I found gods voice
In a clocksmith in Rockland.
I asked him how to turn back time

He said
"Careful use of your hands."

I smashed clocks like pills
credit card scraped sprigs & sprockets
into lines of chalk powder.
Just to hear more of his gospel

His shop closed.
Rain washed pink pastel rivers
down my childhood home
street gutters like blood
Glitter became shattered glass.
That same chalkdust
fashioned into A body outline

Ask a child
"What is your favorite creation?"
Witness the passion of a thousand poets.
Fade with age
Hands stretched out for paint
Handed pills.

He said sprig sprocket dust

"What is your favorite creation?
I can guess your mother's."
Took her 9 months

Timeless old crinkled construction paper
colorful paints in the shape of your fingers

I Cover my hands in blood
From the shattered glass
Press my fingerprints
To the timeless colors
I've forgotten
Where to place my hands.

Clumsy with time
Leave ****** handprints
On my mothers fridge
My lovers

Face down in sprig sproket dust
On my final tick
I hear a clocksmith tinker
One last lullaby

"when you run out of canvas
You will stop drawing blood
you will still leave fingerprints"

"What is your favorite creation?"
Was it worth the time?

You might ask a clocksmith
how to fix your broken hands
Or you could keep the ones God gave you.
Small, clumsy,
Great at golf.

Teach me how to Kneel
Teach me discipline
Embarrassment.

Teach me martyrdom
tell me it means Nothing.

You can't be a martyr
if you only die
for yourself
you're not a god.

Tell Me I'm not a god
Tell me with your fists
with your spit.
your boot.

Teach me submission
take my pride in your palm
torture it until I am human.

Teach me guilt
Teach me ownership
of my sins. of myself
hold my chains
I need them like fire
needs water
reduce me to embers
when you start to boil
The bubbles are how I know
I've gone too high

I love watching your bubbles trickle in slowly
how quickly they spill over the lip of the kettle

Teach me with boiling water
Teach me with fire
teach me with fear.

I want to beg for it.
Please, make me beg for it.
my life.

if you make me beg for it.
I might want it again.

You dangled from my laytex glove
Prey above dogs
Held sturdy by the chest
Gentle

Playful beasts they were, barking.
TOY! MEAL!
FOOD!
They couldn't see how terrified you were of their instinct to howl.
I foot them inside the rickety screen door.

I agreed to toss you in the woods.
expected a cleaning job.
Extracting a cold still object from her sisters cage.

You looked at me.
I wanted to look you in the eyes
before I did it.
And You looked at me.
Stretched out your legs

We laid down together
Sun cooked the wooden porch beneath our bodies
desperate to learn everything like fresh fall season lovers.

You moved when I touched you.
Like my attention gave you an extra moment

You didn't seem to breath

I offered a carrot.
Meek. You used what life was left in you to open your mouth.
You hadn't the strength to chew.

I was too optimistic.
I know now.
When I broke the tiniest peice of carrot free
placed it in your mouth.
You hadn't the strength to swallow

But you were breathing heavy now

I felt like god.
A human god.
Selfish even now in the giving of life
How happy your mother will be
How powerful I will look
Deciding which creatures live.
And die.

I shoved the bit of carrot
with a medical pinky finger.
You took three large gasps for air

I Dropped my godly optimism in a grey plastic bag on the desperate table of three worried pet doctors.
Embarrassed for me, they ask us to leave

You already had.

At a field of uncut hay.
Same laytex glove.
Same grey plastic bag
Same executioners guilt.

My guardian angels curiosity and risk slapped my greed with icarus wings.

I cried.
threw you like a baseball into the sunset.
Cars pulled wind behind us while I stared.

How like me to give my full curiosity to what is known to die soon.
How greedy I am to try and bring it back
Risk shoving my hand down its throat to chase a miracle that looks
to you
like charity
for the praise,
then abandon it when I discover
the treasure comes with its own ghosts.

I pull down another sunset.
Fast.
Like curtains on a stage

How many domains can one god have before he is daring too close to omnipotent

Curiosity, Risk, Luck, Failure,

How many names must one have before they are a god?
Adonai

How many titles?

Leader
Lover
Father
Mother

I am curious
I am the god of curious

I am so much want, greedy, so selfish.
I am the god of human

I am so human
Show me, god...

I keep waking up to sunsets
Affinity for the moon I suppose.
the fireflies, cold air.

I've felt happier at night my whole life
Sitting in elementery school
popcorn reading
Headphones plugged into a PSP
Blaring mindless self iindulgence
Putting me to sleep through the day
So I could level up my nightelf hunter in World of Warcraft until 5am
And sleep through social anxiety.

For awhile I woke up at 4am to serve you coffee.
Seven years addicted
I loved that too.
Traded coca-cola for drinking it black
My coffees color is the smog in Chicago
This nightlife is my real addiction.
That's why I love the graveyard shift.
Devouring untold stories
assisted living facilities.
This Goldmine of consentrated Wisdom
Parkinsons Orchestra Doctorates.
Politicians prepared for Death

Rabbis still flirting with nurses
remembering the whole torah service by heart
forgetting their wives name.

For my sunset
I like to imagine a big desk
A wall of glass
The top of a grey tower.
I want to Birth a skyscraper.
I want to stand staring out my wall of window back turned to my coffee cup
watch how beautiful stasis can be when you shatter through it.

I like to pretend each sunset
Is a death that wasn't mine.
I like to count the deaths in assisted living
As sunsets.
I like to read obituaries like sunsets.
I keep waking up
To sunsets

Affinity for the moon I suppose.
the fireflies
cold air.

I've felt happier at night my whole life
Sitting in elementery popcorn reading

Headphones plugged into a PSP
Blaring mindless self iindulgence
Putting me to sleep
So I could level up my nightelf hunter in World of Warcraft
watch Naruto until 5am
And sleep through social anxiety.

For awhile I woke up at 4am to serve you coffee.
Seven years addicted

I loved that too.
Traded coca cola for bkack coffee
And an eating disorder

Now Im a graveyard shift worker.
Manjc smirking at untold stories in assisted living
Goldmine of consentrated Wisdom
Parkinsons orchestra Doctorates
Politicians preparing for death

Rabbis still flirting with nurses and remembering the whoke torah service by heart
When they cant remember their wives name.
Wives of Men that played god until they met him.
Breifly
Before the trap door unlatched

For my death.
I like to imagine a big desk
A wall of glass
The top of a grey tower.

I want to Birth a skyscraper.
I want to stand staring out my wall of window back turned to my desk.
And
watch how beautiful stasis can be
As the trap door caves beneath me for my sins.
I want to leave someone behind to tell my story.
My journal is someone.

I'm a night owl
I am alive most when the world is either sinning or silent

And I refuse to die quietly.
Or before I get my Desk.
Or my window.

To watch the sun rise and fall
But never stay.

I am not meant to watch things last forever.
I am a night owl.

I enjoy this world for all the endings.
This is my favorite part.