we brought home this puppy,
black fuzz with caramel spots -
he has german flowing through his
small bodied, big pawed liveliness.
he is already wise like a shepard,
he lives up to his breed.
the boy that i love, his affection has
bloomed for something so stealthy,
so strong;

all he needs is his dog.

i thought i was just irrationally thinking,
but,
he only grazed my skin, kissed my lips
a total of four times today.
maybe tomorrow, it will be five.

we smile like sunflowers,
spitting our seeds through our teeth.
they taught high winds to swim across
glaciers onto my skin, backstroke,
trying to shiver down my spine.
Indian summers save my hydrophobic
structure from the flooding.
i like to drive recklessly under the
speed limit, leaving a sense of
significance tanned inside my lip.
today feels like Indian summer
and your sunflower leaves keep
me warm until the next northern
attack provokes, down my backbone,
where the shells are where we left
them
sink.

Elephants are the only animal species, known as a fact, to die of a broken heart. Their tough, leather skin can only guard so much; breaking blows from predators and using their sturdy bodies for protection.  But surviving instincts and dealing with sadness are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Social constructs maintained by female elephants, emotional seeds developed from birth; no wonder females are powerful, at least in elephant herds.  The social constructs of human species, inferiority is an expectation. Motherhood and career balance, sexualization, acid punishments for justice, “Voice for Choice” since women shouldn’t take their bodies in their own hands, rapes unidentified, and youth more beautiful than souls.  Sometimes, I wish I was an elephant.

i saw a glimpse of you in that landscape.
it was painted with the colors of your time management
but sometimes you were too impatient.
i swore on biblical verses and too many shots that
you had skyscrapers for fingers and you knew
how to take the best out of me.
we shaped play doh into giants that would walk,
just to renovate and play god for a day since
sometimes we felt too little to even be alive.
we heard the top of buildings laugh,
golden cities never found a place in my heart,
but what do i know?
maybe we just tried to direct, reflect, dissect.
i can't pinpoint my points on your cork board
because there are too many ads telling me about
the things we lost, the moments
we left on the grounds, like low light second levels
and fish bowl blemishes on saturday afternoons.
your catholic boy demeanor, or lack thereof,
was nothing short of a misunderstanding and those who
had the time wanted the resources but those who mattered
didn't have the watch to tell them when to listen.
heart listeners don't show up and god only talks to
skyscrapers,
building off of what is closer when we all need
something to reach out to touch.
heart listeners negotiate by linguistics and wooden
tables,
mapping out the streets and yet
some of us just recycle the paper so we can start
all over again.
some of us just want to be a city,
beating hearts leading giants
to maybe someday talk to time.

eggplant skies and zippers,
this collect call counted.

My buttons were tacky,
and you had the liberty to
push them;
you unraveled them instead,
as i was pushing the ones
of your house phone -

i spent quarters of my time
on you.

the school yard picnic tables had a lost and found.
sewn together was a book of miscellaneous cities
where fools were growing together and
churches were picking themselves up.
they used anchors and rope to sew us together,
much like the systems they used for shipwrecks
and fallen warriors,
but we found glaciers to lead us back home.
we followed the shelves of mountains and
the roof of skies.
written in the wooden planks were tales of
men dying from broken hearts, but so what?
we let our hearts murmur and bleed bold acts of
brilliant gestures.
we were two fools growing together.
we forgot the cities in our pockets,
hoping that concealing could
accommodate how we really felt.
heart murmurs could skip some beats,
but we want each moment to end up
on our feet.
we just hoped that the glacier roads
will take us where we need to go.
the arrows were colored coffee grounds,
we were almost belligerent from the
flask full of body language,
and my wooden teeth were chattering
from the touch of falling atmosphere.
emergent empires, frozen to our road
had heavy hearts pumping through,
trying to reach to us.
it had my attention, and it spoke
through capillaries leading to our toes.
we left with train wrecked eyes
and faith leaning on our sleeves,
because we realized that you never have really
lived because you have never really died.
so let our hearts murmur bold intentions and
we will follow the glaciers home.

