Arise, go to work,
Best shoes, clean shirt.
No boots, nice tie.
No tools, learned to lie.

Sales, sales for sale’s sake.
Why be a builder when you can be a snake?
Office, coffee, ***** looks and sneaks,
Hide from bosses between the breaks.

The weekly crush, looking back, taking measure.
Silent heartbreak from a dismissive gesture.
Nothing lost and nothing gained.
Gimme a shovel, this work’s a pain.

Work? What work? Sitting typing?
Listening to clients always griping.
It’s my fault, they say, for telling the wrong lies.
A P45 and no goodbyes.

I lied to them but never to you,
What? You’re leaving me? Bully for you.
I’ll stay here, make lots of cash.
There’s nothing left but a square of hash.

Work? You work?
What’s that? Tell me!

At least I have my own brand of poetry.

with apologies to Aaron Sorkin*

The atheist starts off with,
“this is silly.” I think I see
him sense the abrupt change
of atmosphere walking through
the threshold into a chapel like
plunging into lake water naked.
When the actress kneels, the atheist explains
how God shouldn’t be so vain, I think of
the actress and whether or not, with her real
kneeling in the fake chapel, she actually prays.
She says, “You don’t kneel for Him; you kneel for you.”
The atheist storms out saying that “This just doesn’t
feel right,” The atheist is outraged that a mother is bleeding
to death, her baby may have no father, and someone’s
little brother is being held hostage by Islamic fundamentalists.
I remember two conversations:
Courtney telling me that God wasn’t saving me
when my brake lines rusted out in the TGI Fridays
parking lot instead of on the 74 bridge.
River telling me that she feels blessed that God has watched
over all the people in her life who have attempted
suicide, because they failed. She hastily tries to add
that God was also watching over Jenny, but is too
worried that she hurt me. Right before the scene switches
The actress looks upand tells God
that the atheist “made some good points.”

In the corner of my mind
I saw you in Ruby Tuesday
You were still mine
You were drinking blue moon
I couldn’t laugh anymore
I was a jester you’re buffoon,
All my life is stupid race
Always a “crying disgrace”
I remember but what for?
In the corner of my life
I saw us kissing-laughing-dancing
Four years ago
Everything is still alive
In my heart
We were  in TGI Fridays,
In Bethany Blues, Big Fish grill
My life is like a spoilt brat
Runs down the hill.
My days of the week are all Mondays
In the corner of my heart
No more joy, all restaurants are closed
All places reserved
By sadness and fight.

Drink your blue moon
And get out of here.

I broke for the seventh time this month-
"why are you so ******* fragile?"
I ask myself as I undress my thoughts in a mirror
as the tears stream steadily down the sides of my face
mascara stains my eyeballs and burns into my mind.
I can feel everything now.
The running of my makeup
causes a chain reaction
to me running toward the sink
to wash out what makes me feel okay.
After it is done-
and the makeup is cleared from my eyes
it seems I still don't see things clearly.
"why are you so ******* fragile?"
I saw him again today-
it seems I am seeing his face in everyone nowadays.
I don't think I'm actually over it
I don't think the experience will ever leave my mind
and every single man but a few seems to have his eyes-
the square shape of his head and the curve of his spine
that I don't think he actually has
because who needs a backbone
when you spend your youth
taking away someone else's.
Mine-
It was the seventh year of my life
and you took my backbone back then
in the black basement, blanketed with self-condemnation.
You see innocence is an antonym for guilt-
but what happens when you took away one
and caused the other?
What does that leave me with now-
Innocence means the opposite of guilt
which is to say childhood and you
do not share the same zip code
but somehow I let you invade my home
and seek out refuge inside my ribcage
now I find you in every corner,
encompassing the outline
of every male figure I encounter.
"why are you so ******* fragile?"
I saw you seven days ago-
in the face of the man at TGI friday's
then again in the face of a man waiting in line at the store
then again in the outline of a shadow
then again in the nightmares I keep waking up to.
"why are you so ******* fragile?"
I keep repeating to myself
until the sound of your voice fades to just background noise
until the soft hint of you breathing on my neck
doesn't seem familiar to me anymore
until I stop feeling ashamed of what you have made of me.

There once was a home inside of me
but now it is just a house fire-
burning down any memory of you here
you made it too hard to breath
although this smoke encases my lungs-
and these pills aren't the blanket
on the fire like I wanted them to be
they still seem to help ease the burns.
See you are nothing but ash and dust-
The lining on the inside of my throat
that keeps me from spilling your name.
Your shadow in the back of my mind
will become nothing
in the wreckage I have ensued upon my skull.
"why are you so ******* fragile?"
Haven't you learned?
The most prized possessions are.

With no make on and eye lash hangin’
Pumping on E. bassy travelling the subway
Friday jumps on you, with expectation galore: Drink, gloat, sitting on-
Refurbished old rustic sofas on the far end of the bar.

Would your TGIF be a spent screaming over the music?
To make yourself heard with sweaty drunk happy hearts grinding?
Or would it be a cosy comforter holding you tight-
While you binge on anything scrolled now since the dragons flew?

Measuring ourselves to our own scales is-
Scary, if mildly put; social beings we are, to be, is a need-
But contentment may lie in unexpected unsocial moments sometime then-
As the years grey by, clear becomes the crystal, ever much so.

Random thoughts of a wandering mind;
Smother not, caress quietly- tune into some AI’d playlist;
Put on that conversation repellent, we all call earphones
And glow warmly in your sweet company, for it is TGI’my’F.