Second Things - 03/13/13

The second thing I think

when I pick up a pair of scissors

is what I'm going to do with them:

cut paper,

remove price tags,

free hair.

The second thing I think

when I look out over a bridge

is how beautiful the water is.

The second thing I think

when I see a piece of rope

Okay, that's not a good example.

I haven't seen any rope in some time

and I don't know what the second thing I'd think

would be if I did.

What do normal people think

when they see rope?

The second thing I think 

when I pick up my razor in the morning

is where I'll be shaving.

I'm waiting for the day

when the second things I think

will be the first things I think

and the first things I think

won't even cross my mind

because those scissors don't cross

my flesh anymore,

so why do those thoughts

still fall past my eyes

and drown heart beats

in nerves;

so why do those thoughts

still linger,

hung from the rafters

of old habits,

the way I still skip meals

not on purpose, 

but because I honestly forget,

patterns ingrained no longer in my veins

but parts of me

still think they are.

Still Don't Know Linear Algebra - 03/09/13

If meaning is a vector,
can I write poetry with tensors
with an invariant
that grapples at
some object truth
that I have turned away from?

The Ultraviolet Catastrophe - 03/04/13

I built a world
on observations of stars
running backwards,
missing pieces,
imaginary numbers,
and infinite energies
in all the wrong places.

So when the i's
fell into possibilities,
as probabilities somewhere,
as certainties some times,
gentle lines fell along data points
and familiar constants
marketed security as truth,
which I bought in
tera electron volts.

Calculators away,
pens down, papers over,
but left behind
were a pile of dots and squiggles
and my imagination
to build universes
from the scraps of broken lives.

Haylie Says Things And I Listen - 03/03/13

When she described me to her friends,
she said that I had eyes that looked very



far


away, but dressed like I knew
exactly where I was.