there was
a moment just now
that I realized
there were
no headphones filling
my ears.
this was unexpected
and
alarming.
the insides
of my face
apparently
appear to
have their own
unnoticeable
soundtrack.

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they know who's laughing
and who refuses to sing

their beaks are listless
no longer in need of their eyes
their ears are long gone, past
so they don't hear the future's lies

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they see when I struggle
they see
everything.

recycle that word
you were a 'the'
now you're a 'now'

I couldn't file away
'stop' yet
because I knew I would need it
later.

I threw out 'wait'
Yet I saved 'stop'
I guess in some ways
they are kind of the same thing

now the page is open to
'help'

what do I?


and no matter how many times I
try to shred
"wrong"
"I"
"were"
and "mistake" they
keep coming to the top
of the pile

but you're syllables
not tea leaves.

And lucky for all of us
I'm not a fortune teller.

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.

I've filled up
tubs
thimbles
there was an egg
cup but
I knocked it over
bone china
warm salty
water
and I still
can't make sense
of why
my eyes
won't
turn
off

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..

Russian stacking dolls.

I layer like a jawbreaker
Folding one face
over the other.
My hello, smile, freeze frame.
Molten sugar shaped into points and curves
for eyelashes and lips.

In the days, flourescent and white
I lead, I direct, I juggle

Night spent, curled in the orange glow
bracing against the pain of
distance, wiping childhood away,
being the proverbial 'strong'
picturing your eyes
and mouth, both of us
mimes and mirrors for the other.

Conflict- do I open a portal
to the distance,
and
nod to our promise and hug you
with my heart

or fixate it on it, decline
and hold the refusal
in my mind, whispering into the pillow
consoling the dodge of not
trying to lie about salty cheeks.

'balance on the wet stones,
continue your creation.
You made this construct,
and you know the way through.'
-this is my feverish mantra.

But...
In this dimension I fracture my soul
to live forever, only to get through today,
this year
this week...
while we are on opposite ends of this
fearsome Bridge.

And when the lace comes, the celebration
the toast,  I ready myself to take our bright flare
the kiss, and our promise, back with me to my painful, green cave.

and hold it in the dark, cover it, too
in salt.

and pray with every bone and fiber for
the place where our timeline can
converge.

you can't tell
me anything, Universe.
I ask you
I ask you
I press the
fate button.
and you shut
your coy little
lips and say
no no
don't look
no peeking-
I'll just be
behind this tree
trust me, you'll
like it-
just take another
step forward.
yep, keep going.
But see, How?
how do I know
you didn't paint
a trompe- l'oeil
of a pit
just beneath my
toe tips
how do I know
whether I'll fall
into a cave
or wind up in
an office?
Just open
that door.
I want to
look into the hall
maybe peer at
your houseplants
the radiators
and doorknobs of
the future.
just some
spoilers.
then I'll
leave you
alone, I swear
I'll turn off
the lights, tuck
in and just
keep
walking on til
the end.

it's too much.
these beds I made.
my skin is so heavy.
I am under this
parachute of
coyness, but now
it's falling down
around me and I flail
in the waves, choke,
cough and toss.
remember how they said
don't wish for a thousand
coins because they'll all land
and crush your body?
I think, it's probably
best to be careful
for what you
ask  for, whether
it's forward
or backwards in
time. because once your
grass is green,
you have to roll
in it.
whether it tickles
your collar
or not.

Is there anything to be said for being lost
or imperfect?
should we still sip from vessels with flaws?
Am I able to accept that it is I who dropped the glass?
and watch the cracks spiderweb
into the hearts of the people who hold me?
I call foul.
from the bottom of this mud pit
my voice floating...
'Looks like you're going the wrong way, Dorothy.
best to just stop juggling
crystal *****.'

'please,
come home'
they said.

'I already am'
I replied.

'where?'
they asked.

'In my heart.'

I always just...
stop.  stop this now.

You made the hole
you took the shovel
and you made the hole.

You bought daffodils
you took your time
you dallied you
thought this day
would never come when
you would have to
grow up, face the
sun and hit the
wall.

You asked for them
to let you,
fall, thinking, hoping
that you were never
going to be the
kind of person who
tumbled.

as if you
were special, were
different from the
status quo of other
quarter century
beings lost in
a crowd of crows
picking at the
remnants of a hopeless
future,
after the crops of
university knowledge
failed.

and now, in this
coffee shop where
you wait for
tips, you remember that
you once wished for
anything but
the tracks you
were in.
the ones for your
career, that you were
so weary of.

before even
starting.

don't know
how to feel when
I see your face.

hastily shove on
this mask  and
become
prepared and
blank powerful
and cold.

angry to be
full of so much
sadness, blocked
beyond pain.

and  then I morph.

into some sort
of businesslike
zombie who
packs up this part
of her life.

cobbles together
her dignity.

andgetsthehelloutbeforesheremembershowtocry
again.

but nobody will want me, she said
I am the purple duckling.
My feathers curl to the wind
My eyes, they roll like marbles
in the sun.
My feet walk backwards
to the beach to look for
glass instead of fish.

