i lit my curtains on fire
so my eyes could intersect the windowpanes with the efficiency of bullets.
i painted my bedroom walls with the ash.
the following morning i was assaulted
by the light that no longer collected in the curtains; i fought back
by hiding the smoke from every match i've ever lit
in the shingles of my roof. the fog reflected the light away.
it filtered through the leaves of the pines in my backyard,
and i collected it all in a basket
half-full with flowers.
i spilled the light into a lantern and kept it there
till it was all used up.
after clearing the air of smoke i wove a net out of the flowers
and gathered more light in its folds but the flowers dried up
and dropped all the light into the floorboards where it pooled in sporadic puddles
until it warped the wood panels
and disappointed me terribly.