let's you and I mingle with the tantalizing Sirens

their Song, so seductive, will distract you while I

lead Odysseus to our spacious secret cave  

which-- I have newly prepared with Calypso's blessing

[I dare say she seems to have a crush on my Odysseus!]

my favorite material
rich, luxurious, deep
cigars and a musky afterglow
your man's warmest sweater
he smells like the earth
he smells like lust
he smells like leather

my favorite material
*******, bedroom, broken
lay me in a vice grip and
force me to inhale
it smells like love
it smells like I'm centered
it smells like leather

a home, above all else,
is familiar.
it does not have to be comfortable,
nor does it have to be full.
a home is probably a favorite place to be,
or maybe it houses some of the cruelest memories.

I like homes where I can drive quick and still avoid each upcoming pothole--
ones where old neighbors and new couples hunker down for their respectful chapters of life.
I like homes where I can walk around each obstacle in the kitchen with my eyes shut tight and only bang my shins a little bit.

a home is a sense, an intuition.
it is a place where you can dance while no one is watching.
you can fling your tears and regret at the walls and let them absorb your true feelings,
hushing you with their pillows and soft sounds and views.

a home is a home anywhere you choose it to be,
but above all else,
a home is familiar,
and that is a home to me.

the award for 'best sense'
goes to Touch.
let me prove it to you:
I can survive without
/seeing
/hearing
/smelling
/tasting
and though I'd love to see your eyes spark with passion
and though I'd love to hear your happiness when you succeed
and though I'd love to smell your aftershave in the morning
and though I'd love to taste your kisses created for me
I would rather cut off my tongue or gouge out an eye,
than live a day on this earth with no hands of yours in mine.

apologies are nothing
but lifeless letters until you breathe meaning
into the spaces between each and every word

patterns reflect patterns reflect history repeating itself
I see problems in humanity because humanity corrupts
seriously, we can't have a movement for "better" without making it worse
listen, slavery, right?
whites hated blacks
deemed them lesser
deemed them nobodies, nonexistent
that's putting it generic
so what do we have now?
an era of white-haters!
so many "minorities" standing up and saying
"I hate the whites"
we have done a 360 and it kills me
it was supposed to be about blacks being seen as equals
being seen as people instead of blacks
and now, yeah, I'm going there
gays
I love gays, man
but y'all are killing me too
this is what I see
gays oppressed, dismissed, told they're sinners
unholy, bad, gross, wrong, backwards, ugh
they were beaten, bloodied, bruised, murdered, silenced
so the gays stand up
what do I hear?
"I hate Christians"
"I hate straights"
"I hate everyone who is not gay"
people hating on macklemore because
he tried to stand up
for THE PEOPLE!
they say
"a straight white man cannot represent the gay community"
I'm sorry

WHAT????

we act like no one has gone through HARDSHIP
we act like if you're white, straight, and a male, you're golden
free
happy
perfect
wake up.
what no  one discusses
is that the issue is right vs wrong
right vs wrong
right vs wrong
I'm not a straight white male but I know right vs wrong
I'm not an Irish Jew but I know right vs wrong
I'm not a Haitian Creole Indian goddess but I know right vs wrong
you don't have to BE the oppression to SPEAK on the oppression
you have to know right vs wrong
I say macklemore knows
I know
you know
let's speak up
what is wrong is discrimination
what is right is taking a stand to end it
so please
blacks,
gays,
minorities,
whites,
humans,
majorities,
stop obliterating good
or else you'll be confined to the chains of oppression and silence until the day you die and so on amen

I'm a human being
tell me what I cannot speak on

ah, didn't you know..
powerful imagery better weaves itself
through a simplistic tale of truth
rather than in some poem boasting
                  grandiosity
you know, full of Harvard-taught words
      and, quite honestly, empty
            
                                                    meanings

20,000 years
that is all I want with you
time is ours to steal

Let's weave our lips shut with weeds and explore the hushed secrets of the world with nothing but cold fingertips.

he stared hard at the sky
and saw the whitest of stars...
a simple glimpse inside his mind
was all I needed to fall in love.
for the stars weren't stars at all,
just white bubbles in a sea of hope
stretching out to the sheer depths of imagination.
he boasted of the morning birds and
their sweet, sweet songs...
a creature I had come to hate,
he made me long to hear.
we've heard all our lives
how attraction is necessary in love
but I told him I loved him
before I ever saw his face.
and I do, oh, how I do.
those bright blue eyes bring feeling
back into my empty, empty soul.
he makes me unafraid
to love again, and to grow
to be the fullest essence of myself
without pause or second thought.
all these years...
I've been scared to be truly vulnerable
I have called myself nothing
unworthy
ugly
not good enough
you know what he calls me?