Who will take me in,
not to rip away my feathers
for fluff and blankets
but to hold me
in their laps and
treasure my wings like
jewels?

My pack is all green-wearers.
their beaks a matching row.
they left me under the
Ash tree and said
She'll never grow.

But if I hold up my candle
to the inscription that
is written on my fading
dignity
hope it will say;
Purple is also the colour
of strength and
royalty
not just eggplants and shells.
so roll their barbs off
your back
and  some
day you too, will
find your
Rightful Pond.

We are comprised of such precious fragments.

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

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.

there's a cat on my arm
she purrs, filling my limbs
with her side by side
love
little nose tickling
my wrist

they see me cry,
you know.
the four footed beings
who watch me fall apart.

it's sometimes good, I think
that they don't speak.
I don't want the pity
of things
with whiskers.

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.

Oh
Laundry basket- mysterious as an Oracle.

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

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

**** you, Magician.

thread by thread it
is Cut.

scissors crafted from entwined roads
battered cities,  unknowingly sheared away by miles
promises snipped.

blunt cost computed-

Paid in full.

I'm teaching them
how to write
the things that I-

can't.

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.

Dear The-Way-It-Is,

You are a wall of un-change
a tidal wave of useless titles
a blast of helpless brick bits
a  futile hale-storm maelstrom of styrofoam hopes

this is the forecast I cast
throwing knuckle dice.
feeling it in my knees.

no carving out of entrails.

due to my extreme kindness
to geese.

up down
and sideways
she falls Alice
in the hole
but there are
no jam jars this
time
she, not
running after
a rabbit
but a little
box of treasures
a flutter of
sweet memories
he flung down
into that space
for her to
catch
only when
Alice lands
with that thump
we will
replace the dry
leaves with
spikes of
the nasty kind
carved out
of the sort
of hurtful
sayings that
you just never
can take
back.

I can see now
the smooth expanse.
but your cards are still
up and you're not
telling.
so I put
my head down
and just
hang on.

pull your head out of your own-

you're not perfect
you'll never-

So be Just Enough.

that's all. it's not
a competition.

because we all
eventually still

end up


behind the finish line.

45 minutes to go and-
their kisses are
ours.
I can't look I
know,
but my eyes follow
and seek like hot stones.


I feel their stories-
their
distances stretching-
the burden of
their own loves sinking into
my chest on top
of the open chasm
left by predawn at greyhound.

I hate every time
I have to
say it. I
crave the return
so so so so so...

Stop.


Dear Soul Anchor,
leave me in the Hall-

but be my port
cover my heart
with an oilcloth

so that somebody
else's farewells
will no longer
leak in.

This storm of
our own,
is Heavy Enough.

hitchhiker
on the road
to the
last restaurant

forgot my towel
lost my head

Don't panic.

Right?

I am stumbling around with all of these souls
palms slapping- 'Good Game, Good Game'.
Like Uno or Memory
My instructions:
Find the matching cakes, flowers or dice...
But...
Being able to target- to heat seek and know
Instantly
that you don't fit with them...
I worry.
A giant misshapen
Puzzle piece in the
Cosmic factory bin
What if God forgot
To make me
A Match?

bones stacked up like
soldiers
in a living grave
you removed our bullets
Please,
loosen the bandages
for our breath
still stutters,
oh Great
General.

lost in poppies
the flower of Forgetful
slumber in
feathered fields of unknowing.

wander blue
into the cloud.
embrace the
soft plumage of
reaches uncharted
between cerebellum
and heart,

for the map is torn
beyond God.

once again I hold
my cup and
again it's brimming

tears are locked down
no need for a wet shirt

in my infinite loop now
but I wear my smile

this is the mask- your
warrior face for
survival

keep your place
tap out the time
metronome ready.

measure it out,
or drown.

trapped in
vanity
mirrored by
humanity
lacking the
sanity
to classify
pacify my
inner demons
my mind is
screaming
protect it
reject it
lose face
respect it
solemnly
promising
to not lose
sight of
the honest
me. honestly
these rhyming
rap songs
on at work
are getting
to me.

In time, you will walk on

my fingers will become stars
my lips, branches
my heart, brittle moss
you will go away from me gently

and grow upon this loss

there's this place
on my arm that goes
"swish"
It's the bit without
nerves where
the metal lies.

if I was bionic
and my heart
were made of steel
I'd be indestructable

but
then I
wouldn't be able
to  feel.

Oh little thing
beeping on my hip...
where are you?
did you find me,
green slider, and
tentative ring?

even your numbers
shiny 9 and 5
with 1s, zeros
QWERTY...an
entire alphabet
to love.

How is it
that without your
invisible electronic
leash, whispered
messages and
brilliant, **** screen
I would stand on
the street
lost in my own
neighborhoood...
It is the solved mystery
of the 21st Century.

