Mother, Father
I am six foot one and I can see over the trees
I can **** mountains and bury my bones in the soil
I am six foot one and I am just tall enough to see the truth
I can look over others but I can't look over myself
My shoulders bend like a bow, waiting to break
And I can feel it all. I can feel it all.

And to you,
May your temporary smile be a golden forever
And your heart existent with or without hope
Let your brain open doors your hands cannot touch
And your chest not collapse when the smoke is too much
To live and to love with you is the grandest adventure
And to cut myself on your edges, bleeds into itself
And to live in your heart, is the biggest place I've ever found
And to kiss you until my hands break and there is no sound

And to all of us,
We're a dark piece of trash
Ribs are a cage and holographic souls sing
Disenchanted by the human experience
We're pretentious and objectify everything

And to all of us,
We're all light, we're all eyes wondering wide
And we all shine bright, some of us cannot hide
May your hands slant, slowly slinging
towards the bells that are slowly ringing
and may you strike a chord in all of us.
May your existence be a temporary forever.

If you told me God crafted you in Her image,
I would go to church on Sundays.

Rinse
Repeat
A simple man, trapped by society,
Raised to feel indebted to his family
His fantasy is printed and framed
Above the job's lobby. A beautiful
Scene of the mountains in Nagasaki.
The clear air clears the clouds
Of the the solvent factory
So he sits and stares
Ever unsure of his trajectory.
Rinse
Repeat
The quality of his life is priced
At $4.50. If he can't get his fix
Of burritos and churro sticks,
His world turns to bricks.
His grip slips.
The slight weight shift on his hips
Strips his exuberant demeanor
Like a lunar eclipse.
Rinse
Repeat
When he tries to adlib the script,
Life and love kicks him in the intelligence.
His happiness doesn't take precedence
Over the dead presidents he needs
To keep his residence. It's evident
In his directionless aggressiveness,
He feels irrelevant to his existence.
So, he slows the pistons of his brilliance.
Rinse
Repeat
His silence has made him forget his presence
He's become convinced that washing metal prints
Isn't against his will. That the fulfill-
Ment of another's vision is the pill
To his sickness. Like the use of litmus
Will heal his mental limpness
Between 9 and 5. The only thoughts
He completes are *rinse and *repeat

You tell me you're empty
And I know you want my sympathies
My acknowledgement of the problem
But all I can give you is the gawking gaze
Of a child on his first trip to the zoo
Leaving smudges on the snake tank as he tries to fathom
How something could be so alien and smooth and powerful.
You tell me you're empty
And all I can think is
That I have not a moment of my life to compare that to-
A day without suffering, without pain or danger,
Without that or joy so intense it tips right back over into treachery
I have no memory of any such day
To draw from for empathy.
I stand and stare at you
Empty you
And I know your sadness should be respected
And I know I shouldn't wonder so perversely
What it must feel like
Not to feel
But I can't help it
I feel like I'm standing on the other side of glass
Staring into the beady eyes of a boa constrictor
Wondering irresistibly
What its embrace must feel like for the mice it devours.
I know you are suffocating
But I
Am drowning
And I wonder
What empty feels like.

For Sylvia Plath.*

The April gushes were all over my face
For a moment, to come back
Anytime they like;
Next month, or next blink

In my subtropical 1811
Seasons do not really matter
Though I have a calendar
Curled up in my insides

It has all the dates
Of the infamous April
Since decades ago
Your February 11

Is permanently a holy day ---
I am sorry I have never been
So religious before
But I believe in you

I believe in you like birds in their wings --
I keep my faith as wet
As the wet towels, until now still soaked
In tears for your dear head ---

O blonde thing!
When I first met you
I didn't understand
Why people built shrines and statues

Why people prayed to you
Why your name erased their fears
Why they cried when they heard your voice ---
O funny duchess!

When I first met you
I thought you had
Really hoped to be horizontal
I didn't know that you were, you are

The horizon ---
I went to the sea and all I could see was you
And I can't stop thinking that you are
The blood this heart is pumping --

O tiny mother!
My horizontal lady!
You died before I had time ---
How I wish I could kiss you

A Judas kiss!
O sweet Lazarus!
My lioness!
The gas has ran out

The ovens are turned off
You are no longer a kitchen girl
My minerals, motherly love!
You can lie back now ----