Among dust bunnies collecting on the carpet of her bedroom are lullabies, matted into the seashell shaped ridges by eager toes.
Other mothers sing Rockabye Baby, but hers crooned the crash of ocean waves and the ballads of mermaids.
Memories like those sent shivers down her spine, cold fingered fairies dispatched to walk the tightrope of each nerve, triggering flashbacks of moment after moment.

Beneath a quilt of fallen oak leaves he found a baby hedgehog, infant bristles damp and lonely.
Some days, when it meandered curiously across half-written papers, its paws writing notes in a script he couldn't decipher, he regretted rescuing the handful of spines with the pale, inquisitive nose.
Leaves of muddied paper, though, became pages in a scrapbook, dedicated to moments more beautiful than he could fathom.

Following them were snapshots of sunsets over the lake, the first phrases from a concerto he adored, a polaroid of his fingers interlaced with hers.
Her palm met his without hesitancy, and the joy she felt reminded her of the mermaid's musings heard through the sleepy ears of a child.
On all sides it was warm and safe and fantastically real, simply because they decided it should be.

While she did say no the first time he asked her to marry him, it was only because to her marriage had grown stiff with age and its rusting hinges complained when she tried to add her own swing to its meaning.
He asked her again, of course, because she was the only person he'd ever met whose heart fit his jigsaw edges so perfectly, and this time she said yes.
Waits for the love, her mother told her; a fearless woman waits for love to ask twice.

On the winter solstice their son was born, whom they named Martin, because he thought it sounded courageous and she thought it sounded furry.
Distant waves tumbled as she sang her little one to sleep in the only way she knew how, and gave him hedgehog kisses with her eyelashes because butterflies are too delicate.
Dreams always came quickly and lingered in his mind, fantasies of whirling woodland dances and salty kisses from the wind.

They documented the unassuming; they tracked coincidence; they remembered the weight of every footstep and the cadence of every whispered "good night." They knew that even though they were obscured by the smoke of normality and stench of the future, every moment was unique. Among other things they found everything.

After each honey-dipped dispute the hapless toddler bounces on a squatter’s mattress,
Teething and drooling like an adorable zombie, gormlessly tossing chewed toys and causing a mess.
On a drenched bed drifting in a flooded car park, the infant paddles towards a collapsed lamppost using a G.I.JOE.
Strobing, the broken light dances in the gloomy water and animates the odd objects below.

Inquisitive, the primal child scales the desecrated metallic obelisk with caution.
Oily and perverse the rain-greased pole requires instinctive body contortions.
Briefly understanding the enormity of the ordeal the naïve kid starts to scream and clings,
Prays for mum, for help and repents for all the bad things,

He thinks he has done. He loses his grip and slides down, landing on his grimy float,
Skimming like a stone across the charged lake, he bounds over used nappies and punctured plastic bags in his boat,
And settles like a fallen petal. He is safe and apologetic.
Though he finds his feet and jumps ignorantly again. His capacity to learn is pathetic.

its the ded winter, nowhere in sight a life besides you and your infant you you exhume.
crying screaming and frozen tears rip off the face.
you die in no time youre sure of it.
baby making cry make you want to suffocate the sound. or child. or you.
no time til die.
you die, child die.....then two to exhume if one is to find,
after more make to burry and mourn the no-more.
youre a full person and the other a half .
......you...youyouyouyouyou..... do you eat the child??....
youve made before you can make more ..... but if you make it.
. . . . . . . . . . .  i promise not to search for nothing to find.
ded cowardice feed on a barely born suffering.
and out of breath. no mouth to mouth. i eat both what i find.
a hellish hunger froze over the deadened bodies. preserved and rotting.

So much to do about now lately!
It is said time is relative...so...
Relative to what I say?
Of course...relative to our state of mind!

Can a thought take me to heaven or last a thousand years?
Has anyone tried such an endeavor...Why can't it be me?

So I shall for now..Ha...Ha... I shall aim for your heart
and I shall use love as the method

Pretend for a moment that you are a newborn infant,
and you are precious and sacred and very fragile...
but you are infinite as long as you are treated and treat yourself
with respect to this precious, sacred, fragility...

Perhaps that is the secret to having the Infinite Moment!
It is so simple a child can understand it
I hope I don't ever forget..
This is my present to you..

