Two lovers mime at each other
from opposite sides of an icy pool
as autumn paints lady Gaia's face with fire-color
The brisk air hangs waiting,
and you,
from the second story window of a cottage on a hill
feel close to that silent still
She with flowers in blonde locks, flowing like music beneath the surface
He with bronze on his brow, matching her, but never quite perfect
You grip the arms of the grainy wooden chair by the window,
Begin to nervously dig in with those fingernails.
You see ripples synthesize as they try to kiss
But their lips can never touch
The clouds churn and the wind's a guttural howl
Now that crystal pool grows turbulent, the pair like two crashing chandeliers
And all the while you're realizing
You can't tell which one is on your side...
Both?
And all was still again.
What if
Your life is just a work of art
A masterpiece painted
By some big brain
With double-folding sentience?
Do you ever consider
The beauty of the detail(s)?
What if that weird coincidence
That happened today
Really wasn't a coincidence at all?
What if there are no coincidences?
What if when we go to sleep
Our brainwaves change
Because our minds go elsewhere
And it's best we just forget
When we wake?
What if reincarnation is real
And just at a universal scale?
What if life didn't originate on Earth?
What if there's something huge about
Deoxyribonucleic Acid
That we don't yet understand?
What if everything is a computer simulation
And everything above the first dimension
Is just a folded-up illusion?
What if we're not the only ones out there?
What if one time
At some random point
Along your vision's axis
You stared right at a planet
That harbored life?
Or even a star system?
What if religion and science collapsed in
On each other?
And what does this whole Eye business
Really mean?
What if the multiverse
Is more connected
Than we ever imagined?
What if God is a number? (a chuckle)
What if God is all the numbers
And combinations of them
And transmutations
And possible functions
And every algorithm
Every discordance and solution?
What if fate and free will
Don't really hate each other,
And it's just a game they play?
What if, just as we imagine characters,
Scenes and fiction
And paint them with words, sounds, and pigments
Our lives and interactions
Are painted by some society of higher beings,
In some fractalesque twist?
What if perception and emotional value
Are just the icing on the cake
And they are what makes life more
Than numbers and figures?
What if art
Is more than human?
What if the magical spells we once dreamed of
Have become our reality-
Songs, pictures, symbols flashed on the TV...
What if it really is like good guys vs. bad guys
And it's all just whispered above your head
Just within earshot?
What if it's not so black and white
And our only true villain
Is the stupidity of the mob?
What if it's somewhere between
Like it usually is?
What if we were always happy
Or always sad?
Would there really be a difference?
What if you could escape the circular nature
Of everything?
What would you see, looking down?
What if every system is circular
Because they're all gears
In some big surreal machine?
What if you're dreaming?
Wake up!
Nope, still here.
What if you're not dreaming at all
And it's really just that strange?
What if everything that could happen
Did happen,
And you are only allowed to see one of each?
What if the laws of physics
Are only so set in stone
In this universe
But there are others that vary?
What if the speed of light
Is the universal speed of time?
What if I'm actually dead
And this is just a virtual world
And I'm living through a computer?
What if reality is a very complicated computation?
What if I woke up as someone else tomorrow morning?
Would I even realize it?
What if one of my poems caused two people to meet
and fall in love? that'd be cool
What if one of my poems accidentally somehow set off
A chain of events that killed someone? that's weird and sad
What if gravity were as strong as magnetism
Or the other forces?
We'd surely have no planes
And getting up in the morning would suck even more
What if for once you were grateful and happy to wake up in the morning?
Ooh, got you with a tinge of guilt din't I?
What if the whole thing was a joke and no one likes getting up after a nice rest?
What if looks didn't affect judgment so much?
What if this is your very last breath?
If so, look out-
What if my imagination didn't have a bottom?
What if the act of believing in something
Made it true?
What if my red was your blue?
What if you could see tenfold more colors then most humans
Because you had an extra type of cone in your gene code?
What if the very fundamentals of science you were taught in school
Were mass-spread so no one could know how strange the universe really is?
What if the moon landing was fake?
What if conspiracies don't really affect you that much in the end?
