I have found a season which exists
between New England's winter and spring,
in late March or early April.

You will know it by the bleeding of colors
in the sky at dusk (the orange cream,
the flush of pink, the blue-powdered
lavender) when all the clouds
misplace their edges.

You will ease your body down
into grass damp with what remains
of winter's moisture. Let your eyes
become a mirror for what lies above you:
the ethereal atmosphere.

The trees will reach up with a thousand
grasping fingers, all craving the silk
of the sky, and you will stretch out
your own limbs, unable to resist
the desperate urge to touch.

believing,
it seems to me,
is the root of all knowing,
for what i have found
is worth far more than all i have lost.
what i once took for granted,
i now embrace each day,
like a breath of frigid air
on a morning laced with ice.
you magnetize me into
delight so deep and dark.
you are swirling, yes,
with all the light of things unknown.
all of you, which i have pulled
from dreaming
to become the reality beneath
the heavy lids that open to wonder,
enchantment; surely you know,
for your spell is natural
as the garden which flourishes
in your heart, planting sunlight
and bittersweet promises,
too much for a wanderer to behold.
yet he stops and stares,
as do i, for the day breaks
as surely as you will.
far more than this: soften
your edge to fit with mine.

If not for words, would we still have questions?
Could we think, if our language was lost?
I sense a change already, falling backwards,
forever plummeting from a higher elevation,
too afraid to open my eyes.

If not for breath, would we still have air?
Will life grow and change with a lack of oxygen?
As my lungs expand, my eyelids raise slowly,
but as always, I see only what I wish to see,
too afraid to face the nudity of truth.

The moon is my ghost, as I land softly
I leave no footprints on its cratered surface.
One question at a time, one breath after the other.
Though I am no magician, I sense there is magic:
There is life all around me, holding me up.

i do not imagine it is a crime or you
are a criminal, i do however question
why you bothered to use that one call
on me.

barshadows on your face remind me
i do not wish to visit again or spend another
moment with my eyes to the floor, your
concrete hellhole.

i have never been that type, never once
made a promise i couldn't keep, also known as
i do not make promises and i do not
break bonds.

and yet i will say my goodbyes when i know
the end is inevitable, for isn't it always? and
even further: i have no wish to spend eternity
with you.

Je suis jeune, ou c’est ce qu'ils me disent,
Jeunes et capable, sauvage et libre;
Mes os ne craquent pas sous le vent.

Je suis folle, c'est ce qu'ils disent,
Folle de croire vos mots cassés,
Mais vous étiez jeune une fois aussi.

Je suis seule et ils ne manquent jamais d'avis,
Seule, oui, mais jamais trop seule.
La tasse était à moitié pleine quand nous nous sommes rencontrés.

Je suis ce que je me dis:
joyeuse aujourd'hui, envieuse demain,
et en ce moment, juste une fille coincée entre deux.

skyline dance -
distorted rhythms and do i
only imagine your
hip against mine as
we press flowers into each
others' palms?

weave ourselves like
sand in constant shift
trembling heart you hold
it out do i take it?
i take it.

winter knocks -
you never answer and
i locked the door last night
again and you cried.

you said we are only
growing older and we are
not children anymore.

but you still smile like you
did when we were both
six with gaps in our teeth
and bruises all over
our beaten bodies.

it's been two years now,
and i am not getting any younger, you know.
still smoking two packs a day,
yes i'm aware i'm my biggest problem.

but i still blame you
and the silence of the phone,
the absence of you calling at 3am,
just to say "fuck you, go to sleep."

i got scared and i clung to you;
that's all there is to it.
no details to fill in, no ending to determine.
it was over before it even began, how typical, i thought.

still i think your voice could ease the pain
of early morning hangovers that last all day,
and the silent screams i muffle with each inhale.
fuck you, go to sleep.

the lion pack traveling side
by side, though not evenly;
colliding shoulder to shoulder
territorial and instinctual.

trying to tame the manes
beneath logo-baring headgear,
hoping to hide soulful eyes
behind dark shades of plastic.

clothing loose to make up
for skin too tight, laughter
bouncing off cement and
rubber sneaker soles.

that musky scent of male
mingling with each individual
mixture of hopes and dreams
hits me in full force, leaving me
at a standstill long after the last
of you has passed me by.

this love is a curse,
a ship lost in unruly waters.
this love is cruel as steel:
we both taste of metal.

i broke no bones in this body
when our rope snapped, taut,
yet the quake of bitter reason
shocked both you and i to truth.

we cannot survive as one,
nor as one outside the other.
this love is a charging bull,
the scarlet flare of sorrow.

bending on two pairs of knees,
even the sky smells of earth.
this love is wretched, numbing.
without it, we would not feel at all.

summer provides a different sort of grass,
the sort that thickens into a virescent mattress for the weary body.

we drop down hard with heavy-weight souls tonight.

cricket chorus sings me to slumber, your grip is firm,
and the breeze swirls the stars above our heads so still, so calm.

but i must confess: i can no longer write these words for you.

fall will always seduce summer into a blackened passion bed,
and your eyes which mirrored mine are now quick to shut me out.

a farewell to a friend is not quite the same, you see,
as a farewell to a friend-turned-lover - there is no objective.

just an unfinished canvas,
paint slapped over the ever-present question mark.

