The want accumulates inside of me, clouds of star and gas polluting
the inner world. The want skewers through
and taints the water with need
and then I’m falling through the endless,
the eternal carousel cycle
where I’m spun around for my worth like sweet cotton candy. I want to be special because there are no faults in my structure and I’ve lasted every winter so far. I want to be special but I’m scraping at bare minimum and I fade when the world is magnified. There used to be a city here
and now there is a body of water—it’s funny what can happen over time,
what can bleed though when no one’s looking, funny how land
can drown itself in itself
if it isn’t careful. There is a wanting that beneath these ruins---
it wants to dig my value right up
out of its grave and sell it off to anyone who can pay enough. I wish
I could talk about something else but unlike the Earth
I am too shallow to suffocate in—-all that I want is to keep wanting,
to cannibalize the flesh of desire and keep going until I’ve swallowed
every unsightly, unhealthy piece. I can’t spit the shards out
or I will look too weak to the ghosts of the onlookers, the bystanders,
the witnesses of me. The ink is running out,
the cardboard scenery
is falling behind the stage,
and I cannot reveal the lining of it all, what runs beneath the landscape,
the school glue fastening the strips of my reality together:
I want to be special
but I am untouched.
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