at night the dark dribbles in
as does hourglass sand
piling slowly up until all at once
the house is full of it

that’s a lot of darkness
and now I have to wait until the AM
to try and live

turn a switch and chase it
you say

but that’s not how it works
around here
where there’s always a stray grain or two
left to stain my daylight
long after sunrise 

Come here, Isaac,
and fetch a knife before you come.
There’s a thread I need to cut
from my dragging hem.

Maybe it leads to a seam
and my clothing will fall from me
once it’s gone; I don’t know.
Perhaps nothing will happen, 

perhaps I’ll end up
naked and ashamed
before all if I act;
I can’t see that far ahead.

I only know it bothers me
to see it hanging there.
Almost would say it’s calling me
to take it from my view.

Almost I’d say
there’s a sadness in its voice.
A melancholy
that compels like none I’ve ever heard.

I never heard a thread speak before.
That means I have to listen. Isaac,
fetch the knife.  We’ll go far away
and I’ll do the deed in private

with only you to watch me
and you can cover me after
if I am left exposed. This is what
a son and father do, Isaac;

the father acts as he believes is right,
the son then, usually, moves on.
Fetch the knife, and let us go.
There’s a thread that binds me,

irks me, keeps me from my life,
and I need to cut it free.  It demands
that I cut it free.  What else is there to do,
Isaac?  What can we do but do it?

Is there
anything here
that’s my size?
I fit into
nothing — 
too tight to most,
too loose to a very few.
Nothing feels right —
damn country with its
image role models.
I’m supposed to be
beautiful.  The offered styles
of crazy don’t contain me
and the preferred fashion
of talented is too large.
I swim in it. Almost drown in it,
constricted by the crazy
so I can’t move. I’m getting to 
prefer naked, though no one
else likes it.  But that’s me
being myself –what are we
thinking here when that
is considered past season
ugly?