Today I did not miss the ghost parade
Which always comes without warning
And leaves the way your glasses do
Dusting its tracks before placing itself
On the counter in the bathroom


I think of the pain that comes with growing wings
And understanding the difference between
Beauty and utility

I am too big to fly

We need to grow simpler things from our backs
Starting with patience
But I am just being silly
Patience should grow from your lungs

The ghost parade is a quiet thing
Always manages to pass through you
With the slowness of a carriage ride
Through some well lit park in the evening

And just like all ghosts
They remind you of something you've lost
Or will never have
And takes it with them when they leave

The parade marched off with my wings
Silver feathers erupting like confetti

I heard the hunters load their rifles
And assumed this was a good thing

I wish the traveling circus were still around to run away to. It's not about being afraid to leave as much as it is needing a place to go. But my father was a mountain and my mother was a hole. And we're caves, mouths open and full of the cold. Been sitting so long myths have been made about the things that live inside us. The children come on dares to look in there. And yell in fear, at first only to have those sounds echo back. Then they laugh. There was never anything to be afraid of. Our bodies are full of that noise. Mostly the laughter. It lasts longer. It feels better. But is easier to forget because no one ever learned anything by laughing as much as being brave. You have to be scared to be brave. And moving from this place takes the strength of an earthquake sometimes. But you should know, your hands will never be big enough to hold all the rubble when the mountain crumbles. I remember when the cancer hit. The chest x rays from when they removed the portocath. Backlit, your chest resembles a busted cemetery gate from some ghost scene in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Broken. From letting all your ghosts go. And don't focus on all the things your hands can't hold. Your head fits just fine. Your hand. Cupped over your mouth to catch all your sighs. Can hold a cup of coffee to give to someone. Flowers. A poem. Tonight. Tonight you realize you're a mountain twice removed. A marble statue. So strong and so beautiful people will come a long ways just to see you.

we are night and day
the clever shadows in gingersnap rags
plotting  to brood in Bohemia
stamping kiwis
clicking our heels the way
twilight clinks in a glass of Bourbon
or typewriters chat chat chat
like iron tea leaves

perhaps

I'd like to believe
that it will be better
than the past,
but as the they
used to say
in the teachers'
lounges
when I taught
high school:

There Is No Bottom.

mce

Outwardly, the oak
Withstood winter, tall and proud --
        Long since dead inside.

Being yelled at again
takes my mind to the window
Staring at the rain
staring at so much potential

I am nobody but a human
and humans are nobody
but so much potential

Mistakes we make
the anger we take
out on ourselves

For not being perfect
that's all I wanted
something like that
to be flaunted

But I climb and I climb
on the mountain side
with a simple scream
with a simple memory
I'll fall
I'll fall

Back to the bottom
of the ladder

A vicious cycle I take
A vicious cycle I break

With a slice
with a pill

With a bullet
with a hop

I'll end this right now
before I even started