Her fingers touched at black-and-white,
caressed candle-flickering light,
glanced across a scattered scene
and picked out words, from inbetween
the spaces in her sight

The sofa screams, her daytime dreams
are faceless in the night

Trusts to fail or feel, a rusted wheel
of claiming wrong and right

Close the circles caught in knots behind her eyes,
open up to shrinkwrap sighs
grow the glowing trail of colors
twisting in the air outside: and rise
the sun is in a pair of eyes
a web of words, an unknown prize,
and hours away
a person reads, and cries.

We're taught to love straight lines.

It's this thought I wrestle with
as the road I choose turns and winds,
it's the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit kind,
it's so slow, so ****** slow and most
folks resent the view and miss the show.

Air compresses stronger than steel
at the sight of this mirror I reel
trying to find straight lines where none exist
trying to find the steps I missed.
Movement forms a breeze
of leave, and I drive.

Laughing fear away, away
Words can't feel nor can they sway
Preaching orders to blind reporters
"Stay, don't stay, and never
ever pray"

Depravity and gravity, stolid,
You can't pretend these things aren't solid,
An idea is an idea
was an idea
was once a thought
and then forgot.

CRASH

and the room is so small, so
terribly small and uncomfortable until
you remember you haven't stepped
over your front mat, you're stuck
on a door step that's glaring down at you from your feet.

and you're screaming without opening your mouth,
because the only way you know how to express
is to paint your words on your forehead
and jump through stained-glass windows.

and the night doesn't end, sunlight is a dream,
the glare on your screen is from the city lights
swallowing the sky.

Paradise walking,
tremors in a suitcase waiting,
unattended outside your locked doors.

Preachers talking,
pathways in the nighttime fading,
silence mirrored in your crimson floors.

Creatures gaping,
twilight in the trees and
burns and pleas and seeing
separate pieces
Crying on your
starlit sandy beaches as the
night collapses, dawn surpasses
pillows made of ashes
Sunlight burns your broken
body hiding in the sand
and jagged lashes
pictures fastened
memories fashioned

Soap cleanses broken lenses
Wounds heal and people deal.

Above my clouds I found
a color wheel, round
and sedentary like my body
used to be before I
claimed it as my home

Similarly, the colors spun and
swirled just like when
I walked for the first time in years:
light airy bees wings,
spiral striped feelings

And at first I fought
the unfamiliar lack of gray
and why was my head above the clouds anyway?
and what were these nameless things?
forgotten feelings?
What gave me away?


Standing straight becomes
easier with practice.

There's a glass in her
hand, trembling,
because it's the only thing
she has to hold onto as
she fights an endless reality
nightmare and can't
grip the table or turn
a sharp edge the wrong way
and pierce an inner urge
that tears her skin, stomach
writhing as her body's
reversing dying even though
she dreams of acid trying
to escape the sliding
mass within her throat;
so used to an acid coat
to save her face, her waist,
and even though her world
is shame
she cannot leave or
change her blames or
tolerate the world's flames;
she has to jump on
hot coals and turn to
steam and simultaneously freeze
and break out, sink in, learn to BE
because this pain is her recovery.