Clinically Speaking

I have wrong days -

days when there's a short

in my psychological circuit

and a stutter in my limbs,

days when satisfaction plays

racquetball in the asylum.

I've been told that

I am making excuses but

the dream factory closed down today.

The hopeful sensations kept

demanding higher wages

and my emotional economy

is stuck repeating the recesses

of a girl who used to practice

climbing horizontal ladders.

I've spent these last nights

trying to get higher

than the cost of living

now I'm speaking more in

syllables than sentences

and tipsy-toeing towards the

vacant corners of a happy place.

Dreams were only helium

in a red balloon that I released

into the sky to choke

the birds so they would stop

reminding me to fly.

I'm a spider with a needle

but my head is stacked with hay.

I'm running out of horses.