false tuna fish

when i say "auto pay" i mean
don't tell me how you're going
to take me piecemeal.
we went on a writing retreat
in the mountains & we ended up
not writing much at all. i saw
a deer. i didn't say anything
about how badly i wanted
to make a zoo in the neck of a tree.
i know i am spending too much money
but i can't stop myself. sometimes
money is just a number not unsimilar
to age which is to say it means everything.
when i was a teenager i dated a man
in his twenties. i thought i was
the oldest person in the world.
i was parenting him & myself
& sometimes finding time to count calories.
i am a person of measurements.
if i can quantify this fear it can become
manageable. i do not want anyone to die.
not even people i don't like. 
i want us all to walk around forever
with our pockets full of steel wool.
i find a penny on the ground & 
see that it is vacated of a president.
i'm sick of anything national. let's just
scrap the whole thing & worship lichens.
i am so in love i am willing to 
swim in the ocean. waves. water. 
a shark with a bank account. jellyfish
who are not quite ready to die.
i miss you in the way the moon misses 
just being a figment of the universe's imagination.
no pressure at all. the future is always better
when it is not the future. then it is here
& we are terrified. i picture you
tearing up the carpets in your house.
nails in the floor. we can be vegan you know?
not kind of vegan but really vegan.
we can fish for false tuna in the sunflowers.
i can feed you with the bent fork.