she has a heavy personality-
the kind that weighs    
                              down
          and anchors
everything around it.
and man,
               oh, man
how i need that.

Her face was middle-class regal,
With clear, winter skin of cotton
And a blush,
A blush that rose naturally,
Like a pink fog
Across her sharp cheekbones.
I traced the gentle curves
Of her gentle lips.
Thick hair
Fell to thin shoulders
In sunset-red waves.
Her almond eyes
Were basins of liquid emerald,
Dancing and bright,
Shaded by luxurious lashes
That fluttered delicately like the down
Of a black velvet swan.



*Critiques and comments are much appreciated

No ceilings here; the pure high air is sweet,
Gently drifting over a crimson stream,
Lips meet neck above a sea of concrete,
Sailing soft and smooth through valleys of cream.

Secondhand shine might make the best street light,
And beyond her shoulders, stars seem lit gems.
But do I dream if all fades with the night?
Arrogance takes the heart and leaves the limbs.

For the head grows wiser when it's alone,
And deprived eyes see lies on lips like crumbs.
I hope to split open her heart, that stone,
Live there and be the broken song she hums.

I can see her now: stung lips, legs like May,
Dusk in her eyes, "Love me like this" she'll say.

(She cries)
Sobs in hands while kneeling,
Painted face streaking though
She's familiar with feeling shattered
And as if she's floating,
In a subjective spatial sea
That surrounds her in this ,
Eyes-to-the-ground, individualistic city.
But she's willing to suffer if it means,
Eventual healing,
And not waking up every night screaming
With blind eyes wide, grey face, fist balled tight.
There's not a dawn to come for her
'Cause it's been dark her whole life.

(She wades)
In water
Ripples flutter with each dip and kick,
Her neck sparkles from splashes and sweat.
Her underlined eyes are tired and red from having wept
Instead of slept.
Guns on shelves
Asking if she needs help.
High balconies shout down to her
On the streets and inquire
Why she hasn't climbed them,
Looked down at the tiny specks winding,
Gears whirling, patterns and plans unfurling,
Observed she was of no use, and
Suffered a last shuddering breath
And leapt
To a mercifully abrupt death.

(She wonders)*
On this daily as
She comes to grips with failing,
At life and her goals.
Having squandered any hope that was shown,
Choosing instead a life of
Closed glass doors and burned out rooms,
Quietly never forgiving herself for who,
The world tells her she is
And who she is in her heart-
That hollow rock that stores
What remains of her wishes
Stacked in columns from floor to ceiling
Silent borders of her buried tomb of mass killing.
She roams among it like a library,
It almost feels like home, to
Browse steep piles of dreams dead
From a thousand and one styles
Of homicide, alphabetically stored and stacked.    

(She stares)
Into her oxidized mirror and
Studies the divisions of face along the cracks,    
Wondering when and where she went wrong,
How far lost she is and if she'll ever again see home.          
Most days,
   She doubts it.
Whispers what do i do?
   But wants to shout it.
The fissures on her face break wide,
Plunging her into vicious waters high
   Above her,
She shouts a final something,
But produces only finite bubbles.



*Critiques are very much appreciated.

I was alone, yesterday,
     When I began to dissolve.
It didn't hurt at all,
     Except in an abstract sort of way.


The mirror showed cold bone-
     Clean white where skin should be.
A crimson static filled our home,
     And an achy resonance filled me.


In my ocean of dissolution,
     Breaking down for absolution,
I cry not for me,
     but you;
For the burden of carrying not one heart,
     but two.


I felt so vivid as I bled to the sky.
          Scattered to brilliant blue stars, never to die,
I'll be the leaves that fall, the birds that fly by.
              In the next life, when we meet, we'll retry,
          And I'll be better, I promise,
     Because I love you,
          More than anything.
Nothing was your fault.





*Critiques are very much appreciated.

I awoke one morning
To light beating through the window,
The steady hum of the city
In my bones. I was in a manic mood
Before noon, half-dressed with my hair
Standing straight from a nervous hand.
My chest throbbed with a warm weight,
A smoldering ember that expression could extinguish only.
I wrote and cried and bled
To get the vibration I was feeling
Down on paper. In vain I spewed
Collections of letters, contorted and foreign
My mind was
Shooting up skyscrapers and
Strolling down streets of shine;
I could but lust at a copy of Gatsby through a puddle of cheap wine.

I suddenly found I couldn't take my walls,
Any longer.
I forced open the window
And the city flooded my room,
Sending papers sailing. I resonated
With the silver river
And all of me cried for release.
I scrounged together clothes and wet my hair,
Then bolted out the building.
I was embraced by the world and twirled along,
Hull to hull with the lonely lot.
We, the builders of this landscape,
The elemental moving force
That hollowed these ashen canyons.
Day by day we toil along our track,
Carving deeper and wider, shifting specks,
Seamlessly, we are one-
     Crisp dress shirt and an expensive smell, cracked black work boots and a ponytail.
I raised my eyes to the brilliant glare
Of the segmented sky and considered the beauty of being
A drop within a trickle.
Rushing, rushing, I flowed around corners
And broke against departmental shores.
I sought my gaze in a fifth avenue reflection but found only lips.
If people are the sea then I am the mist.
Understand me-- I felt not love for others,
But a crushing connectivity.
Drifting, drifting, I was swallowed whole by anonymity, crew and ship.




*Critiques are very much appreciated.