300 thread-count tent
stars chart scars in shadow
overlapping bullet hole trends

in here
these wounds feel
something near normal

black rain plummets
drowning out
the outside

don't ever forget
to drop to your knees

and be

grateful
for opportunity
lowered by winged white
into laps lonesome

this chance
this life

yes, free will
is yours as well
but, these moments
the not-so-subtle nudges
and the whispers that surf the wind
after it stands still for - so - long

don't forget
to be grateful
for that

could-be bestowed upon us
marked, holy

we are pocket blooms
of clover fields
lucky

the fates toil not
this hard
unless

sacrosanct potential brims
not just for us - but, to share

there will be so much
it will overflow out of us
and we will laugh, humbly
at scarcity-fraught mentalities

so, thank you
for being exactly who
you are:

beautiful boy
with tarnished halo

(no worries though -
I will lick it till it spit-shines
and polish on my gold-flecked fleece)

and your basketcase
of trinkets blathering
contents crooked
and bizarre

(BTW, I still loves them)

if you were not, precisely
these psyche spatters
and glitch patterns

you would not
have given me
a second glance...

we will make picnics
out of our spastic baskets
finding we can dine on the grist
and feed the eyes
of our hearts

so, I say yes to us -
no matter what
we are:

friends, editors, syntactic twins,
long-distance synaptic co-captains,
creative cohorts rapping across easels,
and perhaps even, angelic mirrors
worshipping at bioluminescent altars,
getting minds, hearts, insides glown
w  i  d  e open by white splatter streaks
blowing phosphor all over this space

that definitely exists
in us

...

I'm cool with whatever
though

:)

when I'm five
next time

we'll skip
hand-in-hand
to the head of
each other's
lines

share some
psychedelic ice cream
before we know quite what
is happening on our tongues

no reason to fear
this mystical flight
OS fresh messless

and we will
like each other
before we know
how

or why

boring saucer eyes
through the other's skull
no drywall, no cement
no mortared bricks
just

staring straight in
and into

the place in the wires
where pulse currents
traverse higher than
power grid switches
flipped lit

messy hair
summer grass
skinned knees

laughing until
we can't breathe
at every nothing

and we run
into the woods
build a fort on the moon
brew lunar rock stew

you carve our names
on the side of our dome
with an asteroid
misspelling mine

and I decide
to write it
that way
forever

the other night,
I dreamed

of walls

bre   a k
in
  g

down

your grey ghost
gone live

and tsunami relief
washed my being -
held-heart breath,
inhaling deeply

then I
woke, promptly
finding myself alone
roused by TS Emily
at five in the morning

intestinal churn
as rains whipped my window
and I digested it was
not real

but the what-ifling
tapped my still tingling
with essence of other
and I thought, maybe...

so I,
reluctantly,
looked for you
in the sea where
I lost you
and you

were there

...

when dreams
start speaking ether,
underscoring reality,
I start remembering
how I know:

buried wires exist,
decorroding

attuning to united
stately R3EM station
with equilateral antennae

lock up
when anyone
seems

particularly disappointed
or demanding with me
not ideologically, but
in tone intensity,
conversing
forcefully

either I
turn off, go numb, freeze
taken over by survival mode

or I fight err flight it
usually trying to fly
with some fight
as I navigate
the exit

my 18-pound shewolf triggers me:
all barkybarkbark wanting things -
like ******* carrots after dinner,
and if I don't get them at first yip,
she insists, paws, jumps, getting
all super-***** indignant
(kind of adorably)

sometimes, I keep giving in
and get them (repeatedly)
because I'm a pushover

sometimes, I block her out
until she goes full self-righteous
and I feel bullied, get up and go
into the other room to breathe
and stop shaking

sometimes, I can extradite myself
before it gets all fullreactivejacket
like when my brother (drunkenly)
told me he didn't want my son
around his, because I told him
Santa is just a cultural myth
that we pretend for fun
when he asked

apparently, I'm an *******
for making decisions for my kid
that I'm comfortable with, not him,
and thinking there's way more magical
**** in this world to be excited about
than a random fat man breaking and
entering your house to bring presents
as long as you leave him cookies...

I have a mouth on me, but I try
not to use it, because I am
quite accurate in aim
and loaded with
cutting truth

but I
don't wanna fight
anymore

because I lived
in a war zone

in the beginning
the fights would last for
d   a   y   s

or should I say,
the raging lectures
while I tried to reason
how and why
my thoughts
differed

he always had a way
of making me feel
solely responsible
for everything

he'd go onandonandon
until I acquiesced, agreed and
promised to give in to whatever
he believed the solution to be
(usually me cutting someone
out of my life or giving up things
I thought I liked)

and if I disagreed,
or picked holes in his argument,
he would start back at the beginning, because I must not have been listening

it stopping,
and subsequent silence
was such an enormous relief -
when adrenaline stopping pumping
and I could hear myself think
just grateful and happy
to be done
with it

I would disassociate
hard

sometimes
there would be
a traumatic scene
that was quite ******
but then a few days later
I couldn't remember
what happened
but knew
it was

bad

I started writing
some of those episodes down
so I'd know what happened to me -
for future reference, that I wasn't
crazy

so, I
latched onto
the peace and quiet
while it lasted

and as his words
had less and less effect,
the more crazy he'd act
to get me
in line

once when
I did not acquiesce at all, proud
in the face of his domineering storm,
standing firm, calmly disagreeing,
stating my case matter-of-factly,
he cupped his hands over my ear
and screamed as loud as he could
rage rattling me
into tears

I wish the imprints
on my psyche faded
as fast as the bruises

I don't know if I'll ever be
completely normal

but I do know

I will try
to tread lightly
around your triggers
and not take it personally
when they inevitably
detonate

I will learn them
like I know my own
and I will understand why
you do what you do

because when I say yes,
it's going to be
to everything

tethered dependent mental patients
and we've made a showroom
out of the waiting room
for distraction hacks trafficking ills
bought with souls sold off
straightjacketed addicts
aching to take the sting
out of this taut
existence