Brother and Sister - it was bound to be
that the one who'd take the brunt was me.

I'm sorry for crying -
and for it being loud,

But it came to my head
that I've been living Without

Instead of Within our circle of love
that I blindly mistreated and stomped from above

With gold-laced boots on a high, high horse,
which soon I would trade for scuffed tennis shoes
and the lust for much, much more.

I am without a family
because I made it done
and pushed and pushed for so **** long,
I've forgotten where I'm from.

My itching hands reach for the perch of a pretty flower
Whose petals splay in unison
And of equal distance to each other.

This is not a drill. I must behold the flower,
For its skin in softened light of
This Dim Room
Casts a creamy, glowing texture
Upon its flat and fragrant tears

To take these tear drops of dusk orange,
To replace them for my own,
Is to learn peace, that which
Only a pretty flower knows.

Crying on his doorstep,
Pressed against the house,

I say: I’ll steal away at midnight
But please don’t leave me now.

He says: I’ve taken from your heart
But don’t forget you’ve stolen mine.

Sometimes nothing can be figured
And two people have to say goodbye.

The graying trees of coming Winter
tangle and re-tie.

As a clustered bunch,
they strain to hide
the softened pink and blue
of the setting sky.

Lines across a page, they're like:
the bristling wooden branches,
which the wind, a subtle thing,
wraps around and touches.

But, like me, stay warm inside
and at their very center -

So therefore, a chilling wind
can try but never enter.

Shivering like anyone who's ever been in love,
I leapt out of the rain
and dove into his arms.

I slept there for a little while,
kept my head steady,

And for the first time,
for the only time,

was no longer lonely.

The Old Man is dying.

I have read many words on many white pages

And so, from this, can say:

I have read many words on many white pages

And yet have never felt
The dawning break of day.

The black and white rabbit
With the red and slanted eyes
On the green and gray tapestry
Hung upon the scuffed and somber wall

Looks like a pet for the devil.

Time to go, she says,
Time to leave this place.
You’ve ruined every chance.
You’ve wasted every day.

What you didn’t know, she adds,
Or, what you didn’t realize,
Was this simple, solid fact:

Your one and only purpose
In this small and stupid life
Is to love
Until your time is spent
And that, she says,
Is that.

Words are a floating anchor that bumps the ocean floor

And goes more and more against the World’s winds and waves and winds and waves.

Upon the floating anchor, a rusting girl

Who knows not whence she came
Or how she came to be
Upon the floating anchor
At the bottom of the sea.

Those floral paper walls

Are a bored woman’s mind

And it lines the earth she looks out upon with a drying mouth and twitching eye

“These flowers are not mine.”

My sweaters are no match:
When I pull them tight
Against my chest,
They do not stifle
My Great Unrest.

And when it starts- the clanging ring,
I crawl into the space between
My 40-year-old daydreams
And a yellow shelf
Which, when nailed,
Propped a Bunny
That couldn't prop itself.

And yet,

At least it had the courage to say:
I NEED HELP!

I am scared often.
I am sad always.
I am lonely in darkness.
I am lonely in light.
But most of all:
I am out of sight.

These feelings are not new feelings
but I've never felt them before.

I've grappled with
and been concerned

with all things other

than that of love
and how it is born.

She pressed her hand
against the glass of the tank
to let him know her fingerprints,
to let him be her friend.

He stuck awhile, being brave -
told his friends he wouldn't leave.
and he stayed
and he stayed

although he was afraid.


The stranger that he's seen but never known
Just walking past him like a ghost.

And everyday,
and everyday,

they see but never say.

It comes to when she kneels
And rests upon her heels

to tell the fish of blue and spirit,
"I have an angel
and you are it."

Here,

Winter crawls into your window
Whenever you’re not looking.
No matter how prepared,
It latches to your toes
And freezes on your hair.
And stiffens up your nose.

Here,

You’ve forgotten once again
The warmth beneath the shine
The green oaks and the pines
Just growing in a whisper
Like kept secrets in time.

Here,

The sun will wave a ray
And tell you where he’s been
But then he’s soon rushed out -
A memory left unlived,
Left, still, a piece to miss.

Here,

The walking dogs are all the same
Attached to them a metal cane
Attached to that a person
a person
a person
all the same.

In the night, he thought.
In the night.

