So many say they can write, and here I add pink flurries
to the leaning stack, as gargoyles snort snot and

hang from my eyebrows laughing at my twisted,
sick, inadequate brain, and the excuses grab

my knee caps, rip them out, and the man on the corner
snickers. I don’t say I can bake. Why am I compelled

to write? I spy on the snake that guts, rather swallows whole,
all the other writers, and he and I drink grape juice at all the futility,

and the man on the corner hands me Pessoa, tells me
to read this, this that will tell me why I can’t

write, but the ants keep crawling up my
ass, while the gargoyles jump in the man’s pipe, burning

up into little leaves that blow up toward dirty clouds, and I keep
trying like a little baby with nothing to say worth anything.

.