twenty five eyes

over bridges, underwhelmed
huddled in a mass in a passenger seat
looking through looking glass
there only old sights crying new tears
reflecting things that aren’t true
tricking the difference in distance in lights
with a chemical, kicked in skull
but it’s effects are just facts
I am just freezing in a car
floating through a beauty I can not care for
I recognize it, but it has no impact

this isn’t like the last time
where we clung to the gum trees
sucked in by the thick & syrupy maple leaves
seeing how the sun makes the earth bend
with a new glimmer in blades of light
make the world bleed a different way
and even when it set
we still saw the brightest in silhouettes

but this time I leave to crawl under my bed
I can’t rest in a restless place
wrapped in warping world
broken things sober me
so many lines..
too many lines..
there are twelve on each side
and I dwell on the center eye

say the phrase
until they’ve left the head
curse exhaustion
for sunken bed
pen the nonsense
in frantic faded ink
less like words
they come up like drinks
and it’s only been a week..
one goddamn week
how am I suppose to last another?
what about after that?

old friends you can’t see the change of
new ones you define
come and save me
I’ll thank you for knowing how wrong I can be
offering no answers
rhetoric in silence
standing on the walls
warming them orange
distracts me
soon,
a laugh
how quickly the mood can change

a single tree ring for the time that has past
laying petrified at our feet
winding within words we learn so much more
than we thought we could
with interest we didn’t know we could muster
in the musty night by circle stones
I count of circle scars
and think oval ink and broken pens
lonely looks for lonely lune
how quick the mood can change back..

the last time I was here
(besides when I spilt all that water
and seized the term “seizure” to excuse myself)
it was a night of a similar chill & shade
I saw clenched heads for death
until the mourning
irrational lashes
knowing very well
we could never understand
now I am clenching my chest
hoping for the same conclusion
and for it to be genuine
but it feels like an intruder
in a house it was invited in

to decaying land we built iron bridges
the fire just licked it clean, shinier & stubborn
a single band slid down my finger
as I gently lay it across another
as time finds me a binded wrist
I still say again
“I hope the next year isn’t as tiring as this”

if I know I knew nothing then
is it safe to assume I know nothing now then?

I thought “I’m lost”
while looking at the North Star