I live to dream
Up here where the writers can share their time in imagined peace,
Duly thought out greatnesses, and the squeezing in
and about
and around
in rampantly quiet fondness, sometimes (often) of one another.
Spending infinities, tireless hours, slaving in their castles in the sky,
-composing
Constructing life from billions and trillions of words
that happen on small forms of paper that slip and toss themselves like dumb flounders,
Sometimes to the ground,
Spiraling slowly to their deaths,
15,000,000 feet below.
…

The abused dreamlings are meant like rain to slick and refresh the ancient, strained making of
a typewritten play,
teaming with the brilliance of enamoring flytraps, teething, eager to consume you and make you seed,
a story
continuing from now and forever,
as it were,
crushed up into passing word,
gyrating on the systems of (wr)etched meaning,
crafted in the hot,
rusty, moaning gears that power such
our upward descent into a dense and bitter (sweet) Sky.

Deserter.
                _ _ 
          / Bird _ in\ the hand,
Snake /of a feat\her,
  Sa/nd b/low\i/ng in the evershiftin
win/d.\  \  _'_     /
  I'\m only empty pockets now,
M/y heart is full of sin.  
  \
./.
/\

Last night,
I thought I heard your footsteps
Chasing me in the rain.

I was in the midst of running,
Trying to take off all my pain.
Attempting to make some distance from all my hatred, all my fears.

I was thinking, how really ****** is this,
My life now turned to **** and chips,
How could death be worse than this,

How, really, how ****** am I?
When I thought I saw you in his truck pass by,
It wasn't him but I didn't care.

I looked the devil in the eye,
I stared at him with sharpened knives,
I looked at him and wondered why,

Things had turned out like this.
As if my happiness could never exist.

I came back with bloodied hands and a mouth of froth,
The fire raged and engulfed the wild dancing moths,
As angry thoughts came for you both,


But as dense and frequent as this rabies comes these days,
I'd never been this gone.
I would have turned to chase the innocent man,
But it came in like a song...

The sound from far behind my aching corpse, a small child swiftly ran,
Her ghostly footsteps charged behind me,
The knife dropped from my hand,

Like an eternal memory returning,
I peered at her silhouette cast,
Light from some other end of a tunnel,
And all these things just disappeared.

My walking carcass suddenly stopped in its tracks and nearly collapsed,
As for the first time in a long, long time I felt something from deep inside,
Something that brought me from underneath, something that in a sudden leap, in instant made me weep,

I heard the smile upon your face, your passing grace,
Your pleidan freckles, angel mess of hair, your glowing baby teeth,
I heard your heart beat strong within my chest, butterflies from ash as you flew upon your feet,

And I stood there in the street crying praying that this memory wouldn't retreat.
On and on into the ghostly past I heard the pounding flip flops of your feet..

And when it disappeared I released my weight and sunk into the street,
I knew the memory, come before, would never come complete,

But when the demons left my heart and my tortured mind had ceased,
I stood there in the cold and rain, warm with you, within my fleece.

You had reminded me of peace,

I knew it wasn't you.
It was more like the last thing a dead man hears,
Before he dies he wonders how friends end up on such separate tiers.
And with a final breath he'd remark along with puzzled world, "how weird"
And into curious night return towards motion disappear.

But seeing you in that darkest moment broke my heart and soul, though I could only hear your cheers.
Your distant gaze so near like brightest light from ballroom chandeliers,
Among the fading sun and echoing night I pined away into my hole of hell drawn near,

And you came and left, as phantoms do, and that's all this dead man will ever hear,
But my love I wish you could know the truth,
It was the happiest I'd been in years.

There once was a pond off the Astrillian shore,
Where a billion clams lay underwater, they snored,
Day after day, tides change to tides,
Yet the life of a clam is still quite a bore.

Until one day an otter, all spryly and nimble,
A prince from the infamous pool down the thimble,
Crossed the old straight with his men through mud and through wimble.

Valiantly striding his conquest was simple,
Representing his people in search of a love life to kindle.
He was quirky, and boisterous, and hard to ignore,

Splashing and thrashing about the good peoples shore,
A good lookin' pup, he swam round in circles,
Converting the Astrillian Algaeans to Murkles.

The clams weren't slow to catch on to the show,
For clams are very attentive you know,
And soon by council & seminar they mouth-fulled their garbles,

"Who yonder this monkey that endlessly wharbles?"
"Are you daft kind sirs?" asks one clam as she snarbles,
"It seems you old men have lost all your marbles,

That is the otter, his highness all the way from Port Schwarble!
He only plays cowbell, throws barbells, and a million such marvels,
It's an Astrillian holiday as far as I yarble, hmm"

She stops,
It's indeed very clear she's been pinned as kalopsious,

"My dear" one clammy clam-clam firmly speaks,
"I see your 'kidz-bop' as they say has given you gleecks,
Your highness, is an otter, we'll be extinct within weeks"

The elders agree and farble on lke sheep,
"The end is near!" the little ones squeak,

But none brave as Mandy,
This little clam candy,
Would even think that moving was handy,

Why, confronting a prince sounds totally dandy,
So she pipped and she chupped,
Getting the elders all sandy.

