The daylight hours stretch over the gap
between the knife wound,
do you feel it,

the two sides of you
                                      so far apart?
                                      So far

                                      you’re still human
                               delicately,
                     tightroping the lines
            of every neuron,
every sun ray
pierced into pale skin.

The sun sinks herself into you,
you slink out of your head

into the expanse of light,
do you trust it?

In the  badlands of groundlessness
you are above it all:

the hobbyless,
braindeads,
the cars like pills,
rolling away.

                                      Task after
                                       task after
                                       noon

you swirl
into mania.

The dangerous hours come
without warning, knowing
you’d never heed it and settle.
Do you fear them?

Do you embrace the way it comes,
knocks you into consciousness?

You’ll start shaking after sundown
like a shark caught in the gluttony
                                      of new death. 
                             Whirlpooling
                      into some
           cold-blooded
train of thought.

Do you reassess
the names you collect,
wrapped in their translucent orange
          cages?
                  Everything is
                                       a cage,

                                       your skull
                                       is always
                                       the prime example.

The walls start answering your prayers,
because you prayed for a response,

now you’re housed in some
god’s mouth, do you gatekeep
every secret you found?

       Do the thoughts grow
               and calcify around you
                     until they’re big enough
                             to live inside?

Push away every
dial tone,
sunshine child,
fish gasping
at the hit of
oxygen.

Become the last of your kind,
like a mantis eating the others,

undiscovered but do you care?
Do you care to exist at all?