’t want to join them we’re prepared to annoy them and to listen to what else ought to be said if there’s a revolution I’d want to be prepared instead of stupid looping backward over the river and through the woods back again to paper the mistakes traced all along the contours exploring other options if you don’t want to be with me then I don’t want to be with you if you will read a different book then I cannot be the author if you and if I but we and not and there’s a trot to be foxed out of that sort of a strategy we are wiping away a few layers and there’s dust but the trust is rusting and I’m feeling thinner despite extra dinners and lunches and punches in the dark I cannot park for too long without realizing I’m not moving and wondering where the map went and realizing the dent in the side is inside