she studies the history of colors
in a building that
lacks it
i study garbage tossed on
the side of the street
and worn out faces on the
city bus
i write simple words in
a coffee stained notebook
she writes long, complicated
sentences, elaborate
explanations, provides examples
on crisp white paper
Font size 12
Ariel Black

she asked me what
do i do?
and i said i am a hostess at a restaurant
but hopefully, one day,
i’ll get to sit around
and do nothing
when she left, i thought
our exchange went
smoothly
the next morning i heard
she said our conversation
was awkward

"It's alright, you can cry?" She looks listlessly at her reflected shadow. There's nothing on her mind, every cloud of thought has left the gray skies of it. She feels like a desert, barren and almost lifeless. If she could cry she'd cry the oceans in to existence and drown the earth in her sorrow.
But  she cannot. That's the real tragedy. Nothing disturbs her. All she can do is stand there not quite sure how to express the endless grief that leaves her like a carcass. A decomposing body without a soul, without the breath and sentiments of life.
"You can cry." She repeats to the rippling water in the lake. Her distorted, ever moving mirror where she does not quite recognize herself in. It's impassive in its tranquility.
If she were a song she'd be a broken melody in a dusty music box. Forgotten and replaced.
You can cry, she remind herself in the middle of a night as darkness hangs upon the sky. As it clings to her like Death weighs on her shoulders and violates her through the pores of her dry skin.

Of course, she never does.

She drifts in the open abyss of a tempestuous ocean waiting for oblivion.
She drifts,
                                   she drifts,
                                                                         she drifts...

No dreams.
No sinking feeling of demise.
Waiting for the lighthouse in the distance but all is bathed in the shadows.
There's not consolation of sandy shores somewhere on the distance.

Cry, she begs herself laying on her bed ready to succumb to sleep. Closes her eyes and opens them to shadows. Obscure and never ending. The darkness is ubiquitous, the only God that has not yet forsaken her.
She walks a few miles in the flatness of the dark land but there is no point to her direction for all is desertion. So, she stands in the lightness of the black.
Sometimes, her young self hides behind her back, wearing white and glancing ahead. She looks back at herself and wonders what the she can see. Her dress and hair fluttering gently by an invisible breeze, countenance straight and strong, never looking at what should be in front. After, she walks barefoot in to the darkness and disappear as by enchantment.

You can cry.
                                    you
                                                  can
                                    cry

But, in the darkness of her mind and her room
The tears don't fall
And her affliction is obscured
darkness never seemed so profound

we were driving
with our love child
dead in the trunk
dead in my gut

thunder road on
repeat
reading in the
passenger’s seat
six pack in the back
fingers moving up
bare thighs
begging for some.
a bottle of sailor jerry on the
beach
licking the salt off
each other’s lips
and the word forever
worn as a promise ring.
snapped a photo,
me in a red
bathing suit,
which you kept on
the dashboard of
your Honda civic
98. it’s still there,
i hear,
lying flat
even though
forever
couldn't make it through the year.

we were driving with
our love child
dead in the trunk
dead inside my gut

I'll go to the gym
Then come home

In the morning
I think I'll pack a lunch

And I think
I'll spend
A day at the park

You know
I just don't care
If I'm always poor

This country is doomed
Anyhow

I am a loving person
And It's not that fair
That I spend so much
Time alone

But life is never fair

I spent alot of hours
At the gym
Never got a great body

I'm content
To be misunderstood
Ignored by the world

Looking at attractive women
As I walk around the park

Yes, this is earth
This is life on earth

Mum asked me
If "I had a nice day"

What is a nice day?
I dislike the word "nice"
It is a meaningless adjective

Sounds like something
A mind control subject
Would say

I just say it was fine

And I don't even care
If they threaten to kick me
Out of here

I'll keep the key
To the house

I'm going to live in
The park

I joked with my therapist
About that you know

About living in a park

She used to say
My poems were beautiful

She left me
And her other clients

I enjoyed seeing her
It was enjoyable
She left me

I think
She left me
And I'm leaving society

Forgot a job
And money
I do not care

I am content
To wander here and there

Time alone is for me
I expect no sympathy

I guess
I'll go reading
Tomorrow in the park

I may sit there
Until it's dark

Liz my therapist she
Went Away

Now nature is my friend
I like trees, okay?

I am calm but I hold danger,
I respect life but I am no saviour.
The sky as my guardian,
The land as my friend
I am everywhere
And I can never end.

Waves crash, birds soar
And me? I see it all.
The very  voice is deafening to the ears but only some will hear me.

I am the calm before the storm
I am the beauty of the dawn,
I take up most of the surface of the Earth,
And they call me the sea.

The Deadly Race is young and tiny,
Weak beyond measure.
Not in physical or in mental,
But they take everything for granted.

Life is no longer a gift as they slay their own breed,
Then from the meat of the corpse they just killed,
They slice it up and feed.

This race look quite normal,
2 arms, 2 legs and a face.
But I tell you now, they are monsters,
The savages calling themselves
"The Human Race".