not me

i am a cloud losing my people
i am a man jumping off a cliff to end his life
who is bored on the way down
i am the umbrella broken
holding the rain in a hug
when i once let it go free
i am the loneliness we feel together
but avoid to mention
when we see each other standing there
in the elevator
wishing that we’d already be home
where we don’t feel so alone
i am the deer’s head above the fireplace
still dreaming of running
still afraid of the orange glow below
i am a planet not discovered
with a life not yet known
i am a species that has had sex
with far too many mates
who ended up of a different breed
i am a dog
i am a cat that has more credibility than some people
i am that elevator still wishing to embrace those conversations
and those two there who are only on floor two
and are cursing me
cursing them
for not being able to afford a better place with a faster elevator
i am a whirlpool in a toilet that is trying too hard after your dinner
i am a tree bare and beautiful
undressed but left standing with my arms holding up the sky
i am the telephone call in another language
that you pick up flustered and say sorry i don’t understand
even though i was just trying to flirt
i am not i always
i am always not always either
i am a drunk you met who tells you he’s having the time of his life
though he isn’t wearing a watch
and doesn’t know where it went
i am an immigrant standing in an airport in a new country
with skyscrapers and all-you-can-eat-buffets and hope
and i am the entry officer ahead noticing the no-fly list blinking
i am that elevator still
even when i’m weighed down
by the two people who look to the heavens
but only find numbers of creeping judgement and expectations
and who are now realizing they don’t need to curse themselves
but the other person who is too fat and too ungainly and too unlike them
for they are slowing the system
i am a long poem said in three words under the covers
i am a laundry machine wishing it were a dishwasher
i am a dishwasher wishing it was a blowdryer
i am hair
full and furious
covering the wrong spots
picked away for being
i am nothing on sundays
i am a killing in the street that hasn’t happened yet
but that will when the homeless rise up
butcher the rich
then tire of war
and look for a place to rest among the destruction
but find less homes
i am the cardboard box for a bed
a bed’s bed
and i am itchy
just as the elevator comes to my floor
i leave
say nothing to her
and i wish i was more
than what i am