I remember summers ago with a boy, who wasn’t so sweet but could read aloud like a gypsy and read your hand lines like a priest. I’d kick off my shoes and we’d spread a huge blue sun-bleached towel on the sand and prop up a chair. The metal grew hot in the sun. I remember a cooler full of Coke cans and plastic cartons of strawberries; we lived off those for days at a time (along with the occasional Hot Pocket) because we were too lazy to bike out to town, and it was too hot to leave the wooden floorboards and ice towels of our house. The windows let in the evening lights from a few miles away and the distant sounds of Spanish street guitarists. Sometimes we clambered up on the roof to hear them better, and you memorized one of the songs they’d play every night, spinning out a rough version on your guitar. But you couldn’t pronounce the words as well.

When we went out on the beach, you hated the waves so you stayed high from shore while I waded out until the water reached my belly, feeling the coolness seep through my shirt and the sand riffle between my toes. I’d always wanted you to join me. I wish you didn’t hate the waves, but you did so I just stood there alone, taking in salt from the breeze and the laughter of two sisters dragging buckets of water they could barely carry from the ocean to their sand castle. Again and again they came and went so that they could fill up the moat, because you couldn't have invaders from the next kingdom over to be able to kidnap the princess so easily.

I remember,
can it be a youths mind,
actions running, precociously
stunning,
fueling imagination atop
deep fields (gas stained dust).
Fires fickle fingers reaching
deep, scorching etches
and traces of friendship
through days made,
deep velveteen May.

I remember alabaster,
skin, flesh, the
two of us attuned to rivulets
running drawn sketches,
yours and mine, scratches
and gashes untended,
equality in torrential forest halls.  More
important days await,
our attentions intentionally
wasted, swimming moments,
mile deep lakes.

I remember,
memories of
laughs behind bushes, honey
suckle kisses on our
tongues, rain splashing
faces as we
run from the others; we were
the best, shadows
never caught,
never found,
always searching another’s
thoughts.  I remember
your purity.

Nervous energy,
I remember lofty concerns,
ideals on top of
the world, branches
holding dreams...
dreams on twigs,
weighty ghosts waltzing
in the wind, worlds laid bare
for our eyes only,
golden thoughts, suicidal laughs
streak across our eyes, terrified
under beats bolstering skin, pine
resin sticking sixty
feet in the air.

Ah! the glory, days
remembered, softly slick
bubbles, foam
soap drenched fingers
wrinkled screams as hot oil
fly’s by, blinded ice erupting
mushroom clouds,
imminent danger behind
inappropriate motions,
fingers grazing
skin and we’re all laughing
everyone.

Stories told,
unmasked lives spoken
on concrete, curbs cry
with open passion as
raspberry flows free,
chocolate dreams milking
tongues, sugared
pastries delight in
nights gone by, the blink
of an eye, four a.m.
lullabies on top
of the Hill.

Can we forget?
spaces taken,
speeding drives along
empty Inter-states, dates
to remember music and
malls and movies, money
spent, red-blue lights
falsely imprison our
spectacular
imaginations, yet
they only stop to
smile and laugh, ‘get
home safe’ is the standard
we live by.

Oh yes,
how I remember our
love, our friendship
sailing through immortal
days.  How
I remember us, gravel roads
spitting dust behind
tires dancing rocks
beneath our high, soaring
minds singing
brazenly, sunrise
just around the bend and
I find it terribly hard to
look upon this
beauty and not cry.

Seemingly too much,
impossible events occur
when two impossible souls
find a way (the word
is twine), and though it’s
been a time apart, years
since regular
explosions of fire have
kindled in our eyes, together,
I still remember, I
still yearn for a thing
that feels so
freshly young.  Can
you yourself
still remember?

Gods laugh,
I cough out
unsuitable words,
descriptions of a past
that possibly existed,
waking dreams,
early morning gold slivers
between the contrast,
alleviates the pain
of separation,
connected by a love
I’ve never lost.  Do
you remember those green
days, those glorious
triumphs of the
human body,
mind, and
soul?  Do you
remember...

my Love,
my friend,
tears fall unbidden,
joy; keep it coming.

I have hairy legs.
The dishwasher is broken.
I have been reading books.
I have been solving stupid math equations

I have to wash the food crusted dishes.
I’m writing a novella
I’m also researching sodium chloride
My novella is only six pages single-spaced so far.

Comment vous appelez-vous?

Why doesn’t anyone participate
In the
Wash Your Own **** Dishes Program?
I’m studying French.
-b +/- Square root of b2 – 4 (a)(b) over 2(a)

Anyways.
I have been teaching myself
How to play my
Black
Stretchy
Accordion.
[I don’t know why,
But it’s stretchy
Like mozzarella cheese]

I have to help my sister-in-law move
Into my house.
Into the basement.
Heh heh heh.

Daiya non-dairy cheese:
“Melts and stretches!”

Now I have to scrape the
Black tar gunk
Off the plates, because
Mother told me to do so.

Oh, the odium of sodium!

There is
No more time
For me
To shave
My legs.

Firestorm
The ticking stops
And we look around, astonished
To be in a forest, surrounded on all sides
By charred trees
Victims of wild energy
At one time or another

It is in this corpseyard
That brilliantly colored
Paper clues lazily drift
Down upon the breeze
To tangle in your hair
And cover my eyes

But not until much later
Would I realize
Had I opened them
And not remained fearful
Of these new lenses

I might have seen through their voices
The vibrant hues you brought with you

But as is
We merely circumvented the beauty
Made our way slowly to the gates

And, unknown to us
The magentas and forest greens
Wilted in the darkness
As we left.

Peace!
Sang the turtle
Life!
Croaked the frog
Love!
Chirped the crickets
From under their home log

And the owl raised one gloomy eye
To witness the parade
"But love is just a camouflage"
He said within the shade
"Delusions and intrusions, why
That's just no place to be"

The owl rambled on until
A cricket climbed his tree
Now this brave fellow hopped and jumped
In the great owl's face
To squeak out
"Love is everything, in every time and space"

And the owl moved his beak, annoyed, intent to have a snack
But a skip, a jump, a somersault
And the cricket's safely back
Among his friends, and as they turn
To march themselves away
They sing out to the owl
"Hope you have a grand 'ole day
And love will come your way
And love will come your way"

today was the day
the broken boys rolled me like dice
tumbleweeding me onto
the suburban curbs
where i cried and cry for night
a place to hide truth
knowing that i know & knew
what boys like that could do
zoo my heart
with caged rapture
spit up my skirt
with laughter
we all knew
what we were after
spilling thrills
scrawling broken
wills
with spraypainted
walls & spread
legs   ..sea saw see saw

momentary fishbowl celebrity
look up
the sun is so bright
i hate the sun light
i hate seeing who i am
and knowing what i've done
"brrring brrring"
"look out!  SCRUB"
scowls twisted on their face
i lurch forward
tires flicker on cement
heart fries on pavement
my legs are stiff as 30 day old dog ****
neighbors bike by
swerve in butterflies around my mind
the sign on my mediocre face reads nobody
i'm picking up all the change
that flew from my pockets
when i decided to be bad
money sweaty in my palms
the teenage gutter angst song