I have cancer, but that's not what I want to talk about.
Nor do I want to talk about the cold bouncing in
  from the sliding glass door of the lobby. (The lst
   floor lights give off deceptive warmth.)

I don't want to talk about hospitals, or illness for
that matter because, truthfully, its become a game
  of things I'd rather not discuss.
   If you have an imagination, you get it.

I don't want to talk about the thirty day hospital intervals,
or the way my heart turns seeing my mother watch her son
  soldier through. I can be brave and not feel like talking.
   Because why talk when I have you here, next to me, smiling.

I don't want to be a
sometime thing,
in between a
seldom seen and
just something
until something
better comes along.

I just want to be an
always thing,
just outside an
always there and
your everything
when everything
better is long gone.

It's easier it seems
To put on a mask
And hide my silent screams
Only a few have seen me without my mask
And eventually they stopped and asked,
Would you tell me your story?
It is easier in this place
Where no one knows of my face
Distorted throughout years of pain
This mask covers my past
I don't remember when I took it off last.
But here,
No one knows this is a mask
They think they see me.

Island Boy

He was lost
An island within an island

She threw a rope
A starry tow line in wet and molten tar
In the dark, in the shadows
Choked by his scent and fiery heat
Travelled far

He could not find his time and place
But only when he saw her face
Smelt her hair, was touched by her grace

Life it swelled, it raged, it soared
Yet all she saw was a closed door
Trapped on his island, surrounded
Having less but craving more

The tow line it twisted, it burnt,it pained
She cast it out but not yet cut
She held tight, she held firm, she bled
And only let go when she heard him say
But...

when your mouth opens
and my eyes close,
I cannot tell you who I see

because I am not sure if I am dreaming,
dying, or desperately waiting
for the Hands of God and
the hands of time
to kindly rewind to the point when something tiny,
quite small,
took hold of my blood supply,

when someone measurably loved me
six weeks and four days;
someone I knew less time than I knew
the blood stain before him.
or her. it. a clot.

but it was never that to me. right now
two tiny invisible hands, residing in my residual pain,
the recesses of my mind,
took us, you and I, separate entities now,
and pushed us back:

my eyes brimming with tears, your sighs coercing the silence.

someone's satisfied sky cloud moon sun stars wind earth fire
smile.
laugh.
tears that flooded the ocean where I stand,

reaching for what was once mine.

the nightmarish grey color
   eyes in the back of his head,
his last gasp a shutter
   you'll never forget,
when all you planned
   was for all you to get high
you and him and crystal,
    she is a good head girl,
and as he took his last breath,
    you found that last bit in his pocket hid it,
then called 911 cause Crystal was dialing 411, and
pounding his chest you screamed to him to breathe again.
As Crystal shoved paraphernalia under the couch.
The night the week the month ruined.
It all became a broken mirror,
Way more than seven years more bad luck.
More like a lifetime. And as you hit what he left you
the heard footsteps of doom creeping closer it lost
all the buzz.

don’t you spark
the fire and
abandon me,
you abstraction
of insolent
soliloquy of
elegance; all
of existence
craves a taste
of your savory,
effortless
whimsicality;

i’ll sail upon
a thundercloud,
braid the stars
into my hair
and remunerate
for my flawed,
scarred skin,
scathed soul,
with mellow
eyelashes like
rain; macrocosms
look vain,
through a
night-owl’s eyes;

trust my lies
when you fancy
truth, a vile elusive
absolute; trust
my eyes when
you fancy cold
decimation of
love and gold;

the morse code:
remains of your
melodramatic memory;
never look away
from me; i’ll fix
you like a broken
puppy toy, scuttle
across the bedroom
floor with agonizing
apathy, stay forever
and always with me
with your binary love,
you trivial, perfect machine.