We spoke of hope
with frogs in our throats;
our pulse
leaping from one
boiled heart
to another

We stood upon
stilts, laughed like
dying hyenas;
and saw that our
lungs had made
nests in the sky

Smoke billowed
from the gaping sockets
of your skull, and I tucked
my fingers into the holes
as though they were empty
change purses

And with a little jangle here,
a little rattle there, it made you ***
a bouquet of roses from betwixt
your getaway sticks

Suddenly we were memories
all over again, unwoven seeds
planted deeply in the great abyss

Where dark was but a word,
a skinny string tied to your
*******, and it was
something we'd always remember

I croaked, and died right after;
but death was only Act 1 of
this anti-climatic nightmare

We woke up,

and with hush

upon our trembling lips,

spoke of

beliefs.

Oh dear,
what was the word he used to
describe me?

The crack in the sky,
like some kind of raw
nerve endings of a
lost family tree;

It started with the
letter B, and a few of my friends
throw it around like it's round,
soft, and precious to hold

But it's the first thing
you call someone who
wants you to let go

My dear,
there is a mouth
half opened, as though
it were built for a hand
to clasp it;

there is a body
left for dead, it's arms
outstretched like
the antennas
of an insect;

Jog the memory;
what word did he use
to describe me?

A lonely face
shouldn't have said nothing;

Just stay a shut-in;

forever outspoken.

If you want a name
you'll find it between the steps
of ladders, like the bullet holes
of wounded soldiers;
a body riddled
with questions
rather than answers

If you want a being
you'll find something precious
in the ugly, something beating, or
eating it's way out of the chest;
the imagination clumsily chooses
a newborn alien, or a
botched abortion

But no, it's neither
of these things, but it is...

And that's okay

If you want a poet,
colored and racist, a dancer
balanced and limbless,
an actor, melodrama
and actress

They're all yours
for the taking;

Remind me of the woman
who spoke of her vacation
at the round table of a small
town cafe; how she took
a vacation to the rainforest,
and had much to see; and how
her crimson red shades
matches the drapes; after all
it's the time of the month
and it lasts for days

If you want a lover,

you desire a well-lit cage;

and that, my prisoner

is okay.

...Fix your problems? Mother,
I can barely fix mine. Your daughter,
your favorite daughter, the one you've looked
after with all of your heart, brushing
the others aside; others, who like me
longed for your love, and only wanted
your care; nothing more; it was all we wanted.

Couldn't you see it in the way
we wanted you to play games with us?
And when we grew older
we sat with you on the bed
the day Papa left. K had his head
between your legs, whimpering
as you were sobbing;

sobbing there, always sobbing,
and look, you're doing it now;
nothing has changed; nothing
will change, will it?

Fix your problems? Me?
I've got enough of my problems
but the tears of your own sorrow
drown out the crises of others. Sometimes.
Sometimes.

Sometimes someone you love,
has to tell you what you don't
want to hear; what you aren't
able to handle;

and if you're lucky,
that someone, who truly loves you back,
will be there after you have
sobbed yourself to near-death.

Either you can sit there,
remain a limp, tired corpse,
and ****, moan and plead for others
to fix what you
refuse to fix yourself;

or you can do something about it;

something that isn't so *******

selfish;

something that is akin
to giving the abyss
a *******;

Just look at religion,
God, the church, the entire
lunacy of it's overbearing
presence!,--

That, mother,
is giving the *******
to the nothingness
that surrounds us all.

It was mid-August,
maybe later, when I developed
feelings for my best friend.

I think I knew
when I saw that
the trees in the
backyard were dying;

they stopped producing
oranges, their leaves were
soggy, pitiful trinkets.

It was the day after
I stopped believing in Santa;

my mother saw it on my face
when she turned around
and offered me toast bread.

I usually ate bread with my
oatmeal, but the spoon
was still on the table;

the oatmeal still in the bowl.

She asked me what was wrong
and I shrugged. I wanted to say
I was in love.

I wanted to ask if being in love
always felt this terrible; I didn't
care to go back to school, nor
study, nor become the doctor
they wanted me to be.

But that's when my father came in.

I was sent upstairs
to my room, and was told
to memorize the fifty
states.

In between reciting their names,
I could hear my father yelling
over my mother, and my mother
choking on the words, don't leave.

I could feel myself choking too.

So I walked to my window
and saw the dying orange tree;

then I thought of my friend

and how I'd like to play

with her again.

It's getting late.
The undead are having a night on the town.
The rustling of feet fill the evening air;
it's a dance of shuffle and scurry.
Don't be scared. That's only your heart
beating faster and faster.
No one knows we're here.
We made love three times already.
That's how bored we are.
Remember when you had things to do?
Remember when I had a schedule to follow?

Remember little Susie,
and Timothy?...

Me neither.

The scars never go away.
The past had it's moments of pleasure
as they did with pain;
and not much of it has really changed.

Don't be afraid.
It's just getting late.
It's only ***** fingernails clawing at paint.
The old door rattles, and it's **** shakes.
Someone wants in on our love.
Or that's what we always thought it was.

Let's make love another time.

The scars across your body
tell me the greatest bed time stories.

I wake up as She
and she's auditioning soon;
vying for a part no one can play
but everyone auditions for anyway.

And so we all sit in those
steel foldable chairs that never
get folded back into their original
form, because the bodies always
keep them warm.

The original selves
long for something else to be;
troubled souls in search for
broken homes; like the hidden
shadows of the known unknown.

I am her lips as they
part, close together
like the jaws of a shark,
reciting lines back to the director
crooked and parallel, aligned
waves of soft sounds; they reach
the peaks of receptacle body language
only to suddenly fall back down
barely scathing the director's emotions.

The director sees that there is talent
that lies within the woman;
I am her, and I was
a father of three darling daughters
not too long ago...

But I stand before the director
as her, and there are others
patiently waiting,
like the anchored piranhas
of the binary forest,
the Stygian vultures
of the neon desert;

and they vouch for
each other's safety
until they have landed
the Oscar award winning
scene; the all white cast
beams like the headlights
of an oncoming car.

Their hands free of guilt
washing the darkness away
from my rising star, my ship
no longer corroded brown
but assimilated, organized,
gentrified;

a man redesigned,
retrofitted and recombined
standing before the petrified
live audience as Her
in an ocean blue
dress;

a blood capsule
ready to burst with
finite increments
of happiness.