I wish there was a substance
to the stories I tell.
But there's not much to be contained
within the walls of my cardigan,
ceramic rings
circling the joints and bones
of a hand too fragile
to hold solid concepts.
There is but an empty balloon
nestled in a stomach
craving appetites and fullness.
Words hollowed out
to hold scribbled strings
of disjointed thoughts
pulling and shape and meaning.
A ghost that's stuck
between wet cold rocks.

Should the lights be dimmed,
should the night be dark.
should I ever break
or claim to fall apart,
should my blood run cold,
should my tears run dry,
should I stop believing
that light in dark resides,
turn my face away
from the blackness of the sky,
twist my wide eyes back
from the lands on which I walk,
rip me whole from all of this
I have claimed to have disowned,
and then I'll burst to dust,
and then in light I shall explode,
and then I'll burn alive again,
then I'll be once more a whole.

T all grapevines entwine with the
O verhead wires and lead to
U nwilling leaves now home to a
G iant green guest with the
H olographic horrifying eyes.

T roubled dreams the bug is dreaming.
I mpossible luck keeps it away from
N earby spider webs and
Y ellow giant villains.

T angled in untangled thoughts of
H orrid dreams of hope
I t sits on its green leaf and is
N ow watching flowers bloom.
G ratefullness swells its tiny heart.

As his limbs stroked along the bottom
with all the power he held, in slow motion,
there was a case to be made
for the existence of the magical and the occult.
Kaleidoscope webs covered his back
in what looked like infinite rainbow nets
each brushing against a bone or muscle
unseen in the plain light before.
His hair was softened by the absence of air,
each strand fainting at a different angle
begging to be touched
right before being pulled in one direction
of precise yet strenuous motion.
All neglected now was illuminated.
Rarely things burn their way into memory
the way a face can be filtered through transparency,
distorted by liquid out of proportion
yet still so charmingly calm and surreal
all you can do is look away
and then stare again.
And what bottomless greed it is indeed
to wish to posses a moment like this for eternity.

I could swear I felt the sting,
as you injected yourself in my bloodstream.
In my defence,
I was high for the most of it.
I was drunk on all of that
your sparkly wings offered back.
And your melancholic gaze
I've only seen in fiction since.
I'll admit to my arrogance
to assume parasites were mostly worms,
when I know there are still songs
about pretty, magic, folk.
And I can feel myself both host and feast,
and all you see is just a treat.
And if I had soul, it's now ablaze,
and now all I do is waste my days.
And at this point in space and time,
your words occupy my mind.

At the top of the hill
two thieves stood in the midday sun
with their faces lifted upwards.
Down there,
in the fear-ridden town
the only lights they had
was of reading lamps, screens, street and car lights,
and an occasional candle in the dead of night.

Bottles were fished out of pockets,
corks were unscrewed,
bottoms were lifted,
laughter was heard,
spells were whispered,
sunrays were enchanted with song,
so enchanted they stopped dead in their step,
bows were held up,
arrows were shot,
grass was searched,
light was conserved in bottles.
Flickers in pockets for the darkest days.

You were small - the town was big.
Your small hands - the big building.
Your small body - the familliar spaces.
Your small step - the close distances.
Time moves slow - stuck at a standstill.
Nowhere to go - somewhere to be.
The people you know - the whole community.
Being welcomed - near complete isolation.
Accepted - you stay.
Rejected - get out before you're unable to.

Your victorous return - a negligible event.
The people you knew - the people you've never seen.
The person you've become - the people who never left.
Big streets - shrunk.
Short distances - longer than ever.
Things you have seen - engraved with nostalgia.
Things that were unseen - beautiful jewels.
Time is unmoving- now you have space to thing
Nowhere to go - nowhere to be.

You have to see Titan
(though there are no sirens)
from where I am standing.
(Vonnegut lied.)

When stars up here burst,
they don't just combust,
the shrapnel gets tangled
in your hair.

If you stretch down your feet
it's a pine's top you'll hit.
All the trees are so tall,
and ever so green.

I like the view from up here,
where everything's clear.
Where the days are so long
and nights are so warm.

Should you wish to visit,
forget about physics,
hop on a bumble bee,
and fly over to me.

Time to the storks
moved as a wheel moves -
it was going in a circle but moving in its track.

They were on time this year- as they were on time every year.
They gracefully landed in the high above places
where they nested every year.

The oldest was Mr. Stork who lived on top
of the townhouse's chimney that was last seen puffing
back in Febuary 2001.


Somewhere in his wings he remembers
distant memories of a missing family
but that was oh so long ago.



The first few weeks were proper with the darling sun,
the children shouting and pointing, the spring soil wet,
the snowdrops, the tulips and whatnot things moving.




But then the snow came back.
From nowhere.
And it scared everything away.




It scared the people, the flowers, the sun and the food,
the warmth in his feathers, the red in his  beak
and he was now dipped in a sickly purple.





And the air was white from the ice, and he
who was mostly silent,was forced to call out
as his nest was coming undone.






