My dearest Rocky,
You were too old.
Too old to chase after that mischief of mice.
But you were not to be halted.
And in return,
Hind legs destroyed.
Cut up and sewn together
In crisscross fashion.
Once a lazy *******,
Then a lethargic moribund mutt.
(But still a *******)
On your last leg, (or two) in a literal sense.
You dumb dog.
You balding, simple-minded scoundrel.
Christmas came and Christmas went.
A feast of elegance at your disposal.
Any indulgence you desired.
We bequeathed, as a last goodbye.
Brisket, frozen cream, pastries and more.
Up until the day, our eyes became sore.
One last car ride- One last roar.
One last breeze through your jowls.
Your clacking stomps and palsy-walsy howls,
Echo even now when I walk through the door.
Now silent and still, turned to ash and dust
I hope you’re herding that memory of elephants,
And leading that pride of lions,
In your infinite dream.
And remembering those who you brought joy.
But especially,
The one who carried you
Upstairs to bed
Every night.
I love you still, and always will.
Good boy, *******, good boy.

This evening I will discover a fibrous black-green substance under the nails of the first three fingers on my right hand.
I will excavate it with a nail file, and inspect it in my palm, it will be poked, prodded, and rolled into a ball.
I will recognize this substance.
While I recollect,
There will be a sleeping sea turtle one hour south, twenty minutes out, and twelve meters deep with three long scratches etched into the algae - exposing a marbled shell.
My vision will narrow and my senses will perk.
I will breath long heavy breaths into my regulator,
I will feel fins pushing past, up and through my heart strings,
I will spill salt water tears,
The ocean is a fishbowl that contains only me, and a creature after my own self.

A forward confrontation:
Two mortals watching, ogling in thirst.
Instantly, and in a rush.
Primordial acts: anti-thixophobia.
Taunting and nuzzling in such
A local vicinity of inquiry.
Triumphant, wailing slurs.
Alas, but a murmur: troglodytic.
Solitary, oh, limbs chaotic and aching.

The evening sky ripened and the melting
snow trickled lightly as we walked past the man selling orange and cactus and the restaurant on the corner hosting a pink and frilled quinceañera.

Haunched in the shower-corner
Down with the demons
A darkness so bright eyelids shut,
Clamped, seized up in a scream
Water gushes over -- maybe tears? --
A redness configuring around the
Edges, behind the eyes, No, just
The fake fluorescent lighting that
Suffocates this small shower.
Bulb-bright blearing blares out:
She lives as a conduit.
She can't -- Maybe won't? -- Hear
Me rattling about inside her.
"Poor *******" she calls me pityingly.
She's a conduit, her life lived out
Beleaguered by glimpses, images,
That she's determined to keep down.
Thrown into a Heraclitean
Fire, screaming, laughing, tumbling,
It's behind her eyes.

Aptitude, palms cover face
Slicked back hair, shower-
Drenched rosemary and mint.
An attempt. Ocean mist body wash --
She reaches up her fingers
From deep sea seaweed imaginings
Amphibious dark green soap bubbles
Please wash it all away. Rinse & Repeat.
Should I intervene? Remember:
Outside fresh rain brings the
Smell of worms to the soggy
Puddle muddied grass
But in here, in this warm fort of
Fuzz, Marlboros spread scent like
Burnt coffee permeate goose
Pricked skin
Down taste-buds Down throat
Down limbs Down fingers
Down --
It can't be scrubbed out --
You try but the red returns
In patches on your skin
Maybe friction or water heat.

But it's there, red, blotchy,
Raised, fluorescent reminders.
Pupils red, hangups, red,
Late-night, stay-up, crying, can't
Sleep, red, red.
Red.
The steady stream of water
Brings her crashing again I am
Losing to her skills of suppression
She has so many questions,
I catch them. I hang on, I ask
And she doesn't listen, a
Broken wire perhaps a frayed
Circuit board I say look at your
Body, the beauty, she can't.
Her nakedness mocks her
All she sees is blasphemy all
She sees is lies.
I drown, I'm poured out of
A bottle into a wine glass
Red, mottled, the image in her head.

She wears a straw cap &
Flowered bodice
Leaning an ironic angle against
A patio railing talking to god knows
Who in a brown hat
Picking grapes off the vine
Plopping them under her lips
The seductive "O" giggling
A thin gossamer veils the
Scene, the tablecloth laughs
At me, the cheese grimaces,
The smoke mimics, and all the
People glance knowingly over their
Shoulders.

