I scramble to tally all
the things about this that are wrong
Clinging to
And clawing at
Careful pieces of
Someone else's song

Ringing harsh around me are these lyrics in my ears
Clashing, ripping, tossing feelings out of my eyes with
Traitorous ******* tears.

Somewhere there is laughter
Somewhere there is death
Somewhere someone is fighting
For their last and desperate breath

And here in our bubbles it's hard to see the trees
But the wind it still whispers
Catching me 'round the knees

You are mortal
You will be mortal
Your life is in a shell
Be grateful for what hits you
And what isn't- so
Guard this well.

Unspeakable yet bursting on my tongue.
Keeping slow poison in my heart and knowing the map to potential misery I hold.
My feet steeling themselves for the treacherous path that I still only truly know.
[It's...]
The frozen moment before the window breaks.
[That...Knowing ...]
This jagged rock lies in my pocket--
everything that touches me feels as though it's about to shatter.
The false illusion that I can protect anyone from sadness.
I am  the eye of the storm.
An epicenter of grief.
Ripples in lava. But alas.

I have become Pompeii.
And no act of Earth
or sky can stop this.

So forward march,
And away we go.

Things that are dead
Vegetables
Fall.
So many ants.
We give and take life so
Frivolously.
Barbaric in our uniformity.
Mob mentality
House flies are a game.
Cut flowers, Christmas trees.
Beef in cream sauce.
A culture of mundane murderers.

It's ok.
All the kids are doing it.

To the hand that slid to my shoulder
As you began to drift...
Since you've gotten there first-
May I love you in my sleep
As much you love me
In yours.

This rawness
The salt of life
In all my wounds.
Of this existence.
The obstacles and trials
Of being human.
Are too much but in one...
the same and
Enough.

I don't write them anymore
I say I've lost my words
But in truth, they never left
Bubbling under the surface of my lips
Like sweet blisters of hope, confusion and rancor
I am really [only] a living dictionary
My thoughts like a river
My mouth like a hose
But you always say stop.
So they just sit, drying up
While I breathe through my nose.

You asked for this door.
One foot through the
Other trembling in the stars.

You can[not] have balance without halfway seeking defeat.

Stone's on the water now.

Float or sink.

Heavy days and
Hollow nights
I note the numbers and try
To find the
Light

Today it is ok to hold
Your body at pause
Suspend your animation temporarily let your bones keep
Their shape in peaceful unity to
Breathe in gentle air
Tomorrow
Tomorrow,
The big wide world will
Still be out there.

A harsh wind is blowing
Whistling and shrieking down
The peeks and ridges of our collective anxiety
Only live, only hope
I look at you often
Stare into the corners of your eyes and I catch
The tears that shine there
I examine your fingers wrapped
Over and around mine
The thumb that I labeled perfect
My own little spiders tucked under
The warm shelter of your solid bones.
We are two, you and I, but really we are one.
Farther than the sun
Way past the reaches of stars.
Deeper than the ocean.
You sink into my heart and I try to commit your face to a memory that can only exist while there is a vessel.
But no matter the Galaxy Path I am destined to take
The string remains.
This love Is Unmovable.

Something of a wasteland lately-
Only elbows, shoulders and ribs.
Tentative and soft about my navel
Yet, above my hips no camel can trace a
Path.
Drops in this desert are fleeting and often the bones
Of strangers get in the
Way.
People look at me now and
Don't know what
To say.

I see your wings.

even if You
Can't.

Night and day melt in
A cycle of paradoxical yin
And yang
Up is down,
Sideways is wrong
And stopping is the fear of
Speed
The struggle is the
Map when searching for a
Key that you didn't want
to Need.

As your last greens fade and red comes to your lips
as your fingers grow sharp and papery
and your ribs rattle in the wind
and the squirrels begin the escape to your belly
I will come with my lantern and my cloak and set your children free
we will soar on the warmer currents we will kiss frost goodbye. i
welcome our Fall.
For it is the time- living and dying time
when I finally get to fly.

bone traitor.
Skin viper
Edge Stealer
Ridge maker
Health reflector.
Mirror- you liar!
Rogue on the scale...
Signs that my brain has duped me;
Floating oily in the
Basin
Phantom aches
Blood test lies
Powdery remedies pressed almond abandon all cows
Bean curd body snatching
**** the doctor to get a clue

Girl in pain this isn't me so-
Who the hell are you?

