Radio Static

My eyes close
once.
Twice.
The light flickers

Behind my eyelids I see
Deep bruise purple
A sticky neon yellow
Melting candy
on the playground asphalt

Is that face smiling?
Frowning?
My mother
Or someone wearing her face

Why is Grant from high school
Trying to kiss me?
With tongue, no less
I haven’t talked to him
in 10 years

I hope I don’t go to hell
Punching Briton
in fifth grade
Was the moment the devil took notes

I need milk and something green
The spinach in my fridge
liquefied, grew a conscience
Now it tracks
my moral failings

Is everybody morally grey
Or just draped in fog
whispering
“I never meant to hurt you?”

Mount Fuji is under my boots
I don’t know the way down
Thank god I brought
the miniature tea set
I got for my fourth birthday

There’s a T-Rex here, too
he seems friendly, but
He keeps licking my parachute
Now it’s soggy

I’ll hitch a ride down
with Harold
The T-Rex
He’s wearing a saddle
Custom made

The lady at the tiki bar,
Is glaring like I tipped her
In Monopoly money
Maybe I did

I juggled a torch
forgot I left the circus
Now a bush is burning
It reminds me of my tryst
With the fire eater

Maybe God will speak to me
Like he spoke to Moses
I don’t have
stone tablets handy

Harold
the T-Rex
spits fire extinguishing foam
Sorry, God
Thou shalt nots will have to wait

That was my mother
behind the tiki bar
It was her game of Monopoly
I paid her with

She accuses Harold
Of kissing Grant
Or swallowing him whole
Mum, he’d at least
spit out the shoes

Mum prefers legumes
She turns the light out,
Says the spinach told her
Briton had it coming

How do people dream
coherently?
All I’m getting is
obscenely colorful
radio static.

Oh, that’s why.
Mum’s at
the radio
again.