mixed metaphors

A Poem by sarah f

the day they buried me alive is the day i met my best friend/ now, that's a metaphor, see/ because that's the way my generation speaks

the day they buried me alive is the day i met my best friend
now, that's a metaphor, see
because that's the way my generation speaks

we are The Abbreviated and Clipped
(our words and our wings)
by college degrees, by hopes, by limits on our limitless speech

we're trapped inside the margins of the books
that we used to read when we were kids.
and we toss words around like they are free.

it takes only one match to light everything on fire,
the bridge back gone, wax wings melting in the limelight
we have no other choice but to live in the excess.

to try and fail astoundingly, belligerantly, capriciously, deviously--
we shoot adjectives into our veins (everything must have just the right word)
addicts to the sounds, breathing it in, lungs heaving, just one more

we are a comma pretending to be a semicolon
desperate for the continuation that we pretend not to need
desperately trying to prove we can survive on our own.