If you forget,
death peeks through your window,
a child sick with curiosity.
Tonight, I will transverse this earth
till time cannot find me,
though time is, and time was,
I will crawl out of riverbeds and open doors,
out of broken hospital beds and children
with eyes peeking, peeking,
though my legs give way to the wind.
And these familiar paths lead
to markings left by runaways,
though they all leave their letters unfinished.

"What can anyone give you greater than now" William Stafford

I Think I Am Going to Cut My Hair

because I can’t get my hands on anything else.
New years eve again and my body is
full of fruit flies like last year
and I still haven’t taken out the trash.
In the new year
I’ll have a clean room.
I’ll call my mother on the phone
and buy fresh oranges from the market.
I’ll tell that girl I love her
and she will kiss me because
my room is clean.
but it’s 11 pm
and my walls are the color of old blackberries
and my body is molding from the inside,
mushrooms, blossoming in the soft parts of my skull.
New year’s eve again
and I am going to be good this time.
I am going to be good.
I think I am going to cut my hair.

—Seravph.

The ladybug that landed
on your nose once
in fourth grade
and sat there for a minute, right at the tip,
is okay. The tic you do
with your nostrils sometimes
(when you flare them when you’re nervous)
is okay. The fact that you skipped the party,
lied to your friends, and drank cup
after cup of tea alone in your bed
is okay. It’s okay
that you never responded to Gregory’s email.
Gregory is taking a shower right now.
You are nowhere near the mind of Gregory.
The evidence against you
is not damning. Even the little white
pills can be forgiven — they knew not
what they were doing.
But you, you know.
You get to watch your hands choose.
The ladybug thanks you for not crushing it;
the way this world gives thanks
is to fly away, into a tree
with thick foliage, out of sight,
where it dies and is born and dies and is born
on a continual loop —

— Mikko Harvey, from “Immunity”