i. i talk too much i think / let the words spill like quicksand from my tongue / it’s gonna be my undoing / this sea of words i swim upon / but these days, it’s feeling more like drowning / half a million things to do / but i lie on the surface / glazed over and drifting / i drive through the rain / check my blind spots, but i’m never quite / ready to go through / so i sit there psychoanalyzing until my tongue is sore / and my fragile body is an open wound / and i don’t know how to settle this score / cause i’ve burned all my bridges / or was that just a dream / i think i talk too much / leave all my secrets out on by the curb / i think i build myself up, like the castles of yore / but it’s just a trick of of the light, some drug-store contour / (the cheapest i could find) / i try too hard, i think / as i wash it off at night / and stare down a stranger in the smudged-up bathroom mirror 

Part 1/3 of a suite of poems.