there is citrus in my ears can someone get it out

These thoughts don’t know how to space themselves

i look for life in the slack moments separating hypothermia

Breath is sunburn against my lungs, titanium on glass,

but i can’t break the rhythm of it

The bedsheets snarl on my skin but won’t swallow

every nightmare that sings vicious velvet over my body

i wish i could parasail over the paragraphs

that draft themselves inside my head,

which feels like the biggest part of me,

the only thing that makes sound anymore

i want to eat the tears for breakfast

maybe then i could consume the memory of what caused them

instead of the other way around

They give me handkerchiefs to fix my eyes, 

but it won’t fall if it’s bottled and it won’t heal if it keels

If you’re here with me now, 

you must have a taste for terror, a taste to be the tower while i cower

why do you want to swim into supernovas to pluck the asteroid out of my sky

why do you want to get the peanut butter out of my hair

why do you want to stick to my loose fingers

Don’t talk to jellyfish or you might become one

They tapped the Dead Sea and filled my veins with it

Every touchy word floats to the top

If the thinking makes it to my optics i’m afraid i’ll see red

My gut only ever learned how to be in a knot

My brittle wings spent too long in the toaster

My mind has garish wallpaper

where is the incubator

i can see all the places where i’ll have wrinkles when i’m older 

but the scar tissue grows in backwards

There’s no blood on my conscience, just spoiled milk

The punctured eggshells were never bulletproof 

Can’t stay whole if you’re in my hands, so you’d better get out of them

Nothing sticks to loose fingers

Baltimore Beat is running poems from participants in the group Writers in Baltimore Schools, which offers programming that builds skills in literacy and communication while creating a community of support for young writers.