the spaces inside

a couple fingers can't plug holes
in a thousand dams

and even if they can:
fingertips get wrinkly
and
tributaries form
and
evaporation does not keep up

rock becomes dirt becomes mud
and as the holes expand
you’re left standing in the cleansing tide
pointing at what’s on the other side.

Pat(t)ernal

A brief exploration of jealous self-righteousness:

1. how some fat fingers point themselves at the skinny,
2. how some of us deny God or even family because we can't believe,
   not because we don't
   want
   to.

Here's you:

1. annoyance smells lazy like salami; belittles you and doesn't know it;
2. anger spits, accuses, uses gravity precisely, is always covered in motor grease.
3. confusion is just around the corner.
   brilliance is always just around one more corner.

And me:

1. Listen Daddio, patience is messy but guiltless; fear is just messy.
2. rage is clean and white; the sound of steel slicing; I never showed you rage.
3. Just leave it alone.

in a tension headache

and ever before and ever since all that changed was
the event occurred,
unnamed as it were, or is, rather,
or perhaps as of yet, could be, ok!

but it occurred, the event,
which altogether was comprised of many small events
many of which involved words
many of which involved you as
communicator, topic or listener --
and i shall perhaps step up and suggest
with all the pragmatism that sheer common sense lends me
that your involvement leaned a bit more
toward the former category--regardless:

contained, these small word events
together make up the event that occurred,
which i grant you has made no change to how trees grow,
the number of chips in the coffee table paint,
the lifespan of anyone's pet cherokeet.
the consequences are merely chemicals in my brain,
an electric spark here; there, an impulse.
it need not go farther, i know.

i will contain them,
but i must anonymize the event,
and it must eventually stop growing.