As she made her way up to her prince, who was also quite randy.
Approaching her man of a million wonders,
She squeaked a fine hello over his rambunctious thunder.

He stopped and observed,
"What is this, hors' doeurves?"
He plucked her and licked her, obviously deterred,

When she snarbled and blushed ignoring the blunder,
"My name is Mandy the First, from the land of down under,

She smiled as he turned to his squire,
"A fine maiden to invite to the royal dinner," laughing they snired.
"I caught wind of your plans to marry" she twinkled,
"I just thought that I'd say that I'm young and I'm single,"

And with a wink she gave off her lady like signal.
The squire scoffed at the lady so simple,
"May I remind you ma'am, this is the prince from the pool down the thimble.
He's come all this way through mud and through wimble,
In search of a maiden to love and ne'er let dwindle,
Yet this peasant clam reminds me of a fire in my belly, so long ago kindled,"

He snirped, Mandy quirped as the prince caressed her dimple,
"You'll not lay your paws on her or her people,
This girl is totally braver than you and our sheeple!
It is decided that I'll be bringing her all the way to the steeple."

The squire grumbled a pox on both sides,
"You princox, we haven't eaten since Ides,
If you really cared so much for your lady,
Then let us first feast on her friends and their babies,
For what is a wedding if we're all riddled with hunger and rabies?"

"Nay squire, for you are a bigger one,
Your princoxious gluttony far exceeds the range of the Astrillian Sun"
"Ooooooooohh!!" his guards hollered and bothered, oh but he wasn't done,

"If you really care for your stomach all the sudden,
Then come at me brother, make me your wet monkey mutton.
See if I care for your metabolic process, you square,
For nothing could separate me from my princess so fair."

And so they charged and they barged and splashed all about her,
As his guards cheered them on into brotherly slaughter,
Witnessing the madness, Mandy would rather be chowder.

As she quietly wept for her hunk of an otter,
She noticed the elders behind her surface the water.
"What do you want?!" snobbing she totally snared,

The elders snooted and bitterly declared,

"We warned you," they flarbed,
"Their kind is brutish and dull," they spat from afar,
"The feud between peoples is older than tar"

Mandy flushed beet red and crying she clacked,
"Your ignorance prevails clams, for that is your only knack,
This man loves me and I love him right back,
In fact he's saving us all from becoming a snack.
And if he succeeds I'll never see you again,

I'll never work your sand-bars, or attend colleges of mermen.
I'll never sing songs or clean up your dens,
And you'll all just be grumpy old clams forever, and then,
When I am queen I will not be so mean.

I will unite all the clamsfolk with our predators keen,
We shall not be afraid and they shall not come to prey,
And who knows maybe we'll all get along someday,"

And with that, the squire cried "Uncle!"
And the prince let go of his sleeper-hold struggle,

"Now will you praise your lady you poor jester thuggle?"
"I do, I do your highness, til death I shall juggle."
And so the otters and clams conjoined the whole island,

With only some leftover haters to beguile,
And within seven days time
People gave up on fear,

Threw out their hunger,
And then it became clear,
With only time left to ponder,

As the big day came near,
At the cathedral they concluded that love lasts much longer,
That really,

Whether one be a clam or an otter,
It is only together that we shall become stronger.

Lately there have been days where I catch myself looking for you in the strangest places;
In train stations, sanctuaries, the corners of your room that you never set foot in,
And there have been days where I feel so small that just leaving my bed seems like the bravest thing I've ever done.
I blame it on the way you seem to swallow my darkness without absorbing it,
The way my chest tightens at the thought of your touch,
The way I cradle the ashes of what we once were.
We ruined each other with passion and fire,
And there are days where that fire still burns in my chest, migrates to my head,
And my skull begins to feel like a whiskey glass in a bar fight.
These days no one ever tells you about the difference between heat and warmth,
You learn it yourself when his hands scorch your skin and his fire burns through you
While he pours lighter fluid down your throat.
I wake up as a stranger in my body these days and I whisper to the mirror, "I just want to go home"
And thoughts of you remind me of how to get there.
It seems like we're straddling the line between love and Stockholm syndrome
And it's automatic for me to call you by your sins rather than your name,
But these are the days when I need you to lap up this nectar and hear this truth,
As well as all the blurred intentions behind every "I miss you."