I am swallowed in a gulp.

She is dizzy.
"It's the wine" I say, she doesn't hear.
Turns off the shower.
The chrome handle winks against
The porcelain tacky white walls
And wretches at the sandy pink
Flooring.
Off. On. Off.
Red fades away, blue veins like
Lizards perk up against her
Filmy white thighs and the
Backs of her hands.
She scoffs. Faintly thinks of betrayal.
Barely hears me.
She walks naked past the mirror
Refusing to look.
Feeling sick.
-- I've betrayed her maybe? -- I'm not
Who hurt her. I don't understand.
Curled up, bed, wringing hands.
Prepares herself for the day.
She is a conduit. She is okay.

I should like to disappear
And live among the nether regions.
To sink into that white wet dust aloft and dangling above crisp evergreens.
There is a hole in that dense fog that calls to me
Each curve aligns,
From my brow to my toes,
In a perfect silhouette.
Thus I find perfect solitude

I shall be enveloped by milky warm rapture
And wish that each cell split and vaporize
Like sediment washed away by thick waters.

Let me submerge into the salty earth
And coat my skin in its colors.
I will rub dirt into my eyes and **** moss in pursuit of thirst.
This lone wolf has seen far too many packs
And wishes to burrow herself in the forgiving
Muddy crevices of the earth mother

O, stand back ye banshees and ghouls
I will cascade into the overflowed river beds
And muddle my hearing with the sound of tides
Chanting relentlessly into my eardrums
You
Are
Alone
.

Time is wonton soup,
And that tall boy you stole last night
Is still inside your trunk.

Cigarette smoke and sunscreen air
Perfume the burning grass.
When all is placed on greenfly's wing
He tumbles forward - brash.

Cool pursuit, and time lapse too,
Persist the stagnant air
Of summertime and sweet plum wine,
Cocoons, a golden snare.

Black lace ******* disarray
I want to know your plans,
From shallow noon till dusty dusk
With warm and calloused hands.

Sometimes there are moments that are never meant to play out fully and
In an instant
Sheets straighten and clouds
Clamor back across the sky.

*Good morning.

I am the dead walking.
The skeletons before
and behind me
Threaten and curse.

I don't move as smoothly
As I did once.

My body has been picked
Clean by the lies
I have told.

Self destruction is my forte.

The skeleton
Of my future
Sheds it's skin,
Moth shaped fragments
Flutter away
Carrying all promises of
Redemption and happiness.

Each false word
Sprays poison on my
Tongue
As it leaves my mouth.

The skeleton
Of my past
Crawls along with one hand,
Dragging your hurt soul
Chained to its ankle.

It wants to let go.

But the key has sunken
To the bottom of
A well,
Flooded with my various
Evil synchronicities.

I am hatred personified.

I am a liar and a good one.

Not even your undeserving,
Kindhearted,
Beautiful soul
Was safe from the
Rattle of my tall tales
And the sharp pain
Of bone
Through soft, innocent
Flesh.

The light that blasted through the fog went away not with a stutter but backward with a slow reversal of fate.
The I that was and I that am couple and copulate in a resounding we that quietly submits to Time’s mastery.
And you: an eternal centrifuge.
Spinning and pulling only to stop
And send me on a trajectory forever towards the pins that will never fall.

I
Life is travesty, suckled on the porcelain outer shell of knowledge and truth.
Inhabiting the marled, marbled masterpiece in all its rigor and glory.
Infecting each waking day with routines and routes and rights and wrongs and writhing- and writhing.
I was writhing in tune to the spin of the earth, patiently orbiting theoretical prophecies, possibilities.
Never landing, only grazing.
And yet,
Neither land nor space knew how to appease me.

II
All at once, entirety collapsed into newspapers in bins and tossed flowers on streets.
Bouquets of calamity.
Crumpled, confused, but cognitive.
A topical force, a tropical storm-
You renew
You destroy but spur recreation
You rejuvenator
You instigator and investigator
You mind altering, mind boggling, mind over matter over mind over and over and over -
You sweeten coffee spoon lives measured out in tides.
Swelling, slowing, swallowing me whole.

