~switches and shade~

  
  
she stares down every corner. 
 fell all the way down 
in love with a silver dime.   
there are no floors.   
 only motors.   
  they go grrrrrrrrrr.   
   cause the pictures are bankrupt.   
     
    they go.  
  whrrrrrr.   
      along the banister...  
    the runningboard... 
  the wheels thrill  
 on the hardwood floor... 
  they go winding.    
    go wishing for her.  
  
minding the the pictures on the wall..   
    fuck you james dean,  
take me to the hospital...  
  forty fifffffffffffty  sixty hours 
  
  mis-placed 
     the change  
        she goes looking for.    
   her folks  
     missed another hour...  
       her worth-while spent wasting  
     the voice wouldn't leave the leaves alone.    
  
damned curtains in the window.   
  these carpets give me no peace....  
     no piece of mind. 
      damned flower.    
     petals all red...  
  
shoulda gone dancing instead.   
 now all we get is ashes...ashes...  
cause if the chimney don't work  
   it's fuckin' dead...   
  
well, i love spiders anyway.  
  
they spin when it's coffee.   
 they spin when it's grey.   
  they spin whenever 
 i'm not lookin'  
 i'm not lookin' in the way 
     i've got to get my clothes out of the corner 
    throw the ones i love away.   
  
every worthless thing  
   i dragged into this house…   
       is always dusty in the corners.   
    cause i always close my mouth.   
  is full of sticks and stones...    
  
no thirst  
 no slake  
no want  
  no wake  
      
  the aquarium burst.   
   like bubblegum in a dish.   
    the basement noise 
     the boys  
   the boys 
 fell face first.    
       
the tank drawn red 
  its head exploded.    
      now the aunts are black  
        they're dead  
                they read  
           eyelashes  
             taste sweetest  
               when they're burning  
                       red-----black-ash and eye-liner.   
 stop  
  think.   
      
she's walking it to the corner store.   
     fingers turning a bad tune. 
  
slabs o' ce-ment  
  weeds and dirt  
    sticks and mud 
       and bad bad bones  
  
she speaks these things to the ditches 
 she hitches her day-glo socks 
they don't even match 
  she tells them over and over again... 
 there aren't any pixies in the ditches… 
   just switches and shade. 
  
        grasshopper wings are scarlet 
          and box elder beetles are brick brick red 
      blood don't melt like crayons 
    in sun lit corners 
      when i tell them orange is vermillion 
         they look all around me for bat wings 
           smashed beneath the wheels 
              of radio flyers 
  
there aren't any right words 
    for the damned things 
     she just knows… 
  
  when her mother-fuckin tennis shoe hits the ground  
     she's down like the bugz in the trees 
        the ones she chases back into the ground.   
  
cut-offs in the summer-shade.     
stop. think. stop speaking.    
those bugs aint worth nuthin  
she talks to the sole of her shoe. 
  
she says, fuck if it don't rhyme 
it's my fuckin' hair gets stuck in the vacuum… every time 
  
she will never know 
 how everything alongside that ditch waited 
   for her stolen moments 
the crushed flowers from her pockets 
    the bad words from her lips 
                       her spit 
                       blew the lazy ants away 
  
she came back 20 years later. 
and there were no more cracks in the sidewalk.