The shame of having been bitten by fleas but the empathy of being flea-ridden. 

they both linger for days, irritating and poignant, a rash and a rush of mixed feelings – 

you feel infested and a part of an infestation, a strange solidarity with dirty couches

and stray cats. Have I broken some social law or is my skin an ecosystem and is there 

no such thing as vast difference. Pontification aside, I notice myself aware of my flea bites

quite often, little magnets of shame and empathy, pushing me away from soiled couches 

pulling me towards, sending me leaping to, needing to be in my own skin. 

Poem-a-Day MDs: does susceptibility to dehydration increase as you age?

My head is spinning like winds over

Fields of plantain and white clover

And I can never drink enough water

Tired of endless caring I thought her

Bottle would be enough I need floods

inside of my bloodstream make mud 

of this dusty heart it seems the rilling

can't fill the beds pulling my body apart

a pen and paper would do me better
for I’ve had a headache for days 
and burning eyes
probably all this screen time
an excuse to not write a poem
but then instead
I just sit around, finally 
watching Ted Lasso

Manual As The Map

I wanted the body and the voice

and to be tall again,

but not the rest of it

and I can't understand how

teens experience context collapse,

and should be so aware 

of multiple audiences.

We had the teacher, the parent, the peer,

and a timeline that began before records,

you could choose your battles.

Mine began at 12, farewell to Lego,

gnashing in rage where the memory

had faltered

and the manual vanished,

so the petrol station

I once built and dismantled

in precision was lost to me

five years prior, when genres

were so different.

To know five years today

is to know two of those have 

been the cats slowly

recognising something is up,

and for me, today, to be recognised 

as vaguely positive for the 

couple of sentences I could spare

for the cashier at Home Depot.