III
You incarnate the voice inside my head.
Filtered through my consciousness and spilled out of the center of my forehead.
Melting my inhibitions as if ice-cream coating the sticky-hot sidewalks, dribbling drops of drips and drops dripping dropping down cones and little fingers.
All of me.
The time and space of me.
Just ice-cream, putty in your hands.
Can you feel me?
Malleable molding molting.

IV
Changing under your finger tips oh, your finger tips.
River soaked crystals on dirt crusted skin.
I the female but you the siren.
Entice, entice, entice me with your philosophical tongue.
Whisper sweet-nothings and forget-me-not's and I-love-you's disguised as Sartre.
Oh, you who woos with show and slow-
motion's rustling trees and zipping up coats.
I heed your breeze and embrace your chill,
chill the shrill if stress is shown
and tramples the leaves over all you've done.

V
But, you are not of this porcelain sphere.
Suckled on hope, but cracking.
We mend with promises, we seal with duct tape, and press our hearts into the fabric so that it won't break.
As you prepare for your departure, my reasoning flickers, flattens, and finally fractures.
What was adroit is now amiss, honey sweetened and short handed letters can tear away tears and leave ink blot stains of treasures and bliss.
There's a hole in my wholeness and holiness, and it reeks of what-once-was's and what-will-be's and all you'll leave me with is-

Life is travesty, and hell is other people.

The low-key spookiness
in the disembodied wail
of the injured 8 stories below.
I, asleep, content, objective,
lie cozy in my sheets,
seek to find compassion,
but fail and back to sleep I fleet.
The tremendous thunder
crash of metal
halting all my dreams.
A feeling irretrievable,
A lack to feel, it seems.

Dear new-old house,
You have a well inside you that I've
Stumbled upon.
If you're curious, it's below the AC unit.
I fell through.
Not entirely by accident...
Nothing I do is entirely by accident.
My actions are always some type of weirdly
Conscious bad decision.
I went through.
Well. Not "through" exactly.
My body felt a -transition-
A change in space but not in time.
A shadow world. A shadow...

Dear old-new house,
Now with cold damp stone instead of tile.
Now with snails and slugs instead of warm wooden floors.
Now with rot and mold instead of crisp white walls.
I'm trapped in a version of you.
A spiral shell, a well, catacombs that exist
Overlapped on top of between adjacent to. A shadow.
I can hear Libertita, the landlord's dog,
Ironically yelping her cries for freedom from her cage.
I can smell chicken in the oven, I can feel bread in the fridge.
I am afraid to leave my bed.
The blankets block out the dark, or
The blackness that's darker than dark,
More viscous too.
Lacking its usual silence, replaced by a choir
Of clicking and humming.
& the sound the slugs make as they traverse the soil at my feet.
I can feel the dark hovering above my eyelids
Threatening to fill my nose with sludge.
I can feel it's pressure deep within my eardrums.

Dear new but old house,
I've built you on my own,
Unwittingly,
As my prison cell.
I've stacked your rubble precisely, as tall as I could, so my escape
Would not be easy or without pain.
I've thought my books into demons.
Swarms of moths & bats that deceive me with
Tales of joy, and morality plays, and resolved melancholia.

Dear old and new house,
I've been stuck inside myself lately.
Chained to my perceived obligation, like
A bike in a chain link fence, whose owner can't
Quite get the combination right
And my parts are being stolen one by one
Until only my frame is left.

I've been ignoring the stairs in the corner.
They spiral to the top of this well...

If you tell me you want me to leave it all...
I will.

"It's not ideal" he said.
I said, "what is ideal then?"
He answered,
"Probably coffee and cigarettes, while the fog rolls in."

1.
You sit on your stoop
And you listen.
You sit on your stoop
And you breathe.
You sit on your stoop
And you take in.
You sit on your stoop
You don't leave.

2.
A car comes down the block and you fill it with ambivalence
There are artifacts of previous tenants in your walls.
Whatever you do you can't stop the faint buzz of the sun
Or the rattling of your morning coffee.
One on one.

3.
One on one you lie back to the marble.
You drift off to sleep in the end.
You can't help you don't look you're unable,
You throw the frog away in the end.
The croak drove you crazy and the tongue made you cringe
But there was something of value...
You don't think, I can't think, in the end.

4.
You squeeze and you pry
You don't listen.
You drag and you moan
You don't breathe.
You curl and you sigh
You don't take in.
You plot and you play
You just leave.

