therapy

for pickles

it starts with letters
fat ones in fine stylus
stood up like church beams
tracking their prints
behind some name on a door

and then the words
like dandelions sprouting
from fertile silence
long and consonantal
and pointed square at you

just before the numbers
pour their sharp edges
into your cupped hands
so you can feel
the weight of your heart

putting it to your ear
like a seashell as it
whispers its quiet crush
of waves on the shore
that you're wrong

so demolish the church
tip salt on the weeds
give the numbers
some long division
and the seashell to the deep

because you
are still you
and that's okay
that's good
that's great

you just get
a little lost
sometimes

 
 

bad days

I will take
another drink
before I let go
of the day

leaving it
to straighten
its shirt collar
as it slinks off

to join
its brothers
some fat-lipped
some black-eyed

some with heads
held high in sight
of one another's
bloodied knuckles

while I wait
for a day
that need not
end in "Why?"