I wonder why that one half
of my still sleeping mind
has the audacity to say to my bladder:

"You're acting silly, there's no need
to find this bathroom of yours,
we all should just keep sleeping.
No, there's no need to hurry,
you're acting like a child.
You shouldn't seek attention like this.
Just go back to sleep,"

while I just,
really really really badly,
need to take a ***.

Ages ago I asked a dreamer
(A feeler and a magician, as well) 
What love looked like on the inside
When those who are in it cannot tell

If it's tough enough, strong enough, red enough
(And of course, to be honest, is it true)
So that, if possible, we can avoid any pain
And the mistakes and the whatifs, too.

He told me:
It appears like a rainforest drizzle,
Somewhat expected, though still a blessing,
And its term is always indiscernible
Though in its haze, we still dance and sing.

And I said:
And what of the broken hearts,
Those who thought what they held was good:
They felt true things, they saw true light,
But they lost it all in the woods. 

He said: 
What they had was worthy and fine,
Though it seemed to bring nothing but pain, 
For a shower can bring both cleansing and fire:
And we call it acid rain.

So I say:
Why question the love you are given?
Trying to name it, excuse it, or worse-
Instead, let it pass over you like a rainstorm,
Whether it floods, or if it's your first.

Breathe in the scent and inebriation,
Drown yourself in petrichor.
For when love hits you, it hits you hard,
And when it rains, it pours.

He pulls my hand
and I stumble up the stairs
holding two backpacks, four books
and a lunchbox full of old toy cars,
nearly tripping
but landing instead on the second floor landing.

The blinds covering the window in front of me
split slightly,
just enough
for me to see her smiling eye watching me.

I don't know her name
and she doesn't know mine.
we've never said anything real to each other.
we know nothing about each other
other than that she spends a lot of time there
at her grandparents house,
speaking Portuguese, Spanish and English
and listening to Spanish rap on the balcony
loud enough to hear through the floor
of the apartment I only spend six days in a month
and over the occasional fight between my family.

That's all she knows of me;
my fleeting ghost walking with my brother past their window
thirty or so times a month,
talking
but almost inaudibly, and never to her.
wish i knew her better
than as the eye peeking through the blinds



©Brandon Webb
2012

I know how I see myself
but
I can't stop myself from wondering

who am I in the eyes of everyone else?

when someone asks me a question
during a discussion in CWP
and everyone hears me
as i stumble over my words
in the center of that quiet room,
trying to answer the simple question-
"how does that makes you feel?"
and i wonder,
how does my stumbling and stuttering
make them feel,
about me?
does it change anything?

Or when i go to bed
thinking about
the conversations i've had during the day
and wondering how those friends see me.

I've never asked,
never had the guts.

My self esteem has always been low
I've always hated myself,
Sometimes i just hope
the smiles are true,
the friendships, true.

I've never asked

Who am I?




©Brandon Webb
2012

She takes my hand,
unconsciously pulls me away,
then kisses me warm,
all through out the day.

this unique love she gives,
is over than what I've expected.
I am extremely blessed
on how she fits her ways, it's embedded.

She is beautiful,
her face I love to stare at.
her hands I usually hold.
feels just right every time.

Makes me clean again,
my spirits have awakened;
this true love I am holding,
my ego's never threatened

Makes me feel refreshed,
when her brown eyes lays on me.
makes me want
to love this girl endlessly.

I am deeply impressed
by her positive attitude.
unlike others
she has that honest heart that was never blued.

A love that is stronger
than anything from the past.
I will extremely do anything for us,
My dearest, let's make this love last.

She sat down at the bar right next to me.
She was looking kind, she was looking kinda *****.
She said she saw me a crossed the bar.
Really wanted to buy me a drink.
Red lip stick, glitter in her hair.
A red summer dress, a piercing stare.
Grey with a blue shade.
Leather boots as high as her knees.
She had me at "Can I buy you a drink?"

And we hit it off from there.
It was sweet, it was cool, it was something else.
It was love, it was hate, confusing as all hell.
I pushed her around, she forces me down.
And we hit it off from there.

She sat down next to me in the light.
Another cobwebbed Saturday night.
Said she saw me a crossed the room.
Said I didn't feel right.
And its the same old story.
She says I was looking too lonely.
And she was cute, she was ****, oh she was kinda *****.
Black laced eye liner and black lipstick.

And we hit it off from there.
It was sweet, it was cool, it was something else.
It was love, it was hate, confusing as all hell.
I pushed her around, she forces me down.
And we hit it off from there.

Its the same old story, another night another sorry.
Another role play, another morning.
And she isn't ever you.

And so we hit it off from there.
It was sweet, it was cool, it was something else.
It was love, it was hate, confusing as all hell.
I pushed her around, she forces me down.
And we hit it off from there.

I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,
In numerous leafage bosomed close;
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere
On cloudy archipelagos.

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,
Their unimagined shapes accord:
Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through,
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew
A sudden elemental sword.

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold;
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold,
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance;
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze;
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze,
Great moveless meres of radiance.

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track,
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back,
A triple row of pointed teeth?
Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide,
The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side
With scales of golden mail ensheathe.

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees.
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice
Ruins immense in mounded wrack;
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back.

These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows,
Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose,
Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,--
'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep,
As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep
His dreadful and resounding arms!

All vanishes! The Sun, from topmost heaven precipitated,
Like a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red
Into the furnace stirred to fume,
Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire,
Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire
The vaporous and inflamèd spaume.

O contemplate the heavens! Whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale,
In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil?
With love that has not speech for need!
Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite:
If winter hue them like a pall, or if the summer night
Fantasy them starre brede.