Andrew Spiess

Someone lights a match
at the window, lets it burn
to the fingertips, sinks away
into the dark. It is 12:14 AM
and the front door is ajar.
The bulb hangs from a floor lamp
like the wet tongue of a dog.
The blue walls are a fuss.
They are ready to sing,
ready to flake with teeth.
Canned laughter drifts in
and out, drifts into living rooms,
licks the heat from meals,
sleeps in your hat.
Delusions sleep in the moments
between moments.
I am a hot swollen tongue
in this dark mouth
we often call a room,
moving here and there
and slapping up against
the walls, confusing
and almost teenage.
Too hot on the cushions,
in the kitchen, even
out on the street and
downtown where a bum
like me doesn’t even know
what to say to store clerks.
At times it seems that I cannot
peel myself from this position,
can’t even move the corners
of my mouth, so here I am
waiting in the middle of the room.
And what is it that is stuffed
under the couch? I pick at it
until there’s too much blood.

A dark slug, a malignant thing
crawled out from the unnatural
opening inside me, born from a hole
and hungry, must be removed or killed.

I can feel something punching against the inside of my ribcage
like it’s trying to break out, trying to escape.
Often it stalks behind my eyelids
and scrapes against the inside of my skull.
I always feel it moving inside.
Its face is like a gripping fist
or a flickering light bulb with four-fingered hands
and dress shoes at the ends of wire-thin legs.
Sometimes it makes my eyes water.
Sometimes it drags the skin on my face down
and I can’t help but spit and cough dust.
I talk to it every night, let it know it’s nothing
but a personal thing and I swallow it down again
and smoke cigarettes until it sleeps.