ALEX NAPPING PROJECTS

Breakfast

Sometimes in the morning dim
Of Christmas lights and
Sleepy voices, I feel my
Stomach full and settled.
Even as tasks pile before us,
And daylight’s burdens
Grow on us,
My hands
Are clean and still, not
Grimy and anxious
As just passed through them so familiar.
I’ve made breakfast out of
Your fleshy embrace.
I’ve made coffee with
Your slumbered sweat.
My stomach is full and settled;
I think our eyes opened enough
To awake at least today.
So I’m awake with you awhile today.

drunk smile

i don’t need to be drunk

to be drunk around you at all

whether it’s the wine or your

wide smile

i am always some sort of intoxicated;

know that i don’t need to kill my liver

if i’m wanting to feel giddy in your presence.

but i would just about kill all of my body

except for the nerves

if it means feeling all of yours,

i’ll try my best to fill my lungs with smoke

(and it’s because i want to)

i’ll let new chemicals play brain games

(still because i want to)

i’ll keep my eyes open all night

(just because yours are too).

there is something in your face that loosens

the tension in my own;

there is all things in your hands that unclenches

my balled fists—

i am again able to to hold onto all the vices

in the world

that i want to at least know even if just

for the sake of one more shared adventure.

though, whatever

altered state in which we exist

i am always drunk around you

because it’s your wine wide smile

and i’ve tasted so much on my lips.

expected

i never expected your chest

close enough

to feel its pounding blood beat

(but i felt it amongst

all the winter hot heat)

i never expected my stomach

would spill

it’s deepest darkest stuff

(but only after your 

ink shoulder first unlocked)

i never expected your sidesmile

to impress

me oh god so much

(but now i expect

to see it often enough)

i never expected my feet

not cold

this deep in long february month

(but it’s the winter

and i don’t mind staying up)

a slow down sentence

when the shock dulls so slow down too

do words flow

my thoughts are still a million but

your-ones are louder.

if then i can open up a can

and not find worms and dirt

(or at least not anticipate such)

i am settled with open even though it means

no names.

i have opened a can of warm sun sand

and damn (damn)

it feels so nice on my numb cold feets and hands.

how did i get to the shore?

when did I smell the salty ocean and not first

think of my face?

i’m finding longer pauses between my sentences

though it’s not at all harder to form words

when i’m speaking through fewer tortured parables.

the puppetmaster

oh god

you make a puppet out of my hands

until all i can do is laugh 

until my teeth are bared and you see my throat

through their opening. (can you?)

until it’s not so much sore and hoarse as i remember

but damn i’m aware that with each unison bark

your hands on mine

become like strings and

really, really

i’m just a puppet again

as strings on hands

become strings on feet

and lips

and hearts

woah, god

when did this kitchen become a theater stage

where all of nobdy is watching me recite

these haunting, familiar lines.

the treeclimber

when asked his favorite feeling in the world

he replies, ‘climbing trees’

because if there is something to climb before him

his feet are all the steps he needs and the branches

will lead him to the clouds.

even though he too has his worldly weights

(‘i’m stressing, you know?’ he admits)

they are also his feathered buoyancy

(‘but i wouldn’t rather be doing anything else’ he knows)

so whatever burdens he drags along

become leaves along the way, the lightest

fall-turned leaves.

when he makes it to the canopies all else things

are irrelevant;

we’re ground dwellers tied to earth dirt

and he knows what it’s like to touch 

those burning astral boundaries.

cavedweller

slowly i’m coming to grasp

whatever is means to be battered,

to realize with an ambivalent relief

thank god that is not my motions.

there are still people we cross

holed up,

pulling our strings,

but between the dirt and dark

there is not room enough in caves

built for one.

some one

will suffocate and

every one

is going blind.

i broke

i break any lingered eye stares

in favor of a goofy grin

but goddamn i see the sea in your eyes

whilst mine are just a mucky swamp,

can’t you realize the stench?

i break lingered lip connects

so that i might steal a snicker

because goddamn making jokes

out of maybe feelings is much safer

than building substanced hopes.

i break lingered anythings

in favor of all alone nothings

because goddamn i can’t be sure

no one won’t end up with 

broken, lingered somethings.

fathomless

I’m making cuts in paper and skin and the amount of time

dedicated to spinning thought heads since

I’ve gone absolutely nowhere with guesses

And conjectures, and assumptions

Ruined too many notebook pages

With soggy soaking static sentences.

I hope you know to stay away from other pulses while

I reason why to stop counting the elapsed time

Between my own.

My gut tells me that these new thuds in my ear

Are only temporary though also

They are frequent enough to fathom

That my heart now resides in my head

(But I cannot fathom that bad news).

You are the only bad news I heard about and

I should have believed it all those bridge days ago.

slumber tree

maybe when i’m twenty-six 

i’ll be built a sturdier tree

(believe me, believe me)

where i’m from we build the plants and grow houses,

currently i relearn how to build expectations

and grow plans when it comes to dealing

with the prettiest thought people i encounter.

whether their words are honey or poison

(or both or neither),

it’s always better to prepare for a bitter 

taste and bury feet in dirt

i buried mine in gravel and swallowed

two, three, four spoonfuls 

of the same shimmering acid

(see these scraped toes and burned esophagus holes?)

at first it tasted like sweet wine,

felt like standing on a cloud

beware pretty people inside and out

they are the ones we put on pedastals

and make murals out of their scars,

beware that i might be one disguised as new growth.

the saying does not go

“messy head, messy bed,”

though i believe it just as truthful

if then there is a junk brain, her sheets,

no matter how warm,

will not be safe.

sleep on top of them as i eat

my frontal lobe to sew my esophagus 

and patch my toes with a

new directional hope.

i’m going to expect all over and over again,

especially when it comes to 

the prettiest thought people,

but i’ll need all four of my pillows

to soften nose dive disappointments.

please understand i cannot will not

share my slumber this earlier in the spring.

painterfolk

i know so many painterfolk in this town

we are all part of some growing significant something

they are my comrades cohorts sidekicks heroes

it’s all just a little bit underoverwhelming knowing

i’m picking pretty plants.

i leave a birth rest place nest it is late

so i ride fast

knowing that tonight the drips come from my nose

(not my eye souls)

and my feet and hands are the only unbearable cold

though if i slow down i can look up

to stars (there are stars!)

and feel my feeler appendages again.

i feel excited about the folk

i feel excited about the punk

i feel excited about your jump to cure my clammy hands.

but seeing the stars with warmed filanges

reminds me of the value of a slow-paced salsa.

i am good and okay enough for now

to not pour this excited into anything

of a non-immediate nature

while i figure out what it is to be

my own painterfolk

and forget the broken body responsible for its

brutal, cherished awakening