It's everywhere, the tension, the death, it's everywhere.
Can't run from food, no sir.
Anorexia is very fashionable in my city.
Bulimia, sorry to say, is never fashionable.
I shiver, but not as hard as I used to.
I cave in my stomach, but not as far as it used to.
I slowly earn my gravity.
Less dizzy, I never knew how pleasurable down could be.
My mouth has become a sacred place,
Cradling a cornucopia of life,
ten little pounds,
I'm desperate to accept
the way my footsteps sound.

Somewhere in the furrows of pink and gray
flesh, nestled between delicate arches of pelvis,
in what was supposed to be bowels and pulsating warmth,
lies the wish for chemotherapy.

Old images of skull-white sundresses
glimmering with the glory of summer days in the world of Perfect Thighs
fester imperceptibly,
buried in some remote corner of the midbrain
that smells like half-digested chicken parmesan;

each memory’s tastefully arranged––
rows of wheat, sharp as disinfectant,
sour with antimetabolites and metastatic guilt.
October levels prospects like a hurricane,
and as your mother balances a salad fork between chalk fingers
the full plate in front of you reminds you of ruptured organs.

It's better this way.
I'm better off as a
spectator to the
way everyone
else finds happiness.

They dress their
best and pray on
sundays.
I drink in stale
clothes and laugh
out loud in the
open park in
the dead of night.
High and at one
with the
thieving masked  
lords of the night.

Theirs are goals
and mine are troubling
questions that cause them
discomfort.
I try to pull on
the  answers
no one wants
to really
hear,
not even
myself.

They all long for
love and praise.
Heart shaped
chocolate filled
boxes is what
represents their
artificial idea
of love.

I touch not on
this subject.

I chase away my madness
while drunk and too
high to keep up with
my own shadow.

You'll find me in
the darkness if I let
you.

I'll have the pistol in
my pocket, a bottle
in my hand
and this dead
end love on
the mind.

it was as if every day
might be the last
he would wake in the night
with help me on his lips
but too late he thought
too late

I am beyond help
because I have selfishly ignored
both reason and right
and now I must take this life
apart

he was surprised at the calm
this realisation engendered
he would carry on from day to day
attempting small acts of kindness
being patient with his wife
his children his few friends

to the woman he loved
out of all mind he had only
admiration felt only tenderness
and hoped she would know this
to be true despite what he knew
he had to do

We could say the obvious
about a leaf,
typically flat and thin,
terminologically rich:
an angiosperm
with petiole, lamina
and stipules (lots of these).

But enough for now
because I want to be
poetic about the leaf
and its collective:
leaves.

As the haiku goes
Leaves lose trees
And trees lose leaves
Who can walk without
Dancing on windfalls
As crisp as these.

It is their dance,
their dancing,
(these veined forms),
that bring me
gentle reader,
to the page.
It is the wind’s doing:
rustling and rubbing in
summer airs,
turning and falling
in September’s gales,
path-bound then
leaves leap and glide,
twist and scatter
in the winter winds.
In spring they are like
babes in the womb,
attached, full of life,
hidden in the bud.