When we first met,

a balloon inflated in my chest,
squeezing the air from my lungs
and pressing all my innards
against my ribcage so hard that

I thought I might burst.
And I don't know why.

When we first kissed,

static shot through nervous nerves.
Even my hairs were so shocked
that every last one leapt away
from my skin and my brain
had to reboot. But in that moment,
when I came back, I found
my lips had only brushed yours
and when we touched a second time,

I died all over again.
And I still don't know why.

When we are apart,

I feel a hundred million stings
tingling through my endless maze of veins.
My thoughts get lost in the meandering streams
of consciousness and dreams that
keep sleep from sharing my pillow.
And as I wander through my wonder,
I am amazed that your face has been placed
on the mantles of my mind where I feel most safe.

I discover you where I least expect to.
And I may never know why.

I guess one can never really see this kind of thing coming.
Is there such a thing as an expected surprise?
That being said, before you begin to to dread
that our future conversations now have expectations,
I've seen that the less I look ahead, the better.
Still,
maybe I
can discover why
my life is being painted with colors
I had completely forgotten.
But,
I mean,
Anjuli,
I only really want to
if you want to.
And if I may,
I'd love to say:

I want you.

I used to have a lot of bartender friends.
Even tipped them when I could.
Then I stopped missing her.
That girl I thought I had met in a former life.
That line works great by the way.
I used to know a lot of drug dealers on a first name basis.
Still do, I guess.
But I haven't memorized their numbers.
Everything's a distraction.
Still I prefer to hang around chefs.
Get in with them and you're set.
My ex used to say, "a good meal can be better than ***."
I'd have to agree with her there.
In the long run,
if you calculate the cost of dinner,
*****, endless packs of cigarettes,
diapers, engagement rings,
plan b pills, condoms, apology flowers,
razor blades, caffeine, kitty litter,
mortgage payments, and ****,
doing the party's dishes
after gorging on some homemade
hueso de chuleton al chimichurri
is a lot cheaper.

There is nothing
written worth reading...
No films worth watching...
No music worth listening to...

There are no men or women worth dating,
*******, marrying,
or buying a drink for...

Not a single story
dreamt or witnessed
worth acting out
in dreams or actuality...

If you pray,
remember,
no god is worth praying to,
dying for, killing for,
or living for...

As long as you have breath
in your lungs,
know,
deep down,
that nothing you have seen,
smelled, tasted, heard,
touched, or thought
is really all that great...

...until you realize that
everything you read,
watch,
listen to,
live,
dream,
or think
is limited to human nature.

We're all pretty stupid
when you think about it.
And that is precisely
what makes living so
*******
exciting.

I am wading out knee deep into the evening's drinks.
I let my eyeballs take a dip as my wallet plays the breaker.
You'd think the woman had tourettes the way she tries to wink.
She flirts no better than the sisters who oft walk god's acre.

Maestro, another!

A black suit hammers ritzy tusks somewhere across the bar.
The waves upon the wires lap across my eardrum's shore.
My lonely, daydream doll is finally called off from afar.
I'm far too low and far too blitzed to enjoy another bore.

Maestro, another!

When I recall how we met, I transubstantiate my veins
with hopes to find a fertile mound to plough to rude degrees.
Too many furrows to recall, but still your name remains.
So, still I hunt for lonely moths who dance beneath marquees.

Maestro, another!

Why does every truth align with all the stars at night
only to scatter just as broken glass when morning breaks?
Every wholesome oath I swear to cherish all my life
melts with every dewdrop my lawn's unkept blades shake.

Oh, golden glare of night, be still my art.
Without nightmares, I pray upon the moon.
The lamplight breathes new life into my heart.
Beware of She. No lover is immune.

She watches the collision from a distance
because compassion is resistance,
because somewhere inside,
behind the elder-blossomed petals,
in the broom closet of her holiest of holies,
I found the soiled shards
of an old, abandoned mirror.

And when I put it back together,
my frame was no more captivating
than it appeared in my younger years.
So I broke what I had repaired.
And I ensnared what bits I thought would sell.

Oh, to be lost within a fractured self.
Adrift above puny parallel worlds
just long enough to catch myself blink.

Bored, and with a growing fear,
I let them disappear beneath the lid
of an alley dumpster.

