white out, blueberries, & firefly 

i had forgotten what it feels like
to sleep the whole night through-- a panic
sweeps over me & i wonder what my body had
been up to for all that time. we drove up 
the back roads & didn't feel our skin
disperse into clouds of fireflies. how
much distance can one person spread out
until they are no longer one body? felt my
legs walking soy bean plants-- felt a throat
full of incandescence-- it tasted like a metal
bowl of cantaloupe or tongue pressed to a
disinfectant wipe. at the desk again 
while the velociraptors aren't watching i unscrew
the lid of the white out that they keep
in the top drawer. i don't seem to have
the ability to fill out a form without needing
to blot something out. i drink it fast like
a cup of cold medicine-- erasing down 
inside me. i wonder what will be canceled out.
the bone marrow? arteries? lungs? 
don't lungs look a lot like a meaty
butterfly? am i trying to take off?
the runway is an unmade made that i 
want you to come back to. i drank 
the white out because there's a list 
of words i don't bring up-- keep
the ceiling comfortable. if a commercial
airline breaks in through your window--
you keep calm & tell them they can surely park
on top of you. when we were picking berries
that one time, all together 
in the metal simmering sun i picked one
up & it blinked at me-- all the berries--
bush after bush of eyeballs. i had to
eat them before they saw me like that. 
mom took so many home. blinking in the bowl. 
by the time they were rinsed they
were blinking like fireflies. i open
wide to show you my tongue cut out by
white-- deleted all but four teeth.
avoid smiling so as to not give myself away.
i don't recommend this as an antidote--
it's bitter & tastes like a mystery-flavor
(because you know they'll never tell you
what you were really eating). for now
i'll catch the fireflies & press them back 
into my forearms until i have a whole 
skeleton again. wash the berries in
the sink until they shed their eyelashes.
i wanted to lay in that field there &
just let it happen. let the bugs come out
of me & stray further & further apart
until i was just a legend of a stopped 
red van on the side of the road. openning
the window to shoe the airplane back outside.
it leaves tire marks on my pillow that smell
like hot rubber. i wanted to just let the distance
happen. stop resisting the pull-apart--
the miles between each blood vessel. but then
i thought of you. i drank the white out
& here i am making the bed-- stray fireflies
smashing their skulls against the closed window.