A conch shell + a hollowed curve of a sheep horn + an empty roll of toilet paper + my hands cupped around mouth / the two heart lines pressed together into a ب / do you find it hard to believe do you find yourself shocked do you blink twice at the idea that / the way in which air + wind + whispers streams through Nothing and comes out the other end screaming? 

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I had a thought + I read somewhere an article / book / thought a thought that human speech evolved from song we sang we crooned / or / chorused and after that came Hello + How are you + and / even still you can hear it + can’t you hear it still when I say + “how are you” , you humm the melody I wish I could do that to me / I wish I could drain the song + the + the + from my speech because right now I cannot say your name I dipped / dodged around it because of the unignorable mell+oh+dee it carries and / it shames me it humbles + to think that you hear it too the way I hold it in my teeeeeth and draw it out. 

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I’m afraid of things that are missing / in the sense + that I don’t know how to not miss the things that I thought I was saving myself from + in the sense that  + + + I am a light sleeper / I’ve got a clock in my room for the first time in forever and, I took a class that winter where I tried to tell the teacher Time Was A Vessel + Vehicle + Vestibule, and instead I woke up, only in my head I love you / I’m a light sleeper & the swoon of clocks terrify me when I was a little girl they terrified me because because + because + I’m hearing it / it means one day I won’t / and I don’t care for the feeling of what it’ll mean when the next one doesn’t come + sometimes I hear my heart beating in my ear and don’t know what to wish for. When I was six I woke up from a dream + that left me with a hole in my stomach + last april I woke up with ore in me, I think.

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I am beginning to learn that / when I sleep the rest of my body turns into a question mark / serifed / and I hear things out of my kneecaps the first time it was the sound of my mother reading + just + reading surah المطففين‎ / last night my pelvic bone heard a tall thing say something + that rhymed with foolishness + and I woke + wrung + wailed / up cold fingers gripping + sweaty necklace I know I’m awake right now / because there is only one of me + but I still catch myself looking / Around the corner for the girl + who’s throat is eroded by the / habitual / heavy / beat of your name. When I was a small girl I used to wish you would be the one to, draw, the song out of me, to, pull at my pendants, carving a mark with the, friction of the chains against the, nape of my neck to let It Out Get It Out Of Me, but then again, if I had felt the pull, I would’ve felt it + stop. I’ve got this big big love inside me I’ve got this thing inside of me I’ve got to beat to death with a baseball bat. Even then I could feel you pulling away.

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When I’m asleep + away + another / I climb my garage like a tarantula and + hang from my windowsill and + crane my neck until I see my room full of paper sculptures these billowing paper sculptures that eat it all, eat all the sound / the clock / and the beat / every beat + I crane my neck until I see the top of my head / then she tilts her head to me and + her mouth is closed I don't know why / that matters but it does then + one of us smiles, I can't remember who. I don't know what happens afterward but I’m confident I’m awake right now because there’s only one of me. Just me and my fists no girl / with dark hair clawing to + uncurl my knuckles prying / praying for some kind of given, I guess. 

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I remember the sound of //// nothing + I’m willing myself to remember nothing not / the twists of + the chains of + the swings of + the park not / not anything. I don't remember anything. Just the shape of / the shape of the shape of cold fingers tracing shapes into + the sand of a cold shore no river no rush no + roar A choreographed game of telephone. You know what you know the wrong answer will be. Eroded. It's gone. 

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I don’t know much about music, except the way it whipped through me. Like the first retching waves After moonrise. What instrument did you play?  Do you still have it in your muscle memory? Do you find yourself Humming a tune you should’ve forgotten by now? Do you miss it? Or, Do you miss the idea of habituation? Can you show me where you’d place your fingers, guide my hands over the graves of blisters? Can I feel how you held your curling tongue In your mouth? Why’d you stop? Was it something inside of you? Or, the other way around? Did you think you didn’t Deserve the song anymore? Or, vice versa? Would you match my pitch, still? Would you score my stream of consciousness? The rhythm should feel familiar. It starts with an echo.