Cashier’s line, foot tapping, texting, heavy sigh

The steady beep of the checkout

The kid in the baseball cap in front of me

His headphones don’t contain the music

“I don’t wanna be a solider mamma, I don’t wanna die”

The bus whines as the light shifts from yellow to red

A woman coughs, violently choking on years of tar, she looks around anxiously

And rights herself with a casual flick of her cigarette

A couple briefcases walk by, donning blazers and red ties

“Ya gotta be the best if ya wanna make it there. Brilliant! Boom boom boom!”

A woman sits inside a cafe, the spot where people do their people watching

Instead her infant captures her attention, cooing at the pink bundle in the stroller

“Yes you are the cuuutest little thing aren’t you, aren’t you?”

A man flicks his wrist to glimpse the time while he pumps gas

Silent, wanting to be elsewhere, that’s why he’s filling up his tank

A swarm of tourists, each waiting for the others to advance so that they might snatch the prime spot for a photograph

Their voices melt into one excited static

Cars honking at bicyclists and bicyclists yelling at pedestrians who yell at bicyclists

The river flowing quickly beneath my feet planted on the bridge

The Earth alive, rotating beneath the river

The Earth hurtling through the galaxy, through the universe

A passerby scolds me for not moving

Hurrying along

Heat waves in iced water.
Chilled moonshine on the scorching sun.
Blades of green earth on a long-lit fire.
Fresh-water creatures in the salty sea.

A glow, brighter than, and in the ocean of night.
A rock in the sky and birds that can't fly.
A whale on the beach with the sea out of reach. And Blossoms in a dark room.

An infant on his feet soon to fall into defeat.
Ever-greens in winter and ghosts in mid-day. Lungs underwater and gills in air. Like drugs in one's system that slowly pass through.

Owls at dawn, daylight birds in nocturnal song and eyes staring at the sun.
A snake on smooth surface and a worm on the rough.
Like a house cat in the wild mountains and rivers in suburban territory.

Like pillows stuffed with stones and a child with evil inside.
Free spirits in a cage and prisoners freed.
Like a stick in quick sand, a weighted mass floating on a light surface.
Like a dog, a cat and rat peacefully below one roof.

Like a beaten lion and a victorious antelope.
Like the colour of green against the shadow of black. Like hopping on concrete and civil wars. The hood in a college girl and a college girl in the hood.

Like curtains in the morning and yawning windows at dusk. Like an aged oak in the midst of a flood, like a water lily in the days of drought.
Like a forgotten pearl in a waste dump and fake gold on a woman's index.

Like a loud song muted by those who fear volume and a soft one forced to yell above its pitch.
Like a ladybug on a pesticide- poisoned crop.
Like a polar bear in the African Sahara.

Like a camel by the coast, ants with no work and busybodied sloths. A scarf in summer and crop tops in autumn. Plants dying in September and coming back to life in June.

Like a written-on page on a brand new day and wordlessness when that day is old and weary.
Like a torch at midnight. Like cellphones in a filled bath tub.

Like a fat man sprinting and the turtle losing the race. Like a homeless mother in a mansion.
Like a teenage girl with no tongue, and oppressors with no power.

Like David and Goliath, like a insane Albert Einstein. Like a flame on the ocean floor. Like me in this world, I shouldn't be, but I can be and I will be.

Days pass, my love, and I'm afraid of t'ese feelings,
Which at first startled and surprised me,
Solidified but threatened me,
Hastened my heartbeat-and lingered stubbornly, at my wit.

I was treading down in my stilettos;
And all, today, had been silent hitherto-
Whenst I but caught about thee;
More charming than the breezy day itself, and more free.

Ah, thee! How I longest to silence thee forever,
Thee to whom delights my shelter;
Thee to whom every lie shalt be truth,
and to whom all dreary ages shalt be youth.

How I longest to murder thee;
to strangle and behead thee,
so that thou shalt no more haunt me-
just like these feelings that twitch, and dazzle me-
forever and ever; like a bewitching, yet sadistic misery.

Shalt I hate them, my love?
Shalt I depict but mock all them?
Ah, tease me-o, tease me, my love!
Catch me about those rippling grass,
Which like a bucket of green water,
Bloom and flirt with the startled bush in mass,
before autumn greets, and their brightness shalt alter.

Alter to falseness, and die in paleness;
Before they scramble up again in vain,
And retreat to my dreams like a dizzy villain;
In a wail of discord, and its lake of cold madness.

