This poem is about listening,
Humans muffle out white noise,
with fireblankets cotton swabbing our ears,
but the earphones of "right now" are plugged in

But then you can't hear
the caress of each hair in the lion's mane moan
"more toothy smiles" to cascade onto the creaseless face
of a child
starving, bellies growl, coyotes howl
louder than the prostitutes waking up the neighbors

But hey, we're all neighbors
We're all right next to each other transitively speaking
Can You Hear Me?

I want the sky to burn hellfire tonight
I want the sparks to singe your steampunk cheekbones
and brand your identity behind your eyelids
See through your own vista
Let firecrackers bark off my teeth
and taste tangibly thick smoke in your ears tonight
I wanted God to walk me down the aisle,
Have Buddha marry me to life
but I'm scared of commitment

But tonight I want each of you to pull my hair
and claw out my eyes
So I can stop being human with my iris
and start being loving with my eardrums
beating louder than the cries of a baby with a virus

Tossing sounds out the voice box we're blessed with seems like a switch,
Now you can talk, now you can't, now you can, now you can't
Can't explain why purple has no rhyming lovers,
and why x, y, and z are like triplet-born brothers
And why so many poems are about love and hate,
her and him, sex and death,
or just being human

But tonight my heart is listening
but it's gonna beat louder than bombs,
erupting within every center of gravity,
weaken everyone's lung cavities,
repair missing parts off of amputees,
So when we start a revolution so radically
We can shut up for once and listen to each other cry out,
all at the same time

Staple my earlobe with truth so cold
I am disturbed and feel addiction wring around my neck
An addiction to the words of the quiet kids at school
Listen to her glassy glaze over her crystal fields of green grasses
Stained with beer and scarred with needles
With insides saying "I want out of here"

Hear out his depression tattoo his fingernails that never grow out,
No many how many times he clips them too short

Allow the embry to whisper Scripture
Before the ropes of a father's one-drink-too-many tighten around a voice box
of a child who could perform poetry
like a ballerina's heart before the curtain ascends
Listen to them

No matter how uncomfortable it makes you
Blindfold your windows and feel your throat go mute
so you can
Listen to them

Stop looking at that hair out of place
and look at the veterans without a face

Listen to them

The omitted heartbeat of the boy who loves boys
Never knowing if the pump thereafter
is stolen with revolvers

Listen to them

And then sit down
for the wallflower's stories
The fisherman's catch of the day
The 'sold out sign' for an architect who picked up guitar at age nine

Listen to them

The folding crease of a bendy straw
The hiss of a soda can on a hot summer day
Infectious laughter, symphonies of rain
going pitter-patter

The little voice in your head that says
"Your socks are mismatched today"

Just sit down in rocking chair highways
and listen to the oral tradition of the wind
plucking your heartstrings like violins
Hear the clouds share the sky blue

Stop and smell the dandelions,
because they have stories too