a forest of neon deer ask me to unlock them & i
do / i see a reminder on my calendar to be nice
to everyone today / a ghost emoji with a monkey
covering its eyes / i start with my father / in wood
i cut out everything i want to say / turns out i
have a lot of important things to decorate my
apartment with / he makes a baseball bat because
i am a writer / i forget what i started making / i
make the easiest thing / a duck / i am afraid of
making hands / every year he calls & asks how to
change his wallpaper / twelve months / balloons
lifting in no particular direction / he wants a field
to remind himself of the graves horses can make
/ i believe we all want a field of squash rotting
into faces of people we didn’t know we missed /
i find the perfect photo / a boy painting himself
driftwood / lying in the grass long enough / no
one asks to see his scars / every time i touch my
phone my father calls / he wants an american
car now / a wallpaper that makes him feel good
about smoking / an ocean that wants you to see
its bottom / every time i touch my phone / deer
are turning into emojis / thousands of women salsa
dancing & holding knives / the next call i say i
painted everything i ever told him / my apartment
is full of mallards / i now realize everything needs
branches / for the same reasons we need screens
/ i touch everything / i wait in my apartment for
the next thing to climb out of my mouth / my
father calls / i help him change his wallpaper /
photo of a boy carrying a wooden bird to sleep.
