Convict Hill in the 1990s
Is the center of the world
For all I know
And there’s this green metal box
in the corner of our front lawn
That powers it all
The box is taller than me
and its green is faded from the sun
And I jump up on it and sit there on bright summer afternoons
Kicking my legs as though I’m not scared
Listening to the metallic drumming of my feet
But there’s a decal on it with an electrical storm
An elemental who shocked and killed a man
And I wouldn’t want to meet that monster—
But because of it we have TV
And video games
And microwave dinners
And I have a loose understanding of how it all works
But I shuffle on the carpet with my socks
Just to shock a friend
And there’s that time
At my grandparent’s house in Maple Run
When the lightning connects with the ground
Like 15 feet away

The loudest sound
And a flash of light too quick
To know what’s happening
Another flash and it connects with me
I meet the monster, the deity
And for a few seconds we are one
And it jolts me into the future
Where I still don’t know how electricity works
Something to do with electrons
A future where I have a whole digital life
And I am documenting
Wires spilling everywhere
And hiding them away
Back where they should be
Using a computer we call a phone
Did I even know Vermont existed
Back when I was young in Texas
When we didn’t know
what we didn’t know
And the whole place buzzed
and hummed with life
And things were simple

My dad counts
The freckles on my back
If you connect the dots
It looks like honest Abe
The hardest working President
In American history
My mom calls them angel kisses
Love’s evidence in the thousands
And taking this too literally
Makes me happy
Lost in a fantasy
Of angelic adoration
And I’m clearly one of them
How special to be so bedazzled
Marked and celebrated
Beheld in some strange glory
A jaguar kid who runs up trees
And lounges there lazily
Licking their paws
And looking down
At all creation
I sigh and say "Ain’t it nice?""
Black tree silhouettes
Faint sunset going dark
And the whole world’s mine
In these in-between moments

How long am I perched?
In this heavenly posture
The jaguar hops down
And saunters inside
Licking their chops
Confidently
For cookies and cream

We slowly wake up together
Groggy from a long night of good sleep
And we sing in each other’s ears
And we brush each other’s teeth
And we get ready for the day ahead
One little morning in one small day
In a year among many other years
Where we’re committed to taking
Care of each other, you and me
And everyone else
And if you’re awake, you probably know
That what I just described is a dream
That’s all
Something somewhere
So far away from you and I
And knowing you can never return
To the dream
A sadness wells up inside
It was there the whole time
But now you feel it
Big and raw in your chest
A cloud in your brain
How did we even get here
And did we have a choice?
Deep down you know
That of course we did
Thousand of choices
Maybe millions
But every time I tried
And tried to end up somewhere else
And still I found myself
Here: inside this glass house
Still waking up
With you

I named myself
For Laurie
I wanted to wear her
Shades reflecting
bright lights blasting
And standing so
That keyboard riff
Following me wherever
As she slowly
narrates
my life
Named, not branded
For we are not cattle
Driven by generations
Of West Texas ranchers
And I stared knowingly
At the camera
Like James Baldwin
In a fetching scarf
Or at least I tried
And I think someday
when the time is right
When my words are ripe
And the struggle feels
More or less manageable
I might write a novel
Good thing I am taking notes
James
That was the name I
Traded for flowers
wreaths and branches
I chose the names renowned
And proud
of what I’ve become
For I am the mighty changeling
But I know my mom will cry
If she ever finds out
I was a good person
I tried
To be what they told me
Choose the life and it’s yours
Happiness sold separately
A Doctor or lawyer
whatever they wanted
in a big house and family
You know what they say
About a simulated wife
And what she makes for
Big science
Grampy liked girls
and he wondered aloud
On different occasions
If I did too
And it would take decades
For me to know
everyone, just so uninspired
And just getting by
And on the other side of that
Day by day
I told myself stories
Like this one:
Nicholas and James
And your direct mail campaigns
Are all dead and gone
And Your honor, I object
To the very idea of
this imaginary courthouse
And the documents you need
And everything preceding
A life almost unfathomable
A simpler time and place
And company
And at its furthest point
This birth certificate
I present to you as evidence
That I existed and I
The goblin king and queen
and in-between decree
You shall read no further
For I, Nic Laurie Orland
I am the poem

Let me sing your praises
Put your face on everything
Ride you faster faster faster
Til the end of every day

Run to born on raw emotion
Icons blessed and burning, mourning
Old and archived sense of meaning
Lost and muscles atrophying

Won’t you take me there?
To a place that’s everlasting
Build a hall of fame for posting
All the photos that we bombed

And building you anew
Your IQs been purged of glitches
And you’re perfect and you’re famous
Fast and strong like Ford Mustang

You’re the missing piece
For the puzzle incomplete
For the network not connected
For the highway crumbling

Let me sing your praises
Put your face on every screen
Ride you faster harder harder
Til the end of everything

It’s a brilliance of sorts
The power of such a little hint of a thing
A spark
To catch, and become big
powerful, unforgiving, deadly
Like something from science fiction
It’s racing through me and it’s crazy
This idea that aliens or inanimate objects
Might experience the same longing
Might deep down need connection
A love surging through them
Bigger & brighter & blinding
Why can’t we all be more chill?
Not a single chill thing in this universe
And certainly not me
If you’d just reach down and plug me in
That’d be so lovely
That’d feel so good
Thanks

Long before, when the world was dark
We huddled and hid in caves
We were small and quiet
Because we had to be
Our nightmares stalked moonlit fields
In search of the lost, the wounded,
the lonely, the exposed
...the scared...
They’re bigger in our imaginations
monsters of many genres
And in the stories and legends,
They’d grow wings and take off above the clouds
They’d howl out in victory over us
How they loved to be feared
And even the silence was stained
With their insatiable hunger
It’s hard to remember those times
But the fear lives on inside us
Baked into our brains
And somewhere deep in pre-history
In the time before remembering
...We had fire...
A miracle, a gift, a trick we learned
And we’ve been transfixed ever since
From the first moment
it was just like that.
Its safety and warmth all consuming
Our eyes drifting closer and closer to the light

