I dare you to

Try to act somewhat
surprised or happy even
when you escape that building
with its fucking marble water fountains
and labyrinthine hallways that
lead you in circles for an hour
around the same 10 rooms
that remind you of your old "new"
high school, the one that'd make
Bentham jealous and Foucault shit.

Try to make it out of
there with your soul
intact.

I swear.

The usual news with your morning coffee?

A car
in forward reversed,
an immovable object
not unbreakable,
bones old and brittle
moving him forward
holding him back,
a wall/crash/no more,
greeted by screams,
grand surprises as suns rise,
sprinkling the day with nascent rays
8.32 minutes old,
in infancy shaking the cold,
crushed mortar and cinder and brick,
ruffled paper and feathers,
coffee still hot,
a wrinkled hand raised,
an assumed voice,
"The usual please, thank you."

Raymond Boulevard and Washington Street

The ladder leads up to the roof,
all gothic ornamentation and classical reliefs,
you've already descended
uninterested in long dead sculptors and philosophers,
calling out in a voice to me,
follow! follow! follow!
I peer down through swirling winds
and vibrant colors
I'm too afraid to leave the sky.