how many coins do we have? you count
and I’ll see; call out as you count, tell me
how much exactly; and then how many days
it will take us to…Little Boy with his crutches
can buy a new one, maybe
and a new shawl for mama…
throw it, one coin against the other as you count;
I love to hear the clink of coins…ha, ha –
you know, sometimes
I even lick a coin to see if it’s pure…mama says I’d get sick
if I did that…yeah, certainly not as sweet on the tongue
as the grapes and fruit we sell, but certainly tastes well
to me in my mind
have you another coin in the other palm?
this day a Lord’s servant bought
some grapes in the street corner;
she said it was for her master’s table,
and our grapes were glowing and fresh
much as what her master loves…and she was kind to me…
did you count the other coin? sometimes I wonder, you know,
how many coins we will need till the end of our lives,
like to the time, say, when Old Boko died last autumn –
how many coins will it take to see us to that moment?
Yes, and of course, how many grapes
would we need to sell to collect that amount?

I'm tipping myself over to encourage response from deep in your throat
the wind breaks over in ignorance of my spastic limbs
illicit - I want to stop and tell you how I used to pull out my own teeth
and now I would do anything to squeeze myself in the gaps between yours
tell me you love me
feel me
need
me

I wake in the dim light of morning mumbling my own name

It all started out so innocently
A thrift store here, a garage sale there
Anyways, Lord knows how bad I needed
The chartreuse rug of that polyester bear

It goes perfect in my kitchen
Though I can barely see the floor
Just need to move a few piles that grew
From me buying trinkets by the score

Some say I'm a crazy hoarder
I've seen the show and I'm not that bad
Anyway who doesn't need
A stuffed albino Siamese cat

Then there's all the broken plates of china
That I got for a steal
If I ever do find my stove again
I'll use them for my next meal

Why ask why I save all these milk jugs
You never do know when
A herd of cattle will be passing through
The middle of my den

You may say crazy hoarder
I may say I think not
When I look at pile after pile
Of all the treasures that I've got

If you ever care to visit
Just step over this, crawl over that
Till you come to that little itty bitty empty spot
Where we can sit back and relax
And have a little chat,
over this this and that,
maybe why it is ducks quack,
is it brains that they lack,
that my friend is whack...

Crazy Hoarder?!?
Don't make me laugh...

I must determine when I need to let you go,
and when I need to just hold close.
But the voices in my head,
send conflicting messages.
And the words that you speak,
Don't help me in the least.
I won't give up on us,
We hold something precious.

I am struggling with the Choice of words
The best to use to develop my Researh Objectives
To determine
To assess
To examine
To establish
To explore
To develop
To distinguish
To highlight
To deduce
If you'd love to help...
please help me choose the best three
only need three to describe...

Whenever you're feeling down.
You just need a clown.
to release you from frown.
living in this wicked town.
to mask your loneliness,
to free up your heavy bones.
mesmerize you in pure bliss,
in his talkative humorous tones.
to tickle your thoughts,
and pass through your worries.
to make you feel at home,
inhibitions will be buried.
with this magical tricks
the medicinal antics.
talents he mastered and shared
jokes you found candid.
never a single dull moment,
a clown is all you need.
happiness that a friend, acquaintance,
or lover can never give

I don't want success. I want significance. I yearn to touch everyone. Explore their deepest fears, darkest secrets, most passionate desires, and beautiful weaknesses. My heart cries to save us all. I can't live for science. For math. For facts. I live to watch you breathe while you sleep. I live to stroke your spine and reassure you that it will all be okay. I live to trace your scars with my fingertips and leave my swirling prints on your skin forever. I live to give you hope for the present and future even though the past still glimmers menacingly behind your eyes and threatens to tear you apart. You are imperfect, and to me, you couldn't be more perfect. You have a purpose. You are beautiful because you don't believe it. I want you to know I love your every flaw. I love your every failure. I will go to the end of the world to rekindle your inner fire, and that is all I need.  Now I know that success will never make me whole. I only crave to kiss your wounds and make You while again. I ache for you to understand you are significant and I want to touch your life in an invaluable way that resonates in your dreams, thoughts, and hopes. I am intelligent, that will die along with my appearance and worldly accumulations. What will survive? What will distinguish me in this infinite circle of life-ominous and inescapable? I live to discover my purpose. I will fight to save you from a mortal fate six feet under, and that alone will save me. It is the greatest thing I could ever ask for.
Darkness will fall but we will not. I always thought my most destructive fault was my obsession with fixing the broken, but now I know it is my only chance to overcome the  monotonous pattern of life and death.

