I get lost in your kiss
                   Yet feel at home on your **lips

PLAY FOOTBALL ON FRIDAY THROUGH MUD AND THROUGH SOOT, wake up the next morning you're missing a foot. Hop yourself through a hoop game, your Saturday's grand, wake up Sunday morning with only one hand. On Sunday you're crying, these thoughts you despise. Monday rolls around, you've lost one of your eyes. On Monday you eat comfort food for relief. Go to brush Tuesday morning―bare gums with no teeth.

What's happening here? Oh what sorcerer's curse? One foot and one hand you could handle at first. You dare not speak words lest your mandible burst. And you mustn't have ***. (Losing THAT'd be the worst!)

So you lock down all actions, your life paralyzed, but there go your earlobes, biceps, hair, and thighs. By evening on Thursday you fear you'll be dead. One week to the day you wake only a head.

So you roll down the stairwell and "head" for the doctor. When you pass by the park children use you for soccer. Deflated and bruised, when you roll by the courts, the basketball kids rub your face on their shorts.

At last the Doc's office! You wish you had cancer! At least in that case there'd be some easy answer. Doc looks at you sideways. He's smug and quite snotty. "Just what would you like sir, a prosthetic body?" He writes a prescription for pain medication―shoves the script in your mouth as he calls his next patient.

You roll down the boulevard, scalp over chin, back to your apartment to let death set in.

Arriving at home with the pills in your mouth, you find you're not alone, someone's there on your couch.

Your Father! Your Father!

He says Hello, Head.

But this can't be your Father 'cause your Father's dead! This can't be your Dad. Look his eyes are aflame! And he just called you "Head." Your real Dad knows your name.

He sees you're no dullard (though battered and weak). His skin changes color as he starts to speak:

I'm the first fallen angel. I equate with upheaval. You know me as Lucifer: Master of Evil. It is I who enacted this tragic infection. See one week ago Jesus pulled his protection. All evidence says that the Lord thinks you've sinned. I know not your transgression―that's between you and Him. But for some unknown reason He's left you exposed, and to exploit this new opening I am predisposed.

So let's make a deal! Acceptance makes you whole! The price is quite nominal, (you guessed it) your soul! I'll restore your body. You'll forever be proud! You'll be richer, more handsome, and better endowed! You'll have women, a mansion, the respect of your peers, remain youthful forever, wisdom beyond your years. And if you decline, well,  for you, that's a loss: to be the main ingredient in my 'Special Eternal One-Eyed Head Soup with Maggot Sauce.'

So what do you say? The decision is yours. A millionaire's life or worms eating your pores?

You think of your Father. How he raised you in church. The love of your Mother. How she valued good works.

Then you think of your body. You were an athlete, a dancer.

So you open your mouth and give Satan his answer.

If I were there I would caress your heart
with the thread of a silken cocoon
Stitched now as one on the eve of the weary,
bound by the light of the moon
Careful to touch oh so soft as a feather,
gentle as spider web tears
Keeping you close on the edge of the tomorrow,
shielding your soul from the fears

Dew drop beliefs on the lawn they are waiting,
prisms of lighthearted scenes
Dandelion clouds offer sweet pea protection,
dragonflies float in between
Watching as breezes of painted day whispers
on kite strings of warm summer fire
Sing with the echoes, repeating their sonnet,
offering all you desire

Though all I have is a poet’s conviction,
spilled now in ink penned to share
Hoping on dreams you will rest in the sunrise,
find a few moments to spare
Taking the hand of this forgotten hero,
trusting in him ever true
Open your eyes for a new day is dawning,
written with love just for you

i do not love you
words are not in abundance
i am not drawn to you
like birds migrating to
warmer heavens
i felt something brief,
my breath was caught
by love's noose,
but stranger things happen,
i do not love you,
because to love you
would be to become you,
to capsize like a boat,
submerging into red seas,
i do not love in small measures,
to do so would be worse
than blasphemy,
i feel for you,
but i do not love you,
i do not search for your
face in crowds,
i do not love in honesty,
only lies pounding
hoofs on loves ground.
i cannot love you,
because the taste of it is
strange in my mouth,
an unwanted flavour,
like sand and dust,
in the midst of something
that should be sweet.
i do not love you,
or i cannot love at all.

tell me
why private thoughts
become so loud and violent
upon our faces that
they peel the layers of skin,
and our own form of sun,
burns us alive inside.
i waited patiently for your breath
like hot summer nights,
a whisper of a wind, a secret
tantalizing, lost in lulls of sleep
and i'm restless in bed,
sheets suffocate me with the
lies of your body, and
ghosts are more familiar
than your scent.
tell me, i screamed it with my
eyes as you slept.
i once held your palm and
felt your fingers slip,
did they reach for hers
instead?

it's the emotional
strip-tease,
the tingling,
depressions hand
on your thighs,
his skin is soothing
enough but his
nails curve red moons
into those pretty
little girl tights.
they ******* so well,
anxieties got a
mean eye,
for the girls with
insecurities,
they're the most fun,
swallowing back
their screams, saving
them for the
bedroom at night.
you find them in
the morning teasing
the pill bottle,
they got a will to live
stuck in their throat.
doctors say there's a
heartbeat but
no heart.
all their red dresses
over the floor,
the first of many
warning signs,
red dresses to funerals,
red dresses to slide
down the underbelly
of dissatisfaction.
they sleep without love,
exhaling demons on
the balcony, until
they burn like stubs
in their eyes.