Kind,
Shy, funny man,
Did the best that he can,
To raise me to be what I am,
Beautiful baby girl,
Smiling every second,
What everyone wants in the world
Years pass,
Daddy always there,
Doing the best he can,
Raising me to be the way I am
Beautiful baby girl,
A baby no more,
Middle school,
Troubled;
Diminished smile,
Daddy where are you?
No reply
Daddy's soul has left his eyes
No more doing what he can to raise me how I am,
Doing what he can,
To stop the voices in his head
Searching for cameras,
In the walls,
Paranoia controls his all,
Delusions
President,
Police,
Mom,
Everyone out to get him,
Stumbling upon his daughters sketchbook,
Sketch unfinished;
Headless body
Voices,
Convincing to be dismembered,
Out to get him;
Dismember him,
Paranoia growing,
Irritability as well,
Mommy a victim,
Strangled, breathless,
By a body with no soul
Life flashes amongst her eyes,
Children being married,
Awakes,
Escapes,
Daddy's alone,
In a mental home
Not for long,
Returns with medicine to fix the harm
Daddy?
Void of soul replaced
Stability,
Daddy regained,
Medicine disposed,
Voices grow,
They're going to **** me,
The 9th,
Facing doom,
Departure to a highway overpass,
Aimlessly walking,
The edge
Concerned bystandards,
Authorities called,
Shouting,
Scared,
No way out,
A fall,
A crash,
Daddy,
Is dead.

"I don't feel anymore."
"I really envy that."

I turned on my side, the sun was peering through the window and laying ribbons of its light across her bare body. "You shouldn't envy that, Reno."

"Why shouldn't I?"
"Okay. Well, why do you?"

Her hand waved a lock of blond from obstructing her icy-blue sight. I could see the shadows of birds dance across her torso and past her face. "I'm afraid," her words spiraling from her mouth, "and I don't want to be."

"Afaid of what?"
"Everything. The world. Hunger. Bleach stains. Failure. ****** knuckles and the look of the person as they clench their nose, teary eyes and all. This. My father finding me. Dying before I get to do everything I want to do. Validation. I'm afraid of everything and I'm too young to be afraid of everything. I need two to four more years, tops."

Ten, twenty, and fifty seconds rained down the window. It felt like the wall of an aquarium, and us the aqua-blue evolution.

Rolling to her side, her hand blossomed around the curvature of my face, as I didn't know what to say. "Josh," her breath evaporating into syllables, "I'm too young for the world, so help me forget, okay?" My eyes followed her soft fingertips capped by lily fingernails, as her index and ******* walked from my stomach to between my legs.


After we made love, the water lowered on top of our heads and bodies as the steam rose. My hair was flattened against my skull, and her's gripping her back. Soap slid across her *******; lathering her abdomen, I asked her if I could see the soap. Reno scrubbed my chest and leaned into kiss me before placing it into my hand.


"When you're famous, who do you think you'll sleep with," she asked while stirring her coffee. Placing the muddy spoon on the table, she looked and added, "Who's your celebrity crush?"

"I'm not sure," I sipped my coffee before placing it next to my bagel,"I don't know."

"It's okay, buck. I know you'll forget about me when you become big, so just say."

I couldn't believe it.

"Okay, well, what's your wish, Reno?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Say who you'd sleep with."

"Well, after I carelessly throw you to the side, I'll probably sleep with Parker Posey. Then, I'll go on a date with Emma Watson and hope that goes well," I regretted the way I spoke. "Like, I can understand the question, but what's up with the second part about me leaving you?"

Reno flicked the side of her coffee cup, and then drummed. "I don't know."

"I can't do the whole you feeling like you're not good enough for me. You are. You just are. I don't want it to happen because I really like you, but I won't allow myself to go farther if you insist on the... I mean, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," she she flicked her coffee cup harder, "I don't know."

"You know, Reno. You can tell me."

Tears sat at her eyes and they disappeared in the glare, as she looked out the cafe window. "It's not easy, you know."

"What isn't?"

"Loving you," she began to rip at the skin around her thumbnail,"it's not easy because I'm afraid. I'm afraid because it might be real."

Her eyes shifted towards me, the way her hair broke the echo of sunlight. Cancer cells.

"I'm dying, Josh. Whether you love me too or not, for one year to ten to never, you'll be with other girls because I'm dying. And that's that."

When still,
the world turns around the axis of my heart.
From the dark within,
lemniscates of lantern light
tie ribbons in my eyes;
will you know me then?

And when I die, a steady wind
of myrrh and frankincense
will polish my bones,
so that when you see me again,
I’ll glow anew
through a translucent veil
of scented skin.

Everything we see is
it’s pristine essence
casting the same light
from the womb of darkness.

Gripped by the dolor of a glaucous sky,
love's longing reminds us
that nothing is ever truly lost
to anything less
than the visual acuity of a heart.

Unseen signs never give up
their quest for being seen.
With a slight tilt of the head,
the light of the heart changes...
and so does everything,
everything.

Where do I seek when all of my friends are antiques
Crooked in the face, a little oblique
The Human Condition is a special boutique
Riddle in with cash for souls
Anything to fill the hole they could not
Buy them out just to watch them rot
You'll see their lives more complex then once thought

There's a board game for those like us
Rolling die and choosing cards
It's much like Russian roulette, but with car crashes and house fires
For some the game may end in a pyre

But if you win you still don't win
You just play the game till your bones melt through your wrinkly old ******* skin
But if you sin enough, you may make the wall of no return, just like the rest of my friends

The Wild Iris

by Louise Gluck

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little.  And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.

eloquence in this. kiss
& cough.

from dirt to
light to
love.

days begin
with dreamcoast, cast, and chase the air,
or rhythm of rain.

raygun.
& flashpoint to ember.
to knuckle.
to cortex.

she smells fantastic.
she she she
like, a
sweet kind of thing.
like, a
nice incense.

& i feel today is a holy day of the week.