I used to scratch my arms so much
that I would bleed,

Incidentally, when I'm feeling small
my arms get really itchy.

But I just crossed an ocean
on a jet-plane that fit

hundreds of me's.
And I didn't feel small.

I saw monuments that you
can see from space,

I walked over cobblestones
of the eternal city,

seeing the span of time
outstretch through my every day,

I ate food that
traveled millennia to arrive in my stomach,

And I didn't feel small.
Contrarily,

I felt the tiber plowing through
my wine-colored waterways,

My shoulders adapted their posture
to the lean of the Singelgracht,

I stared Vesuvius in the eye,
standing upon its ashen stillborn city.

Yet the itch never
came. Flying back

To my little pond, I wondered
If there would be enough room to

Fit the new me.
And step by step,

I tip-toed back to the bed
I thought had been left

Untouched in my absence.
But when I laid my head down,

I turned into Alice,
Drowning in my sheets,

They had gone back to my pillows,
And invited a stranger in,

Stretching out my space to where
Only they could fill it just right.

And now I’m small enough to see
Bed bugs, nibbling their way up

And down my shrunken arms.
I ponder over the possibilities

Of charms being mixed in with
Grapes, aged with cheese,

Deliciously tricking me into
Believing all of this was good

For a growing girl.
As I call up to the giants

Who used to be my height,
I recognize they can only hear me

Via echoes, a subdued volume
Of my former cries.

Only being as small as a pest,
Can I see how the molecules of

Matter really do shift,
A best friend can

Neither be created
nor destroyed,

Only moved about, shifted
From one sleep-mate

To another.
I sit with the bed bugs

I do not itch anymore,
I am the itch.

She took my voice and split it in half
Found the the closest body and laid my
Template over someone else's chords,

So now,

When I roar laughter at good timing
She is fed only half of her fill

She looks away quickly
She turns away hungry

The bare pads
of her toes
thumped

across
the photo-faded
tiles

Fingertips
outstretched
at full attention

Precious enough
to catch
the kiss

only
mama's lips
could gift

She walked
away
slowly

taking
great
care

exhibiting
to all who
didn't know

the only thing
she knew to
treasure

The rise and fall of our music seemed to synthesize into the light of the room. Our voices seemed to grow inside of us, padded with memories and laughter, growing full with the alcoholic nourishment, until all at once, it would bubble over into a crescendo. It was sharp and soft, harsh and tender, filling our ears with colors we had forgotten to remember in the corpse of the last few days. The staccato bite of reality brought the symphonies down to piano sobs that lulled the night into its dream. The room had a haze, golden in its familiarity, but the tune on the books was not quite right, the time signature gone. The rhythm was unsure; even the conductor pacing wildly about, looking up only to hear the echo of a waltz he once danced to in jubilee, with the promise of a life ahead. The music was now faded, on a greyscale, just like the wedding album. Only he could hear the melodies that had pulled him beyond the brink of love, under the threshold of its great fortissimi. He was content to have it play as the score to his remaining years, muffled and muddled, refusing to rest in his harmonious love affair. Unfamiliar with his own melody, his voice was shy, shaking, and broken. The audience sat, waiting to hear the sounds that could come from the maestro, straining in a beg to hear hope.

I’ve heard you talk about people from your past. I’ve seen your eyes stare off into traffic, never even blinking as their hollow names march out of your mouth. I’ve felt a cold air blow through the distance between you and them, the blood in your heart no longer pumps into their severed arteries. The skin of that part of you has gone grey in pallor. Your memories are stiff in rigor mortis, no longer pumping with thoughts of tomorrow. Instead of laying those memories to bed for another day, you bury them in their graves, only allowing them to become unearthed when someone wants to ***** their hands to find something to grab on to, something to plant themselves in.

I wish I would have known then
That I was digging my own
Place of Unrest.

I walked into our chapel
shoulders back,
head high,
dignified.

No Catholic shame
forced my eyes
to the mosaic aisle

Trodden Over
by my Sandaled feet,

It was a feast day,
praising God
with our laughter
and shared
beneficence.

We joined
in joyful prayer,
receiving each other's
sacrament
with the reverence
of saints

but just as I sang
the psalms the loudest
there came
an unholy silence,

Believing I was being
tempted,
I fell to my knees,
contemplated
your wonder

waiting for your return
to your
prodigal lover;

squandering our
sacred time,
not counting the blessings of
our moments of grace.

I hung upon
my silent cross,
weeping into my
wine-soaked rag

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani  

Descending into
Despair,

Waiting for
an Easter
that I swore
had been prophesized,

Even upon your
high holy
return,

you seemed resurrected,
and yet I not saved.

I felt like Moses
on his day of death
beholding
the promised land
covenanted by
souls

and yet
remaining in
this desert
thirsty for
the wellspring
that seemed to be sitting
behind your eyes,
the water that would
quench
my forever thirst.

Despite the ache
in my dried mouth,
I'd find
the will
to stand upon my feet,
tired of relying on
a charitable heart's
sympathies
as my means of
living.

But I found
that I was
praying for
too much
from you

and I fell upon
my knees again,

wondering if
humility is meant
to leave you feeling
this broken.

And so begins the litany
of sacrifices

wondering

if you are my
love made flesh
why it is I who is

scourged,
stripped of dignity,
nailed to a cross
that I had brought here
myself

Mumbling words out
to a silent heart
that I know
hears me.

Thinking that surely
our death
will meet me soon.

But by
the clever grace of
the devil

I continue,
finding life
that should have
diminished
at two o' clock.

Is Hannukah
not
supposed to be
a celebration?

Because while burning
in this modest
Menorah lifestyle,

sacred
and
devout.

I find faith
in you

and have been shepherded
to no redemption,

but only the
salty pillars
of one who trusts
in gods
created by another God.

And upon this realization,
I rush to confession,
knowing my worship
of false idols
is not over.

As I remember
our love
as beautiful
and mighty,

I'm forced
also to remember
that
Lucifer, too,
fell when things were at
perfection.

Try as I might,
I must turn my face away,

with the hope
that something
greater

truly does await
for one
who loved paradise,
body and soul,

with the finality
of resurrection.

There was a tale of three.

A he, a she, and a me.

He had eyes,
Projector screens,
Reflecting the films you play in your head.

She, a Hollywood queen,
Hair as gold as her heart,
A sucker for romance,
Caught by his flashbulb smile.

Me, the screenwriter,
Knowing the business enough
To recognize the mechanics
Behind the greatest actor
In the world.

Award winning half truths
That I could swear were written by me
Find their other halves
Written in starlight
Shooting from the mouth of he,

The lifetime achievement of
She
Limited to their happily ever after.

Me, playing back over footage
Replaying the scene unfolding between them,
Trying to hear a romantic score,

But rather being bored
By the actor's lazy gestures,
Me, being deafened by the silence
Of this pantomime.

She, while skilled at book work,
Had simply been miscast
By he, who had not yet planned his end scene.

There is a temptation within Me,
To write myself into her part,
But I know,
This show is not about me.

She was not the wrong actress,
Just simply playing a part
Diverting from action.

She froze the plot,
So they existed as pictures,
Perfect in pixels,
Worth a thousand words,

Only no one would ever speak them,
Potential untapped.

I gaze at the screen,
Drifting to sleep in boredom

Being woken at any sign
of the screen going
Dark,

Only to have their starlight,
Lull me back
Into the writer's dream.