I become impossibly
a lullaby a lullaby
whispering into
darkness
impossibly
impossibly
echoing through
the embers of each

dissident dream
moving
forward and
backward until
there is only ash

utterly worn out
utterly clear

this is when you
tell me
I'm a ghost

that I've been a ghost
all along

and though the bats
always come back

and the crows
always come back

they will not recognize me crying
they did not recognize me dying

you tell me I cannot
leave this place
that I am

as much this farmhouse
as this farmhouse is me

as the tiny eye holes of my eyes
are cul-de-sacs
for wayward shadows


as my abandoned grin
is a gorge 
for a chorus 
of yellow jackets


you tell me
staying still is always
an ambush for bodies


you tell me
that father is now time


that mother is the white
walls that hold me
for all time


that the creek
is every 
word I've ever spoken


and out climbed love
and out climbed hate


pretending to be light
pretending to be cameras flashing
pretending to be bats wings
pretending to be children


praying for 
a long dark night of the soul
for cold hard stone
for shadows alone
for the long road home


you say you want
to find 
the unconditional self


but you have to begin
while I'm asleep

so you echo
through the embers
of each lullaby impossibly
moving forward
and backward
until there is only sleep

little boneless
little skinless

dream sparrows
to my eyelids

one facing upwards
one facing downwards
turned completely inside out

until they become
black holes
meteorites crashing
the fringe of voices

before they are
divided
among several hells