Confession I: I want to be with you, not just around you. I want to lie with you, gently tracing the thoughts from my head into yours. I want to follow where your limbs go, with my lips, like a map or the north star leading me to your most beautiful valleys and mountains. I would collaborate with your collarbone and back to mine, allowing a skin bridge, a focal point, to show how inherently beautiful you are.

Confession II: I want you out of my head, but not out of my life. I have teased myself into a conditioned state, a procedure that no one should ever live through.  I tripped over myself, and then over you, and I just want you the feel some electricity gathered at my fingertips, nose tips, please just kiss me. Kiss me like you would with your bent out of shape, looking for escape, lover. I could show you a thing or two about pleasure and how to love another woman just as much as you could love a man.

Confession III:  I hope to apologize in the kindest manner, see some of your exposure – I’m trying to lift composure out of ten thousand gallons of saltwater.  I know you have collected nothing but bitter – I just want to be sweet to you.

i found a birthmark shaped like Alaska
on the inside of your kneecap,
and i only saw it the day you
let me cross the border;
it was sensitive to my touch,
the moon-like ripples leading
to the needles on the pine tree
in your back yard.
sometimes i can read behind the
lines of DNA makeup,
like the lonely biologist you seem to be,
but your lingo is foreign to me,
tattered words and language deficiencies,
i can hardly follow along the braille
carved onto your outer layer,
the marble you worked so hard to
weather on your own time.
yet, somehow its turned to rubble again.
sometimes i hold an out of order sign
against my breastbone so i can set eyes
straight and wish anyone would light me on
fire,
           (but not literally, i'm absolutely against abuse)
i want the sticks but not the stones,
since wood won't leave my body bruised.
use my transitions for kindle,
and my organs for the flames.
i want to be colored red,
like ambulance lights, stop signs,
painted like a signature to warn others
how my frequencies can only be heard
by animals.
maybe some other life forms,
or god,
but i have never hoped more that
you would pick up on my signals,
my freckles scream out samples
of how this could be
or what we could have known.

architecture has always fascinated me.
it leaves me
                                                              statue
on the cement,
hardly using oxygen so the figures
d
a
  n
   c
    i
     n
      g around me
can use some, too.
the rough inflated balloons hang
on the edges,
like at any moment,
someone will pry their fingers loose
from the death grips.
the glossy sheen of the
tissue paper thin glass is my mirror;
i can see my shadow
facing 40 million of me.
i'm a



goner.

The fine light slanting through the windows outside
hit upon the shadows in the dusty corner;
corners cut by the butcher's son
leave little left of the slaughtered voices.
I cradle his red stained hands,
leaving the untraceable pleasure under my fingertips.
With the time ticking away,
why does all the time travel to some sort of silent retreat?
We all feel pleasure in being guilty.
I start to yell, like ***** willows on fire
to let my own voices recover.

the art of war has been written
in our skin since the first day
we tasted air.
our bodies knew what to do
without instruction, the manual
was ingrained in our systems
before history was even a term.
we knew what struggling was and
the viciousness we'd follow to
feel satisfied within this
paper-hungry, corrupt involving,
power revolving circle of
soil and H2O.
green paper values beyond
human experience, holding its
own wealth above the truths
and acts of kindness.
we are lost now.
our journey to create solutions
and deflate violence, pollution,
and terrorism is counterproductive
when we are only trying to gain
access to fossil fuels,
advanced technology and
easy living.
the art of war is unavoidable with
its nuclear power reaching new
heights and alarming increases
in neighboring countries with
alternative motives.
people are not perfect, but yet
it is hard to use intelligence
towards innovated, structured
education and trying to revitalize
our dying environment or restoring
it to the way our ancestors knew it.
we are too curious now.
the devices we use daily are
hand held miniature and superficial
to honest thoughts even if you may
have the universe at your fingertips.
the art of war is within ourselves, with
the growing population of overweight
eight year olds - instead of gaining
knowledge about life by learning how
to use the imagination, creative
engineers are mass producing game
consoles and virtual worlds for the young
to push past the reality.
we want to be lost now.
society takes tragedies and sensationalizes
so there is just another portal to dig up
the fresh and uncover something bigger
than ourselves.
the art of war has been finalized with
456,495 troops estimated stationed overseas,
leaving at home their families.
our state of mind is grasping, like the hardworking
fathers in search for american made products,
yet can only find poor industry made objects
for $5.00 on the shelf of the local monopolized
superstore.
the art of war was born in us
with airtight top secret plans to defeat
another continent, but we all
swallow the voice to bring back
compassion for starving children and
focusing on the here and now.
the art of war is all around us,
the art we will never escape.

