(but first, pound your fist against the shower wall)

: shit : damn : saliva : monastery : Greece : P. : paint : acid-reflux : pink : hot : music : leopard : outside : silhouette : doctor : photo : booth : location : pneumonia : drum : beat : line : baton : mother : K. : the same : twin : brown : Hayden : Hades :

: : in the brain there exists a special place for the expression of such words,
only this place works properly in dire times, when ordered thinking isn’t possible
: if you lean your head against a pillow and let your mind scurry, pretty soon
this will trickle out
: here you can think; behind stone walls; a ledge over ocean: captive
: again, sea rolls about here; these islands captivate you
: you haven’t read Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, yet your friend P. says:
don’t forget Ovid’s Metamorphosis 
: because it starts with the right letter; is also an art
: even a little vomit in the throat never fails to remind you of acid—
      acid orange, acid brown, acid—
: grapefruit; not to mention the color vest worn by P. in your dream
: wasn’t it warm?
: also in your dream, P. played viola; you never knew he played at all
: another thing about P.’s outfit: spotted yellow 
: the animal wouldn’t keep inside, of course
: so fast, you’d see their blurry silhouette in shadows; close to a cheetah,
this was what you pretended to be as a kid
: this and doctors;  what else can you do
when your dad offers white lab-coats as Christmas gifts?
: slip it on and say cheese
: slip in here and say cheese
: the place, naturally
: your guess—as good as mine; 
you caught this once and coughed a lot
: the rattling in your chest might as well have been a snare
: what, besides thump, can they do for you?
: your mother remembering high school 
: : she teaches your sister, K., the same
: who slept in this bed next to yours, after mom took the bunks down
: P.’s bald, but this pigments your sister’s hair; an end-rhyme with the last line
: the poet Robert Hayden didn’t get the recognition that he earned when
people paid this color too much attention
: this is where you’d like the source to have gone; but— 
shit—you remember; it starts again.