Like an Oil Tanker and a Mouse on a Motorcycle

With the creation of the mirror, we all learned to cry--

Can calamities be catastrophes or 

is this just our life?

Conventionalism and creativity collide

like an oil tanker and a mouse on a motorcycle

to leave everyone wondering

why our rain tastes like ash.

Too many have confused the scent of the past

with the cry of forgiveness

and this is when

I take all of your mirrors away.

(I still showed up just to see if you'd notice.

With a lemon in your hand,

You gave me a notice that you had noticed

and that my lease had been extended

until further notice.

We just wanted everyone to get 

on 

their 

feet

and 

stop

throwing sparrow's eggs on the cement 

for us to tip-toe around.)

We pay our respects to our credit card companies

and we forget to care 

if people remember our names 

after we turn into allergens on antiques,

after we become the reasons

our rain tastes like ash.

With the retraction of the abolition,

we learned to forget.

And with forgetting, 

Our empties stacked themselves like Jenga.

(The lemon told me you were sorry,

the sparrow's eggs told you I was fragile.)

We couldn't remember which animal

was held in captivity behind our ribcage,

but we knew we wanted to petition

against the cruelty of said animal--

Hoping that PETA or poetry would

set it free.

With our marriage to writing,

we remembered how to feel.

I look around now and I can still taste the angered atmosphere,

I can see women sleeping on men's laps like matryoshka musketeers,

I can see nuclear neurotics with white handkerchiefs.

When I remembered my name,

I again remembered

how to cry.

(My tastebuds were like embryonic rose bushes,

and there you were--

Still standing, like an orchard after a hurricane.)

With the conversion of triplet words into a promise,

we all learned to feel fear,

but in a way that wasn't a calamity or a catastrophe,

but that was just our lives,

and we would look up

and smell the scent of fresh rain.

Author's Note

unfinished