i met the universe when i was fifteen
she came to me from the stars, the same
sky i share with my sister.
she came to me when my sleep was polluted
with a bitter fog of guilt, and
bed without mattresses burned behind my eyelids:
here, she planted a tree
she came to me in the quiet light of morning,
she told me i was alive and that's the only thing
that really matters
but it also matters to write about it, so i do.
i impress the lines of my heart onto paper.

i don't know what day it is, but
there are seven billion webs of experience getting
clearer and more tangled every moment;
bursting, unraveling, stretching to each corner
of this earth-- these paroxysms of human life
illuminate the caves and shadows of my ribs.
i feel the glow in my chest behind each breath,
behind each swelling of my lungs with atmosphere
and everything that i can feel. it hums
to me, reaches out to tickle plants--
they breath into each other, my pores are seeping with life
and aching to be touched by the universe.
so i reach out back--hello again, dear, i’ve missed you.
i spent months cradled in your embrace, the stars were
so bright, and my eyes never clearer.
an old sticky shell was shed, a parasite of the mind
which could only say, “i’m sorry, i’m sorry…”
a demon with her hand plunged down my throat and around my chest,
a whisper of someone who would not return--
i waited in vain.
but i can tell you that the smell of listerine and cigarettes
doesn’t bring tears to my eyes
anymore, my dreams no longer plagued with visions of mattressless beds.
my body exists the way it should: i eat plants and avoid chemicals,
especially ones that trick my brain into subdued happiness.
i give away all my hugs and kisses,
tell strangers their smile is the light of someone’s life--
i pet dogs and hug trees and cry because i didn’t ask for
this gift of consciousness and free will, but it’s the best thing i have

strolling,
letting the not yet hot breezes of spring
blow 'round me,
i am taken somewhere else,
escaping on the perfume of blossoms
as on a magic carpet,
to a meadow lush and green,
where the heady breath of hyacinth
holds me close,
and i am a boy once more,
on adventures terrible and grand,
saving the world one day
and conquering it the next,
my wooden sword and imaginary allies
at my side,
as the breezes blow the blossom-petals,
a softer snow to surround me,
the stuff of legend
in an ordinary world like this,
where i simply went for a stroll.

You got your flight to London,
I hope you're still dreaming of LA.
10 thousand miles from Dublin,
You rest your head in Adelaide.

You big bonehead.

Scratching my scalp I
feel the little ***** of white
dandruff then - there -
a scab I can scratch and
stow under my fingernail so
satisfying I want to
find another one

no such luck