Dealer of the Unwanted

when she walked in
I saw the pain dripping from her fingers like
wax
falling off of her like some
burnt up figment of who she
hoped to be
15 years earlier.
feet dragging as she walked across
tile: littered with left over dreams
with a clearance tag marked
over the stars that fell.
when she sold her clock
and gave
up on wishing at eleven eleven.
because words sell for less than
it takes to fly, she said.
so in the presence of ghosts

her skin was more wrinkled than the sheets
she found herself at home
in.
when home. it had no place.

then, I felt
her
feet kicking up returned hopes
and heartaches sold for a pack of
smokes. and she walked
with a sense of self loathing.
I wanted
to break television sets in her name
when I saw the way her eyes
played static vision
and her arms looked like race tracks.

she stood with a steady ambition.
knees on ice, it seemed. wearing
verbs around her neck
like a noose, she seemed ready to fall

like the stars.
when she used to sit on sand and wish at the ocean
counting breaks between songs like the waves
when hurting made
life
bearable.
so she stood there
like a cardboard cutout
of herself in 12 years.
ready to age, but so unwilling to fold.

and when she spoke
I felt trapped in a box of my past.
and she said
"look here, boy, I ain't what you see"
and
I said,
"ma'am, I don't see a thing"
she broke into heart songs
by tapping morse code
on the counter top.
I heard the distress
call
so I sold her vanity in paper form.
for a bit of something
lacking substance.
and I told her here.
I only deal in broken
dreams.
and she told me
she only lives to break them.


so if you were to ask
if she melted like a candle under the
heat of
a raging horse.
I could safely say
I don't know.
I never knew her when she was able to stand.
I never felt her
presence
without the impending sense of
neglect.

no.
I simply knew her in horror movies
when she treated
dreams like mirrors.
and her eyes.
closed. they shattered
to the ground.