Behavioral Health

Michael Bennett

Year: Senior

Major: Film, Television and Digital Media

Hometown: Arlington, TX

 

 

Dylan’s fingers scatter        over residential jigsaw pieces

smelling antiseptic orange & gray

 

bone-legs crossed               When his hands find one

              small & chipped     they scramble for its home

 

It’s a reclamation of power

I know         to make broken things whole

 

Cars crumple into fire on the T.V. set

cabled above                             he turns his eyes

 

scab brown                         to the colored glass casing

                  sucking in    the purple image-bath

 

Best part                          a pucker-eyed woman 

whispers                     She drops onto plastic couch-wrap

 

Villas half-formed        lights switch off   too awake

to go to that fucking room                     smile 

                                                                               dripping 

 

between his teeth         as the movie snaps   to black

                       and leaves us in             eely silence

 

crackling log-fires           he sets

                           in the ribs of a muddy riverbank