And the wheel fell off its track.
And his calls remained unanswered..

I've b l  o   w    n        my lungs clean
                                                           ­       e
                                                   k
                                        o
                     ­         m
of cigarette s
So why would you asumme
I wouldn't throw you   o
                                          u

             ­                              t
with the rest of the         trash
that cluttered my life
and poisoned my mind?

Relief and horror paint the sight
of an empty airport
and an abandoned mall.
I've seen them both.

But how should I begin to describe
the dread and terror
when the people in my country
have souls like abandoned buildings?

How do you explain the absent faces
and the grey souls in a land
where everything is slowly dying out
and any spark of life is just a memory
from fifty years ago?

How do you explain that
instead of haunted houses
all the streets are haunted corridors
and even if you ran away
the real horror is that
not a single broken ghost will try
to stop you?

How do you articulate that
you don't want to go
but you also don't wish to stay
just to watch your favorite souls
wither away?

My skull cracked open
is a messy endeavor.

Everything makes its twisted sense.
You poke at the laziness,
you poke at my refusal to work,
and you stumble upon
the fear of criticism,
poke that and you find the narcissism,
you poke at the narcissism
and you find the screeching fear,
that I'll never be enough unless perfect,
poke at the fears and it will make me scream.
Make me scream
and my skull will crack wider.

You start a baby doll,
a small doll,
a good doll.
You are raised
a smart doll,
a big doll
that takes care of herself
from the earliest age.

You know how not to ask for much,
since your parents argue quite a lot,
and your father is a bit afraid,
as if you are about to break,
and your mother seems a little sad,
and maybe just a bit too sharp.

And no one seems to know
what they should do,
so, you, the big doll,
decide,
it’s up to you.

You learn to be the perfect doll.
At three you speak like an adult,
polite and poise,
you never scream,
you rarely ask for anything,
you curtsey and you learn to sing,
you lie about well…
everything.
You never mind
where you will go,
you never stomp
and whine a ‘no’.

Whenever should you want a thing,
a lump of guilt will make it sting.
Whenever you will want to cry,
you’ll learn to keep it deep inside,
because good dolls never cry.

And for your efforts,
you’ll get rewards,
they will give you golden clothes,
they will crown you as the best
and never check if you’re distressed.
In diamond shoes they’ll make you dance,
and as you prance you’ll start to bleed,
and it will be your secret thing.

They will shake your parents’ hands
and happily they’ll nod their heads.
They will lift you from the ground,
hold you,
tell you, they are proud.
And that is true,  
though it does not reverse the hurt.

You will be the perfect doll,
perfect figure, pose and all,
and should you fail,
even once,
even just a ‘C’ in class,
your back will break,
you’ll be exposed,
that you have never been a decent doll.
They’ll discard you,
throw you out,
because no one loves a fraud.

Should you keep your perfect look,
you will catch someone on your hook,
and you will never know what you should say,
for you have thrown your tongue away.
You will lie, to you and him,
about every
single
feeling.
You will never say,
that you never loved them anyway.
Perfect dolls don’t act that way.

You will never get what you want,
because you’ll never say it all up front,
you will chip and finally break,
and there is no other way.

Us, perfect dolls,
we’re built this way.

The fish bowl is yet to make sense.
I’m that little red fish
at the bottom of the glass aquarium
you barely remember
from that childhood cartoon
that maybe never existed.

I’m not a pretty fish,
let’s at least admit that.
I’m not a goldfish,
or a rainbow mermaid,
or a toad the prince could kiss
to turn into a princess.
I’m a red pufferfish.

I’m puffing up and I poison these waters.
Like all scared pufferfish,
I dread facing up to my insecurities.
I never trusted my mind was whimsical enough,
that my skin was pretty enough,
that my spikes were safe enough,
for anyone to love them.

And what is a scared pufferfish to do
but to retrieve to the comfort
of painting the pictures of who they want to be?
What am I to do but to lie?

So, I, the pufferfish, lie.
I lie like my life depends on it,
I turn trickery into art.
I become such a good liar that soon,
no one, not even me,
can tell the difference between
the real situation,
and the fantastic tales I tell myself.
Isn’t it a tiny bit ironic?
Being so afraid of the sting,
that the pufferfish resources to clouding the water
with poison so much
that she poisons herself and doesn’t know
which way in the bowl is up.

The trap of the lying pufferfish
is that not even in lies may she succeed.
Even in lies she loses the game she tries
so desperately to cheat.
You see, it’s a little bit like this,
if you are a pufferfish,
and you don’t believe they’re interesting enough,
and you paint them to look like dolphins,
because everyone loves dolphins,
the pufferfish ends up feeling like an impostor.
No matter what lies she tells herself or others,
she’s smart enough to know in her gills
that she is, in fact, a pufferfish.

