By Elizabeth Harper

crazy trails to you may your way make you weary and your thoughts bleary enough so that you can see truth in a new carnival booth where everyone's a winner and the prizes are actually worth winning lying is not the enemy nor those many obstacles and patches of thorns along the way even the desire to give up chasing you on thoroughbred horseback has its beauty and role to play or don't you believe

boredom murder kinesthetic passion learned framing wrangled nightmares blooming tumbling downstairs and across the hall should you call should you wait for him to call will you hear the phone when it finally rings or will the sound be drowned out by the music in your head he's not a prince he's not the cynical and rumpled but adorable cop who will solve the case but where is he and what's he waiting for now

mine eyes have seen the miasma of the coming of the horde it is jamming up the air waves and washing garbage onto the shore did you mean herd did you mean heard did you mean the worst thing you could possibly never imagine did you mean that which gets you drunk on your own obliviousness and keeps you that way day after day myspace rat race car chase terrible waste mind-boggling morphing face laced

white shoes blue moods drinking myself into a coma yet again going through the tunnel blind hoping there's something better on the other side but why hope and why try when we're all just waiting to die lovers are the only saviors and fuck that guy on the cross we are all lost and hoping to be found over and over again like candy hidden in a coat pocket or a desk drawer like before

it's the hope of love that keeps waking you up like an early morning garbage truck bright and white and gleaming and filthy and reeking got to love the morning if you can't stand the nights when you're so alone you're not even you but travailing thoughts walking fleeing freeing did you mean traveling did you mean unraveling did you mean the mean fairies stealing your good sense away from you every chance they get

my sighs try to find their way out to the ones who will be able to hear them even if only for a moment or hold them on the sofa until they stop crying stop bleeding stop needing and drift off to sleep heartbreak is good for writing knowing the mistakes you can't help making the risks you can't help taking even though you should know better even though you have been through this before

and you will try to figure it out before all the others win the game solve the mystery before anyone else has a chance but you will not be able to no matter how carefully you search for clues and follow the patterns forming in the wallpaper on the walls of the box invisible to everyone else that you can't escape even with mime exercises always trapped always partially collapsed and folding and unfolding again