Ah! They hate me! And whenst thou seest not,
They seethe at me, they floweth in my brain;
they corrupt me vilely, and ruineth my restraint;
And my loving heart shalt they never defend,
for instead of hate, they grant it love;
and tempt it to kiss-t'is tiny heirloom of mine-
of thy picture, all repeatedly; over and over again.

Ah, thee, to whom my heart shalt only be a burden;
to whom the bleakest of winds only bounces, and goes;
to whom that this earth seems to have no throes-
Just like all those virgin birds who chirp about in yon garden.

Oh, thee, who looketh pristine in whichever garment,
and looketh still a darling atop whatever mute soil,
but safely comeliest amongst t'is Thursday night's infallible moonlight;
and altogether stirring to every glance-whilst inviting to each lurking sight.

Ah, thee, whose heart still, that lucky lady possesses,
and whose smiles she salutes and gladly welcomes;
I wonder whether thou shalt ever know how my heart is obsessed-
and that how thy love for her is my karma, my devil,
and the most undesirable-yet resentful, total sham!
Oh, for the gracious is ungracious indeed, in her eyes,
and peace is but to her a mere tempest of fights;
for to her, immortal are her shallow rights,
And eternal are her breaths, and thus, her tidiest lies.
I hope she shalt be soon swallowed into this earth,
and bludgeoned to death, within its eternal, whining hearth.
She shalt be sent to Hell, for all her discordant sins,
poor creature, as poor she was, whenst alive-to her kin.
But still poorer, poorer me who adoreth thee like this,
Who forever longs to taste thy sweet breaths-and kisses,
I am like an infant who seeks to walk and drink of the stars;
Without knowing the sky is indeed boundless, and strenuously far.
I am who never grows, but stupidly screams, and urges for the most
I, myself, who shall always be strangely desolate, and lost.
Ah, t'is poor self of mine! For canst I only dreamest, and seekest, and whine
Whilst her hair is in thy arms, smelling like sweet-and dreamless sleep,
Buried deep in thy charms, with her heart engaged in thine,
And unawakened by the night, as to one delight so deep.
I am envious, envious, envious-and for thy know, t'is envy is perilous,
and should I die, my spirit wouldst remain awake, and forever curious.
I shalt be wand'ring voicelessly like a fishy ghost,
Be unseen foliage in autumn, and be winter's plodded frost,
I shalt be confined in my own confinement,
and flustered away, in my own unblessed, refinement.

Yet still, nothing is more stately than my feelings;
and this picture of thee-ah, as always, solemn and so honoured in my arms.
Ah, thee, let me invite thee here-and show thee how tears are in fact, the truest charms;
and how pains are undeniably our breath-though faked, and dried away-
by unceremonious adoration and hate-
but still alive like we are, among th' very livings.

Ah, and so my feelings are dangerous-
for they have no soul; are bound not by wings.
As thou smileth to me-they smile not, but groweth serious-
and their seriousness, in return, bringst not one single uttering.
My thee, my thee, but if thou art not my fate,
how couldst I call thee always, my salvation?
In my heart thou art not merely my mate;
thou art worth all my warmth, regrets, and thus holiest temptation.
How am I to procure advancements, my sweet lad-
Should we hath been 'lone, had we never met?

With thee I hath been in love,
and for whom my feelings are tough.
Still I believe loyalty is in thee,
and honour in me-is whenst I loveth thee only.
My thee!
O-my thee, by whom these long-living trepidations
shalt no more be meaningful,
as how all other's admirations
shalt become unfelt, and sorrowful.

Feelings, feelings, o my incarcerated feelings
My tears are thy soul; that shape and form thy whole
To live and love whilst these flames are strong,
to whose lips only, I am insane-but clearly belong.

carefully I cradled the garden seeds
depositing them in the incubating
warmth of the earth's black womb
then buried my heavy heart there for a season
I thought of my cousin Roger who had just
relinquished the magical breath that animates
all living beings in this universe
it didn't matter that he had abused his body and
was an emotional wreck most of his brief life
more like a brother, fond memories of innocent play,
mischievous fun and a generous, loving persona
poked through fresh and green
like tender infant shoots
these were the perennials, the lasting bouquets
that could never be laid to rest
the fluffy double orange hoop skirts of the hibiscus
dancing in the corner
and the African daisies laughing purple faces
make me smile
I could feel my cousin's Spirit whispering in
the gentle Florida breeze
"hey, cuz, life goes on.......forever!"