Discord Night

I sit slouched on my bed. My back is tensed.
I’m out of songs to pick.
I feel sweat compounding on my skin.
My nails scratch my sheets.
Outside, the clouds are yellow in the dark.
The air is cold. I watch.
I long to see your picture’s border change,
the circle turn to green.
Your company on here to me is life.
Your words are water.
Each minute, I return to see your face.
It doesn’t change.


Contract Trip

Thick black metal, fused on six sides,
sealing oxygen,
a few windows, welded airtight,
let in grey starlight lines.
money taken, locked in desk vaults,
the mess, the deposit.
Leader always chooses something
unpleasant to work with.
The ground rusted, nickel, dust flakes,
orbit somewhere unlit.
And no blue star, no nebula,
faded like fraying silk,
no stars bright in arms of spirals,
are nice enough for me
to want to be here.


Transit Trip

Leaning hard on metal, card checked by the scanner
windows half-reflecting the dull forms of faces,
final fireworks, lit by the people, explode,
ripening seedlike.

Black sky specked with light, low, the mountains block out,
Houses built for suburbs with lovely tiles,
leaving by myself, from the towers, glass-walled,
dizzying crystal.

People, strong in working, and glad for speaking,
your eyes, determined, sketches careful, knifelike.
Tried to find the right things to say with you,
melt us together.

All my words stay stuck on the sugared surface,
My tries failed you and your healthy striving,
making small talk praising your clothes, your skill, your
undying beauty.

Rail tracks resounding with celebrations,
Last ones ignited by a normal person,
rest locked off. For now, in a cluster glowing,
ripening fire.