Substance

The cold uncomfortable chew
of a pastel trident stick

The absence of something important
the jittery grind of four cherry cokes

the raw nerve of a conversation about
nothing

A woman in ice blue eye contacts
and a shining black vinyl coat tells me

Heal or be destroyed

You’re on GHB in a hoarders room sending videos in the dark

You’re sober three years stroking horses on a hill

You wish Marilyn Manson
you could be as scary as a woman

I’m in a motel with a woman I admire 

in a photo shoot of her imagination

with fuzzy pink carpet you can sink your arms in

surrounded by girls online

Lie down with me a faded flower a braid a foot by my face

Her username is aurel sex

like aura or oral, a puffed pastry in hand, a basket of lemons

a shimmering real backdrop

I'm alive again but

the world is crumbling

Her roots are showing

pale mousey brown creeping under her jet black

box of dye

It's better this way, undone

I cry with the trees she said

because they never stop listening

The mouth of my favorite god
murmurs through a mega phone

on a beach I've only accessed in a wet dream

Cvs asks me to insert my chip three times

and then swipe

I thought I saw a glinting crocodile on a leash

at the JMZ train

but it was only an extra large lizard

A man sells baby turtles in tiny orange boxes

scrambling shells hitting the edges

World on alert

Turn your face away it smells like jasmine and it's keeping me awake