I choose a table in the middle
To feel like I'm part of the rush.
Regulars are identified by their silence
Receiving their drinks without need for a word.
I stumble over my order...
One small? tall? short? Fat ameri-frappe please hold the dairy...
I'm certain I did it wrong
Every hole in the wall has its own lingo
To distinguish those in the know
From those who wandered in

I'm a wanderer, without a doubt
The man behind me is impatient
He's one of the silent ones
Unsmiling in his dress shirt
I wish I were a real person like him
Who knew to say short instead of small
And didn't sit alone at tables
Writing phrases no one cares to read.

I think of all the air I’ve breathed
Happily ******* it in to the maximum, and then
That time he forced it down
Swallowed my “no” with his tongue
Both instances equally oxygenated

Why are the somber, sober selections always
unequivocally deeper in their loveliness
Scathing crisscross critique
Harsh words cannot dampen my fire
Hot and smoky I inhale

Steaming in this teepee from my fourth grade field trip
some re-creation of real civilization
absent was the metallic machinery
I long for stars brighter than
Plastic Hollywood

Ten and I convinced your mother I had died in a car crash
The first instance of my violent imagination
My conscience, sloth like, inverted blame
Like a sock turned inside out
I wished what I said was true

Years later I started the slow process of intentionally dying
Stupid girl I was. Unoriginal like the others
Only sewed up my holes. They asked me if I had a plan
Spitefully silent and still
I did not reply because I did not care to

The rolling hills of my temper
Emerged as I exited the binding comfort of my home
Young adulthood in all its glorious newness left me devoid
Of confidence in my ability to breathe on my own
Therapy and tablets forced me to care

Today I am high
I spew words
You don’t write poetry she says
Playing with words like string
It runs through my fingers, loose then taught, then a mess of tangle on the floor

As ******* as my tongue
Lapping up the air

Her skirt
Shockingly short
For the office

Her top
Too see-through
For her age

Her nose
Pitifully crooked
Don’t you agree

If only she were a bit different
we would have an easier time
packaging some manufactured respect
to sell her.

Slowly decaying in the sun
Passersby laugh and point
Like an overly ripened fruit
Sending my sweet rotting odor
Into the still air

I try to stop
this chemical process
but decomposition is inevitable
I am becoming soft
and the skin is beginning to curl

it burns
the sunshine
pushing like the knife that cuts
me into pieces
turning me into mush

the kind that ends up in the garbage
or on the sidewalk
a biodegradable heap of fiber and juice
soon to be squashed underfoot
or eaten by some feral animal

I am nothing but an orange
Round and repugnant

The man began to cry
Four feet from my ears
Which stretched and strained
To catch his conversation
In their elastic curiosity
Great fat tears
Sliding down the mountains and valleys
Cheeks and hollowed out lines
In the corners of eyes and lips
Wetting the paper skin
As shoulders shook and hands trembled
Some words about a daughter
A young girl not seen for a while
The tender sorrow brought to
An unintentionally absent father
Pain is the color of the water
Draining from the ducts
on this man’s lash line
his white overalls
stained with the sun
of labor done with his hands
not his mind
his face now drying
salty residue in the hairs of his chin
lapping up the remains of his Americano
I lose interest

The colors are melting today
Into pools of muddy goop
It's funny to see the trees usually so loudly green
now grey
But not like in winter
No-today they are not even grey

The grey has also slid into the puddle
Left is only a void where the trees used to be
for without their colors outlined against the blue
(now voided) sky
their forms cannot be identified

I wander through this forest of trees that no longer exist
Just a memory of a woods that used to be
How strange to walk amongst mere impressions
The smell of pine has faded with the green and left faint traces
to cling only in my nostrils

Soon, I know my colors will also join the wet mud
now sticking in the treads of my shoes
They will run down my neck, onto my belly,
and trace drops down my legs
All the brown and beautiful blues
my pink lips and even my heart

All will become a void
As the forest exists only in my mind
So shall I
colorless
and chaotic

The flower grows through the concrete
that flat dark oppressor
who’s overtaken our world

The land used to be soft
supple and sweet with the
loving soil

dirt roads and dirt houses
earth surrounded us
made us remember where we come from

on the open faces of children
the clenched hands of adults
were left traces of the world

work and play involved the same
essential ingredients
and together they made life

pavement is clean
and leaves no mark
except ****** scrapes on our knees

Now it hurts to fall
the earth cannot catch us
with her arms bound

But the green is coming through
now and I can see the breaks
in the grey

The cracks are getting wider and
we might have hope yet
of wearing that warm ground

If I can find a patch
of some dirt
I’ll roll in it till I’m covered

And walk naked through the asphalt
world till my muddy footprints
erase all the bloodstains
from scraped knees and plucked flowers.

I want to deal with paperwork
not people anymore

Give me bureaucracy
I’ll give you productivity

No more empathy
or patience with the patients

Need that nine to five
cubicle and a coffee break

Bosses will love my
enthusiastic filing

Can’t service another person
just as mental as me

I need a new kind of crazy
The normal kind, please

I am tired behind my eyes
and in the spaces between my toes

the aching melancholy  
wanders into my body
muddles my mind
leaves my throat closed and dry

cold with lack of inspiration
sad songs make me limp
a heart infected with
chords of the past

I hunger for relief
from this exhaustion
heavy and weak
I succumb

She drives like wildfire
Fast and uncontrolled
Unevenly coating the pavement
with her angry fumes
Her head is falling to her chest
Small salty diamonds
Drip onto her lap
Her hands are burning
Arms are aching
With the inclination to veer off to the left
Hard and with great intention
To end the night in flames

Twisting these unruly thoughts
into something presentable

like the knotty hair
my mother used to battle
each morning

in desperation I write
aiming for wisdom
landing on forced

She dabs on a bit of lipstick
To show that she's not sad
Walking down the rain drenched concrete
Passers-by are almost fooled
Until they see her eyes

Those two always betray her
Red and framed with sparkling tears
Can't be bothered to wipe them away

Alone on a stool
Head in hand
The red has stained her glass
With kisses she never meant to give

Other patrons try to cheer her
Offering to buy her rounds
As if drinking such bitterness
Could make a person smile

What had she expected to find in such a place as this?
She'd hoped for company
And encountered only lust

She was light
not just in ounces and pounds
but in the way she moved

You know what I mean
a person who can elevate the mood
of a room
with a word
or smile

The pills made her heavy
not just in the numbers
of sizes and scales
but in the way she became still

The deluge of tablets and capsules
knocked her down
off her stage
onto her knees

left her weeping
begging anyone who would listen
to make her light again
to dry her face

soaking from the water
from her eyes and from the flood
now unable to be without
her daily dose

dependency holds her hand
a parent who is afraid
to let the child be free
Worried she will float away