this building is not empty it is full of bats

pleading with the lemon juicer,
"i need a minute but i'm almost ready."
you tell me to not be so hard 
on myself. i find the tornado 
exactly where i knew i shouldn't go.
often i enter the mansion of my head
holding a lantern. ferris wheels
take their lunch breaks & 
i place my childhood in front
of the tv where it will do less harm.
our attic was once full of warm bodies.
opened the window & watched them
become a new color. still, my shoes light up
if i stomp hard enough on the sidewalk.
the dead are all of our downstairs neighbors.
a can opener for beet-purple planets.
am i bleeding or just loosing.
i tried double-dutch but turned out
to be too gay for repetition. the coach nods.
asks for me to show him 
how i make a fist. taking the window
off the house. letting the breeze
do whatever it wants. curtains
blown open like lips. i get 
really close with guys on dating apps.
we are wound like rockets. 
then i leave. the house grows 
so many weeds that i take to calling them
flowers. all my flowers have child-names.
keeping the lights off so as
to not distrub the colony. shoulder 
to shoulder. how do you talk to
your ceilings? i cover my eyes.
rush out of the mansion & out
of my body. call me a helicopter.
a paper airplane aimed at a question.
home is where you put your teeth away.
i don't have a place like that.
careful so as to not awaken a swell.
wings on every banister. holding my breath.
escaped to the front lawn.
a mailman delivers an extension cord.
i charge my iphone from the porch.
all the hairs on my arms stand up.
the bats are taking turns asking,
"who is he?" "who are they?" 
"who is she?"