5.
You have anxieties like pop rocks
Once they fizzle down you accept another
Handful.
In the end.
The frogs in the bin but it's ribbit breaks through
And the spread of its tongue still reaches me.

Not like a needle or a knife or a wound,
A dull pain caresses the senses.
A buzzing dilutes the brain.
A weakness so strong the beat of your heart is enough to make your body sway.
Conundrums like nothingness live behind each blink, not wanting to take your eyes off the road for too long.
And your fingers twitch to the rhythm of the anxious mistaken watch that needs winding yet again.
Headlights lead you down the tree lined road, but deceives you into thinking you're headed towards lightness, towards home.
The beams grow further and more narrow as you sink back into the molten black of back roads at night.
The dullness is full, complete, thick.

In the middle of the night
Toiling, boiling, out of sight.
Lurking on in caves or beaches.
What's to fear? Undulating leaches,
Bulbous tongues, or blotting popped pustules.
Nay, only thrice was found she on thy vestibule.
In normal dress, and broad day light,
not so pretty, and not so bright.
Mourning morning not such a creature.
Call the judge! Wake every preacher!
Feigned ignorance won't get you far
Just look, they've already set the bar,
That from the breeze your limbs will swing
When like the others forced to sing
Of demons and charms and heresy,
They shall force your tongue, by my troth, even upon me.
For which I might procure the same fate as you,
Pricked and drained, with a blackish hue.
O please! This girl is none to fear!
Throw her in water up to her ear!
See by the way she sink in foam,
Splash her with holy water and hear not a groan!
These lips hath spilled no blood,
No pact with the Devil, no sign of false flood.
Spare her and likewise me,
For I know if she be tried, so tried I too shall be.

The fire! The smoke! The Flames!
Suffocated with chaos. Who else to blame?
The feckless masses, like sheep they believe.
*No mercy, no God, no time for reprieve.

The percolator didn't percolate,
The grounds became stale,
My clay colored mug remains empty.
As empty as my soul and my stomach
O! Will the World quit not why it haunts me?
Torments me?
Teases and jests me?
No amount of Glory or Faith or Starbucks
Can ever hope to soothe
the aches in my belly,
and balm my heart,
and In warmth enrapture cerebral fluids
Yet to awaken from droggy musings.

Lust, with warm and calloused hands,
You haunt my night and spare my day,
Not really what I had planned.

Dried leftover rice scattered round,
Half an hour until dawn.
Star-glaring, mighty muffled sound,
The river Styx unto a fawn.

Lips that burn with absence,
Absinthe out of reach.
Wind-up toys like naked crescents,
A melancholic speech.

What help is flowered language
With ennui on you on me?
Origami boxes, filled with sage -
What is groaning – if not poetry?

The air feels fake.
Fictional even, when that tightness in my chest occurs.
Slick smokey and black fingers lurk
From the corners of any minuscule space I happen to be in
And creep, and lurch, and crawl towards me.
They drown out the light and **** up the oxygen.
Coal-colored tendrils,
Petrifying sea anemones,
Anatomical autonomous anomalies...
Awful.
I sit paralyzed.
My control comes in the form of doorways.
                                                       ­  Or windows.
                                                               Or room to move my arms.
But these creatures deny me the satisfaction of control,
                                                        ­                           of space,
                                                                ­                        of air.
Synthetic winds fill my body, rapidly, as if I can't get enough.
Shutting my eyes does not help.
It only enhances the sensation of them gripping my arms,
Strapping me down and maneuvering their way down my throat.
Churning my stomach and stopping the expansion of my lungs.
Each bronchial synapse screams.
Every AVM feels like it might burst and fill my lungs with thick blood.
Choking.
The fingers are stuck and tickling my esophagus and they burn,
Like ash from a funnel tunneling through me scorching my organs.
Behind buzzing hummingbird eyelids
Are kaleidoscopic misfitting jigsaw pieces
entering, appearing, disappearing, e x  i   t    i     n      g.
It won't end
It won't end
Itwon'tend
The world is ending all around and the arms and fingers won't
(gogogo go GO)
back to the corners whence they came
Until...

He thinks she must taste
Like lemon peel and whipping cream,
Must be, skin, plumsoft and raindewed.
Must be glossy,
As dampened trodden-on yellow leaves.

Fitted for a glass of wine
And tongue lips slow motion vibrate
Resonate with the bitter mull.

