unalive in the midnight 

i want to survive the shift
in language. the tongue beneath
the pillow. i speak
the ugly kitchen words
into your ear. you tell me,
"smart yourself
or we'll never get to see
the kids." my favorite words
are outdated or forbidden ones like transexual 
or homophile or dyke because there
always feels like there is
something truer about them.
maybe we have
admitted too much. maybe
death is not a place we get to go
but an undoing that envelopes us here.
if that is the case then
i am already unalive. when the radio 
tower turns into a pizza hut
i'll still be talking. in the dead internet 
theory, i am the last one standing.
a handful of teeth 
in the zoo of gone words.
no one says that anymore.
i remember the extinction 
of the great cats. the end of elephants.
i keep it short when i say 
what became of us. we were graped
& not in the vineyard
but here i am transexual 
& impossible to eat.