a brief history of being twewnty-three

strip malls are emptying.
their doors openning & letting out 
great exhales & spiders.
in a dream, there are planets made of spiders.
the spiders circle each other 
& catch wondering asteriods
in their webs. 
the strip malls line the road towards my parent's house.
i think to myself
this is where i took karate.
this was a dry cleaners.
this was a dominos.
they build more strip malls to leave vacant.
soon i will tell people 
i grew up in a world of strip malls.
replace a golf course with a strip mall. 
replace a music store with a tobacco store.
replace a window with a door.
at night ghosts try to sell 
their wordly posessions from the storefronts.
i pull into the parking lot.
all the ghosts are gathered
with their bed sheets over their heads.
holes cut for their eyes.
they put a navy blue sheet over me
& tell me i can be a ghost with them.
i think more about the spider planets.
i wonder if such a thing could exist.
sometimes i feel like that--
like i'm weaving a matrix to try & catch 
fast objects. i hardly ever tell the truth.
the ghosts are in no rush to sell.
they will be dead forever & have forever 
to part with their pots & pan & cook books.
some of them hug me, mistaking me 
for someone else. it is lovely to be mistaken.
i become a farmer & a bank teller 
& a stargazer & a person who sings to themself.
i think this is where i bought 
a softball mitt, a kazoo, a mango italian ice. 
all my trinkets are out there in space
waiting to be captured 
by a spider planet. when i am debris
maybe i'll find myself out there
gathering armfuls of my objects.
there is no where to put anything
& yet so much is empty. a sears closed 
near my college & the windows gaped 
at us all four years. once i peered inside
& saw a cat perched in the dust.
by my apartment i watch a verizon store
turn into a dollar store turn into 
a discount store. i walk by 
& they are selling my childhood toys.
they are catering to ghosts &
staying open late into the night.
it is best not to stop at vacant strip malls
lest you become a ghost too.
i have been so close so many times.
i opened my face up to reveal 
the spiders underneath. i am trapping images
in a web. inside my lungs is all the air.
i was just driving & driving & driving.
the world empties around me.
did it arrive somewhere complete
in all its pieces? i sleep 
in the back seat of my car
& wake up draped in a blue bed sheet.