We had hope as she closed us up tight.
Mama, will it hurt?
"Hush," on her lips and she sent ants to
kiss our anxious tears.
And she whispered
Just as we fall, so
We grow

Heart not
Of my heart
But still in my veins
Womb dweller, outside
my body
Me, a native invader in a constant
Place.

And [t]his will always be
A glass house

not a welcome home.

My heart walks away, for a time,
Just to be safe...
She's a prize fighter, I know how to fall
Down. Rips, fissures, normal wear for 31 years
In the shower silence
In that quiet place she stands and I unfurl
A life is a life, lived, fought, dribbled away or burnt
And
This one's hers.
So I stay with the cold space in my chest,
And wait for it to return.

My fear is a pool
Ripples washing ; the wind is deepening.
This ebbs with the moon if I can freeze my reality
But
Radio is the enemy
TV is a liar
I wake up every minute wishing I were dreaming.
1984- 2017
a new world awakening and inside
I am
Screaming.

I mourn for skunks.

The squashed, flattened masses
***** mashed, their stripes scattered
Matted  masks disguising unseeing eyes
Through how many fields have they run?
Once sweet babies, small noses, downlike fur
fleeing to their final place from green leafed bowers in a terrible act of asphalt bait n' switch

Let us all grieve the sacrifice which,
Unto the motor gods
Has been served.

In a  slow, desperate burn, we are falling. Failing.
Too little too late. Too much in the wrong place. Outrage not action.
From the trees, from the sky, we are calling and questioning, bemoaning, condemning.
Our hearts are corroding, our feet slipping, from containing the pain of the
World.
Bridges are snapping, ribs are breaking, eyes are closing.
The pictures we glorified on screen, the peanuts we paid to watch fictional strangers die-
They have stepped out, escaped and run rampant.
We lived the illusions out.
No zombies. No fire. No meteor.
Hate. In tidal waves. Ignorance in brimstone.
Apocalypse is now. We are how.

We are comprised of such precious fragments.

Pieces of ourselves that we forget to
Remember and remember to
Forget.

Cellophane sits
On the edge of my
Teeth.
Stuck, see- through and
Set.
Feel the old sludge of the
past
Try to
Forget.

Sometimes, looking at you in the light of the kitchen  I want
to run a finger
Down the length of your nose but
I know you'd wrinkle it, and shake your head citing a tickle, but kiss behind my shoulder as soon
As I turn away

When my feet make ice pools in the bed
Toes accidentally brushing your ankle and you **** abruptly, but upon hearing
My sigh, trap them back with your ankles til, martyr that you are, I'm engulfed in
Warmth at your
Expense.

Sometimes the last trickle of milk is mine, for the coffee,
Silent with your eyes smiling fondly, you look on as I sip, resolutely stirring powdered
Dead baby souls into mug as substitute.

Even damp smelly socks
Greasy hair
Neurotic tears and
Intellectual rambling epiphanies

Even childish blunders, fudging the
Budget or burning the toast

You still call me fond Things.

And love Me.
The most.

Made you Breakfast Eggs, yolks pooling
Slipped into that Lucille ball coat.
I wear it well
Like Pretty Woman level.

But in the midst of
these folded clothes
Tangled toddler hair and budget restraints

late at night,
I watch over your troubled dreams, kissing demons away.
Yours always, but forever furled in my
Ultimate Soul

Lies a Wild gypsy Queen

A panacea,
the band aid word I
slap on conflict

A solve it all

Acronym for nothing and
Diffuser of
All scenarios.

the  more politely phrased version of
The mafia's cry.

But no matter how you slant the saying,
It's still salient- and a parched, bleached lie.

dizzying drips in the espresso's wake
pool of foam on the counter's face

facade of daily blather
hiss of saucer's edge
rusty change scattered loose.

in this,
I find the mystery of human use.

what we're for
why we're there

the arm that pours
the lips that curve

the standing, tired legs that shout

"I serve."
"I did it." and

"I'm  f**ing out."

Stuck in the 9-5 of Everyone
Else's life
My undiscovered dreams shelved
Luminous theoretical future
Kisses overflowing interlocked and
Delivered with promise
Transparent truthful question in
this Interim-

Is ' Happy' enough?

the dance I do with
myself
somehow, deliberately stomping on
my own feet.

stopping just before the gap oh-
I mind it
don't mind if I
do pass right THROUGH it.

shoot the foot? I have holes
to the stars.

