pull the sleeping bag over my head
and think about the park where
i smoke cigarettes sometimes w small
birds that fly up in groups out of the grass
and the sun that reflects off their backs
as ppl walk by on cellphones
seeming to exist somewhere else.
sleep and feel different than
all the money i could’ve made from
going to work and my teeth would
feel ok bc i didn’t grind them and i’d
wake up and look at messages and emails.
then everyone would be coming home
from their jobs tired and hungry stuck
in traffic while i stand in the kitchen
barefoot listening to music drinking coffee.
cloud porn
i try to remember you, like an airplane
flying into atlanta
when the sky is pink grey and the city
pulses like a heart beating under glass.
in the distance there is space to feel
how you say, when you say the world
is very simple and complex.
and in between there are clouds
that move and break, break and break,
break and break, break and break
and break inside the air.
recombinant flower inside your head
against my irises there is a sunbeam.
tho i can’t predict the future, i can hold
a portion of your brain and both your
eyes inside my skull. haha incredible.
haha blooms. do u know the sound an
ocean makes when it is being eaten?
let me explain the sound an ocean
makes when it is being eaten. nestle
crunch. haha crunch. silently, we will
put an end to all this distance— the
light-guards and insects, plastic bottles
in the street.
Chris Barton lives in Knoxville, TN. He lived an entire summer with a yellow jacket infestation in his bedroom. He has fallen down an up-escalator before. Other work by Chris has appeared in or is forthcoming in Metazen, Housefire, and Hobart.