flicker

once i let all the light bulbs
in my apartment turn into skulls.
there were rat skulls & bird skulls
& moose skulls. at night the place 
swallowed me just like how
i wanted it to. i do find myself
sometimes craving that dark. 
the way you can become a deepening cave. 
for a week i did not leave. it snowed
& i watched as the snow came alive.
the sleeping bodies of ghost bears.
birds that broke into frost. 
once a woman knocked on my door.
i rushed to greet her but when
i opened it, no one was there.
just footprints leading there. 
you might ask how i knew it was
a woman at my door & i'll tell you
that lacks can teach you so much. 
the last light to go out before it was dark
was in the kitchen. i loved to bask 
in the flickering. i imagined myself
as a slideshow for a room full of bees.
they would say, "this person
is losing their mind." they would
be correct. a mind is not nearly 
as useful as the dark though.
in the beats between light flickers 
i would sleep for years. the sink 
was always empty. i had two plates 
& two spoons & one lop-sided fork. 
the flickering got quicker the closer
we got to a complete skull. rapid.
my stop-motion body. then, finally.
an exhale. the skull of a rabbit 
overhead. all his children flickering too
along with me. i slept alongside
so many creatures. my old body 
& my new one & my future one. 
the ceiling of bees who had seen
my show. the other creatures, noses 
to the wall. i slept so heavy there. 
when the snow thawed i waited
weeks before changing the bulbs.
even then i wept when i did.