I could hang hooks on the wounds I've
pierced in my nervous little soul.

Confident bark, blink and nod.

"Padlocked and sealed," I'll say.

But through my teeth, raw, I know I'm just treading mud
and banking on the Gods.

it is time, dear one.

to move ( no longer dally here.)
and stretch your legs into the unknown-
dangle your toes into chaos and
tickle the chin of change.

inch onto the branch of
choices and follies and casually
inform fate that she's got a nice ****

So spill your daring chant
roaring the words of a cowardly
lion as
you sally down this saffron road

no scarecrow here, just the winds of tomorrow

to tell us where
to go.

it's not often that once is Only
and that last is really the End.

forever is only a little
and goodbye is "in theory."

starts and stops are just in the heart.

memories are in the mind.

and the choice is in my hands.

crawling out
sideways

I read the newspaper on
your lap predicting
calamity

smell the coffee on your
breath keeping you
afloat

looking through your
eyes the lens blue not
rosy

holding my own eight ball foggy

I can't tell Your future.

but I see Ours.

and it is
Gold.

found my heart in
your hands.

didn't even know
it was missing.

but I guess now
I
do.

vines on the stone
And you are Here
staring into future mirrors
and pebbles on the path
pass and scatter

grooves run through the sand
and under your feet they
are soft.

so choose now, Fierce One. and
hold yourself aloft.

if your hands were there,
I would hold them.

if I could just back up off
this ledge
and look you in the eye.

I thought of the giants whom
I planned to conquer when
I'd reached an eligible age:

build a house out of my goals
furnish it with a child in white
rule by 28 with a future bright.

but now in the clearing of brinks and
cliffs, facing the threshold of the sum of
three decades.

I stand, with one boot unlaced,
mirror in hand
a deviant Janus.

I try to block
the bird, as she whispers "Close."

*Meet your knight
or meet the night.
but for love of god
walk a road, ANY road,

before it forks you over.

I heard your voice on the radio
Today I
Knew I really should have kept
Away it's just the memory
Of  how it cracks.
Could almost forget what the
Real you-
Lacked.

miss what it wasn't,
[little dreamer]

forget how it happened,
[little liar]

focus on the Forward,
[little prophet]

but don't discount the After.
[little lover]

Blue eyes, but only for me-
Standing fast, holding their ground.

Fluent in every single one of my
languages,
Except
French...

**** you, Magician.

Reshape the void-
add a backbone
form my lips
mould my sentences
build my breath.

make me human again

Fed sugar lumps to the horses but-
They kicked them out of my hands.

Ran away and left me cold.

Maybe I tried to love them too-
Fast.

Prince of Shapes-
oh you hurtful
mystery,
living an illusion

flipped me around til my feet
were pointing up

closed off in doublethink how
on earth did I ever fall so...

Sometimes there
Isn't-
A right way to live to
Do.

We beat our bones against
The rock
We hurt our hearts saying we
Deserve this.
We swim up a negative stream.
It's a channel I know well-

Yet False, I say.

A spark- it's all you have.

Small butterfly- save your wish.

It's not too late.

And in the calm water, there
sits the seed of a story:

Green under blue -
the tale of a fish who flew,

Because the tree came to her.

the speed parallel of Me-These-Days
is the blur of sun
and the slide of cold night.

and they taunt me, those stars
as they wobble on the wall
and the shadows tumble in my sight.
under my lashes, the darkness grows long

in my inside out mind
in my upside down heart
learning to love lose and forget you
is this flawed art

I have to work to remember
and struggle to stop
shutting my brain down
like a tapped out beat
cop.

The World: an enormous
place where nobody quite
fits.

Get out of my
head Oh, you Bandaid
Boy-

Snow is falling-
covering up the memory of
Summer

Let's talk about love and how
It isn't
Turn the trumpets around, angels
Rip those roses, petals apart
Inside out
Lay low for the vicarious, while they're
Still doubting
For heartache is brutal and
Also causes Gout

like ******* crumbs you're
still on my tongue the
stomach ache I can't
escape

the old haunt I missed
before ever stepping through the
door

the scrape on my knee ghost
of which still stings

and for a while still,

I  may cry at normal
things.