THEY ARE LEAVING YOU A MESSAGE for Arda Collins What they are trying to tell you is you are wearing the wrong bra for your shape and situation This might not even be your life and in the midst of my thinking to tell you this a fruit fly has begun to trail me through the house as if I were its mother or as if it were the other way around and it always is and the house is on fire at some point in the simultaneity and I am leaving it to buy all the things I do and do not devour

READING IS BASICALLY IMPOSSIBLE Reading is basically impossible because of the song in my head and the nails I have painted bright yellow and I would rather be thinking of sex with various people I know and the Joy Division in my head and the shape of the words in the book is an image and nothing more and my cat who is circling my body at high volume and turning the page something in me sees a nail and thinks oh no this is poison and a cloud sinks the light from the room and in any case I do not care for literature unless it leads to you embracing me with urgency You throw my book down Dance dance dance dance dance to the radio You can hardly believe I have ever been clothed

OVER And this my sunny intrusion into the fear my friend has that the world will not end She should not worry so much and I should not berate myself in the shower I have to stop saying sorry to the wet and sparkling air Here is an end to this plant and here an end to the sea Every day I let my body out this far and no further— slight trespass for which there is no fine You’re fine I tell the friend It’s almost over where it is the world we’re still in Whole skies of clouds have departed without leaving so much as a word Here is what the world will put an end to Here’s what anyone would love away