motion sickness

i want to be a body in motion. 
as a child i would turn inside out
each year on the way to the photo album. 
my parents would try & try
to turn me right-ways. some years they left me
in the dark on the side of the road.
frustrated, they said, "find your own way
to the button jar." i did. i always did.
hitchhiking with vampires & sometimes 
scooped up by a red tail hawk.
once i was there, i would put on my 
opera glasses to try to see everyone 
from as far away as i was. distance is 
sometimes not a matter of physical bodies
but how far your words are from one another.
i still keep a megaphone in case
i want to tell them "i love you." i always
prefer to drive the car if there is a choice.
if not, i am likely to become a potted violet
by the time we arrive to the shovel 
in the earth. the only real way to calm it
is to stare out the window. leave it
open a crack. i picture myself
like jonah in the mouth of the whale
except i don't let my self be swallowed.
take pride in the ways i am not a man
& fear in all the ways i am. bent over
as cars rush by on the highway.
i spit up every moon i've ever seen.
"we should leave you at home," my dad
or my mom or maybe just a wandering
cruel angel say to me. even at home though
there are days i get sick. i imagine stillness
as a state in which nothing gets set on fire.
i want to be still like bread 
or like bone. tell me though, what do you do
with your inside skin? i like to feel
the water. lay down in a creek. it is always
christmas eve in my stomach. 
tomorrow everyone's tongues 
come with a bow.