—I WISH I COULD UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF LEAVING

Avenue Q

I am second-guessing

my life right now

tetherball head in hand

standing upside down

on the pinnacle of

a different kind of puberty

on the corner of 1^st and Avenue Q

on someone’s soggy cardboard floor

on a tarmac of nails.

Isn’t it always the sunny days

that turn traitorous

wring you inside out

make a person paranoid?

Like why is that pregnant bride

shoplifting cigarettes?

Why does every pigeon look like

Mom only satisfied for once?

And are those actually

skeletons doing the

backstroke across the lake?

Every day is a fake chaperone

each hour a hollow sound

pinging in purple silence while

delicious ripples of gloom

frost the moss-green air.

When the bus driver asks

where I’m going

I come up short again.

The only thing that

comes to mind is--

Sorry, but I have to move on--

the last thing you ever wrote to me.