take the stairs/and forget the elevator lights

the ding to the final floor/the whoosh of the open door

this is a rough draft/penned in the deafening static of a too-late TV screen

channels set on rewind/this is a final spell check

poster children for grammar never looked do good at ten to one

this could be jealousy

this could be nervous jitters

jump-jump-jump

'til your heartbeat is four-four time/and your stomach's in your throat

burning like a paper trail

strike the match and light the fire/this speech is a race to the end

it's the whirring hum of fan blades/and the click-click-click-eject of a phrase

drop a line

for the sake of posterity, what's your name again?

ballpoint pen smudges are memory traces I find in my bed/in the frenzy of clean and hiding things

I write desperate and trying oh-so-hard