"Was that your brother?"
the colorist asked me at Empire Video
a reference to a Christmas Party
where you came, my husband
He was the same guy
who said I could be a hair model
after 16 hours editing a spot for Pantene

Laughing together
how funny, to be in sync
Sync, sync: sound and picture
must be in sync
husband and wife as well

How when I saw you I would relax
and your sense of humor would
deconstruct any trouble
"When he was a child, he could make adults laugh,"
your Aunt said
and I believed it
what a gift

Troubled by my boss, "he looks like a used car salesman"
a smile, it was true, the last thing I'd think
taking him so seriously
So many times, you'd pick me up
your response would puncture
the bubble of fear and angst and heal it with laughter

After parties, our impressions
are the same
this person, that person
Howling in the streets over some dumb movie
or chance encounter
anything upsetting
you can cut to the quick
and pull out the ridiculous

My best friend
I had you
I trusted you completely
If only I could remember just that
There would be no trauma
and I'd go on
without so much fear
If only I'd seen just that side of you
I guess I must pretend

I wanna wisk you away to a Tropical Paradox
Run a Risk filled Forest Gump Chocolate Box

Wear your flip flops and your Crocs with Socks
We’re all in the matrix , so don’t give any Focks
Where if someone talks **** tell em to lick Rocks
Roosters tend to grow hard just like Fort Knocks

Soak up that Vitamin D while you ride for free
Try and hide those lies, while you Moisturize
Shampoo & condition me, with Pantene Pro V
Face mask your cries, with a Creamy Disguise

Throw me 21 salutes, I’ll catch them 22 times
Even a group of mutes, feel my spoken rhymes

burning pages.
epiphanies procured through the pages of a book.
let's burn the already ones read.
i doubt the meaning of life is within the confines of the downed pink capsules.
the hollow shell of a human form.
i keep validating it. chemical communication has every place here.
the warm. hands clickity clackety against the keys. because they are home.
furiously scribbling is the one organic anecdote.
throwing a verse down is much preferred to THROWING DOWN. which is what human nature gives on the tendency to fantasize about.
let's not quabble over semantics here. (and let's not mention fantasy).
i'll check for justification in the mirror image of my face in the bottom of the carrot-stick bag.
no such luck, the soul ain't there either.
WANT TO VERBALLY SPAR, BABY?
i don't think you, nor i have the ability. (actually i do, it's more your well-being i'm concerned about)
erstwhile you sit and wait for the first attack, you should think into purchasing some pantene.
2.99 at walgreene's.
i've forgotten what i've started for. so let's not quabble over semantics here.
the death of white roses are never wept over. it's expected.
(maybe a vase in the corner is quite befitting of the lovely token of hopelessness)
it's like a catch-22, it's like fighting a losing battle.it's winning something like a full paid scholarship to plumber school, or finding out your best friend is a **** on christmas mourning.
merry christmas.
one should be cautious in stealing public property. the owner hadn't left it out for the recycling. you should have read the label.
and you:

i'm done.

Times between night and mornin,
Just when the chill about sets in,
Limbs frantically search for that crumpled quilt
Increasing warmth and ahh sweet grogginess.

A dream floats in my blank sleep
You and me tootling along a forgotten, familiar street
In a battered old Hyundai Santro?? it is.
Twenty years of acquired cobwebs melt
Evoke fond memories and unexplored possibilities
Overlaid with a wild imagination, the images move in slow motion

Me driving, your gaze surveying the landscape
You are older and plumper, I have a beer belly and a bald patch
There is not much to say, or too much to say but no time.
Four Eyes frequently lock and search for something
Knowing it but daring not to say.

Your sultry liquid voice breaks into a song, an old Urdu ghazal,
Of obscure origin and meaning,
The notes glide and acquire shapes in your husky abused throat,
Silvery quicksilver, flowing, and always round  at the edges
Unfettered and undisturbed by the bumpy ride and noisy springs
Brings whole of creation in the Battered old Hyundai Santro Still.