you bloodied me with your lack of concern

you pushed me with your false realities

you wounded me with your cynicism and judgment

you destroyed me with your selfishness

you embarrassed me with your entitlement

you offended me with your blatant lies

you chained me by making me your slave

you chased me when I finally tried to leave

you terrified me when I thought I was being followed

you cut me when you dismissed my hurt

you assaulted me with anger and violence

you weeped at me to come home

you obliterated me with your being

you slaughtered me because I still love you

you were supposed to be my mother

Kiss me:
Once to unearth your secret crush
Twice when it's early and you don't want to leave
Three times to whisper you love me
Four times to send your apologies
Five times before breaking my heart  
And six before I take you back again
One hundred to show how much I mean to you
One hundred and one for that "other" girl
102 before I realize just how much time
I wasted being with you

Acorns keep coming loose from the tree outside and
I imagine they are being pelted at all the metal chairs on purpose
Like tiny bullets ricocheting off of bunkers, startling me awake
Oh yes, my friends
The squirrels are busy staging a happy little revolution

Satire,
When used in a mature manner,
Is the most absolutely delicious
Most perfect form of a quiet rebellion
That of which my every day, regular peers
Can only hope to successfully publish.
It is not to be taken for granted,
It is instead meant to be heard and admired..
And possibly even feared
For my every day, regular peers
Are victoriously standing up
With the sharpest of political tongues
And the quickest, most enlightening wit.

I study her withering hands every time I'm around her
they are becoming so thin... all her veins stick out like snakes
her fingers are all crooked--
broken tree branches fighting against the wind
eighty years of working her flower beds and scrubbing floors and
baking the best meals and desserts that only a grandmother can prepare
and my grandpa, I have never loved a person as deep and as securely as I love him  
saying you have a hero borders on icon-worshipping but in this case he's solid
he is the absolute best and absolute most loyal man I have ever had the pleasure
of knowing
he married my grandma at eighteen, and
eighty eight years of wars and he never took one sick day off of work
he sleds down his long, winding driveway to pick up his mail in the snow
he used to pour water in my hands and tell me that if I could catch it,
I could catch the entire universe right there in my palms
I tried for years

I study their hands because I want to remember their greatest parts
arguably, that could be every inch, but their hands have shown
such strength, boldness, fight, hard work, dedication, love, and tenderness
maybe this is wrong but every day I practice saying goodbye in my mind
so that when they pass, I am not so crushed that I cannot move on
they have been my saving grace too many times for me to thank them for
so I just say I love you, you're my reason for existing, and then I
carefully etch their hands in my mind so that never for a second
will I forget the great work they have done here

hold up
let's keep it real
I see you weaving through the masses
pockets full of whatever
of whatever grabbed your attention
this week
now all you can do
is hope you don't
get caught
trying hard not to show your guilt
clawing at any minute chance
of an escape from the powerful
from the confinement brought upon you
against your will
against America's will
walking slow enough to seem unaffected
but quick enough not to draw suspicion
you're a coward
you're a thief
someone should take you out
"but my kids", you say
"but my girl is struggling", you plead
"but my ma is dying", you cry
"but I lost my job and-" handcuffs
sirens
shame
publicity
rough
life is freaking rough
now all you can do
is hope you don't
get shot
hold up

An old, blue-eyed man
His heart buried beneath boards
Poe claimed sanity

to end the silence
we must first stand up and sing
for those who are mute
             ~*~

oh, the things you hear at the doctors'
the elderly man with melanoma on his face
trudging out behind his wife
mumbling "****" under his breath
the sweet weathered receptionist
says "nice to see you again!"
to her seventieth geriatric patient
there comes a day
when her patients quit calling
quit showing up
and she has fewer and fewer people
to recognize
ugh

by loose definition:
to build a muscle,
you must first tear it apart
and let it heal over
and over and over
and over and
over
again before it grows into
its utmost potential.
my heart is a muscle
and let me tell you,
it keeps tearing over
and over and over and
over
and over
again
and so one day it should overtake
my entire person
and spray the whole world
with scar tissue and my greatest,
biggest love.
right?