In the night while she’s sleeping,
In the night when she’s dreaming,
She dreams.
Dreams I’ll turn to spoil.
Dreams I’ll turn to rot.
And later, much later, though not
Later than the next moon,
She will not forget,
She will not forget,
She will forget me not -
The night I sought to grab.
And I grabbed.
And I grabbed.

Grabbed but rose, startled,
When she stopped
Sleeping
She was until, again,
Her dreams, I turned, stopped.
And instead, she screamed.
Instead, she stumbled,
Knocked a shelf to stop my grabbing,
Stop my babbling,
“Calm down,”
And when we’re heard,
“She’s dreaming, she’s dreaming,”
A dream turned rot.
A dreamed, I turned, rot.

No one will believe you - I do not say
But only to the others,
The ones who heard but did not see
So, therefore, did not
See
I say,
“I came to help, I came to help,
And then she knocked upon the shelf.”

The bookshelf.
She likes books,
Now spilled.
Now she spilled them and herself.
“Get her mother,
This girl needs help.”

“My uncle, my friend,
My dearly trusted close one,
My mother’s brother
My grandmother’s son
My family, now done!
How could you?
How do you?
How would you
And why?”
She says with a cry.

“I once had,
I did have,
I did cherish,
Though without knowing it,
A life without the dream
I wish was a dream
But so obviously not!
No, a memory.
A memory so foul, so foul
Turned to rot.
And you! You were there!
You caused that great crash,
Pushed me back
Into the shelf, and yelled,
“This girl needs help!”

“You fool, you utter disgrace!
Now daring to say
It is my own face
That lies.
Lies!
Lays in the bed
Next to the man
Without knowing it,
Without knowing it,
So deeply penetrated
And Now
Sowing it back together,
Though hardly at all,
And how could I,
When brought with a fall
To the stone floor
Next to my grandmother’s wall
Where a portrait was held
Of her Fine Children.
But one son, A Deviled Son,
A child of hell.”

“That is you,” she says
“That is you.
And let it be known
I will forever remember
The very black night
You pushed me down,
Scattered the shelf, yelled,
“This girl needs help,”
After grabbing,
And grabbing,
And whispered in my ear,
“You will forget me not,
Your dreams, I’ve turned to rot.”

I took a swig of too much of something
And in my veins, it retaliates and swirls and
Stabs and yells quite menacingly,
Quite vigorous, quite furious and happy,
Delusional mostly but too sober to ever
Doubt, deny,  or chastise:

Girl, what have you done!

You’ve rocked this ship and now it’s
Sunk.
Or if not so then nearly so!
Or about to!
Or if not those - then it set aflame.

Girl, you made a big mistake!

You’ll pay for fire in your blood.
You’ll pay for me,
Your desire - and infamy.
I bask in it, I am it.

Your love - like poison in mud.
It seeps, it’s swallowed,
Devoured,
And once done,
Becomes one.

A book
On a cold wooden shelf
Alone

Like everyone else.

In a field
Lit with snow
Acres long and silent:

Till the brush of a fox
Just caught by light,
The call of a bird,
Alone in sight,
The crackle of clouds
Amongst a herd
Of cows like those below
Like snow.

But other than that,
Nothing.

Except the whisper of wind
So nearly unheard but still felt
Behind the backs of grass
Or as the sky turns,
A cool whip and a chill
A shiver and a thrill

On this silent field
Where everything is still.

Surely, you are not the first
Boy
To demand respect

In a household of women
You claim to represent

We listen when you make us,
And if you wish, we cry

But snicker when you fall
And smile ‘cause we lie:

At night, when no one’s watching,
Our hands unveil,

No stopping.

And once intwined, we share the
Secret
We’ve known for quite some time

That poor old fool
As if the strings
Were his to pull.

I have suffered more than you have thought, more than you have cried, more than you have fallen upon yourself in the midst of everything else.
If I could have brought on to her the cuts and bruises and salty wounds that I myself facilitated, that she herself on more than many occasions had brought upon, I would have. In that moment. But that moment passed quickly, like a nightmare after sleep. And good, then, that it did. Because that was not me running the show.

I’ve known this person before, seen them in the shadows of my imagination. That is the person who creates many things inside my little mind when the moon is high and I am awake; when there is nothing left for me but to stare into darkness, darkness comes from them. My shadow gives me very high buildings and sharp objects to play with. It gives me riled dogs and empty pages of well-worn books that I have read before, but how could I have? When there is nothing to see and nothing to taste inside the binds but my own reflection glaring back at me, angry as I’ve always been.

