Set An Egg Timer

You yelled at me to get off, 

Honked your horn, 

Drove at velocities that would crack my skull, 

After I jumped on the hood of your car

to make you laugh. 

My last name has taken on the definition of 

taking action with too much energy. 

Romantics fetishize it as boundless, 

Cynics predict they can set an egg timer, 

and within that allotted time 

I will have committed an act of minor terrorism. 

True, I did run your father’s rare oil painting through the rain, 

lost without constellations, 

But it was a fraud, 

A sailboat allergic to water. 

It deserved to sink.

I only got as far as the hospital 

before you caught up to me. 

Admiring the stars and time itself 

converting my desired demise into destiny. 

I never made it to the harbor. 

I never wanted to. 

Realizations of guilt

always require a re-entry to relationship 

that burns up in the atmosphere

whenever I speak. 

Not all last the impact. 

Slowly each

wears down my heat shields.

Some day, 

my ashes will freeze in the sky. 

Don’t catch me on your tongue.

Michael Carney