It has come to this,
startling awake mid-night,
shivery hot 
and built to spill, 

afraid that I will never become

what I should,
whatever the hell 
that is.

Yesterday I saw
my face in a window
but she looked
nothing like me,
she was not 
the success story
I had built out of feathers
as a child.

She was skin
and story
and visible seams,
but really I kind of like
seeable scars
even if everyone 
tells me differently.

In the mornings,
I find articles
about younger people
walking on the moon writing-wise,
while I haven’t

even mastered

Jackson’s Moonwalk.

What I am
is a village of stars
seen backwards,
tiny stick sculptures, 
whisper things.

Structures I want
to build with my mind
call out to me
from places I can’t find
but know
better than my own hands
or the smell of my skin
in summer.

My desire
is that thing I see
when I close my eyes,
a space inside
my lids
that looks something like
nighttime on red Mars,
my longing,
like captured asteroids,
shaped by a light
that is no more,

lunatic
and lavender, 
some spiritual world
gone topsy-turvy,
a planet spinning forever 
without a hand,
half  a cat smile, 
a fallen winged thing,

a strange place, 
like right now,
as I close my eyes
and type, 
letting my fingers
find the keys,

all the while,
knowing something
sweet and scalding,
that even now, 
while lost 
among sculptures
I build out of this
electronic graveyard,
receiving rejection
letters daily, 

that even if
I’m not where
I thought I would be, 
it has to be okay
because when I close
my eyes, I see
red Martians
waving back at me.