the walls

the walls of the world
are closing in on me
and the walls of the
words are all around
me and the things i
sometimes see, the
things i sometimes
remember scare ot-
her people because
they don't remember
or can't comprehend
the capture of time &
the display of it on the
page at a later date, a
future date. past. present.
tense. the walls are closing
in, closing up, closing down,
the lack of gravity as you realize
for the first time you actually are the
only one who exists, that we all will die
one day and the other things we know but
shuffle to the backs of our minds so that we
can make it day to day and the way the walls
are closing in and the way my mind weighs it
all too damn much, not enough, and you float
away with the world at large and the walls of
the castle are closing in and i'm a hassle or
maybe just an amusement, a passing clown
with a clown car and a clown suit covering my
human suit.

the words are walls
the walls are swords
that fall towards the
center of my heart
and i start to col-
lapse, start to
call, start to
lapse into
another
place,
an-
other
space
in time
as these
lines fill the
time while i
try to explain
the feelings
that are lit-
er-
ally (-ary/airy)
rushing through
me at this moment
as the whole world
at once is on my
mind.

silly poetry boy.

will my poetry ever
grow up, grow out
of me and show
what i really see
and really feel
and know really
well as i look at
the world from the
outside looking in or
as if from space looking
down to town after town and
seeing so many stories, so many
human emotions mixing.

when i talk in public around
people i pick up things and
in the moment i'm terrible
at being charming and
witty and brief (and
you thought i was
bad here. small
smile.) but with
that comes the
etching in the
mind of certain
scenes. and who
can keep up with that
in reality? in reality instead
of the dream. where do i really
truly want to be. the land in between,
origami from the roof beams. and
life sometimes seems so fragile
and i wonder if like my body my
poetic vision will eventually
cease to be and then, and
then and what then, what
next, what was i saying?

i bleed my emotions to the
page for readers i'll never
meet, for readers i'll never
sit next to, for readers who
will never ever under any
circumstances weep -
and the emotions
flow through my
very soul and
i try to cap-
ture them,
lure them
to the
screen
and i won-
der some-
times if i
could some-
how flip a switch
in my mind to turn
off the poetry so i
can fit better into
humanity. and i
can for limited
periods, as if
oxygen wasn't
my native form
of life support
and i can only
interact for so
long and i fall
and i listen to
any and all in-
stead of being
selective,
naturally.

these
characters
of BILY inside
me, i want to be
free of them, but i
also want them to
never ever for no
reason at all
leave me,
the inside
of me where
the words rest
and i wrestle them
as best i can to the
page for readers to
possibly read. dunno.

that's it. it's all the novel.
the walls of the novel are
closing in. my life is poured
into it and my life suffers be-
cause of it as i stumble into
situations very likely to bruise
my humble, simple, fragile
soul. please be gentle
with me. tread care-
fully or maybe do
not tread at all
on me. not
now.

something
clicked in
my brain
i think or
is still
clicking
possibly
as i begin
to do some
housekeeping
of my own in my
own zoo of friends.

and that connects to the
feelings of loneliness that
feeling of being afloat in the
wide expanse of the universe
and my fingers can't stop tran-
scribing my thoughts to the page
and there's something in the way
it all weighs on me that must make
it be unbearable to be around me for
very long units of time so i have to slip
and slide from one lesson to the next
as i learn once again to walk and
maybe even talk. and it all falls
apart. the walls come down
and the walls go up and
the walls come down
and the walls go...