I wonder if fire can burn so hot it turns white,
And your heart begins transmutation,
An involuntary, unauthorized transition,
From something familiar, to something alien,
And you are all together mystified.

You rely too much on the kindness
Of those known to be unkind.

Once it started opening up,
Like a wound, the pearl sheen of skin
deepening into a red
As rare as the perfect rose
And just as treasured.

Bones dense around my heart
And lock themselves in place.
Stifling the voice - two beats -
The third one silent.

The fourth,
The fifth,
The third.

You are my arms outreached but selfish,
Hands open but stiff,
Palms red.

My mother never appeared in public
without lipstick. If we were going out,
I’d have to wait by the door until
she painted her lips and turned
from the hallway mirror,
put on her gloves and picked up her purse,
opening the purse to see
if she’d remembered tissues.

After lunch in a restaurant
she might ask,
"Do I need lipstick?"
If I said yes,
she would discretely turn
and refresh her faded lips.
Opening the black and gold canister,
she’d peer in a round compact
as if she were looking into another world.
Then she’d touch her lips to a tissue.

Whenever I went searching
in her coat pocket or purse
for coins or candy
I’d find, crumpled,
those small white tissues
covered with bloodred kisses.
I’d slip them into to my pocket,
along with the stones and feathers
I thought, back then, I’d keep.

Savvy boy bite that tongue in half,
Are you at a loss for words?
Do you ever regret it, being a coward?
I could never write a love letter, I’m too cynical – too sadistic,
I could be your darling, sweetheart
Get dressed up for you every Friday night,
I could trap myself in a telephone root,
Get ****** and try not to think about it.
But I could never be a coward.

His movements are subtle,
A sweet illustration,
A still from a classic film
She could never quite forget,
Although she never spoke about it.
"How does it feel?" He asks.
"It feels ****, and all you can do is wait it out.
I've always thought about it like returning to myself, as if she's sitting somewhere in a garden, waiting for me.
A vibrant figure amongst forgotten orchards, light blue hands immersed in the greenery,  humming a tune once familiar to me,
But somehow distant now.
One that existed before I began to think of myself in multiplicity, before she manifested as separate from me."

There is glitch in the scene and for a second he dissolves, and then reappears. He touches her cheek, and smiles.
"Then what are you doing here with me? With this illusion? I manifest time and again as the same man, to exhaust your skin, to grab you with both hands and then discard you, and yet you always return to me, and not her."

I pick up my things and walk away, I hear him humming as I walk, a tune I could recite off by heart.

Softly positioned beneath the ****** sky
Mongaloo rubbed his sore belly,
Picking the moss bites out of his naval
And ingesting them in his heat stricken misery.
Oh gloomy am I when forced to bare witness
To such abysmal stupidity.
You Catch are truly a tragic reminder
Of the need for infectious disease,
Or another global disaster.

Catch rubbed his eyes and moaned a bit
Then replied to Mongaloo with much certainty,
That it was in fact his mothers fault
For being such a dreadful ****,
And raising him so poorly.

The monkey bowed his head towards her,
And saw what he thought must be the answer,
To every question he'd never asked.
The best feeling I've ever had, she said
Was when I'd wondered into the forest,
And found myself trapped in the sun,
Right in the middle Monchella, at the core
It was simmering hot and soon,
I couldn't feel my face,
I couldn't feel my feet.
It was when I got out my dear,
That was the best feeling ever.