four corners

First pink

then blue

Then green

Pages ripped monthly

To mark time

I set fire to each

As I burn through the hours.

---

I have this compulsion

to vomit word salad

over the screen

on the backs of envelopes

On coffee-ringed napkins

Scraps of paper

scrawled in chicken scratch

Purging my hands over the page.

---

It’s that bad, she tells me

Sucking on a straw and chewing her bottom lip

I can’t let it out or I’ll die

I tell her she’ll die if she doesn’t breathe

They’re just words, what’s the worst thing that’ll happen?

(They’ll be read, she sighs.)

---

There’s a demon in my pocket

A little devil driving me to madness

At every turn

Dripping in Black, Blue

Red, Charcoal,

Whatever it can grasp

in its naughty little claws

Forcing the frenzy forward.