The woman mindlessly fingers
The marks of age on the oaken
Table. Claw foot. Barefoot.
Arched toes and back, bubbling
The wine on her tongue
Feel its taste.

He wishes those lips
Must be catching sweetness
In the moistened ravines.
He wishes the soles of her
Vulnerable toes, and
Tastes lemons in his cheeks.

Your name
is malleable and
easily tongued --
against my
cheek.

Is it
not the case that --
just before --
it was ether
in the cables above
this mov
-ing
train?

Vowels get dampened
and the rest
get
stuck
between my
teeth.

I can
roll your name into
a ball
with my tongue.

Press it to the roof
of my mouth --
lull it --
around and
feel it vibrate
with a hu-umm.

Do I dare part
my lips and let it
sublimate
once again?

Bring this moment
to a
close with
an
utterance?

How oft have I
spoken it,
with sheer neglect
& ignorance
of its

taste.

The wanderer cloaks the moonlit path a stormy blue.
They have been here before, this string in their hand
Surrounded by finely trimmed hedges
And gossamer busts of strangers.
It is dark. And dark means sleep.
But without the distractions of the day, the jagged path, the endless labyrinth, what more is there to do than crouch in a hallow and cry.
The wanderer lets the tears spill,
Like a broken fountain the flow of water sputters and spills over their cheeks
Coating the dirt and foliage below with sticky bittersweet remorse.
The wanderer does not want to sleep.
They follow the string in their hand
Down the same path they've been on time and time again.
They've been here for years, being led by their past decisions.
Feigning ignorance and indifference to the existence beyond the path.
Never letting go of the string.

Conduits of Blood
A self that is itself
Within itself.
My pen is my sword
At the mouth of your pyre
With which you will be slain,
By your own hand.
Or was it me that took the hilt?
Not out of anger or frustration
But out of sadness, maybe confusion.
You vex me and you are beautiful.
Your fire which is burning
Always just behind
Lights your hair a glowing orange
And leaves me tired, breathless,
And beside myself, within
Myself, burning veins that
Are itself.

What is this enigma up ahead?
A chasm of clear blue in a mountain of black?
White streamlines fragment the space,
A complex gold seeps around its edges,
Creeping out in tendrils.
A rock-pool amidst a lava-flow.
A beginning, life
Rising from bed and gradually nudging
Its blanket past wriggling toes.

*The rain begins to lighten.

He has risen from the fiery wreckage.
Out of the sunroof and onto the highway.
Around him a blur, frozen in time are the medics, the smell of burning flesh, firemen, cries (cry).
                       "DID I CAUSE THIS?"
He questions as he stumbles over the rusted metal guard rail.
Tumbling down the small hill into the watery, polluted ditch that reeked of sewage and micro-organisms spawning and breeding in stench and refuse his eyes look up.
To the image of Christ- hands posed in prayer, robed in ethereal white-
                       "DEAR LORD-"
He begins only then noticing the horns and pitch fork decorating the graffitied mural on the side of the abandoned train car.
                       (FATHER, SON, AND THE HOLY SP-)
"I've fooled you,"
The spray painted relic booms,
"You thought you had won? HAH! You've sold your soul. Idiot. It is in my possession. Right here in your own personal HELL. Locked up in this train. For always and eternity."
The man cringed and something in him broke.
He touched the wound an inch to the left of his sternum
                      "FUCKFUCKFUCKFU-"
He watched the contortion on the Devil's face (hark! The herald angels sing) as he laughed at his misfortune.
Eyes heavy, (glory) clothing half crusted with grime, mouth (to the) ajar,
The man stands up and trudges back to his crippled car, slides through the shattered glass crystals, menacing, back into the drivers seat (new born)
And falls asleep.
Inhaling the ever-present smoke.
(King)
*Hallelujah.

Inferiority and humiliation
Are my prison guards.
The body within my outer-self
Creates shivs out of my skills
But...
She is not very skillful at weaponry.
And the wall is plastered with anxiety
And the complete inability to
Express who I am.
My mouth is stitched shut, my shiv is
Not yet sharp enough, and
Its edges keep chipping.

One girl, One boy:
One tin pail of water and One jagged stone.
She lay open, her whole self: stagnant, clear, and shining.
And he, he is ready
To submerge.
To make ripples.
To erode.

Plop, clink

As one.