What if there was an underlying pattern of questions and statements
Following a free-flowing logical train here?
What if it just crashed?
What if when the light went off on your webcam
That didn't mean it was inactive?
What if you had something to hide?
What if they're out to get you?
What if they're everywhere?
What if it's way over your head
And it's time to get out of the house?
What if Uncle Ben never got shot?
What if Tony Stark is just a friggen' badass genius dude wonder?
What if some levity never hurt anyone, but what if it did?
What if some guy was telling a joke, not paying attention
And he fell and broke his left arm?
I bet it's happened on numerous occasions.
And statistically, probably more if you change it to 'right'!
What if you didn't help that old lady cross the street?
What if the old lady never crossed the street
And she just sat there forever like a lost puppy
Doesn't it just make you want to cry?
What if you were sitting on that thing you're looking for the whole time?
What if your life is a TV show
It's all staged, Truman!
What if I'm not real
And a secret artificial intelligence project
Wrote this to test how convincing it is?
I promise I'm not but you have no way of knowing!
What if some of you start to suspect me of being a robot?
What if in some ironic twist of fate that made someone crazy obsessive about it
And writing it led to my very death?
What if I'm just here for the ride
And I don't have time to worry about things like that?
My eyes are getting heavy...
As much as they tell me
I need to focus.
I need to concentrate...
And leave the la-la-land dreamscape
Of my head,
I'm proud to even
I m a g i n e.
They think we are
too young.
If you go up to your parents,
take a deep breath and then say
all in a rush, as to not lose your courage:
"Hey mom and Dad, I think I'm gay."
They'll throw away this
huge thing you just said
dismissing it to be just a phase,
but it's that "you're too young to know better"
thing that gets me every time.
State that you just want a boyfriend
to a little old lady
she'll tsk and shake her head and state
"thirteen's too young for boyfriends"
just because we're younger than you
does not mean we are stupid,
we know who we are,
we know who we love,
and age has nothing
to do with it.
i am a goddamned lady.
and you can bet your ass
that i will dress
i will speak
i will act
however the fuck
i please.
he makes his rounds down by the 59th Street Bridge:
one leg bends, the other stays straight.
you can't miss him, he's darker than night‒
pasty white lips, coffee cup jingling,
and a fresh clean suit to really catch your eye.
"shit, look at that guy!"
I've heard people say.
he's been at it for years,
rattling that damn cup once the light
turns yellow.
it must be working,
there's always a different suit.
throw in rush hour and bridge cleaning
and you know it falls like rain.
but one day I saw him walking along 31st Street,
pacing, hustling, both knees bent.
he moved better than I did,
dress shoes and all.
I pulled up and honked:
"feeling good today, huh buddy?"
pasty lips kept it at full stride,
rounding the corner with
no shame in his step.
it wasn't long before I got stuck at that light again.
of course, out came the hobble and the sound of loose change.
I believe the lady in front even handed him a bill.
and when he finally made it over to me,
the only thing I could do was grin.
a guy like that, you just have to
let him go.
