don’t just light up the sky

That’s too easy isn’t it?

Just get enough tin foil and let the sun do the rest.

Be subtler, that’s what you’re saying, right?

Should I exhale passion?

Like the broken voice that falters every note,

but slays the soul with frightening precision.

Or speak in words drawn out like wire?

Caressed with enough force to make the metal flow freely.

Shall I be imagination run amok in a cardboard box?

The mastermind mystery of darkened hallways?

Soaking up sanity in the walls,

transforming nothings into anythings.

An untamed tangle of possibility in an empty room?

I’m sorry—

Right now there’s nothing.

I’m all the brilliance of cold soup and floppy noodles left at the bottom.

Unredeemable, even with infusions of steaming broth.

I’m all the life of a dried up moth swept into the corner.

Please,

just forget the mote of brightness you sought,

leave me in this bed, or suffocate me in the sheets

if you can’t bear the slow dissolution.

If my life could’ve spun apart in a whirlwind I’d have chosen that fate—

even flaking rust has a movement, a triumph,

however sloppily made, a signature;

but me?

I’m pickling,

in brine and bouillon

not even staining this bowl.