Who else but you serves
such sweet coffee liqueur
in the morning when
the roosters crow and
cow **** wafts through
the lazy floating curtains
stained with bacon grease
and griddle clusters?

Who else but you *****
with certainty so unabashed
and confident of the pleasures,
niceties, and sacrifices you’ve
transferred over to me through
cable wires and USB ports?

Who else but you can trap a
great city in a corner and
claim it as your own, with
courtly love entirely free
of condescension?

Who else but you could stay
stagnant for five hundred years
with false aspirations and
then flip swiftly to a whole
new fantasy?

Who else but you tastes of smoked
salmon on christmas eve, of burnt
butter from a silver spoon, of cold
green tea, of sugared plums, of
eggshells and beer batter and wine?

Who else but you can laugh
like a hyena eating a screeching
cat but still make hearts melt
out of belly buttons and tickle
lungs with fresh air?

Who else but you rips holes
in my jeans and shoots freeze
rays into my eyes to dry out
the skin on my knees and bring
tears because you know you’re
the only one who can heal them?

Who else but you sparks
indignation with a kiss
and forms rebel alliances
with whispers in the dark,
in the cold, on the hard floor
of a ***** dorm room?

Who else but you is
palpable enough to
wring juices from with
my lips like a chilled
nectarine leaning on the
white metallic pool edge?

Who else but you makes me
leave turquoise and indigo tick
marks in the crevices of my
fingers and lifts me out of
languid slumbers through
dew crusted eyelids and
musky morning breath?

It has been time. All of the time.
And there is no one else but you.

I started writing a poem about Eros and Psyche
But the melodrama made me sick
Certain obscura does it. Swept up like a pigeon on your park bench or a rat in the garbage next to you,
It's nauseating. Comes on like a large pill forced down to your gut.
A hard ball, steely at the core but soft when you squish it, inserted, stapled to the center of you.
Out of nowhere, a black visage willows from the deep and engulfs, catches, strands, strangles in a sandstorm with no clear direction.
Your day is nothing is nothing redundancy.
I undulate through life
A lead float bobbing with the tides rather than fighting them.
Every once in a while I can see through the sea salt and sand and view a life that I didn't want to lead manicured before me on a mocking-silver plate, perched atop a red table cloth.
The never ending feast finally feasts on you.
Lost, and alone in a library of 10 million books.

It has no business here!
That salty ochre, pallet-chorus,
Clear plastic red dotted sachet!

Your lust for condiments freaks me out,
Buddha-girl, eat your meal.
Time won't run out so quickly
Nor your intelligence nor your zeal.

Pursed lips slurp a bowl of noodles,
I think of your warm hands
And banks of rivers, and cigarette quivers
Ashes falling to black sand.

Happy as a clam in an oyster's shell
Life is one fell swoop.
Give me the keys, you doe-eyed girl,
For time is wonton soup.

For every second I spend weepin',
Father Time he comes a-sweepin',
To put things in order, things in place,
To wipe the tears right off my face.

If only you could trust the time,
You would accept my choice of crime.
My selfish want: To put first- Me,
Above all else, just simply free.

Though I'm no longer yours for keepin',
In my heart, it still lay creepin',
My only regret: The certain haste,
Out of my Mind, my Heart has chased.

Fear not, however, you live in rhyme,
Like blissful days far past their prime.

I was once told that words mean little.
Action is what mattered.
Or maybe it's the thought that counts?
Fairly frequently I will get mad,
But very rarely am I disappointed,
The way I am now.
Much of my time is spent filing single
Socks without a pair back into my drawer.
But these little tragedies
Never realize their full potential.
Static cling charges their fair atoms
And I am clung to for dear life.
Your hypocrisy amuses me.
Nothing is more silly than a lonely sock
Wanting to be worn by a girl who lives
In bare feet.
But bare and calloused toes were better
And less cruel,
Than her favorite pair of socks,
To whom she had lost half the match.

If you, little sock, want peace
Want solace
Want brevity...
This lint fire will get you high,
Just like those words, actions,
And thoughts you keep from me.

…….. What I am.

I am a hydra. When one head is cut off, two more grow in its place. I transform my pain into a new rebirth.

I am straining against my own skin, muscles stretch with the urgency that is clear cut and precise.

I am the urgency to take what I have, and can experience in this godforsaken and forgotten universe of awe inspiring mayhem and miracle and make it concrete with the words that spill from the tips of my fingers.