We see life in the subways.
On the playground.
In the garden.
Even in space, on planets covered in hostile frozen water.
But all of it is wrapped in parcels.
Nobody knows what a microrganism is thinking.
Me, I like to imagine what
they'd say.
Stories about the bag lady,
wearing a quilted poncho, once a blanket,
clutching a bag with a drawing of a lion peeking out of the top.
How did she land?
I stare into strangers eyes,
imagining how they'd feel next to me in bed.
If their hair would be soft if it accidentally brushed my arm.
Does the lost looking girl balance her checkbook in her head,
or did her boyfriend leave her last night? Did she remember to pay rent?
Did the bus driver eat breakfast this morning.
If only I could ask.
What prevents us from pricking the thin casings of our fleshy balloons.
We walk around in bubbles, draw lines around us.
Somehow everyone got the memo not to toe those.
Even the three year old, flicking his eyes up fearfully to you,
then his mother, when she pulls him too fast in the market
and his hand bumps your market basket.
In-scripted on our genes, and
woven into our jeans.
Nature briefs nurture.
They have lunch together, just before babies are born.
Then the stork kisses them on their tiny little foreheads.
They scream because that's just
too young to have to absorb all those rules.

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.

missing the time in between
what was won't will be sometimes often
didn't

easy to forget the reasonable logic
behind the now seemingly nonsensical choice
that left you in the current Yearn.

the sweetsour regret, softly ignored scratches
the polish and veneer of worn out synapses
a  pleasantly blurred fastforward-lacquer

I skip the years like stones
pausing fingers on the page of a smile
turning my face away from  the cracks
stepping blithely over the day your words carried false

licking the envelope on an argument
stamped To Forget.

I choose

instead.

to love the memory of You.

Appologies to the spider
I crushed clumsily, by tracing
what I thought were the lines
of law.

make them to break them
bridges of bone
no way to even phone it in

if you don't save
the number.

I am a full cup
balancing on the shelf
constantly testing my surface tension

just waiting for a little jiggle
to break the slack.

and When It Happens
this camel is gonna start running.
and she ain't never looking back.

if your hands were there,
I would hold them.

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

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.

I ache with Alone
we are hand in hand

empty to the bones
the lines I can't leave
on the surface of my
Maybe skin.

Sorrow is the hood
with which I cloak my ears

All I do now is
wait for the Rain.

when sinking
you make a redundant buoy
a faux bolster
the worst kind of cushion

the water boy [woman]
for a fake league
where the points don't
necessarily matter.

but even if you can't
reach the top of the
board, you still have
to accept the apple and
leave it on your desk

because christopher columbus
has started to
run out of ships
so now it's your turn
to start claiming
land

I stood on
the pavement feeling
drunk with the awareness
of too many hours
the manhole cover
cold and soaking through
my feet into
tiny
bird bones I
bruised as a child
running down
steps too fast.
and I was standing so
slowly, in my
memory the world
spun around me
with the trees, the
yellow early morning
light, green traffic
signs and all
silent on the street
another world
another year
and no way
to go back
and see it
again.

I'm standing here and banging on this locked door that won't open.
I'm staring through the keyhole and it's black.
No light, I can't see a ******* thing, anything.
And if there's anyone on the other side,
they're not talking.
It's only a matter of time til my mind goes away.
Parts of it are going to start flaking of. Bit by bit.
Why do I keep having dreams that you're dead?
I can't see anywhere in my future. It's just like looking through  distorted peach coloured glass. There's nothing behind it, nothing visible.
Your shoes by the door, your books on the table.
Pieces of you that can't talk to me, can't hold me, can't fix anything or answer my questions.
I can't have a conversation with a blanket.
I can't get comfort from a pillow.
I don't remember your face because it's pixelated.
It doesn't feel fair that we have to choose who we choose.
I know there are a lot of things I can't control. But I'm losing control over the things that I can.
At least when I was completely alone, I had the option of changing that.
Now I'm alone even when I'm with a million people.
The comfort that they can offer, isn't comfort that I can take.
I know you're not fighting in a real war.
I know you're fighting your own personal battle, with soldiers I can't sway.
Ones I haven't even met, and maybe won't ever meet.
I can't plan our future because I don't even know if we had one.
I even knew that before we started, and I jumped anyway,
because who thinks when what's spread out before them is so beautiful.
You just close your eyes and go, because it seems right.
I don't want to feel guilty for feeling the way I do. When I enjoy things, when I don't enjoy things.
I don't want to feel stupid for missing you when you haven't been away for years. When I actually have someone who may some day come back.
What if you don't come back.
What if you do.
I don't know what my choices are anymore.
Because the screen doesn't answer me.
And you can't kiss a wall.

I just wanted
to write a poem
that involved the
phrase
"Dive Bar"

already have
the shoes.

time to
buy the
glasses.

'This is what
it feels like
to fall',
thought Alice.

'I suppose,
when I land
my feet will
hit first.'

'Maybe there
will be a cushion.'

'I shan't
want to
break my
legs.'