nausea

P V C Pipe on my head
i play pretend
i am a sprite again we make
believe on slopes that smell of days-dead grass
that smell of monsters split in twain and us at last
atop the mountain, through the forest, five steps from the deck
and in the shade i am an elfin thing replete with knife and blade and time
to kill, to kill, to kill

now they jut and furl and ache,
skin draped taut and pocked and poked
at bones that droop and curl and shake
the creeping things, cut vines and sick-sweet flashes
round your throat just down the street
the dreaming shifts its shape,