from Dizzied By Chance: Poems of a Fringe Existence (2013)
When you're in love defying fate comes so easily
Bound into your own hand-crafted fantasy
The difference between angels and demons becomes your discrepancy
And day light becomes the darkest thing to see
But we still love like tomorrow
Nothing's going to become different
We're not just going to wake up
And suddenly be ignorant
We're already way too far
There's no more blood just a scar
And maybe I'm afraid
To lift this double-sided blade
Oh I want you so painfully
You're the angel God sent me
And all I could do is make a demon of you
'Cause helping you's the only thing I couldn't do
Took a knife to your innocence and went right through
And now I can't get over you
Because I'm the one who's mistaken
But I'm the only one who can see
The beast I made of this beauty
Because I made a demon of
The angel that God sent me
And now I want to go back in time
I'll make whatever sacrifice
Even if it costs my life
Because my love run through his veins
And that's what made all the pain
Because I bound him up in chains
So light me up in a burst of flames
Because I'm the one to blame
I've covered my angel in tainted stains
Just never cry out my name
And I'll be okay
And now I can't get over you
Because I'm the one who's mistaken
But I'm the only one who can see
The beast I made of this beauty
Because I made a demon of
The angel that God sent me
Our Lady of Chains
There is romance to the bee, sweet honey and flowers. I am a flower. The flower head lady on bathroom stalls of bars, naked, drawn in chalk. I speak not of beauty, and I want nothing sweet. In my dreams I taste the ocean. I am a flower. I need the bee to land on me, to grace me. Because the bee completes a vital part of my life. I am human because I am afraid. Because the bee will sense my fear and it will sting me and it will die. I am a masochist because I want it to sting me. I want it to hurt. I am sorry because I know that I will take something vital away from it. It will leave a sliver of its essence inside of me, that’s just the way the world works. I am afraid of taking that thing on, it is really nothing more than a fragile cone of cells, and my skin will absorb and destroy it before it can pollinate anything as sweet as the flower. All of these things are true, true and beautiful lies. Because I am not a flower. And yes, I want to be stung. And I am not afraid of that pain, in fact I will relish in it. I am not the pretty flower nor the sweet honey. Maybe I am the stinger of the bee. A sharp pang, thorn and swollen flesh, and maybe a bruise that will ache and yellow. There will be anger that blossoms out of fear and the cold clear rush that brings life into every forgotten cell of the body; these are the things that belong to the stung. And who among us does not long to be stung?
I am his lady
and he is my lord
My bodyguard
my protector
an important part of my world
His embrace is the
only place I feel safe.
His every changing eyes
put me in a trance
and hold me captive
His smile is so irresistible
It makes me want to kiss him
It feels so normal
the feeling of his chest
against my head as he
pulls me into his arms.
My heart slowly but surely
becoming completely his.
I cant imagine life without him
Not even for a second
I crave to feel his presence around me.
its scary how easy
those three little words
slip from my mouth
But I mean them
every time
Because he is my lord
And I am forever his lady
A desperate look at my pocket watch,
my lady in waiting —angry at her little boy
long gown and a long face and oh, I cannot stay
to answer the calls of another young girl
lifting her dress above her ankles to chase after me
through the poppy fields, down the rolling hills
"Oh, Mr. White Rabbit!" she sings to me as I run
For I am quite behind schedule as it is, you see
"I'm late, I'm late!" I cry in return as I make a mad dash
Down, down, down the rabbit hole I go,
though she is sure to follow.
I wrote this a few months ago on a flight across the country. Not my best, but it healed me a bit
Thinking about you doesn't get any easier and even at 30,000 feet in the air the feeling you left with me somehow manages to suffocate me, through twenty different layers of clouds and pressurized cabins. The lady sitting next to me has a sad look in her eyes. Maybe she is suffering through some kind of heartbreak herself, just like me. She orders her coffee black. I want to reach out to her and hold her hand, but it's probably too cold, and she might jerk away from my touch, the same way you did that day when you left. She smells like cheap perfume and the lies of lovers she has tried too hard to forget.
I wonder about jumping right out this plane right now. I wonder if I'd land with a splat and if a nice young man would arrive with a broom and pan, sweep me up, and discard me into the nearest trash can, like they do in the carnivals. Would I regret it the moment my feet left the edge of the plane? Would I get the same feeling in my stomach on the way down as I did when we were together? I think I'd only jump if I were holding your hand.
I wrote “I miss you” in a too big sharpie across the front of my notebook on Tuesday. Colored it in blue because there’s not enough green to feel much else when you're not around. Two hours to go and my entire life is falling down around me. (Leave me be leave me be leave me be.) I want to be the space that water fills between your toes and hidden among the things that keeps your rusty heart beating. But I can't be the oil that makes your wheels keep spinning. At best I'm the hot hot steam that keeps your hands from burning and bleeding. You don't want me and you never fell in love with me. You fell in love with words I learned to recite and looks I knew when to give and this carcinogenic smile.
Apologies don't sound as true as they should and I never really say what I mean. I'm just as fucked up as you. And these are words carved into walls of abandoned asylums and painted on canvases with blood in lieu of paint and this is the only way I know how to say that I know what you're going through and what you've been through and how sorry I am that I can't be everything you expected of me.
