Tonight’s plan by Jacob Fowler

midnight has a fun time 
stripping memories and 

turning them into buzzsaws;
sometimes these twist-turn

recollections prick my finger
and I bleed hot wax,

but I always see the wind
taunting me like a hearse

tonight, the sky is the color of that parking lot
with the potholes that we used to fill
up with our babbling

tonight is a wave crashing inside a wave

            and the tired-eyed windowpane 
            whipped red
            and zip tie hard

tonight is a tarantula with a human jaw,
too big for its mouth
so it’s skin is so stretched that it’s 
hardly alive

tonight is gnawing

tonight the buzzsaws are after me more than ever
which means that my home will be empty 
within the hour

maybe I’ll come and find you
and turn dirty rags into
apologies.
we can wrap them
around our forearms 
and sink into the front
seats of a beat up
nissan and tell 
each other how 
it would feel 
to be home

I’ll show you the molds I made 
out of past traumas
and you can feign interest
until I hate the sound of my voice

I’m sorry

I speak a lot
I can’t stand the dark

____________________________________________________________

Jacob Fowler is an elementary school teacher living in Oakland, CA. He recently graduated from Pitzer College with a BA in World Literature. His poetry has appeared in Barren Magazine, Levee Magazine, Ghost City Review, and Riggwelter Press, among others. You can find him on Twitter @jacobafowler.