I am a writer. And a philanthropist. And a politician. And a needy, clingy, greedy, charitable, independent, WALKING CONTRADICTION.

I am a female.

I am all man’s desire in one tight body with the perfect mixture of two parts intellectual prowess, two parts sexuality, a sprinkle of desire, a dash of tongue, and a pinch of sarcasm to taste.

But, I am no Wife of Bath. She who gives life to 14th century anti-feminism. No, that’s not me.

I am self-evident and self-sufficient.

I am not some docile flower picker in a field of yellow nor am I frolicking.

I spit fire and breathe rage and seek alabaster truth.

Dusty hallways framed in Victorian fashion and front porches coated in soggy leaves are my hunting grounds where the scent of recently burned cigar lingers and the nostalgia of tomorrow sets in.

And I am inclined to reach out, not with palms wide so as to let moments slip through my fingers, but with hands gently cupped as if to catch the verses as they fall from experience and observation.

I am the bringer of emotion: unequivocal tantrums, unstoppable tears, and unrelenting sighs. But also palpable joy, vocalized calm, and requited love.

I want what I cannot have. Simple pleasures great desires and all things in between.

I drink black coffee and let the sour taste sit in the back of my throat while the warmth fills me from the roof of my mouth to my womb. I am dependent on this bitter sweet liquid, my heart beats quicker, thundering in my eardrums. I am high on the insanity I feel. I am not calm unless I am under stress, teetering on the tip of a needle pin pointing turmoil trespassing in my mental terrace.

I am always the same, consistently changing like Siddhartha’s faces in the river.

I am enlightened though it has taken hundreds of years of war and peace and flux and stagnation and pride and envy and wrath and sloth and gluttony and greed and lust but I am humble in these and others though I am far from free of them.

I am tired. Not just of body though there is much of that. But of mind and soul. I am tired of yearning for the urn and the nightingale. Thinking causes me misery.

I am misery, I am what keeps people up at night remembering sullen pasts and dreaming up realities that will never come into existence, never made, never fertilized, never solid.

I am what touches the deepest corners of your night stained thoughts, of your dreamlike nooks and crannies, I seep into you and spread to your bloodstream I am here, I am there, I am everywhere, and you cannot get rid of me.

I am in love with the universe! Although … I don’t think she loves me back. But the universe is for me, and so is everything else.

I am off topic…

Does any of this even resonate with you? Without you… who am I?
Without you I am none of this.

With you- I expand horizons by shrinking them down to the width of a page! With you! Only with you!

Let it be know what I am…

I am a POET.

Silence is not scary;
It does not beat around bushes
or hobble on stumps.

Silence has a potent vulnerability.

It lives in rainbow
Configurations at the bottom
Of a bubble, in the moment before
Its life bursts.

When the whick in the moonlight
Scented candle whispers
That it is burnt out, silence escapes
In the spiral columns of smoke.

A whisper, a whimper, a whine.

But where does this whimsical
Figure hide when the trumpets
Of activity and evidence of
Vitality roar down through
Grey clouds and spill
Across valleys?

Silence goes wherever it is welcomed.

Behind closed bedroom doors,
In the shared air of two people
Enjoying each other's absence
Of thought.

Between lines of prose,
In the spaces you leave behind
As you continue
Moving forward.

When the worst is assumed
About this or that,
Like the horror of silence
and its clumsy ways,

Moments are lost to
Marching bands and
Irrelevant chatter.

For every second I spend weepin',
Father Time he comes a-sweepin'.
To put things in order, things in place,
To wipe the tears right off my face.

If only you could trust the time,
You would accept my choice of crime.
My selfish choice: To put first- Me,
Above all else, just simply free.

Though I'm no longer yours for keepin',
In my heart, it still lay creepin',
My only regret: The certain haste,
Out of my Mind, my Heart has chased.

Fear not, however, you live in rhyme.
Like blissful days far past their prime.

Groaning is but poetry
Intelligible garbles sewn together
Into universes - She stands

Making faces in the mirror
Like Bukowski in a fogged up tray.
A lighthouse, posed exterior,
Terrifying beacon of an hourless day.

Eras lie behind her eyes
Reflecting that pupil-smile stare.
Teeth glued and mouth stitched shut
Oysters woven through her hair.

She knows the lot, or just enough
Enough to make it clear
That sanity has lots its sense,
It has no business here.