I've always been told I can't run from my problems
but why can't I drive down the coast,
boardwalking and hanging ten
smiling at hippies dressed in henna
why can't I ascend the mountains
reaching into infinity with palms wide open  
I could hop into Seattle,
feel new rain on my face
kissing strangers reflected in the ***** puddles
or maybe flow with rivers til I found a bear's den
they tell me I can't run
so I won't
I'll spring
leap
slide
crawl
I'll tiptoe over the line

This takes place on a rooftop above the city
Almost twangy, almost

Stars are out, and boy, are they ever strong
The sweetest lullaby of a love song
Sung to me from your fingertips
Patetico

Strumming the notes as you would a lover
Best friends turned to endless memories
Perfect, soft whispers
Harmonies that make me listen so close
I don't want to miss a thing

Breathing in the calmest wind-- your air
Sospirando
Coming together with a melody that grows
Two bodies unified as one loud symbol--
Crescendo, dolcissimo, fortepiano, melting gelato  

Rosy reds and the palest clouds
Awakening both hearts, not a dream
You tighten your grip and beg me not to go
Ostinato

As long as you keep singing from your fingertips
Appassionato
And if those hands are your outlets
Bravura
I’ll stay here
Al fine

Fake beef and chicken
No one will really like you
Despite condiments

Your chest is made up of solid marble.

I am spent,
Five years I've chipped away, slinging picks and sawing dust off of your breastplate
I hear wings flapping against your ribs but I cannot free your bird's heart
It is too small and it is growing weaker
I took your temperature with my palms and nicknamed you Arctic
You were my Alaska and I made thawing you my meaning
Five years I've wondered why we work so hard at what we can't have
You're cold as stone and I'm losing my patience
So I set aflame your collarbone and poured gasoline over your sternum
Sat back and watched the fireworks pinging off of your chest hairs
They glow blue in the evening
You're blue and I'm freezing
I'm moving on

Pluto, a planet!
I will never forget you
You are important

E.T, phone Houston,
I think we have a problem
I'm still scared of you

Jealous of the guys
Who got to play with The Claw
I love aliens!

Watch "Signs" and you'll see
The weird blue terrestrial
Being way extra

V/H/S Part Two
Its last scene had aliens
I hate aliens!

Maybe life on Mars
Would just force us to rethink
Our life here on Earth

but isn't that what we are; aren't we cycles?
don't we start from two, end up as one,
only to repeat and repeat and repeat?
creating something from an atom
that was always there,
because energy cannot be created
nor destroyed.
something had to start the process.
and the only way it will be
ended.. is the way it was begun.

I am learning how
To accept myself again
No self-denial

Show me how to love
After your false affection
Was proven useless

How does a person
Decide if they are being
Egotistical?

.


   I love you,                          I hate you
I scribbled in the       places where my
   tissue paper heart   should   be   full
      jigsaw puzzles made whole again
        poor broken hearts made new
          taped it to my battered chest
             regretted using black pen
               hindsight knows us best
           {==I let you back in again==>
                     picking  up  pieces
                        drying my eyes
                          a new  thesis
                            I won't cry
                               alright?
                                 good
                                  bye
                      ­               .

what would life hold for me if I were the Sea?
liquid oxygen, so vast; lighthouses blinding me
at dusk the shipyards' ghosts come alive-- they break free
from the fog and silhouettes and all the weathered oak trees

the storms have arrived! you've met Katrina and Ike, I see
planning destruction and chaos and broken unity
throwing whiplashing waves and ***** seaweed,
splashing homes on my shores and debris at your feet

below my rippling surface: a myriad of pure glee
schools of rainbow fish, all swimming in threes
never travel too low-- to a certain degree
you'll be 1,000 leagues under the sea

signs of icebergs and whales, o', "beware of the beast"
stung on the tips of your fingers by my vicious coral reef
mermaids and their fathers' tridents, if you believe
plankton floating away with his secret recipe

guardians of the waters- my coast guards- the naval police
swimmers and divers who devour shrimp over beef
please hop in your dinghy and come visit me
I'm beautiful and deadly, my name is the Sea

tending to my beautiful garden, growing, glowing, roots showing and hope blooming, tender petals my heart is grooming into something far from
dark and ruined
the others, cracked and crumbling, dry and deserted from thunder rumbling
all I want is to love, to keep loving
knowing love is fearing loss
knowing loss is fearing love
hearing loss is fearing hearing possible
endings nearing
tearing up then gearing up
for demolition I'm only wishing
for undying beautiful things
my mind dutifully sings
and screams and pleads for what my heart needs
good deeds won't protect selfish love,
nor intellect keep my garden intact,
in fact
it may only harden
my heart and pen
pardon my art,
I just intend
to cowardly restart
what must end..
to my garden, I try to tend...

