tree stump

the labrinth was your body making itself.
most of the time i don't want escape.
i want exoskeleton in the washing machine
& then hours waiting to dry. i walked to school
shipwrecked. hair tangled with hay.
sometimes a head rolls off it's neck. 
sitting on the stump, we talked about 
doing drugs that none of us had. a hawk
nested in the trees above. shouted at us
to get a life. it seemed like everywhere i turned
another torso abandoned its branches.
a boys took their skin down to the butcher
to ask to be processed. we knit a quilt
for everyone who left. i sympathize though. 
sometimes the whole thing is rotted 
& all you can do is hope a seed took root. 
one day i went out to where the forest
used to tell me "take off your shoes."
i found only stumps. i stepped on them
like garden stones. i asked, "where did you go?"
the trees, of course, had been turned 
into stepping stools. after all, the world is
always just out of reach. sometimes i'll open 
the medicine cabinet & find a forest staring at me.
i'll explain, "you should be out of here."
forest doesn't listen of course. i cry
& thank the foliage & the doe & even
the ground bees hungry for ankles. 
in the dark of my bedroom i put 
my hand to my face. feel the splinter.
headbands of years. one after another.
i used to be a rolled tongue 
in the onion grass. forest brims 
underneath the covers. says, 
"it's time to worry."