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part five  i've still got a sweet tooth for catastrophe

johnny can hide from the world but there's no denying that sunrise tastes like sarsaparilla drops, one wrong move and they'll slice his gums but instead sunrise lodges itself in his cracked molars like fig seeds and then the tip of his tongue snakes over his teeth lick lick lick until it lies limp by his throat. he stops fighting the world behind his eyes because somewhere in the garden the last orange lily of the year has dried.

[mo(u)rning has begun].

johnny can hide from the world but it's only when the dirt doesn't wash from under his nails, dahlias begin to grow, and his sweat smells like that of a common weed that the silence ringing in his ears finally demands attention. i can hear it too, through the stillness of the holly tree and the nearby hum of worker bees, gathering strength to please their queen. he's becoming a piece of the earth, extending his limbs with each new stem breaking through the ground and it's only when the first bee lands on his flowers that feels he can finally breathe.

(inhale),

johnny can hide from the world with all his aches, bones bending with the direction of the sun and eye-water submitting to the unseen forces of the world but his agony is irrigation within this dry spell, so he waters his children, flourish in the pain, until there's nothing left within him - the dahlias seem fine.

the sun is still rising. it's only seven a.m.

(hold your breath),

johnny rips the dahlias from his palms, there's already a flower garden within his head. lying only one-quarter limp they stare up at him from the ground, their pretty little heads so used to tender care now stunned into reality. johnny leaves for austria tonight.

(a colony of bees die).

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