america the day it went cold turkey off of prozac

tonight america feels unsettled
uneasy
like a blister on the brink of burst

the fires of the west have not stopped raging
not nearly enough to mollify the
slow burn of violence rumbling in its belly
digging at the seams

the moon hangs high
exuding indifference

detachment

self-loathing

fear

neglected in its own defiance
a rotton child plotting with an axe

66 runs like a vein through the heartland
feeding off the windtossed litter of the desolate masses
but it's the silence that feeds the slow burn
the silence that eats itself from the inside out
until there's nothing left to be remembered by

on the shoulder near cleveland
a bum wanders the freeway
a forgotten man
following the twisted metal guardrail
through the tunnel of his existence
stumbling on a paved road that laps up
the hollow spaces in between
but never once choking on the things that
were meant to be kept

and if you ask him in a way that he knows you exist
he'll tell you

he's heard this place whispering
when it thinks no one is listening
towards a heaven overrun by sycophantic wings
flapping to the rhythm of a rhythmless beat
praying for an upended big rig
or a six-car clot to end its misery
and begging someone to touch its emptiness
to really feel it
before dropping it back into that dark
hungry space
where everything that is found
was once lost
and loss is the blanket which covers us
when our insides becomes too expansive to be named.

and you and i?

we slept in our beds
and dreamed our dreams
that shielded us from the nightmares
never aware of the world outside
swirling in its own misery
contemplating its meaning
until it awoke to find itself a butterfly in
its own dream
floundering deeper into a bottomless gulch
that was never given a name

and when i wake
you will not remember me

one day i will land softly on the tip of your tongue
a butterfly kiss that's more a twitch than a tug
briefly reminding you of a truth that precedes the universe
and you will remember a time
from somewhere far away
in some distant memory
once
when you were loved
by someone who existed

and that, in itself, had been enough.