I was Loathe
to use a cliche
like 'dying
inside'

until I saw
the Ashes on the
snow

Alas-

this time, the genesis of
my own words
is  just not great enough...

having to reach out to the rhetorical masses might not have been the protective net I wanted-

but it's here to catch me,

unlike You.

smoother sailing
is the promise-
And the
Explanation,
The be all,
The Balm, salve, or
solution.

"I didn't mean to"
sometimes they did.
sometimes they didn't.

But I have no,
no real way,

to explain gravely
enough-
that in the real world
sometimes Sorry
just can't
doesn't
won't

cut it.

Most days they toss me rocks.
I open the door and they
show me The Desert.

chairs litter the stage
and I carefully go
pulling the thorns off each
one of my cacti.

'drum sticks for you.'
'did you need a pick?'
'try that sentence again...
without that word...'

Door slam. Louder than the drums.

And during that time,
I am aware of the danger.
But it's not the kind you know in the
***** of a blade against your neck...
It quivers on the surface of
my reptilian brain
like a polluting film.

I go on blithely.
dancing on the concrete
jiving for education
slurs rolling off of
me like rain.

it's any day, in the midst
of the early morning car ride.
tears slipping onto my scarf,
down, into the lip of my traveling mug,
that it comes out to
my Father.

"Sometimes I hate this job...
but then they talk a bout love songs."

it's professional roulette
from day to day-
whether this afternoon
the trapped souls
will hand me coal
or diamonds.

My body is not
a wonderland.

there is nothing
sultry about
A Cold.

'Come hither' with a
red nose?
Oh Baby...

Commentary on
Modern Music,
nearly halted by
an almost snot rocket...
Authority tempered
with a rasp.

"Did you know you could
DIE if you hold in a sneeze?"
9 year old anecdotal prophet's
looming outline, right up close to
my face.

messy  half-dreams under the
futile winter-hat Reality Shield in the
backseat of  Homeward bound
Economy Wheel Gathering.

**** Man Voice to
telemarketers.

No sir, that's Mrs. White.

a snowman eraser smiles at me
smug, despite the pencil end shoved
elsewhere....
it's hard to believe that jolly lie
especially when delievered by
office supplies.

silence presents a focus
problem.

there's space to echo
clicks, slides and bangs from
a cliche school hall-
a distracting balm for
productivity.

the number of cups
of coffee I've
forced past my lips
does not add vigor to
my smile
no matter how much
it may taste of
synthetic vanilla.

I want to smash
this apple across
the knees of my employment.

since floricide is not
an option, I instead crawl
to the corner

and cower under my
dunce's hat,
and just wait
til the bell rings.

there's something about
'****'

not scatological.
the edge.

the sacred,
bitter, hit.

deliberate.

of someone saying it,
spitting the
syllable-

while wearing a stolen
black leather jacket
and red lipstick
stubbing a cigarette
and cursing sideways at
'men and their...'
back handedness.

from an artist's mouth...
maybe a woman's...

but the taste
it's like metal

it always cuts-
just right.

it's cold

having tested the
boundaries of this
knowledge
my nose retreats
rough brushed felt
the most likely home
hidden behind the buttons of my jacket
and scarf
jam red, spilling
up over the collar
into the morning grey.

I squint up
the road past The
Rooster, down to the
bus hutch, barely containing
the  Asian nanny
with pink-hatted Precious

this bus is not for me
nor the next

I glance down at
the slip of paper
crumpled, dwarfed by
my mittens,
I thumb the coffee stain kissing
the blue of the ball point pen scrawl.

42.
was I even sure that
was a route?
the price?

no change chilling
in the pockets against my jeans
a bent fingernail against denim
reveals I've also
lost my pass.

8:58 now

maybe best to just walk.

what was I expecting?
that the meaning of life
would really cover my fare
on the next bus? the
self loathing brought on
only by subzero, interrupted by


the scratch of metal
on the concrete at
my boot tips

golden.
flat.
I have won.

that's more like it.
I'd rather travel by
glass elevator anyway.
If we're splitting hairs..