light pile leaf pile

i have been feeding my darkness
a jar of raspberry preserves. we didn't
pick apples. we didn't get to 
build the eclipse we wanted. 
the night stretched like a wild cat.
i am trying to remember what
i enjoy about myself. i think,
"tuesdays." i think "my shovel."
i want to be more than a train full
of shoes. i tried to buy a pizza but
i ended up just giving it to the chickens.
my mouth is like a screen door. 
easy to punch in. loud in the wind. 
i remember last year how you went 
on an airplane without a single tree.
once i planted a limb in my own back
& tried to convince it to grow into
a sycamore. instead, i shrunk. instead,
i chopped it off like a skin tag 
with a cuticle clipper. i bleed too much.
i bleed too little. the days shrink &
i start to shove light in the closets.
in the stairwell. in your face. 
then i go to bathe in it. i am selfish.
i use as much as i can for myself. i leave
tasting like a penny. copper on the tongue. 
i want a life full of earth smell & 
cool grass. i do not know how to be 
an animal any more. i remember though
gathering the leaves to burrow in them
with my sibling as children. once
i could not find them. i emerged, vole-like.
there she was peering out too. 
we had emerged together. the sun poured
down & made brief orange juice glasses of us.