Flightless Bird

Every pair of plastic breasts and 2-D thighs in the world
couldn't make me feel any less alone tonight
as I look out over the city and think maybe falling isn't
so bad, as I do every bone-cold evening here
in L.A.'s central nervous system with head
in hands and teeth crumbling in mouth—you know,
they say when you hit ground zero in dreams
you rise awake and I've killed myself enough times
to know tower-diving has been linked to
post-mortem depression and heartbeats pumping
four-letter-words in Morse code, like "love" and
"care," and "fuck," so pull a couple punches,
go ahead and take in a lungful before
I scrape you out of my throat with all the other
almost-lovers whose tongues fought my teeth and lost.

 

Jackson Burgess is a writer, painter, and student at the University of Southern California. His work has been published in various American and Australian magazines, including The Storyteller, Stepping Stones Magazine: ALMIA, and SpeedPoets Zine. You can find him longboarding barefoot, watching clouds, or crying himself to sleep around South Central LA. To see his full publishing history or to make sure he's still alive, check out his personal blog: jacksonburgess.wordpress.com.