when bodies knead together they smell

like smiling vanilla snakes of light

slithering like a slice of a shoreless flood

but when bodies need together they smell

like soggy clothes drying indoors on a rainy night

when a caged bird only looks outside to find

other caged birds     know that it has swallowed

a song flying infinitely inwards to whisper

chaos into every consenting emptiness—

an audience for a russian-doll-shaped suicide

i am not afraid of the condition of death— look

how the faithlacking boy's lackadaisical saunter

through the cemetery alienates even the big bad

bully boys— but i am afraid of the act of dying

of the bureaucracy of the body

of negotiating pain-hijacks

where does the body— oozing with guilt-clung guilt

& overthought-choked overthinking without any

liquid love to shape the dough— where does the body

take a piss in a world seemingly built on holy waters?

but the caged bird doesn't even have a devil to sell

its soul to— so it sings in hopes of being sung to

~ ajay

15/7/2021