—THUMP!

i am

falling

falling!

down a thirty-story windowless capitalist asshole 

nameless faces boofing themselves into wealth 

and tax evasion and fraud and max sentences

falling!

through a flipbook of underfoot underpaid papas

accordioning their lives out of their lungs

in one long, lingering, never-ending exhalation 

falling!

another foot with each pump against the stethoscope

i go —thump! —thump! —thump! against copays

—thump! against insurance! —thump! —THUMP!

falling!

into a ball pit of disillusioned spheres of hope

eyes of my friends and siblings and strangers

bursting like blackberries around me until i’m just

a body covered in jelly and the jelly is blood

falling!

with rice into a jar tinkling like abilify against

the throat racing out like wellbutrin thoughts

and sertraline stoicism until my mind is just

a beanbag toy rice-filled no mind just —THUMP!

falling!

from tuesday into friday pouring experience

as waffle batter beat and pounded into nothing

but crispy neat squares of memories devoured

by people and pens and pages and words 

falling!

onto this line! onto this page my thoughts

two walls of sea slapping back together red

like blood in a biblical brutal ecstasy

falling!

to you! and your ears and your face 

and your space just trying to say to you as

i slip story after story down the high-rise

of your eyes but you don’t see or hear so—

—THUMP!

—february 2022, stanford, ca