To wish her that world inside my head would be to **** her right then. But that is not me. That is someone else.

A person hiding deep inside the shadows of my imagination.

It feels as if I'm losing it all.
The only guide - my hand - which, itself, is burnt.

And she passed me
Like everything else

**** the ones who make me mad
But let them be without it.

and everything that Was
could no longer Be.

It feels like an anchor is stuck to
my heart
and the chain going down
has only just begun
to rust.

I've got no pre-planned preparations
Hidden in my purse

That silly thing
I called a dream
Swayed to the point
Of extinction

And collections I once had -
Of where to be and why
To be there

Were nothing but clouds
Like every other thought
Now dust in the wind
Of all things ever sought.

You haven't broken me
yet
but try again,
I'd like to see.

I am a very impatient person, which is why you are mute and kind. I only wish to speak without being interrupted or countered. I only wish to stare into your clearly good eyes, empty yet full and know that in them lies truth, and so it is truth, then, that I will use.

Your eyes, I imagine, are taken from a dog. Specifically, my German Shepherd, who, one night, told me all of her secrets so that, of course, and politely, I told her mine. "It's just that . . . I'm not very good at singing," I said, and she stared back, almost dumb-struck, almost all-knowing, those eyes revealing nothing that I could judge myself on.

And so I say to those eyes, now your eyes,
I wish I was a fish. Or a summer tree.

One evening I was sitting at my kitchen table and it was storming and grey and all that comes. And the window to my left was covered by a short sheer curtain except for one sliver at the top which allowed me to peek outside. What I saw was a tree being blown side to side, leaves smacking erratically and happy about it, too, and I whispered to its root and stem,
"I wish I was you."

To stare at her was to be frozen at once and then suddenly, necessarily, heated from the inside by the magic of her beauty.

Green eyes are great, but what about a softer blue?

Straight hair is soft, but can it curl too?

Who is she or will ever be if not everything I could ever need.
And she's gone like a breeze.

The moon? Like a spotlight through the empty lines of
my bedroom blinds.
An orange dog below and snoring
with a black nose.
Shoes beside him, a flower purse, a brown backpack, and a white bear
with a red bow.
In a mug I picked myself, a cactus, low sand, and pebbles of SanDiego-beside upright and laid down books atop a chest of knobs made to look like a Christmas tree.
TODAY, the calendar says.
TOMORROW, the calendar says.
Where's TONIGHT? I ask.

There's a razor beside the bed
It's pink
It's electric

The walls are gray
The walls are gray
The walls are gray
The curtain is white
And the walls are gray

Static is my vision
The walls are gray and static
The razor is pink and electric

There is no wind
There is no light
Warmth of body does not ignite

If the bed is white then what is I?
What is she?

If the walls are gray
And curtain is white
Razor, pink, electric, shines
Then what is I?
Then what is I?

Why do I flood with molten rage?
This pressure in my temples,
Beside my green eyes
Which also burn,
Is like a dragging down of metal
From head to toe
And back up again.

Why do I squeeze tight?
Why do I stop squeezing?
And for ****'s sake,
Why don't I take something?

Because you're too good for it,
My inner selves say,
Because you're better off.

Well, *******,
Cause you don't know
A single thing!
Maybe you're the cause
Of my ******* distress.
Stop talking, I say,
Stop talking!
Let me rest.

When the floor falls, let me with it
Sure, I'll go-
Step on the circles.
Did you see the circles? No?
Good, they're hideous.
Don't even look.

It's a rigid design,
Like everything else,
Of solid spheres
And pointed peaks
For triangles and squares.

The background?
Purple.
And worn.
Like the people who step
And tremble
And stomp.

Oh, me?
I'm just walkin'
Along my merry way.
Yes, I did have a horrible day.
Yes, these floors do creak.
No, I don't want a smile
From you or anyone else.

So, yes, I'll break the streak
Make that creak a crash
Only for a second, though,
Would it last.

Pound, pound, pound I do
And love
With my feet.
Until I hear a pop and
There I drop.

What's that, you ask?
I didn't hear,
I'm below the surface of ears
And eyes and lights and
Yes, your voice,
Your voice that asks again.

What was it that you said?
Shout louder, I say,
Shout Loud
And bury myself deep within
The purple rags and dusty boards
When this one reaches far,
"Hi! How are you?