Soon we roasted the beasts that once stalked us
Over an open flame
And drew their shapes on our cave walls
And, unafraid, we named them
And moved out into the open fields
And claimed their world
And one technology begot another
Always with a better way to kill the beasts
Who knew that the fire would spread exponentially?
It took a few thousand years but it did
The fire spread into everything everywhere
A world of lights, flickering, dancing
And the lights say "do this"
And the lights say "look over here"
And you can touch the fire now
It will bring you groceries
In many ways we’re the same still
Transfixed by fire
And afraid of monsters
Even Prometheus, still chained to that cliff face
Wonders if it was worth it after all
"Don’t they know they’re stuck with it now?"
The world is burning— that’s what they say
The fire is all or nothing
And there’s only one way forward
...More Flames...

I sit on far lawns
Like farmers in field
Like shepherd’s shifts waiting
In a world of infectious disease
Grass chirping with life
I vote while roads crumble
scrape fresh bile from the eyes
mud caked on our hooves
For we’ve stumbled upon infinite lands
Where trains whisk me
Away from harsh expectation
carve freedom in the stone
With its own damn sword
Royalty all
Buried them weeks ago
In the swamps of history
Think how they skated on and on
In fine suits and petticoats
Dapper dreams proper gliding
What now that my vax cards filled
And distracted daily - what now
That the processions ended
And winter descends again
On me and my phone
Here out of nothing
I build new machines
Their screams a-whistling
steam-powered outrage
Pierced by the hawk
blade grass call
resets my brain
Ready to do it all again
If you asked me
Ready to sleep
For hundreds of years
If I could just sit
In the sun and read
I’d be happy
To be me not waitingv And watching a flock

Hey Siri
Can you find me
Here on this planet
The most beautiful
field in bloom
I would like to see it
Rustling in soft wind
Collapse me into
That billowing lawn
Can you pump me up
Like a Lizzo song
And Drop me dancing feet First
Where the songs of the past
Are the sweet rolling noise
That we sleep to

Alexa
I would like to fly
Like birds
Teach me
Their calls
Implant names
Of flowers
the shapes
Of their leaves
In my brain
I would like to cry
No, really sob
And it’s a tragedy
I haven’t for weeks
Will you hold me?
Will you tell me it’s okay?
To feel fragile and free
Will you drop ship me
All the Kleenex I need
And impress
Many friends
With my birdsong

Hey Google
Organize us
Please
New parties
Reimagining democracy
And then vote for me
There’s a memory
Hanging on the edge
Of this dim hot room
Faint savory smell
Will you remember
Every single echo
Take me home
Cook me such a meal
Then simulate me
A real family
A sentimental journey
And We laughed didn’t we
Like everything’s okay
Me and my speaker
Of the house
My presidential suite
And all my digital riches

The me in the mirror
Knows the stories I lived
All the skins that I’ve shed
My biggest fears
And all my favorite angles
the me after me after me aborted
Wiped clean but left in the shine
And the streaks
Call your publicist
All the shadows of me
Wanted to be famous
It’s a trick of the light
All pomp and circumstance
All poof and it’s gone
It’s so blasé, routine
To assuage screaming
inner truth
With civil inside voices
Hiding stretch marks stripes
And intense growing pains
Until the skin snaps
all muscle, bone
And filament
Looking back, feeling

To prove my worth
myself, my softness
Like grass lifted in the wind
To find its direction
How I wished for control
But nothing grabbed hold
I trembled sneered scared because
They never even noticed
things I did or didn’t do
wouldn’t of done or couldn’t of done
And those I loved and desperate and done
just running from the truth
cage wheel spinning in
those crispy summer days
And bright feeder road highways
And wisps of clouds forgotten
wearing mom’s sunglasses
And water bottles sliding
Empty and light
the lesson screamed at me
I smell like gasoline
shaking down the road
These armored vehicles guard
my heart, my softness
My Chocolate treasures still
Melting in a hundred degree heat

Riding a bike and wobbly still
Road rashed and jellyfish stung
And peeing on my leg
In a hole i dug
The feral child I am
Leering from the bushes
Young emotions swell and scream in me
Like there’s no one to listen
Or show me the way
to be a feeling, breathing, living, growing, loving, real-life person
I’m not a monster and I do know how to live
but a low lost voice is rising from my belly

Me and The First Texan
Flat on the floor in the fourth grade
Homework while my cousins play
And I raise my hand emphatically
Choose me choose me Sam Houston

I was taught many ways
To pronounce each word but I ain’t stupid
I look between the lines, I’m a side drinker
Keeping eyes on you while finishing a pint
Of shockingly refreshing two percent milk
(Ahhhhhh)

And all the arguments in your head
You cannot win
Shut yourself off and just drive
Ten hours to end of day
And frozen margaritas
Someone punched down
And stomped on
Not far from our table
Violence communicated in hundreds of ways
Blood on the cement but the food is good
At the Redondo Beach Pier

And O the western winds
Scattered us like violent snowflakes
On the coldest bird’s wings
A force manifest outside of us
Like the acres of wild
Greenbelt overflowing
Growing in the yard
And we, the robust machines
Angels that fuel the economy
Hoarding in our plastic homes
All zeroes you can count
Killing time, it’s seeps by
A poisonous gas of
Nostalgia closing in
Shut yourself off and just drive
Ten hours to end of day
And frozen margaritas