The vocal vibrates and resonates in my bones and skull and in my soul
Stimulates humours I didn’t know exist
Eyes lock again, a mild smile is exchanged,
We understand each other
Know the limits and improbabilities
Its not going to be in this life time dear.

Let’s seal it with a kiss
An embrace exchanged over the gear levers and handbrakes
Oblivious to the barreling old Hyundai Santro
Your tiny ******* and Pantene scented hair
Your lips still perfect, soft, warm, moist and downy at the corners,.
Unfamiliar yet so familiar.

All of the little things I can fall in love with

We just didn't spend enough time in jeans and flannels
She had no idea what she was doing and she wasn't fooling anyone
She wasn't even trying
"This looks good," she said, halfway up the hiking trail
She laid her flannel out over a grassy clearing and promptly fell asleep

And he fell exactly where he stood
One drop of blood was exactly enough to relieve his soul from its duty of living
He was exactly at his breaking point and they knew it behind the trigger
Pointing exactly at the palm of his left hand

******* and surrender piggybacked off of each other

If she was the sun, then I was definitely getting my dose of vitamin D
(And a halfway decent tan for once)
Her hair looked like a Pantene commercial and her teeth seemed to be painted white

When I was a child, I thought that flowers died in the winter because they couldn't get water from the frozen earth
I must have ripped up half my mother's garden on the first cool day
I brought them inside, and drowned them in buckets of warm water
23 years later, my mother hasn't stopped laughing

School was out for the week, but I imagined that most of the kids from her class wouldn't go back at all
She asked for help, but we couldn't save her from nightmares or flashbacks
Couldn't even hold her hand through every single one
So her parents and her teachers are in therapy being told it wasn't there faults
But I know it wasn't mine

We made dinner on the stove from a box
She was laughing the whole time-
I told her to wait and watch the pasta while I stepped out for a minute
I set up candles in the living room in front of the TV
We sat on the floor in front of the couch, watching NCIS with candles and cheap ready meals

"This never has to end," I told her
We don't have to have to leave this bedroom
Her Christmas lights reflected off the whites of her eyes as she showed me point ballet in her pajamas
I was not a very effective partner, but this is what she was built for
And I was built to love her, one scene at a time,
One LED bulb
One shaky lift
I spun her like a little girl instead of a dancer

Before I left to walk to your music show in the courtyard,
I slipped the knife my boyfriend gave me into my dress pocket.
It was heavy enough to weigh down half the outfit, and
radiated something putrid or dissonant in that crowd
of flowers and sandals and paint and honey-chamomile
for the entire duration, but
I needed a reminder of who I am now.

Being near you at all was already a betrayal of myself
because now I guess I'm playing his type: the ******* girl--
the stereotype-smasher-badass-***** girl--
calling her a "girl" isn't even fair
because she chopped enough of her hair
to be Wyoming's worst "******" nightmare,
and she wears work boots and flannels and scars,
(and sweatshirts to cover my secret scrawny arms--)
She’s a piece-of-machinery girl,
a rachet-and-wrenched-myself-together girl,

and it took so ******* long for me to forge a metal exoskeleton
hard enough to smother this stupid gushy heart.

Because a heart only compromises the real **** I have to do in the real world--
not your fantasy world where no one has a job but
slurping your excess passion alone is somehow enough to sustain, and
the men sweep bundles of wild violets-- shooting straight out of the New York City pavement--
into their hands as gifts, and
their women smile and flip their Pantene-commercial hair in slow-motion, and
together the lovers paint poetry onto each other's chests in the dark, and
your long-expired promise of that love-- of your dream--
that you had me believing
still plunges deeper into my stomach than I ever planned it to and it feels like a white-hot
knife splitting me open from throat to bladder--

You came out to hug me when the show ended.
I walked home crying a hydraulic expulsion of the final remnants
of my old, foreclosed heart.
Then he was right there waiting for me at home, and it was so easy
to pretend.