why are we living in cubicles online

i spent just a moment the other day sitting on the riverbed, quiet, not talking, just quiet for hours

oh to feel peace again
to feel small and naive again
ready for anything, dying for love,
your body a chimney filled with odd, black smoke

these square, squat
awkward rooms
are like a paean to teenage-hood,
to ripeness,
to the first and last taste of youth

so constantly enclosed
with a prop ankle monitor on my left leg
and real CB radios informing each other of my whereabouts

now in an old trailer
now in a hotel
now in one car
and another
eyes closed, squeezed shut to trap in the alpha waves
the elaborate fantasies under construction

these houses are old
theyve been here forever
they look like theyd be fragile--
have broken by now,
but instead they're standing they've
weathered the storm