snakeweed

when they ask you to be a birthday cake
just go ahead & do it. 
i've started to learn that putting up a fight
is worth it only if there's someone 
with a video camera. upload me to cloud.
make me a future rain storm.
i want the corn to say, "yes yes yes."
there is an alarm clock
ringing that i can never seem to find.
when i do i'm going to take its head off.
i'm going to put it in the mailbox 
with a label sending it to my father.
he hoards alarm clocks. he has one incase 
the power goes out & one in case
the sun dies & the factory still needs blood
to keep singing. i am here to admit it.
i was a coin collector. i had 
a little state quarter book. the united states is
a mythology of ownership. this is mine.
this is mine. my little idaho. my little new york.
my favorite quarter was always georgia 
with the big peach ready to be stolen. 
ready to be eaten alone inside a closet
while i waited for the world to be safe again.
what they will never admit to is 
building the coffins. they will say,
"these are televisions" or "these are 
organic love poems." i think i have
purchased a flashlight from an infomercial 
that promised to light a way out.
it's like trying to find an onion's heart.
tender nothing. walking away with nothing
but a cast iron pan. i could have been 
a married bowl of pop corn shrimp, you know?
i could have had a husband who treated me
like a spoon which is at least better 
than a fork. don't ask me how i know.
my mother buys another car & this one
is not a lemon, it's a whale. she pets its head.
she will not listen to anyone if we try to say
that it is not going to take her to work.
she says, "a few more hours." that's how i feel
when i wake up in the morning. 
we have a ghost now & she/he is standing
right outside the bedroom when i rise.
i make coffee for the both of us. 
she/he asks for army men. once i asked her/him
how he/she died. all he/she could do was weep.
all flowers are made of frosting. all ancestors
use windows as televisions. i hear them talking.
they say, "happy birthday" or at least maybe
that's the closest they came get 
to what they mean to say.