You're standing in the rain
it's 4 am and the wine you drank
is still dancing in your blood,
the cigarette smoke still lingers in your hair,
and lipstick is smudged on your skin.

Where you are is unknown
the streets are thick with puddles
and all the people have wandered off to bed
but you didn't.

Because going home meant being alone
and you hate lying in a bed
with cold sheets
with  no one to hold.

You hate waking up without someones fingertips
tracing your lips
or combing your hair.

You hate standing in your kitchen
looking out your small ***** window
wondering where the person who was made to love you
disappeared to.

So you stay out
just to feel less lonely.
Even if the only company you have are a few scattered raindrops
and the faint glow of street lamps at 4 am.

The café rumbles like the belly of a fasting saint,
voices competing with the clanks of silverware.
In the tearoom a boy with a tangle of wires
leaking from an unzipped backpack
struts between tables, billing himself as a "human hotspot".
He wears the same glasses you do;
they slip down his nose as he leans over to flirt with the waitress
in the red apron, who taps her nails against the cash register
and laughs at his bad jokes, she tells me, because
he wears his pants too high, just like her brother used to.

A man with a soup-stained button down and a bald spot
introduces himself as Peter Ling, proprietor,
oracle of the inner city rummage sale,
advisor to the lost and hungry.
He doles out pithy wisdom and lentils into mismatched bowls-
"You want therapy? Try your ex boyfriend."
The four of us hide our grins, and flee
to his cavernous basement. As we go spelunking
through the puddles left by a burst pipe,
clambering past bloated books and warped furniture,
Emma Miller swears that she slept here once-
on a moldy brown sofa crouched like a hibernating bear
among empty Heineken bottles.

The expedition yields four boxes of acupuncturist leaflets
and a damp antique suitcase filled with seeds,
who seized the opportunity to germinate,
their tiny roots searching fruitlessly
in the mildewed silk lining.
Ling says he's going to try gardening this year,
serve up spaghetti squash grown out back by the garage.

We sowed pea shoots and salad greens
in glass jars pilfered from a claw-footed armoire
that lay on its side, defeated, like the last of the saber-tooths.
I named one for you, tucked Eruca vesicaria sativa
into potting soil, and set it on the balcony railing-
tempting fate and gravity, because you always liked a little excitement
with your afternoon cup of rooibos.
I didn't see the girl who knocked you off your perch,
saw only the sun's sharp gleam off the glass
as the jar plunged, graceful as a slow-motion train wreck
on its arc toward the concrete,
and Peter Ling reached up with his big, calloused hand
to break your fall.

They can feel you falling away,
Never longer the same, Never longer,
Unable to break,
And may someone who feels for you,
Help you out of the rays of the sun,
May they help you glide by its shadows,
For the most obvious reasons,
Though that very few
Can purely
See

And so with those thoughts I swiftly walk by the dark street,
With a light in the distance but so far away its,
Dimmed to me.

And so I think for someone else,
Not myself
For once,
As I hear the baby cry its cry and sob its sob,
While I walk,
As I hear some other mom tell her daughter,
That next year it won't be a school night,
Next year she can sleep over,
Next year she can do this
And do that,
Just be prepared.

And so with those thoughts I swiftly walk by the dark street,
With a light in the distance but so far away its,
Dimmed to me.

Sometime afterwards,
I'm hit by the intoxication of imagination,
The visuals that form spontaneous speech,
And words that form anything but sentences,
Though they form expression,
Nothing like this, though.

And so with those thoughts I swiftly walk by the dark street,
With a light in the distance but so far away its,
Dimmed to me.

And So I'll walk again,
Maybe in this night or,
Maybe in the upcoming day,
Well really,
In the upcoming true episode of life that hits me soonest,
Nothing of the sort regarding the past,
Nothing of the sort regarding now,
And nothing of the sort regarding the future,
Whatever hits me that is a timeless presence.

The whole problem is that the timeless presence is one of a kind,
One of a kind that barely anyone is willing to find,
And I dare someone to slash me blind,
The timeless peace that is yet with my life aligned,
Will find me when I find it

"History doesn't repeat itself...but it does rhyme." -Mark Twain*

Oh, America!

You didn’t stand a chance.

What, with a Mother so gluttonous
that the sun never set on her,

With a Father so shameless
that his name became synonymous with guilt,

The prodigal sheep
couldn’t stray too far.

In New World tantrums
you brewed Earl Grey bays,

You built your houses
on foundations of graves,

You pursued your happiness
through the sweat of slaves,

Behind white-picket fences
you dreamt away decades…

And then you were stirred,
by a bird through your window,
to find no one at your wake.

Her poetry makes me breathe deeper,
as I plunge into the endless submersive cave,
her voice holds the light.

Your gut feelings are more than superstitions.

Do you feel that?

I do not understand how you do not lead
inquisitions
about the
superposition
of your
existence.

You may choose to be blind.

But the universe will laugh, heartily,
at that.

As will I,
and the smoke,
it will curl from my lips as the corners of my mouth transcend into a delectable giggle.

And I will laugh, heartily,
at that.

A whirlwind of leaves.
the warm gust on my face,
the thick smell of coffee,
a low hum,
Excitement!

conversation....
old friends chatter,
lovers reunited,
Oh me, Oh life
Let this never end.