MISALIGNED SIDING

Got the case mixed up upper or lower the beginning of each plane flying over the house the shower has run cold figures ran through the steps and can't simply add one would think one would run out of reasons for trying to hit print again except that you are expecting something else to happen for example for it to work and that would be asking a column not to fall on you look up and the color of your eyes might catch a hint of what used to come in through the window through my mind when I used to look up not like you no one could do that the way you could when I paid attention outside the folding information promises of better and worse flatten into each other when folded over into beds made by my deceased togetherness.

Trying to put an ear to the door that jiggles in the lock barely held and going nowhere hardly a purpose shut open and shut a strainer over a small child's face the metal cold eyes squint in a manner that between planets would conjure a recipe for emptiness die and make sure all evidence of your existence no longer makes you cough while you try to listen to another transferred call. And her glasses were broken she said was what she was trying to had said and that was it as the tub the drain clogged got the instrument next to the snake that shed its skin in the corner the forgotten part of the neighborhood texted a reminder to bring the letter sealed with tape didn't appreciate how envelopes didn't appreciate a tongue and she left with her picture framed of a ship with a framed relative on board the ship released too late to enjoy freedom having died within a weekend.

"Let me see."
"I have no control over that."
"You have very little control over anything you crack in the cement."
"I didn't think I could even manage that much."
"The stairs."
"It's impressive how they can go so long without blinking."
"No, the stairs. Where do they lead?"
"Lead? They stop after about 3 and a half floors, but it's your funeral."
"We'll see about that. I've fallen down a flight of stairs."
"Just another day for changing your mind?"
"About what has befallen me or what I'd like to befall me?"
"I hear a nibbling inside my head."
"A rodent or bad idea?"
"A rodent with a bad idea. It has a mind for sewers in the belfry of my skull."
"Turning over an old leaf?"
"You know me too well."
"Like an overcooked burger."
"Undercooked vegetable."

Trees for climbing and bleeding
Blood for dripping and signing
Chambers for gestures twisted
By bigger people cruel with disdain
Dark hallways stretched with failure
Mind is an accordion 
Thoughts unsuccessful 
in keeping the walls apart
defiance is measured by suffocation


- Max Stoltenberg