The Wall-to-Wall Is Calling

I have been trying

& trying & trying & trying

& I think, maybe

The difficult lies inside of the try

The push / pull / of it

The claw-marks digging deep /

The muscle twitch / ache / of it

But the try is not corporeal. The try cannot be dragged through the subway tunnels. I cannot pick the try out from under my nail beds after a long day of digging in the dirt.

I do not know how to explain what it is I am after / or if I’m on a path heading toward anything

at all /

But / follow me here, any way /

& let me lead you with this

I have lived in six different apartments since I left my falling home with

the dilapidated house & the birds

that always flew too closely to my scalp.

Today

Today it is mid-December / the ice has turned brown /

&

I have yet to receive a Christmas card / or a greeting of sorts /

but this morning I did come home to four new letters asking to collect

my debt

I am not very good at staying in one place for very long

My weakness lies within the tips of my toes / bad at staying stationary / never very good at sitting still /

&

sometimes when it’s really late

& I’m walking from the train / alone /

I like to pretend that I am no longer just a human / girl / wandering lost through a city /

but I am / instead / an alien /

a lost creature / falling high from beyond the sun / I land /

/ exploring this planet / this body / this whole human form / for the very first time /

(you can’t be bad at something that was never meant for you)

/ and I am not religious / but / I’ve prayed to David Bowie twice this week /

& I am still learning / how to go about this life without burning to convince everyone / that all the parts of me are real /

/ I think / they can’t be so mad if they know the whole of it /

/ & now I’m starting to wonder if maybe I am the birds flying too closely to the scalp /

/ maybe I am the dilapidated house / the letters from debt collectors scattered on the bedroom floor /

/ & I am the brown snow I trudged through to get home this morning / & I am the businessman who made me cry /

/ & I am my dirty bedsheets / & I am the girl from mars /