I sat alone in front of a crumbling grey building until its debris whispered the okay for me to go home

when you jog under street lamps and your breath is white and misty from the chill, you realize just how many footsteps have fallen before you and you wonder just how much of this same air was here last year


how can I ever live on my own when I am so afraid of the dark?


if I had a penny for every vivacious hot dog stand I came across......... I'd have enough to buy a few hot dogs.

the air doesn't smell *****. the ground doesn't look littered and ashen. this place is alive. the streets are filled with the souls of the people. they just take the shape of battered shopping carts and greasy cardboard boxes and taxi smoke when you're not looking hard enough. they're exceptional at disguise.

I see a lot of churches but I only see sin happening at the altar.  

you cannot think for yourself when the roar of the city is your cerebral cortex

in all my musing I dreamt of cobblestones and patisseries. I thought the history was in the legend-- in the campfire stories and the romance novels. but it isn't. it's here. it's New York.

children are different here. self awareness ranks high when the thieves hide in plain sight.

cracks in the pavement make me wonder what mysteries lay in the tunnels that no one speaks about

spoke to approximately 30 koreans in china town about the price of tea in america

haute couture is for sure never going to be folklore

I felt inferior walking down fifth ave so I bought a pair of knock-off sunglasses and painted musicals with my feet while eating candied insects with strangers

undiscovered broke talent meets every corner in every city

pick a card
any card
except that one
he knew I knew he'd get my $20
I let him have it
it was counterfeit

brooklyn is a two-faced liar and I'm jim carrey with a b-bl-b-blllll-bllluuured pen,
carving my insides into the trees so the little girls remember their manners when they're older

new york is forever awake and I am eternally ready to go to sleep  

taxi drivers are succubi

enraptured was he,
enamored and taken aback,
eyes glossing and fingers trembling,
effortlessly pouring his soul to top her glass.
she was wild and equally fragile,
strong in her vivacious convictions-
stubborn and quiet and barely content,
sharing a love of fiction and faith and fire.
they danced and watched the skies,
tangled together in hopes and dreams,
tossed to the world by the winds of their cities,
trying desperately to get a grasp on growing up and getting out.
her favorite memory of him:
he had headed into the fields to gaze into space
half shivering, half dead,
holding out a rose to her-- his favorite scent.
night fell and so did they,
nodding off with heads in the weeds,
nurturing each others' wounds and bruises,
nearing dusk with new determination and confidence.

his life lies at the bottom of the bottle
a glass body entrapping his soul
one by one, his giggling, gaudy girls
grow up into graceful adults
clinking glasses full of candid celebration
toasting their tranquility into theater walls
as he stands up to take a shaky step
toward the door, toward his girls,
the glass bottle drags him back under

My soul literally pulsates
sideways out of my body
I watch it with heavy eyes, my head
on my pillow
I hear a motor revving down the street
And it grounds me
This stranger with a completely different life than mine is running a stable engine
And he has no idea that our disconnectedness
has connected me
He doesn't know that we never met and shall never part, for that reason
He doesn't know that he put my soul back in place
I listen to that motor humming and I inhale
Suddenly, it stops-

like candy,
we wanna taste the sweetness
without the consequence
there's a nagging sugar rush
trying to explain something
to me in this frenzied manner
like if I don't grasp it fast enough
I just may
..........crash.........
tic tacs clacking down the path to somewhere
and I've only just dipped into my candy stash
tomorrow's agenda promises Hershey kisses and snickering calories
because everything so good
is essentially somewhat bad

what a wretched feeling,
being lost in my own skin
I find ways to stretch wrong
and all the kinks move to new places
places that weren't to be discovered

drowsy eyes fighting against light
my spine straining against might
I'm going to snap myself in two

if a cat has two realities:
poison or death
can he be blamed
for acting the pessimist?

When the sun sets and the moon rises,
We see a perfect relationship.
Not in the sense of the two joining
Together in a beautiful unit,
But in the sense that one cannot survive
Without the others' presence.

