To express yourself
You don't need to be eloquent
You don't need to have long thoughtless sentences
and riddled paragraphs
all you need is
one pen
and
one paper
and
any words

I knew it'd happen.
A dead Ladybug over our heads.
But we drank.
Beer,
Champagne,
Sun.
We painted our nails
Black, red, ladybug's dead

Out we went,
In our finest.
One drink down,
New town.
Sticky floors, sticky web, the Ladybug hung dead.

I say something,
to you.
I know it's going to happen.
You fume.

Tick, tick, tick...

You start to shout.
Cigarette.
Here we go.
I'm not backing down on this,
I'm trying to help!

Help me, help me, set me free, let me live, ladybugs free!

*****

I bite my lip

SNOTTY

I breathe

LIAR

I blow

Tears spill on your face,
My truth comes out,
You pushed me!

Poke, Poke, Push!

Poke, Poke, Push!

We hurt each other.
Over nothing.
Over something you don't like?
What is it?
I give up.

Taxi for one,
Taxi for two.
My head is heavy,
Eyes weak.
I'll be the bad guy.
You'll cry to them,
and lie, lie, lie!
Fly, fly, fly far away. Ladybugs aren't here to stay.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised
how much cleaner the air breathes up here
compared to the stale, stank fog
back down in the little city we shared.

—A thought:
I barely recall the specific stench,
an ever-present detail in what was my
day-to-day existence.
However, your words, complaints, ideas:
"Like a diaper full of death" you said once, exactly,
play in my head like a tape recorder,
old and warped a little, but undoubtedly accurate.—

And now, am I looking down on you?
Or down at you?
Over you?

Is that you,
floating place to place,
living on a moment like a speck of dust,
never entirely within anyone's grasp?
Are you still toiling in the burning sun,
harvesting what you planted,
growing it strong and right?

What movements are these?
You live and toil
and burn your fuel
and spend it all each day
and earn it back again.

Oh, if you could join me!

No, if only I could join you.
I would toil, burn and spend everything
to find a way so you could breathe, too,
this new air.
The air...

Sweeter each moment,
but thin, unfit. My head either
aches or...
it does not feel at all.

Do you look up at me? Up to me?
Up...over me?
And what now have I got to look up to?

A gust blows the speck away,
gone elsewhere, never to stay.