i had dynamite in my front pocket,
reading lines from my wrinkles and
we were fighting chemistry as if
we had the choice.
we threw our numbers into the air to
tie to the telephone lines that were
tangled with tree fingers,
or maybe they were strings from
the instruments in our laced up
lips that held truth for what it's worth.
we would hum melodies in the bathtub
and laugh when we'd fall for each other
all over again.
when you held birds on your shoulders
i made you bracelets to show you
the way you pulled my knots
and it feels so good when you do.
i threw you the ropes that swung
the wrecking ball into my walls and
you took them with grace.
i wish i was as graceful as you,
when i look up to give you feathers
on your lips.
i always seem to stumble,
like you have control over my steps
and sometimes i fight my laughter to
keep up with you.
the wind looks like your reflection
at times and i can't help but
wonder if you are superhuman
with ocean eyes and setting me
alight without convictions and
yet i wouldn't mind always being
in your chest cavity,
to feel your beats in time with
mine.

You spoke through light fixtures on Peach street,
gave my bellowing laughs the spot light on Sassafras.
I told you the voice in front of us was as
smooth as honey and you called me crazy.
I should have asked if you’ll call me maybe,
but I couldn’t rearrange my position or
work on my posture long enough to wonder
whether I was talking about the voice in front of me
or the one speaking into my ear.
So, we planned to go to New York City instead of
talking about warm, golden honey that thickens voices
and shines through your iris or the infectious
grin that gathers in your laugh lines.
Rivers of honey spread warm in my belly,
as we pass street lights on Peach and Sassafras
and I hope that you will call me tomorrow.

we are bystanders at heart.
you always thought fools gold was beautiful
and we knew how to reach for highlighted
books in tattered low lighted bookstores
where people used to show compassion for
the little things.
old men croaked in these heavy feathered seats
but that didn't matter much.
it gave the place some history it never really had.
we would read each other excerpts that had no
significance and you would think of me as
kind of beautiful.
some nights we would drink wine, but then switch
to spiced *** to try and knock out the
thoughts that left bad tastes on our
swollen tongues.
i'd end up too drunk, and you'd find your
fingers woven in my hair that was too soft to
hold on.
sometimes you wished it was like wool,
keeping your hands from rigor mortis and
keeping me close to your bee hive body case,
busy with engulfing my bystander heart.
wool quilting to your shoulders,
you wouldn't give this up.
we may be patch work and hungover,
but at least we can keep each other warm.

you smell of clementines and
i kept my windows open during
the storm so i could see you
coming in from the back porch.
i sometimes feel as if tricks are
played on me as if i was made
out to be dumb or the devil
had nothing better to do with
its time,
but time has nothing to do with
how the stars were made or
where we first met.
i always thought it was funny
that the others would call you
fish, but i love the way
the r's in your name roll
off my tongue like i was
singing spanish melodies
only loud enough for your
ears.
we rarely argue because
it isn't worth the bitter
that builds up,
like hard water minerals
from the well,
the moments before
lightening,
the seconds it takes
to lift off from the ground.
my thoughts run off the
tracks when i'm talking
business on the phone
and you fold your origami
thoughts onto my
unsuspecting skin.
you left creases in my bones
and let my swinging
moods pump its legs
until there was nothing left
but shallow breaths and
***** words coming clean.
i can't help but realize that
your pure patience could
put my splitting nerve ends
at ease for the second time
today.

