I wanted to be better than what
I’ve become. Like maybe a
real individual: An intellectual
in a burgundy bathrobe.

I would have specs
and impressive novels to peer
into the future with.

But I am just the same as
yesterday. They say I’m an
adult, but my robe is still
hot pink. My glasses are still
plastic. My novels are still
popular fiction.

All that I have become is underdeveloped.

I am one month from forever,
Caps and gowns and then forever,
One night from a breakdown,
On my knees and now I’m face down.

I am crawling towards tomorrow,
Never now, always tomorrow,
Reaching out toward the distance,
Come so far, I’ll go the distance.

To cry and cry until
I drown in my tears
Or scream and scream
Until I frighten my fears

To work harder than everyone
And be perfect
At hiding what I’ve become

To forget what they say
And be just
Like them anyway

Have you ever felt the pang of strangeness?
Tempting you towards the sameness,
When all of you
Is split in two:
Your mind says, “No”
Your heart says, “I am different!”

Have you ever heard the burdened sorrow?
Crying out, “There’s no tomorrow!”
And all of you,
Is crying, too,
Your mind lets go
Your heart knows nothing different.

I can tell that in the morning I will miss you
My arms will stretch, my lips will purse to kiss you
When my groping hands seek but do not find you
My tears will flood my eyes until they blind you.

The moon and lamppost lead me on
To lighted windows and blue neon
Inside, buzzing freezers filled with trash
Guide me to my gleaming stash.

They flash, you know, as I walk by –
Florescent figurines of this starry night
As I reach high and shadow the beam
The blades in my hand are mirroring me.

My fading face in dull silver slats
In sinister-seeming darkness cast
What remorse might come from choices here
Gives action pause and triggers fear.

Am I the darkness in the night?
Without me here, would there be light?
Am I the reason for my pain?
And the blades mere objects of this game?

And every eve I walk the streets
Beneath distant beams I'll never reach
And while my eyes are locked on high
I'll miss the light that burns inside.

I seek a source of light so stark
That I am doomed to stalk the dark
A lonely trek, I'll never know
That every human heart does glow.

The verbose ramblings of memory’s script,
A loquacious brimming cup to which I bid myself sip,
An evanescent longing to drink deep and ponder,
These dreams of expectation I contemplate no longer.

Time has past from my sinuous youth,
A spiraling existence of loosing tooth after tooth,
From virtuous ****** to gorges of shame,
Extensive transformation allows little to remain.

Musing of tomorrow and what turns it might take,
Thoughts to be built and then several to eradicate,
Perpendicular arms stretched out skyward,
Ranking arrogance next to coward.

The simple silence of presence’s suspense,
Listening for something lacking in substance,
A quiet moment I accept as does come,
For such a chance as this occurs consequently seldom.

I like the colors in your eyes
Like deepest wells and darkest skies
I like the way your sparkle-splashed pupils
Fade and flash and grow and shrink
Deepen with the things you think
Widen after every blink
Confiding in that oily ink
The truth you cannot say.

I like the wrinkles in your face
Wrought with rage and gilded grace
I like the way they dance with emotion
Pride and anger, joy and peace
Caught in every carven crease
Conforming to your soul's caprice
Tension trying to release
The truth you cannot say.

I lose my mind in passing time
Absorbed by every fleeting find
Consumed by all the world outside;
Must make room for truth to hide
And coalesce into a ball of light
Within an otherwise vapid night
To suffer, flicker, falter, fight
To struggle, 'till, with all its might,
  Truth bursts forth and blazons bright
    My eyes un-glaze and flash with sight
      And every evasion ever tried
        Is put to rest and laid aside
          And every thought is of the kind
            That leads to love and peace sublime.

Staring at your teeth
While you talk

I see the white peak from yellowed roots
The brownish blank that holds no tooth
The brown-to-pink gradient of your overhanging lip
The gap in the front through which your tongue's tip might fit

I see the smile-stained corners flicked by foam
The lecture-licked lining of your rows of brittle bones
The wide and squinted opening that emits your sunny breath
And the erratic, untrained movements of one who is native to French

I am slowly drowning in
The pool of drool I’m sleeping in,
And I am dreaming happily
Of suicide in the sea.

See there: my bubbling breath ascends
To greet the earth-bound citizens,
And as they swim back for the coast,
I’m less human, I’m more ghost.

A spirit swaying to-and-fro—
The seaweed tells me where to go,
And deeper down the currents flow,
Away from all the things I know.

And when I think my lungs will burst
Of choking peace and near-quenched thirst,
My mother’s voice in mock-surprise,
“You’re late!” And once again, I rise.

How strange
That this inedible feast
Should be arranged with such care:

Place one greenandorange gourd here,
No here! And –- oh!
But there are so many
miniature vegetables to be sorted.
****! The pumpkin could not hold its position.
Well, we’ll have to see to that, presently.

This ceremony lingers for hours
Beneath the well-placed coffee poster instructing
“Éviter les Contrefaçons”
Avoid the Counterfeits.

And all the while Mother arranges a
cornucopia of assorted indigestables.

We huddled in that transformed trailor,
Words warmed our lips
but my heart kept cold.

Questions were posed,
The issues were profound:
The Meaning of Life, the Purpose of Sorrow, etc.
but my mind stayed silent.

I became complacent in that place
Between question and answer
but a low grumble grew

It grew inside my chest, I tell you!
It fought to surpass the cage of my ribs
It cried out through my very flesh,
“The truth is quiet! The truth is quiet!”

Drooping bows,
Touch the ground,
With time they grow,
The willow’s woes.

His downcast arms,
Mean no harm,
Just to say,
“Keep away."

"I will weep in wetted soil,
Lest your pant legs become soiled,
Keep away! Keep away!”

I will sleep in sweet unsound
Until the sun again goes down,
Then once more must I rise
To live and deal in lies.

And I am a liar and I am a cheat,
And I will do wrong and I will compete,
And there’s nothing special, righteous, or pure,
In this, Oh, my soul! and Earth holds no cure.

Dear Imagination,
There is a thing
Deep inside my grey matter
That lovingly tells stories
To a very small, eager
Child
As she waits with
Eyes turned inward
To see the next picture
Of the next scene
Of a very long tale
About herself
And many other creatures
Notwithstanding
The scary, the gross,
The inappropriate,
The undesirable
But certainly not without
The lovely, the cheerful
The apropos,
The dearly needed
And this thing
Is not a thing at all
But is you,
Unformed one,
Who dares to be
The shapeless,
Mysterious,
And ridiculous
Being
That I have long been
Too fearful to become.

Blinds become bars in the smallness of this room
When out the window wait greens and blooms
And all this drab decoration disguises my tomb.

But when the blinds conceal a greyish gloom
And frigid flurries threaten and loom
I am happily trapped in my winter womb.

My mind, quiet
Tomorrow, with a light heart,
I'll go  away
To know the night

My tooth inside
Just wants the truth
Wants to say,
“Does suicide,”
Breath,
“Walk?”

Sorrow lies like time
And, crying, says,
“There's my mind,
quiet.”