clouds

pink and blue smears

go over my head

like the moon

or calculus.

i long to float up there

where i could eat eclipse and crackers

and differentiate my thoughts.

don’t you find it odd

that, sometimes, in order to answer a question

you need the opposite of the thing itself?

i am my own reciprocal.

i hate liars

but i hardly ever come out from beneath

my own silver tongue

or my solidified sadness.

even my body is my own mind’s conjugate

but the limit

as i approach everything i know

from the side that loves and the side that loathes

is ultimately me

staring through this restaurant window.

my breath steams the glass

and i miss the final moments of sunset.

“Get off there,” my mother says

“it’s full of germs.”