Mulberry

Eat the whole bag of potato chips
with just your face,
and let it slip past the thin edges
of the plastic.
Waistband elastic makes
me think about how Icarus
is always fat like me,
when I live out that whole story
as a spectator.
It always changes though
interrupting the perfect narrative
and instead of just a sudden
crash into the sea he over corrects
and tries to hover where the water
mists the feathers off his wings.
I’m trying to get back to the middle
instead of flying so unskillfully,
I get bored of being right
about the tide.

I used to have a plastic kite
I couldn’t fly anywhere near me
because the wind was always sluggish
and the heat would always melt things
to the ground.
I knew enough to get around the neighborhood
without a map or real idea of how
to get back with the same eyes I was given
from the moment I was born.
I tried to tear them out by the mulberry bush
with my fingernails I let grow for several months,
but couldn’t get it done without
the pain taking away the anger driving it
and just turning it to fear.
I don’t care if no one knows I’m here
they’ll find me one day waiting
in this street light where the side walk
stains are purple and the broken glass
is nothing but the night.