House of the heart, these vacant arms
Spaces yawning wide and deep as cratered moons
A star-strewn grayscale and rainbow dreamworld
The pounding like waves and hammered cities
Soul drop-off box and doors with sunshine keys
Girls and boys drink feathered eyes and brainmusic
Machine wash cold, tumble-dry bodies
Slinking off in a frenzied tangent, doubled over
To cachinnate at nude men without faces.

to take to the skies would have been
monumental, for in that moment we forgot
how all life must breathe:
even empty days teem with respiration.

kaleidoscopes hovered before my eyes in
the heat of sister's fury, the disbelief
she houses in every filament.

when mother taught us to soar, she said
don't land where you aren't welcome but me,
i never could read the signs right.

we broke down fifty feet from the tracks every
night and sometimes in the day.

trying to sleep i could feel the sorrow
hanging above, sultry and certain, and when
we wake again our wings will unfurl.

ready to go?

you are the forty-fourth
president
of the united states
of america.

you are black.
you are history.

you rolled in on the
waves of the storm.

you want to save us.

you are the forty-fourth
president.

even in the shower.

even when you sleep.

and when you get angry
and scream and flail your arms.

you are the president
of the united states
of america.

even when you cry so hard
it cracks your face.

you are the president.
you are america's new mask.
you are you.

barack hussein obama.
forty-fourth president.
USA.

It
was always
the darkest part
of the ocean floor
where the sun's rays will
never
touch the
sand.

We all know you've
tried your
hardest.

But honestly, you could do better.

The only hard you've ever
really known is
down there in your
$300
pants.

You're just pounding and pounding,
trying to get to the top.

The top of what?

The world is round, you
idiot.

Who is responsible
for the sparks in your eyes
tonight, on the balcony,
leaning over the edge
to touch the blazing lights
of the troubled city below?

You're not wearing your cloak this time.
"You noticed?"
I did.

And when we read together
in bed on rainy mornings,
your accent is flawless,
while mine stutters and stumbles,
flattens the romance.

It's funny: I've lived in Paris;
you've never been, not once.

Yesterday, I knew you
inside and out, like the
backs of my blistered hands.

Today, we are strangers,
somehow.

oh murderous morning
razorsharp sunbeams
illuminating the dusted air
why would i want them made visible
these things that smother me?

birdcalls like sirens
wailing waxing waning
an endless cycle and the fire
is breathing the stale air.

shirt half off eyes half open
pounding visions to let fade
from behind the lids
we both knew i'd forget.

i always do.

my idol led me to his office
and shut the door behind us:
first glance, piles of paper, not unusual
but then, the glasses atop a teetering stack(!)
so i raised an eyebrow
and he grinned
it was a dare
put them on he said without speaking
so i did.
hesitantly, yes, but i did.

XRAY VISION i cried
shh he said with a finger to my lips
it's my secret and you can't let anyone know
of course not i said
then i shook my head in wonder
so this is how it's done
this is how you know
how you strip them down
they are naked and trembling
you poke and prod to find
the weak spots and then
you offer them to the world:
a subhuman sacrifice.

this turns me on i said
can we? please?
put them on
what do you see?
if i'm already bare
and willingly exposed
can you still pick me apart?
i sacrifice myself, does that
make you blind?

key twists in lock: the door, my
full-to-the-brim heart
swings eagerly open.

you conquer the gaping
space between us in a
single swift step, arms
open and trembling.

we twine together in
a silence thick with love
and collapse into a dream
of petals and dewdrops.

morning comes softly, glides
on a breeze so as to not
break the shimmering spell
of the night's glories.

i lift sunkissed lids to
beam upon your own
radiant face.

in these moments i know i am truly breathing.

Why does the world see me this way?
My insides on the outside and nothing hidden at all,
when I am only flesh and bone and a map of veins?

Blood flows through me;
chilled at the core but sizzling in my fingertips.
What I touch will char, yet I cannot thaw myself.

Clearly, this is self-reliance.
I wake only to dream of sleeping again,
and breathe only to shut off my wandering thoughts.

My mother taught me to loathe the bitterness
that she herself pushed upon me throughout the years.
I will never forgive her for that.

But Lord (who?)  knows I've come this far.
I refuse to be silenced; it is my turn to speak.
Smother me with your glistening teeth: I will march on.