the universal symphony of creaking
chairs echoing with crickets
in the domain of body shaking
each high beam, a passing star
waiting to explode
on steely yellow lines
battles with hard cold
warm air, actually real,
how every story is the same,
with a slightly different
authoritarian directive,
to observe, and sometimes,
harm the feminine cry of *******,
and climb the stair case.

Denatured barbie dolls bowling
over boys donning construction caps and
destruction maps making a highway
over natural habitats holding the
handle of cellar doors open and shouting
"dissent no more" please
implore me to bore you and
spit shine your mirror toe shoes
I know you once we met on the avenue
sector of humanity devoid of trees and
afraid of honeybees traffic tinged memories
haunting back down the street
hampered under sweaters and smelly socks wondering
how many feet beneath rocks something can escape
half baked holy water holding the cure of all curses and
worsening purple pillars of preconceived pastry dough
growing moldy head to toe finding flow
amidst garbage between sinking archipelagos

12:30 AM.
I am a ghost drifting through the midnight-quiet,
haunting flower beds and grasses
Undisturbed in their slumber. My body floats
Through my neighborhood, stealing the
Secrets of the dark.

1 AM.
Ghoulish eyes peer out from Mrs. Butler’s bushes and
Become miniature 3-eyed deer with antlers sharpened to
Daggers. They roam about her dewy lawn,
Feasting on worms and blinking,
Slowly, one eye at a time.

3:30 AM
Arrives, and they return to their hideaway home,
Disappearing with one final b l i n k
Into the rhododendrons.

5 AM.
I never knew that morning tasted like
Strawberries and honeysuckle and smelled
Like freshly-cut-grass-mixed-with-bonfire-smoke.
My Tongue is heavy with its sickly-sharp odor
And my ears buzz from the tangy sweetness.

7 AM.
Corporeal reality coats my body, connecting my mind
to my soul, my
Soles to the soil and I am incarnate, whole,
A body amid the sunlit specters surrounding me.

9 AM.
A mumbo-jumbo grin slides onto my face,
Synthetic in every aspect of the word,
My mouth is cotton-dry as I slink into the bogusness of a weary day.

10 AM.
Crowds of people smoosh together, their words co-mingling
And I crash my bike into strung-together sentences,
Scraping my knees on the voracity of barbed words.

11. “She’s a constant damsel-in-distress, but she doesn’t work in a strip joint!” I step around the shards of her fallen tiara as I climb the ivory-tower’s steps.
12. My wide eyes view futility as a type of texture, and I imagine it feels like sandpaper. My first class feels like sandpaper-futile in this struggle to stay awake.
13. Bicycling to la clase de Español se siente como moviéndose a través de melaza.
Mis pies cansados empujar los pedales pero I can’t escape the quicksand around me.
14. Reading the thoughts of my classmates helps to pass the time, and
I can see clearer through closed-eyelids than open eyes.
15. Red walks among their peers, watching for passing dogs and smiling at them. Red is
Hyperaware of people they knew from past school and recalls names and faces in seconds. Red is
A zombie trudging on shaky legs, lumbering down the bricked path.
16. Murky sunlight streams through tired clouds and blinking is a visceral kind of pain.
17. My poetry stews in my brain, rotting and fermenting until it becomes a fine wine.
18. Trees wish me good luck, waving their branches affirmatively as I pass by. Their comforting
Footsteps warm my soul.
19. Darkness steals the sun’s warmth but I’ve hours more to be awake.
20. I am a ghost floating through this sea of people. I drift through them, haunting their conversations
Haunting my own quiet mind.

cold sweat startled wake,
to blinding grey light
cutting through torn curtains,
splaying skeletal silhouettes on the floor.
squinting crusted-shut eyes,
trying to determine the ghostly hour
lost between fragmented fever dreams.
head twisting inside-out to wrap itself
around old virtues, stand true
true blue friend, I'll surely desert you in the end.
hand on my burnt Bible to swear
my oath of destruction,
on a war path to eradicate
everything i resurrected
as an effigy to home, love, and identity.
structural anarchy - from imposed symmetry,
to the empty abyss surrounding me
where a single whimper can bounce
off itself, into crescendoing agony.
gather all the rubbled remains
of the once sanctified temple,
but piling stones straight to the sky
won't build a shelter for the aftershock.

you looked out onto the lands,
god had made for you.
it was too cold.
too damp.
you said
"i'll do you one better"
and when the structure
was finished, you
lifted your calloused hands
in praise to the creator above.
Unaware that he stood
50 yards away, wondering:
"who the **** ruined my masterpiece?"