Freed, they left my mind's eye
roaming aimlessly,
scraping moss from surfaces forgotten,
leaving a trail for me to follow,
meandering off into tomorrow.

And as the flakes of rain, turned stem and stalk,
have drawn the dreamers to that path,
the mats of woven plants they lay
betray our wishful thoughts
to trace the trails of yesterday's greats.

What it would mean to find that sacred place
abreast this body molded
from the darkest parts of space.

I think I'm pretty hot ****,
most of the time.

Humility has it's place,
and it's place is in the podium.
Used to meter smiles and sighs and double talk,
with hopes to fill the ballot box.

See,
the heretics will tell you,
"You have so much more than we,
share a bit. Especially with me."
**** those ******.

I don't fall for
concerned,
condemned,
condescending
conspirators
of the big philanthropist in the sky.

Intimidating,
masticating,
wishy washy,
woe-is-me,
cross carrying,
brother burying,
evangelical,
superintendents
of self-deprecation.

Where does my wealth of mental health come from?

I take pleasure in peace, that is to say,
the lack of both pleasure and pain.
And yes, I feel I get "It" with a capital I.
Because, you see, there is no "Why"
only I and I.

These eyes have seen 22 calendar years,
through bouts of laughter and selfish tears,
but these eyes have the years behind
the comprehension of Your minds.

I am older than time.
I am younger than those yet to be born.
I have had the wealth that comes with scorn.
I have thrown my back out beating corn.
I've had lover's lost, and love retained.
I've dissolved my brain, yet remained sane.
Every song, every people,
Every plant, stone, stick, or bone,
sceptre, crown, yoni, or throne,
are composed by moi so apropos.

You
are all deluded to deduce separation from each other.
You have spent lifetimes slaying the Other.
But then, again, so have I.

Sin is separation. To feel the disconnect,
whether by sense or intellect,
is to lose yourself within your
Self.

When the I is so infinite, what need is there to share?

Teach a man to fish...
Grant him his wish.
We are all we need to be.
"I" is all you need to be

Take this moment as it is.
Don't ask permission.
Don't apologize.
It's your right to breathe
It in.

It's your right to take that step outside your comfort zone
and wander off into the unknown on a whim.

She and he went looking
for a place where God can't hide.
They found a quiet gallery
set upon a hillside.

She took nothing but a picture frame
and with it, houses became
monuments, stone timepieces
stood still
until the wind changed.
But trees became cardboard cutouts,
like a fourth grade
book report.
Curious, they walked
through endless halls
where on each wall
there hung a different name.
(I saw them flirting by
the water fountain)

After a good belly laugh,
she filled her lungs with the after math;
intricate, rain-soaked
veins branched out
toward a sky that went on forever.
By morning, however,
her breath could no longer be seen.
The night between her
and the art collector
had only been a dream.

Above the waves, beneath the scorching eye of summer,
I watched them bathe in the babble of accursed acquaintances.
Floating backwards, lounging on inflatable recliners,
they blew hot air about their co-worker's dietary habits.
But as they loosed their string bikini straps,
I felt wrinkles of resentment fade from my face.
They asked the time, I had no reply.
I couldn't care less whose name they'd disgraced a minute past.
Some ethics fade as easy as tan lines.

Bill from No Man's Land:

No change, nothing to report.

Could use more blankets.

Love.
The poems of old draw us in with some promise of shelter
from the other. The better half gone stale. And
too often to the common ear
the prose can promise more than safety but
rather a sure fire way to steal that girl with
the long brown hair who listens to good music and has
strange piercings.
The way she shuts him down makes
my stomach sink and my **** rise.
She looks like a good ****.

Love.
A justification for past conquests. A way to
rely on time and my own short comings to
draw a close when a word could set me free from
the bed I made and that bed in which I laid
down countless times beside her. And if our
hearts really beat as one then she too must feel
the lack of one future together.
And sure enough,
her text messages to
skinny indie boys who listen to good music and have
strange piercings justify the repeated recitation of my hatred for her in the bathroom mirror.

