Part time bartender
Full time escapist
Left to spare her daughter
From a life of engagement.

She'll never know
If her time here was wasted
Before the verdict
She Prayed for church basements

Nobody noticed.
Except the bar fly
His tab stayed open
She clocked out, out back
before he could close it.

A memorial,
he was outside smokin'
didn't realize he lit a candle
When the cherry was glowing

She'll never see it.
In the paper they read it
hearts bleedin'
like a wound they weren't treating
By breathing.

at the tip of a needle
wings spread like an angel
Wrote her name in hebrew
Left us a messege.

"malakh"
How much time you got
How will you spend it
She bet him on her life
That it's less then intended

If I could reinvest it
I'd pay for my sins
I'll be ****** If it
Wouldn't take every penny I have.
But I'll be glad for empty pockets
When I stop losing friends

I'm not sayin' her life was wasted
I'm just sayin' live.

I'm clawing at your door, God
Don't you see the shadows seeping out from under your closet?
I see those shadows everywhere.
Let me be that for you, God.
Let me pull you in.

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...