poetry dump — sap

There’s this sap oozing between my ears
like there’s no way out.
          (There’s no way out,
          There Is No Way Out!)

And I’m looking at all of you—
          beautiful and quiet,
          lined up neatly in those chairs at the back of my mind
                     with your tapping feet and memory eyes twitching
                     towards the clock, counting down to liberation—
I’m thinking, I guess—
          no, that’s not it.
I curl up at your feet with my chin on my knees.

A friend told me
          (growing up)
that if you swallow an apple seed, a tree will
sprout up in your stomach and branches will grow out of your ears.
But I know now, in my wisdom, how that was a lie,
          but
          if you plant a friend there,
          (deep inside of you like a secret)
          it will push up into your mind, right up between the ears,
oozing sap that will corrode every your every thought and
you forget what it was like before.

No, I’m grieving.

Yes, grieving, you say together, always wiser than me. Stop mourning us.

          And when they leave
                     (And they will leave.)
          their empty chairs,
          you can’t find the pictures you used to have on the wall—
          the ones you used to stare at until they gave themselves meaning.

Sticky walls. Sticky thoughts.

Crying and sitting and wondering
when the last time I washed the windows in here was, and
          wishing the carpets were less dirty,
and wishing you hadn’t all gotten new chairs with new people.

But you know, it’s fine, it’s fine.
          And there’s this sap between my ears.

Once I’ve emptied these chairs of you,
you don’t have to come back.

I’m throwing the chairs out too.