Bloodspitting
I drop a dead man's stare under suspicion
and wait for the echo. . .

I wait for the thud of dead weight
kissing the cold floor goodnight.

Digging myself to sleep with
a lullaby comprised of shovel-scrapes
and the filth under my fingernails,
I sift my motivation from
the walls in these tunnels.
The cracks in the 8-by-10's
and the veins in your arms
are twins separated at birth.
The ore of your iris
and the dark of your pupil
match the shade of the dirt slung
over my shoulder.

And the cave-in spills off of your lips.

It's on these black-lung nights that I can hear their
song. The shrill sounding off against all of
my wrong turns and second guesses.
Bouncing between "What-could-possibly-go-right?"s
and muffled coughs to rattle the lungs.
Hands thrust into a coat pocket, racing
the eyes to the floor. A wasted effort.

. . .As it lands I realize rock bottom has looked
like a good place to call home for some time now.



This will be sumitted to a poetry reading along with 4 other works.
I'd like everyone's opinion, does it feel together?
When I read over it, I feel like it seems scattered, but that might just be me looking at it from the wrong end.
-Thanks.