calling all liars

winter has turned my bedframe to glass. i need something convincing and comforting. to feel like i'm on the edge of anything else and not about to fall. suspended here, this gravity is unbearable. distract me. tell me what the coyote knows until he looks down. say: keep running. and when i step from the bed of glass, and shatter my feet on the ground, promise me they've got something for that, say: even you can put yourself back together. you'll walk, even run. honey, it's no secret, you've been telling yourself the whole time. you don't need feet, you don't need feeling. just keeping moving, and don't look down or back. don't defy me. even a glance over your shoulder and your glass body turns back to sand.

say you'll kiss the girl with the pinkest lips, say you'll swim up from the deepest water. bouquet of weeds, bouquet of lilies. face like a peony, round and fragrant. crawling with ants. she blooms, opens forever. she falls in silky pieces and rots. heaving at the brace, let me out. break into the day like an egg into a pan. break into the day like a thief in the house. slick with fluid, sticky with it. leaving prints on the carpet. take me back to the deep part of the ocean. it doesn't matter if you dive off this cliff after me, only if i believe it when i let go. nobody finds you after the undertow pulls you out. rocks digest everything. time digests the rocks. pull up the sheets and fold yourself into eternity, the bed of glass. melted sand melts you down, too. sleep pulls you out forever, swim hard till you're tired, join the sandman in the fine silt faults.