CLASSIFIED

if i’m collapsing in on myself

silent and brutal like a distant star

what constellation will i break?

can you stop a landslide, cheat

gravity of its spoils? (cheat it of its well-deserved destruction)

categorize, neatly label, what are you

feeling, what is happening, why aren’t you

caring?

got a nasty case of mid-adolescence

ennui, claw your way out and

start thinking again.

stop thinking “you” and start thinking “i.”

(the key is to find just the right increment of detachment.)

interruption, objection, honorable judge!

the facts are not all present, there are

still more to drag

before the witness stand.

sources tell me

the victim, the criminal,

they’re one and the same.

so sit back down, refresh (regroup) and

find some other way to

name

this reoccurring phenomenon of self-inflicted land slip’n slide.

drag the case on longer

and maybe, maybe you might

win.

“circumstantial,” they say, gravely. it

will have to be enough.

(when did we go to the courtroom,

was i not enough? did you have

to pin me down under glass, pressed, compressed,

and, of course, neatly labeled?)

i’m found guilty, put under guard

a marginal improvement over six feet under

“circumstantial,” they say, gravely.

“you’re all liars,” i told them, gravely.

it will have to be enough.