My alacrity scares me,
like the electrical figurations in your head
that create valleys and mediocre love.
Sometimes, we love just to prove that we can do so,
because our lungs breathe effortlessly
while possibilities are fleeting
and slipping through our grip like
the missed first kiss and futile attempts
for you to notice me.
The concaves of your skin,
wrapped tightly around colliding bone and ligament,
the barrier against me learning you –
the twists and lifelines leading me to something
greater than your chest rising and falling
in the haze of the night.

Your nails stain my skin like Alaska,
grains beaten into my elbows from riverbeds
and the crossings.
“Have a drink with me, my treat.”
I remember you from way back,
listening to Dave Matthews Band
while we emptied out veins in the front
seat of my Volvo.
Revolting, we voted independent and
we decided to never come back to the night
where Alaska was even a possibility.

A kaleidoscope of plastic, drafted in the
layers of trash.  The sights of a landfill,
the smells of hell.
Containers filled with grime, broken recorders
in baby dolls, apple cores, a slew of condoms,
paper products, burnt out computer parts,
bottles that held night life, while diapers full of
tired mother’s yawns; light bulbs that quit working,
family photos that hold too much, dog ****.

The things that matter most are torn,
purged, and poignant with purpose that we’d
rather forget the existence.

maybe, i think too much.
maybe, you are

                                     twisted
                                            like twist ties and twisting balloons.
                                      i always thought
                                           you'd be the star of the carnival.

Dear lover,
Remember the tattered throw rug we laid on,
when I discovered your birthmark shaped like a tangerine
on the back of your knee?
We were velcro back then.
You told me I had eyes of indigo
and the corners of my cellars smelled of sweet
honeysuckle in the fire months of summer.
That summer, we marinated in our fresh air
that filtered the stale, standstill atmosphere.

Now, the toolbox on the broken shelf,
the set your tired father provided for you,
is rusting at the hinges.
Like you and me.

The saltwater my indigo sight produces, confronts
the bolts and twists,
corroding anything it touches.
Lover, this can be reversed by binding
our loops and hooks together.
Lover, the tools have not yet been used
and only you and I can discover
each other again.

Always,
Me.

we drove for over an hour yesterday to
reach mother nature's home,
a playground for adults,
we only wanted to reach a destination
that held sincere afterthoughts and
the smell of moss covering our sight.
it was off the grid, only the locals
could direct you to the tree coverings
and caves that whales could sleep in,
but my brother and i decided it
was only right to keep looking on
our own, we have stubbornness
engraved on our foreheads.
not short of three hours into the
wilderness, wearing out our shoes
and losing energy in our joints,
we found panther caves parallel
to where my brother and
his roommate from iraq
dragged on cigarettes for answers
to show them the way to go.
they were magnificent with majestic
slabs of sediments that had stories
dating from the 1800's,
graffiti painted in fluorescent shades
and charcoal from the last fire,
presented on the highest cliff
as if the last person had something
to prove.
we climbed and angled our bodies
like contortionists, we
were nothing short from nature -
our existence was made here,
within the grains of sand and
the tangled roots from trees
growing on the embankments.
i wanted that to be reality.
when we found our boundaries
and landed back into the car,
we drove away in silence because
our eyes were heavy and our hands
could tell facts of frustration,
senselessness, livelihood, and something
words cannot measure up to.
that world could be my gateway drug,
the ignorant bliss from social networking,
the war with no apparent reasoning (with the
amount of debt we are in),
the pressure on myself.
i felt so simple when everything else
has been so complex.
i now know i want to be an architect
of the woods, to preserve
the chiseled names of strangers
who felt alive, who had nowhere
else to be at that moment.
i want to be a navigator,
the one who could tell you what
the markings on the bark meant.
i want to fall into a love so deep,
only the leaves could catch me.

i think i found home.