It is a circle, a pattern, a never-ending cycle that defies time and all of the odds. The sun recognizes its counterpart and kisses it in greeting every morn' and evening.

I was eight years old,    again

travelling down winding driveways chipped here and there with gravel and dirt

to my right, the opposite of what you'd see in daylight

a sand volleyball court, its dilapidated net blowing pathetically in the wind..

is now a gaping rectangle in the ground, keeper of ghouls and darkness so vast it makes my hair stand on end

backwards geometric shapes draw themselves into my nightmares, like two planes have been crossed and flipped -- a mirror giving life to an evil that is not seen by the conscious mind

I wish I could say that I recognize the tells in my dreams, but that isn't me

recurring scenes dance vividly against my eyelids and I wonder if they're trying to tell me something

or our brains cycle through the fluff until it is time to pull out the deepest parts of ourselves,

the  old  haunts, the  me  at  eight  years  old

a dream is a product of our being- a nightmare, the quotient of all that tears us apart

isn't that what life is? the sum of all parts?

Black coffee to ring in Monday morning
Fingertips leaving his imprint on my collarbone
Steam to erase the last traces of my guilty pleasures
Ashes on my skin from her cigarettes
Words left by their sword-like tongues
Sunrises searing holes in my retinas
Tar below our bare feet
Memories branded in my thoughts
Scalding memories, scalding memories

to touch it could prove fatal.
but on the eve of winter's dawning..
the embers thawing the barrier between us,
we lay and watch the flames licking at our skin.
autumn nights after the football game
dancing circles around the sparks
holding hands and searching for answers..
in the burnt kindling surrounded by rocks.
slices of stationary, perfumed like lilacs
we write our condolences and regrets with feather quills
then, stretching out in the center of the street
we light ablaze our lost words, a sacrifice to Hephaestus.
there is a force so powerful and quiet;
it tiptoes up behind us and leaves us charred,
smoldering,
it leaves ashes...
but it is also the sweetest release
feeding from oxygen and life
blackening everything it comes in contact with
and while creating new what once was broken,
it demands respect.

do you ever look at a person so long, their face changes?
studying them so intensely until who they were is no longer who they are--
they have morphed into a stranger with a life story unknown.
the same concept goes for written word..
repeating a word over and over again until it looks foreign.
foreign.... foreign... foreign.. foreign..foreign..foreign.foreign.foreignforeignforeignforeignfor­eign...
foreign...foreign...foreign.... see?
the scariest part is that we are able to convince ourselves of the change almost wholeheartedly.. what does that say about validity?
there may be three truths in the universe..
one kind that is objective,
and one kind that is subjective.
perhaps when the two marry together,
we have a third universal maxim.
but how can we ever know for sure?

He's locked his deepest secrets in his treasure chest and guided them to the bottom of the sea.

Gave me half of a rotten map, a pat on the back, and a telescope to find the key.

quantum physicians may not be able to write out an equation
showing proof of our bond,
but the ties that bind reach across the galaxies and beyond
and biology professors at the ivy league schools may not
be able to explain why my heart thrums faster when I think
about you, but my pulse is yours and I guarantee I can feel
you in every measurable thing that I do
it's funny... multiple dimensions couldn't even keep us apart,
and my body has been frayed and fuzzy since I left you--
from the start
of this journey toward self-realization and humanization
but the one thing that no one can deny is that time exists  
a watch is not a thing to keep time;
a watch is proof of the seconds before and now and after
and it certainly isn't ours to keep
but we could borrow some and place our fate in the
hands of that fragile wristband and call it an
insurmountable thing
I would venture to say
that we could call it love,
we can call it you and me
and science cannot create nor destroy us

have you picked your poison?
look at us
look at all of us
pathetic
bags under our eyes,
lifeless and gaunt,
maxing out at three hours of sleep per night
what keeps you awake?
demons?
yes
skeletons?
yes
depression? war? weather? abuse? addiction? epidemics? heartache? heartbreak? stress? worry? scars? acceptance? lack of money? ******? despair? pending approval? family? illness? the future? disaster? pain? friends? tragedy? guilt? hatred? work? secrets? anger? anxiety? sadness? curiosity?

somewhere along the way
we forgot how to be happy
I mean, /h a p p y/
we forgot that we are only going to inhabit this place
one time, for any given (or taken) amount of minutes
and to remedy this
we pick a poison
so, tell me
what's yours?