The Split Ends of My Beard Have Split Ends

My natural instincts are hardly ever right. When I sleep there is a voice in my ear coming through a cheerleader's megaphone in a really bizarre language. I understand fully. The world is out the window. When we wake on the weekends and my wife wants sex, I say, the furniture is feline, let's just snuggle. Then I get up to pee. Nothing's as good as you think it is. I'm old enough now to say of my past, that was a different time, I'm a different person. What was that noise? Successful ideas spring from great people. There is this music I heard once and if I could just have it with me at all times, there's no telling what I'd do. I'd like very much to speak the way I'm spoken to when I sleep, to have the perfect cheer. I'd also like to live forever among the brilliant colored cups of the tulips, but know how likely that isn't. If you want my advice, get out while you still can.

From A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks. Copyright © 2009 by Justin Marks. Used by permission of New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.