my mcdonalds fountain soda cup feels skeptical

sitting on the coffee table, washed in the light

of the television,

thinking 'i want to say things that make people feel better,'

'i want to be freer' and 'should i be doing things differently 

in order to achieve those things?'

i think my fountain soda cup decides to just act natural.

the fountain soda still inside remains below room temperature.

the ice cubes in the fountain soda are partially melted

and have become beautiful abstract blades.

what these blades cut, 

have cut themselves again

and again throughout the annals of antediluvian goddesses.

in an effort to write poems like the poems i like reading
my emotions have become detached.

i can trace feelings of idleness within my recent past.

removing the garbage bag from the basket
disturbs a family of fruit flies.

i am exceptional at killing individual members of the family
throughout the next week.

within that week, i spend an insignificant amount of time 

staring out a window at the corner of a school building that rises over the adjacent trees.

the school specializes in string instrument instruction. 

the school is confused, sad, and taciturn.

the music school playground aides
juggle cases of violin/cello collisions.

if you can't understand how the school came to be,
i don't blame you.

a fear of collapsing bridges has me in the similar straights.

i feel sorry for the elevators.

i feel they should get a break.

relentless use of the elevators 

impairs their functional design.

one result of the impairments startles someone

riding the elevator.

the person hears a bang while riding.

the bang sounds like a lawn mower bumping into

a metal shed. 

the metal shed in this metaphor has made other appearances.

the appearances take place in either strange lives,

or foil seemingly eternal backgrounds,

all of which are composed of matter

predating, in one form or another,

the most violent trench warfare battles of ww1.

the shadows walking through door frames promote sleep.

it's 4 am. i feel tired but want to stay awake for a half more hour.

i'm drinking a blueberry smuttynose.

i thought about the old lake house like a lot of nights. write about it. involve night time scenes. other things. the lake house froze and thawed a lot. the lake house is still there. people sleep in it. probably closed now. maybe not. never was really there during school times. luggage pulley. fire pit. firewood. fishing. skiing. swimming. boardgames. vhs. drawing. painting. songs. balance board. mahoneying. hiking. stream hiking. breaking glass bottles. rusty nails. shaggy dogs. big stacks of pancakes. large soda glasses. lots of ice cream. cookie moosh. first summer listening to 'the dead'. the water pump. the sailboat, surfboards, the leaky boat, the canoe, the renters. snakes. i think i have 8 memorable summers there. lightning hit a tree very close once. camp woodsmoke. minnow brook. crayfish brook. or something. pulpit rock. monster in the second straight. lady of the lake. dead trail maintenance hiker. beaver damn. rock bass.

i don't remember thinking about who was president then. i think clinton was president while i was there. and the one before him. i looked at the map of states obama won. i had a conclusive feeling. i felt like a gelatinous substance evaporated from the top of my hair, like the blue states overlapped the red states and made the shape of obama's face. i don't know. it was such a small feeling. i feel really bad i can't type it exactly. i'm just going to go into how shitty language is. i'm going to say some random memory. i'm going to say i see myself 3 years ago walking out of the door of my summer job. i'm going to say i felt bad during that time. i'm going to say i don't care who's president. i'm going to say i had a good feeling when i looked at the map. the map shows how a lot of people feel in an indirect way.

the second straight (matthew rohrer imitation)

glares splayed between the islands
all afternoon. denizens have tossed
blankets and towels on its belt,
stacked firewood on its cuffs.

the straight sails into space to dream at night.
cabins smoke on either bank of the islands.
no one trolls my unconsciousness, he tells the moon.

four boaters float towards the first buoy.
second by second blinks.
An old couple, over a game of scrabble, hear the engine
but doubt what their warning would translate:

that a green man back-frogs beneath the surface?
that the straight has a vestment in the stars?
that the slick surface is coated with ashes
like extinguished sunlit waves?

i finish a book. something in my chest feels crushed.

i leave the library. the thing in my chest feels better.

the thing in my chest wants my encasing to expand.

dear person,

as you know, we have melted. i don't know.

i feel okay. 

the moon looks like a fingernail, i'm not tired, lonely, cold, broke, or unemployed. 

my ipod has full battery.

it's not that these things represent my essence most,

it's that there is something inside of me that wants

me to expand.

i'd reinsulate the rotted supports.

i don't know why i was there in the first place.

termites, and i ignored them.

please return. the family thinks of you. 

i know just how hungry you are. 

a marching band dapples just such unknown spaces

their pulse in the scientific avenues

is that their cities create artificial air

certain artists intuitively rain in these willow orchards

while turbines exhaust oxygen into the low level tunnels

the crickets feel it's snowing

a hollow sound comes through the bed

the city goes black