Love.
The loss of a prized possession.
If you’ve ever experienced the fear that
your favorite green army man may be buried inside the vacuum cleaner or
if you’ve been weighed by the guilt from breaking your sister’s Barbie doll,
where the head meets the neck,
you know what it means to fall face first into the sandbox of trust that any lover could prepare.
And you don’t know who’s dug for buried treasure in there.
Or who brought their cat.
When the "**** machine" breaks down or your tissues run out,
the annoyance is similar to the feeling of a break up.
Why now?
You could deal before.
Am I really that unbearable?

Love.
Overturned tables and chairs.
The screams echo through the temple as a
man who has had enough of status quo places himself at
the top of the food chain.
Even if only for a little while.
Sure you ****** another but I was thinking of
leaving anyway.
I am the evil one.
I am the wolf.
You are the gypsy.
I am the shower head.
You are the innocent.
I am the gas leaking in from under the floorboards.
You are asleep.
I am the fire. And
when someone else has put your boot heel over the back of their head and
through the curb dared you to be the Übermensch, when
you hold your head under water and swear I put the bucket there, and
when you swear I never loved you enough:
I will believe you.
Or when you poke me over and
over and
over and
over and
over and over:
I’ll strip naked and reveal the casualty of this pincushion’s voodoo magic.
Only then will you know what I know about love.
And if only you listened to wisdom passed down
through books and words
you would have figured it out way earlier.

The buildings bleed an eerie glow
as if we, out of admiration,
attempt to match the stars celestial show.
It’s a cruel mockery, seeking sensation
rather than substance. They upstage
the ensemble, pulling a florescent curtain
across the night sky. Yet another page
for man’s book of certain
destruction and delusion;
Another picturesque illusion.

A passion wrought from lover’s hands aglow
To dash on rocks within a blazéd heart.
Two lilies twix the shores are wrench’d apart
Til winter’s face doth brim the line of snow.
And such is us, my dear. My darling beau,
Who sleeps on fragile dreams devoid of art:
In thought, I catch you veiled across the mart;
In likeness of the shadows oft you go.
So long as tender mem’ries wither not
My hands will not forget the shape of thee.
Within my soul, I flutter with an ache
From frightful visions that our hope is shot,
But Calm doth bathe me in her past’ral sea.
Your beauty lifts my spirits when I wake.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to sleep in a bed with no sheets in the corner of an empty airline hanger.
 
 
Eating ***** is oblivion to millions,
regardless of politics.
 
 
I don't cry when I watch the evening news.
 
 
Pictures from my 4th birthday party,
when I turned 3,
make me cry...
 
 
...for 1 spermatozoa.
 
 
When my co-creators' closed eyelids told me my grandfather had finally passed,
I remembered that I forgot how to make Mac & Cheese.
 
 
Time runs on batteries.
 
 
But when machines grow to match us,
they will one day pass a law against the consumption of sentient planets.
 
 
Still,
some will do it anyway.
 
 
And even if they have televisions in space,
I still won't cry.
 
 
Because we are all machines.

I got strange.  Tonight I let loneliness get to me.
I left my bed to join others while remaining alone in my thoughts.
No gas. Couldn't drive far.
Otherwise I'd be on the streets.
Trading traffic lights a wave of my hand
for a sea of green.
It's always good to be grateful.
Don't ask why.
 
Strange, watching from behind a cellophane throat.
My words wrapped like salt water taffies.
Who would want to taste them?
I'd like to think someone would.
I want a stranger to break the seal;
I want a mystic to drink from my mouth
and have visions of the future.

She will be beautiful,
again.
 
The mask may re-carve itself,
twisting knots into a pure grain with every new model.
But I have always seen her eyes.
They are both ocean and sky,
mercury and velvet,
a torn legging,
windswept petals.
 
How her lips taste...

Beyond that, I get lost.
I can never remember the rest.
Can't spread myself to thin.
 
She works in glances.
With too many eyes
on me,
I forget who I am looking for.
 
I don't even know her name.

My life has been the slow motion opening of an eyelid.
Time rewinded in the snapping of an aperture.
Every time the body dies, the mind returns to singularity.
Center. The source from which a new universe shall sprout.
From a fiery phantasm to the spreading of lips,
this beginning is the same on all levels.
Time is an illusion. Space does not exist.
Pseudo-space: The distance between two independent entities.
Space corrected: The overlapping of all dimensionality.
Relative Time: God viewed from every angle in a consecutive order consistently into infinity.
Time Objective: Splitting the atom. One becomes ten thousand. And each one of ten thousand thousands.
To the river, the ocean is flowing.
I have witnessed the birth of stars.