just once i want someone to tell me they need me
just once i want someone to beg me to stay, to not leave them

give me my heart back

They say every seven to ten years you replace all your cells
you shed your skin like a snake, in the night, making dust

these dust motes swirl, a swirling in mourning of stirring,
light filters through glasses on a table, in another's home.

I think of you often, and now, presently, I lie wondering
if you are okay. If you will be okay, if you love me still.

I wonder how badly I broke your heart, and if I will feel it
echoing, if and when you cry out, for me, from little sleep.

I wonder if you will remember my name as good, as clean,
and whole in your mind, untarnished by devoted cynicism

I wonder when we meet for coffee, if you will ask me back,
I wonder what I will say. We said we would meet, will we?

Should we? Would it help us with anything? Will it hurt?
I'm afraid if you hear one word from me, you will unravel

like a spool of film, with you going over and over and over
every memory and analyzing what happened where, when.

I can't tell you where I stopped loving you. I remember one
night, and many of them, each all unforgettable secrets, that

I will tell to my own daughters, maybe, if I am so lucky, of
when we saw the shooting California stars. They were ours.

But, I will not tell them about the night we spent together,
you watched as I cried clutching--scarring--skin with nails,

you didn't know what to do. And then we ran out of things,
and I didn't know if I liked you, or even if I liked me, really.

But, I still hear you, sometimes, with a ripped and raw voice,
that screamed, like an animal, that you only wanted me! No!

I didn't know what I wanted, but, I knew I couldn't stay,
that is how I felt, after so long, with the city impending,

pressingly. I felt forced to stay. I left because I couldn't.
I left you, alone, because I didn't know if I wanted you.

I wanted what I have now. I wanted art. I wanted the city.
I wanted new boys, girls, drinking, laughing, and kissing.

I wanted to know the taste of others that weren't you, and
what it felt like to truly be unsafe, alone, and dependent

on nothing but my own wits, gumption, and self esteem,
I have it. It is rough, but it is more worth it to me to know.

I remember all the weekends in bed, sweetly spent tucked
in the crook of your shoulder, the smell of your neck, us all

talking and laughing, enamored with each other and feeling
of love and euphoria. We'd tell each other our futures, and

we said we'd meet in Paris in ten years, laughing bitterly at
what we all know; that our relationship will come to an end.

That's the thing about first loves, that you are sure of an end.
You were a better man to me than others, that I know surely.

I did not need the roughness of a cruel person to know it then,
and having felt the cruelness of others, I know the real sounds.

But I do not think I can return to you, and be the same woman
that you once wanted, needed, and saw. I am just not the same.

Something in me grows, feverishly, and maybe we will meet,
but I am moving fervently, and too quickly for your nostalgia.

You would be chasing a whiff from a stale perfume bottle,
and a wisp of a will that is just barely out of longing reach.

So my question is, still, will we ever meet again, and if so,
where and when will we each be, and will you want a we?

Yes, I am your lover, but I won't ever be your friend.
We will never be more than we have ever been.
I've better writing down these words in repentance of my sins.
There's no need to be alarmed; this merely ends where it begins.

No, you're not my lover, but you'll always be my friend.
We will never be as much as we've already been.
You've forced on me this distance and I will break before I bend.
There is cause to be alarmed; you've severed ties that we can't mend.