I know the light blue will carry us home. Our destination is hazy and it's blurred but we find it anyway. Our resting place is soft atop the unapologetically bare branches. A few times ago I'd have mistaken it for aggression as so seems the world when your heart and eyes and lungs are heavy but tonight I see its gentle pride. Warm light drips through the branches of tangerine love and our home is crystallizing in front of us. A cosmic show for no one but us and even we are not really the point. Slivers of glimmering truth fall away and it's natural to next see the paper mache love erupt into the black hole we had to know would consume us eventually. The stars are stuck in our throat and between our teeth and how can we be sad about the dark when we felt the entire universe pulsing inside us. I remember our beginning you know. It was dark and it was green and the sacred unity of it all brings tears to my terrible mutilated face. The bench is cold and the night is cold and I am cold but I can't bring myself to disentangle my soul from the electric night. I will sit here all night and lose feeling finger by finger if it means I can remember the way we were.

Coldness does not want you either. It does not want your trembling muscle and pallid skin and hunched figure. It desires you no more than you desire it. The difference is that you invited the coldness in and it is your guest. Coldness is an absent of heat, you see. Where is your heat? Coldness did not come for you - your slow death called out its name and it had no choice but to respond. Why did the fire stop vibrating within your hands? The sun used to be inside you - what happened to it? You cannot blame the coldness when you are the coldness.

I crawl out of the paint to devour your sour stench. That steaming green and yellow slime that falls out of your teeth isn't even your fault you know. The meds run in the family. They've been filling you up since you learned to walk. Aren't you lucky you've got your health? Have mercy on me father I have run from the slime but it's inside me anyways and it pours heavily from my throat in choking waves. I can hear the opera again, isn't it nice? I told you to lock me up - haven't you seen me? I heard you liked diseases so I'll let you come see the wires. Get closer. Help me **** the prisoner. He's got the smell too - I can hear the opera again, isn't it nice? Isn't it all just nice?

I am listening for
the sky to open up and some divine message
to be whispered in my ear
And I am listening for
the TV to tell me I’m living my 17-year-old life wrong
And I’m listening for
the Truth to finally be spit into the sludge of the city.
I am listening for
the mother holding her son by the shoulders
telling him, “They shoot first, ask questions later”
And I’m listening for
the gunshots to finally get inside my head
And I’m listening for
the sounds of sirens that will not come.
I am listening for
the hopeless screams, in fact they’re all I can hear
And I am listening for
the disenfranchised revolution
And I am listening for
America to stop planting flowers
over the graves of the oppressed.

I am listening for
America to say she’s sorry
And I am listening for
the eulogy of discovery
And I am listening for
Bukowski to meet his teary-eyed love.
I am listening for
Dean to find me in the alley
And I am listening for
the day I become the instrument
And I’m listening for
the Cambodian Cassette Archives to finally make it big.
I am listening for
the lost chord that will revive us all
And I am listening for
the blues to make me drunk
And I am listening for
you to shut up and let me write.


I am listening for
America to sob
And I am listening for
the path to blamelessness
And I am listening for
the Indian man at the gas station
to finally say “hello” back to me.
I am listening for
the easier way
And I am listening for
the day I remember being excited.  
I am listening for
the man who is always the sacrifice
And I am listening for
the false adoration
And I am listening for
America to choke on her own ash.
I am listening for
America to get down on her knees
And I am listening for
my mom to tell me what to say
And I am constantly listening for
the day when I can stare at a person
And not be disappointed when I realize
there is no comfort or familiarity.

I am listening for
God to be pure
And I am listening for God to be real
And I am listening for
God to finally show us his blood-stained hands.

Pink-pitched cry
Where I eat the lights
And the sounds eat me
Get There Get There Get There!
It must all be fast fast fast
Or we waste IT
You can't eat the sounds if you can't catch them
I've seen your obsession, God of the Dark
We sweat and dig and pass out
Do you often try to see yourself in a reflection?
HA! Good luck! It'll never work!
That's our sentence, you see, for being Alive
It's a pink-pitched cry - response lightning following leading
Sound movement transfer      understanding
Disassociation startled okay
Confusion pacify resolute movement - Stillness
Utter Stillness
A Pink-pitched cry
-- an Animal

The tension in the room is dissipating
As each calloused finger tells its story
Walls are exhaling
Posters are moving
Vibrating air waves wiggling between paint chips
Tipping the water pitcher
Catching the sun
Uprooting the trees
“Blackbird” serves as a landscape for laughter
Chests are being opened
With space to fit another
All the while,
Reclined,
Cradling wood like a toddler
Nothing is full
Consistent
Complete
We’ve never been so satisfied
Hands are moving with the slow lethargic energy
Of unlimited time
I’m being filled with liquid
And baked under the sun
I’m trying to stay dry
Suddenly it’s easy
Sounds are being spread
Fans are used as camouflage
The air is warm
But does not suffocate
It dries me off

The tension in the room is dissipating