FALLEN PLANTER

Crappy buffering eyes glaze over as you stare at the line thickening and narrowing on the frozen image of the kitchen where some of it may have gotten on the dining room table with the warped leaves that can never be pushed close enough together why reminisce about her now you can only see your rotting toenails through the gap pantry chicken noodle how do you know what you're saying hasn't been ripped off from someone else who ripped it off from someone else who ripped it off the back collar of a sweater unraveling arguments nobody too many just grunt their agreement and if that wasn't enough try to the salsa on second thought slid in their somewhere between left the door open and where's the fly swatter don't try it could have sworn there was a dark mass could have sworn.

"What are you doing now?"
"I'm almost done."
"With what?"
"It doesn't matter."
"You've been almost done for half an hour now."
"It hasn't been that long."
"Touched down on an alien surface. I'm rubbing the window to get a better look."
"Now is not the time to shit I mean shift into another of your space adventures."
"You're right. It's past time to shit. I think I've come upon some abandoned village."
"Do they have a snack machine?"
"Don't be impertinent."
"Don't be presumptuous of their lack of development."
"Look who's talking."
"I've been on the other side of this door long enough for you to forget how I even look."
"I gave it my best shot."
"Just open the door."
"Wouldn't you like that?"
"Stop standing -"
"Sitting."
"Stop sitting in the way of my movements."
"It must be frustrating to have to acknowledge other people's compositions."
"Only when they're slow and long."
"Time."
"You certainly have wasted mine."
"I was going to say something, but the formulation of it crumbled apart in my head."
"Will you flush already?"
"Already he says. You haven't been listening obviously. I don't want there to be an overflowing."
"Save it for your therapist."
"You mean the corpse I stumbled over in those ruins I explored several seasons ago?"
"Seasons? When was the last time we had a season?"
"When I stumbled over the corpse that looked like the voice who asked me questions as I lay there in the dimly lit room. Now it lays there in those ruins."

How can I reply to your reply
To a request to return everything
They just weren't interested enough
Now that there are no other children
Except the ones in their ears
Watching and watching
Listening and listening
Dulled by the rainbow
Brick by brick by brick
Painted with burnt flesh
Leaking into a can
filled with ashes 


- Max Stoltenberg