However,
should you hold up
the fishbowl
to the light
you’ll see that
underneath the layers of paint
and red skin
my little lying pufferfish heart
is transparent,
in a way,
clean.
I swear,
in all the honesty
you shouldn’t trust,
that I mean no harm
and never had.
And please,
little,
transparent
pumping,
scared heart,
believe yourself,
when you say,
that you are trying
as hard as you can,
at having a fresh start
in the poisoned waters.

Lackluster hillside
A many, ideal sheep sleeps
out of jewelry

I will feed you love
from my paper cup hands
everytime you are starved
for sunny days.

I will put your frozen hands
in my pre-warmed woolen gloves
everytime you may fall ill
from the chill outside our doorstep.

Tell all the monsters under my bed
that they needn't tuck me in at night
anymore.
I made a promise to grow.
I'll grow the way mama did
back when her hair was brown not silver.
Tell my monsters I grew out
of  chewing my nails,
picking at my skin,
***** fueled nightmares,
and a tobacco stained tears.
Tell them that I am growing out
of the fear footsteps in the dark
light up in my rabbit shaped heart,
that I'm growing out of the bark
my voice turns to
when I speak to my father.
Tell them I've grown out of
silly weeping over silly boys.
Tell them where there were cracks
now pretty clovers grow.
Tell them that I've found friends
who hold my hands
when I tremble with anxiety.
And tell them that
I hold these same friends
when their monsters threaten
to come from under their beds.

Tell them. Tell them how much
their little girl has grown.

Oh, I swear,
I swear I will confess
of all the sins which poison the well
of the crusty diseased soul
I keep locked in a chest
in the most hidden dark path
of my muddled, mediocre mind!

I will confess curled on the ground
of my ungratefullness,
of my laziness,
of the egocentric refusal of
accepting anything but approval,
of the compulsive lies that
my lips and fantasy knit in a sweater
which covers the bare chest
of my uncontrolled rage.
To it all I will confess!

I swear I never asked for it.
I will try my best to assure you
that none of my faults are my fault,
but in the tangled web of lies
where I coddle myself to sleep every night,
I do not know what part of me is real
anymore.
So despite my assurance, I will plea,
don't ever trust me.

Please, I beg you to
inspect me,
inject me,
sedate me,
dissect me,
extract me,
remove me,
destroy me
and cure me.
That or just merely
crush me to bits,
(painfully but sweet)
on the operation table.

I swear I will confess
to the mess in my chest,
and after that
destroy me or rebuild me.
I can't remain this way, believe me!

Skin a salmon shade when she laughs.
The curly strands that frame her face
are the color of the red apple.
Her contact lenses are a bright fuchsia.
Her lips are brick red.
Her stories are tinted carmine.
Her grief is bordeaux.
She blushes in violet
and smiles in rosy pink as she
stretches her hand for a shake
and says her name is Ruby.

Your eyes are illuminating my skies,
twisting their whimsical shimmers,
ricochets of burning golden sparks,
simmering down in graphite ponds,
holding the green water lily leaves.

Your laugh rings in my ears indefinitely,
a deafening gong of sanctity
scaring the birds off the bare branches
and it feels like a ritual.

My hands warm in your pockets,
loving you is being drunk on strawberry wine,
eyes shinning from their sockets,
oh how your eyes illuminate my skies!

A glass of milk
in the dorm
with you
tastes like being nine
at the seaside
in my aunt's house
after a long 7 pm sea swim
in the yard
making waffles,
one with chocolate
second one with uncle's peach jam
third one with cherry jam
topped off with a glass of milk
I had to hold with both of my small palms.
A glass of milk
with you
tastes like nostalgia.

Little lady,
let me remind you,
that you needn't compare
your swamp green scars
to anyone else's,
needn't compare
your copper abilities to
the platinum ones
of those marble gods you admire,
in order to measure
a worth which needn't be measured
on the golden scales of
self criticism and loathing.
There is space under the sun
for all of us.

I like me
when I'm around you.
I like my body
when it's with yours.
I like your body
when it's with mine.
I like me and you.
And I like you and me.
I like me & you when we are in proximity.
I like you&me as close as we can be.
I like meyou conjoined.
I like you when you fuse with me.
And I like it when it's we.

The skin on your lips
is the type
of magical MacGuffin
that makes you believe
in enchanted forests
at midnight.
They swim
in the reddish blue, velvet mist.
And after all
isn't magic getting something for nothing?

I told you I dreamt
of plum colored butterfly wings.
You bared your teeth
in a warlock grin and leaned in
to kiss my fingertips.
You drew mystic symbols
on my bare shoulders
and you whispered spells in my ears,
softly.
I vaguely remember
the purple steam around us
before I was way up in the air.
And you said you wanted nothing
but to leave the mauve
lovebite on my hip in return.

Should you hold up
the hollow crystal sphere
with the glass ballerina
up to the light
you will see.
Oh, how delicately
she drags her bisque slippers
with a crackling clink
across the mirror surface!
Oh, how delicately
her folding arms
paint excuses
with an indigo tincture
in the shape of questions?
Oh, how she drops
like a wilting little tulip!