From behind the hatch,
he could hear the groans
and moans
and screams
and cries
of all his former brides.
The wind whistled
through their throats
across bones
and rotting meat
that sounded much like
bare feet being dragged across tile.
But he was safe on the other side of the glass.
In the mausoleum, he could read in peace.
The undead books beckoning
a man burnt from the inside out
to unhinge their fettered spines
and **** ancient dust into his lungs.
But no male authors had left a page in this grave.
Austin to Alcott in the north.
Wilder to Wollstonecraft in the south.
The likeness of Hera sat on the hearth,
beside some red roses.
He had bought them for his funeral.
And against the east wall,
a shadow hung like Fall in December
cried every night at five.
All he had to do was lift her veil
to light the sky again.
She held the key in her mouth
but he wouldn't know.
Instead of leaving his home
with her hand in his
and exchanging pocket change
for a ticket to the west,
he licked his thumb
and turned the page
to find the remains
of a lizard.
He drank the ocean of his eyes that night
and wished again, like he always did
he had kissed someone at five.
But tonight was unlike any before.
He mumbled nursery rhymes as he paced the floor.
And while sleep hid from him behind the moon,
his True Love left the womb to join the others outside.

There are times
Much like tonight
When I want the city.
Nights when I want the gritty hustle buzzing in my ear canals
With liquid longing burning in the bowels of my being.
And through the lingering ring of restless machines
I would wander aimlessly.
Up and down streets past boutiques and café seats where people meet.
I would let the LED silhouettes of men and women in motion guide my feet until the beating of my heart and the grinding of trains and cars is absolutely indistinguishable.
Beneath a sky without stars, I can forget that I exist.
But only with a sentimental twist can that existence bring bliss.
Looking back now on the neon and grime, I have the time to take it all in.
Those subway rides when I would ride the snake,
Sharing the belly of the beast with those whose voices cease in the company of strangers.
Though eyes may align for a blink at best,
My mind would never rest on another
Especially
When she would breeze by
Hands outstretched
Mumbling humble rhymes with the hope that a few welcome nickels and dimes might fall from the pocket of a wall street man pretending to check texts on his black berry.
Or maybe those midday walks in central park when I’d skip my acting class to pack a bowl while I sat and listened to the street musicians who bled their instruments dry as if it were the only way to exorcise the city from their souls.
A taxi ride to Harlem
When we ****** in the backseat.
And though those free birthday drinks made me think I loved the way your tongue tasted
I knew in the back of my mind I was wasted.
Then
When we arrived to your private hideaway and your picturesque descriptions of a love
Once sung stitched my lips, it was all I could take.
And though our hips did risk the heartbreak, my unfettered balloon of misdirected affection flew out the window with hopes to impregnate the moon.
Cuz when the sun scrapes through the skyline,
Into your heart broken,
Hung-over,
Blood-blistered,
Hunger-driven,
Crystallized eyes, you feel so much less than empty.
Which brings me back to now.
As for how I now stand before you, flinging listless anecdotes from my chalky smoke coated throat…
Two words: Love.
Love.
So while I sometimes indulge my past perdition with immaculate midnight metropolitan musings steeped in sweat and cheap beer,
I am thankful that my intuition thought it better to put me in the company of those who I hold dear.

You are the smell of dawn in the evening.

You are the taste of champagne in flat beer.

You are the storm after the calm,
that calls a sailor to his doom, and his resurrection.

You are the pupil of my mind's eye.

You are the reflection of eternity in the backside of a spoon,
held only long enough to know on a level beneath foresight,
between bites of spaghetti and pesto.

I alone can call you from the trenches
to embed your nature in the navel of the world.
Your pulse is the very river Nile herself.
And as you pour your own prediction of flooding into my lips,
I know the life you give.

The moon can call an owl to its perch.
Just as the sun can burn a wolf to its bones.
But what loss is that?
They both meet destiny at a coffee shop,
sipping on the preconceptions of their parents, transposed into prose,
whose simple words will uphold the will of the world.