Lunar Filter

It’s salty 

Did you put salt in this?

it’s salty

how much salt did you put in this?

it’s so salty

he says.

they taste

the same

in an orb

of crystal.

She breathed all her air

turned purple

The beat thrums

into my ear

down to my heart

For some reason, we think they go together.

That they form a perfect picture

Composed of invisible, imaginary lines.

So why can’t there be such a line

My father tries to warn me about dogs

“Even the little ones can bite”

“You have to watch out for them”

“Sometimes they’re real quiet”

And he’ll stroke my hair

Pet me on the head

Like I’m his house cat

Scientists talk about things in terms of the

vastly large&vastly small.

Which put us somewhere in the middle

Just like bacteria.

And it makes me wonder if somewhere out

in the far heights of space

is a girl a hundred light-years tall

with hair tumbling like a nebula

who still feels 

as small

as

but can never find the right words

so I just look at you

I saw a scrap of black

spiky against the grey of the road

a flash of white

on what had once been a tail

and a stench that stretched out in every direction.

Over the roar of the car’s engine

over the fumes of burnt exhaust

that stench lingered.

Last week I saw one crawling into a ditch.

It turned and watched me

with eyes turned molten by the setting sun.

I thought it was cute.

And the next time I caught that stench

it all made sense.

When something 

innocent

&

sweet

&

lonely

is destroyed.

I am trying to be a good person

But the things you keep saying sound like you’ve already forgotten me

I thought the distance of miles wouldn’t destroy

our closeness

There’s an empty field behind the 711. It’s mostly just brown grass and weeds and trash. There’s empty 40s and empty cans of Monster and empty condoms that people just threw on the ground. There’s a big slab of leftover concrete out in the middle of it and this is where I go when I want to escape. 

I tell my mom I’m going for a walk and with those magic words she stops caring where I am. One time I didn’t come home until 4 am. She wasn’t up waiting for me. She’d gone to bed. There was a note on the fridge that said Nite Nite Maddy. 

stare

at your teacher’s face as he speaks

until his glasses blur into pale discs

of nothing

and know that he isn’t capable of seeing

anymore