The walls of your soul that you
  Toil away building;
The windows are dark and the
  Bricks are unyielding...

( Hate, with a hammer, cracks the wall;
   But Love, with a whisper, makes it fall. )

How many times have I told you, Believe?
And then will you learn how to truly Receive.
  For giving is getting -- these two are the same;
  And living is learning to dance in the rain.

Can we pretend for a bit,
                that every day is a bicycle waltz?

That every day is filled,
                filled with wine and whiskey love.

And skin feels like heaven,
               when no one is watching it touched.

That your body & my body,
               will never grow tired of the endlessness of each other's.

Everyday should be a bicycle waltz,
               With you my dear,
                                      *my immeasurable amount of intangible motion.

All I wanted was a cigarette.
We weren't allowed to smoke.
He knew where to go.

We swept sidewalks together.
Raked sand together.
Talked about life together.

His window was across from mine.
I think he saw me changing once.
Maybe more than once.

He was getting dishonorably discharged.
I didn't think he was a good man.
I didn't think he was a bad one, either.

It had been two weeks since I landed in Monterey.
I only wanted a cigarette.
He knew where to go.

I bought the Southern Comfort and bottom shelf gin.
He carried them with him to his room.
I didn't think anything of it.

We raked sand together.
We ate lunch together.
We watched movies together.

We sat on a makeshift bench by the ditch by the installation fence.
We drank and smoked and laughed.
I taught him Farsi and he taught me Russian.

Russian for "hello" and "goodbye."
Russian for "This is allowed."
Russian for "This is not allowed."

I think he saw me changing once.
He tried to kiss me on the cheek.
I told him no, my boyfriend wouldn't like that very much.

We smoked some more.
We drank some more.
We laughed some more.

It was 2130.
I had to be in my room by 2200.
He said not to worry, I'd be back in time.

I insisted and tried to leave.
I fell to the ground.
He didn't help me up.

I only wanted a cigarette.
He kissed me on the mouth.
I did not kiss him back.

I was immobile.
Paralyzed.
Drugged?

He kissed me again.
And again.
And again.

I did not kiss him back.
I had a boyfriend.
All I wanted was to smoke and drink and laugh.

He grabbed me by the ankles.
Pulled me over the ditch behind the army barracks by the installation fence.
I could hear soldiers coming back to their rooms.

I was paralyzed.
I always thought I would fight.
Fend him off with car keys stuffed between my fingers.

I looked up at the tree branches above me, my watch said 2147.
That was the last time I prayed to God.
There were leaves in my hair and dirt on my arms.

There was something less than a man between my legs.
It looked at me with hate in its eyes.
We swept sidewalks together.

God kicked back and swigged a PBR
     while I was ***** behind the army barracks,
     over the ditch by the installation fence.

He helped me up.
I couldn't stand on my own.
How sweet.

I vomited by a tree.
I was disgusted with myself and him and God.
I wanted to drown in Southern Comfort and bottom shelf gin.

He walked me to my barracks building.
How sweet.
I made it to my room by 2200.

All the girls watched me stumble down the hallway.
I was so violently alone.
Taps wailed outside the window.

I left my hat by the bench by the ditch by the installation fence.
He brought it to me the next morning.
How sweet.

I lay ****** on the beach
curling
my
toes
in the sand,
my hands shadow
over my face,
as the lapping sea's sound
flowed by old toothless fishermen
playing dominoes over the only shaded ground.

I watched an ant
climbing grains,
and thought how the soft yellow
that surrounded my soft trance
must have seemed endless,
and the soft
ruffle of the waves like a roaring bellow
for his
scuttling legs and faceless head.

I watched the women's bodies,
the firm
flabby
all salty and wet,
bikinis hiding secrets
I desperately wanted to learn
and keep just for myself,
a cheap pleasure
left denied
as I lay
aroused in ****** unrest.

And then a boat shored up.

Four fishermen
dropped
a
shark
in the shallows
and took to it with a blade.

Off with its head to
retrieve the hook,
fade red into blue
like smoke exhaling out,
a clean slice from headless neck
to already fin-less stub.
In less than five minutes
they left,
and their ****** mess
stirred up all the woman,
who I had
already mentally undressed.

I think I might be a pervert.

I mean, a mere bite of her lip,
stroke of the hair
or flick of
her hip
sends fire around my body
criminalises my mind
and throws me outside,
to look pressed
nose against
the glass,
breath blurring up
the window,
and my view of her ***.

Yep,
I think I might be a pervert.

Aren't you?
I mean when it's hot,
don't you get thirsty
from
sitting beside
the fountain?
Course you do,
we're all perverts,
even those baldy
monks up on some
breast-like mountain.

Like a swarm they squeeze frantically,
armed with proof
slung around their throats,
pushing forward they point and grab,
not stopping to think
of that dying slave.


But look at you all,
like pigeons to the crumb.