Call your truths.
The creator called in sick today,
leaving lessons and sessions limping from the skinny
behavior pumping through the day.
Pull up your britches.
The bumbling from the windowpane
fed the starving wind its own tiredness.
I guess it is homesickness in your head.
What happened here in December
could cross bellowing seas and could crumble
in the concaves  of your bones,
but what happens if you do not get out of bed?

We never cry together anymore.

I used to see my body as a ship,
wood and nails and ***** hands keeping
me afloat -
Gathering speed from the sails,
salt in layers on the bottom of my body.

Folks once said that men would cry saline liquor
above the waters
for their loved ones when they were
missing out on the sea.
Now, the salt is a natural part of the water.

But now, my bones are
docked on the bottom of the floor of
the forgotten sailors.
Ship wrecked, the water replaces my marrow.
They are sick, those bones,
eroded into sand;
Just another fact on
the earth and we never cry together anymore.

“May I have the knife?” I said,
as we were cooking with garlic and dough
in the heavily scented kitchen
where your mother grew up;
deep salty waters and high altitude slopes of
Halkidiki.
You set down the knife – just from good manners,
and slide it towards my floured hands.
“Why didn’t you just hand it to me?”
I sounded unsteady and young.
“Why, we wouldn’t want a knife fight, would we?”

you are the home for my strings,
the things that sting, it's the venom
in the vessels,
like the one that you carry
under your muscles,
structures built to give character.
they ache from the weight of
the rocks compiled in a safebox,
it hold the glow of the liquid
savior that could someday find you.
they act like weights,
heavy on your shoulders,
boulders on your toes.
i'm sorry i left like that
i just needed to catch my knees
from hitting rock bottom.
i guess sometimes it's better to leave it
alone than to dig it back up,
but you and i know that
lock boxes can keep you from
opening up, the key is
stuck in the mechanics
like a child too curious
for its own good.

agreeing to this relationship
                   was like realigning the northern lights
                                     so i could have my own personal
                   show for keepsake.  but really,
i just want to keep you, with
                  your stargazes and lit-up fire thoughts
                                    that could make or break my
                  sentences that let me follow my desire
to believe in love or lead me
                 to the realization that i have no idea
                                    if i have the foundation to
                 let your feather body and soft angles
hold me up to the light.

you once invited me to the edge of the world map,
but now i just want to be in the middle
where the tingling isn't so strong
and the ledge is a little bit blurred.
at least i would have a reason to explain
why i just don't know
anymore.

you gave me a necklace
made out of insults.
i didn't give it back to you
because you didn't even
see the glint that ran across
my eye.
it moved so quickly,
like numbers in the sky and
all i can really remember is we
both had coffee breath.
you said we were so similar,
logistically,
but i have yet to figure
the formula.
i wish i had a calculator for that,
but i'm only strong with words
and structures that build us up
on midnight talks and the fact
that we all struggle.
i'm struggling to read you
because you aren't in the news
or fictional in my summer novels,
and that means we are by no means
dreaming under the hard moon
that always seems smaller from
where i stand.
i am beaten by reality and
i feel so little because i once
thought i could be so
invincible to you.
we used to play games in the
car, even though it was to
neglect the thoughts
that fueled the shoe to
pressed down a little heavier.
i knew i had to,
so we could reach the only
destination that we could
taste in each other -
we wanted the lungs of a jellyfish,
        (even if they don't have lungs or gills)
the control over the weather systems,
to touch the northern lights
like it was ours to keep.
we wanted things to be fair,
the voice of billie holiday,
some luck to launch our bodies
into sweet, sweet peace.
we only wanted to see something
beyond the borders of what we
have discovered so far.
we only wanted so much more.