Flowers on the wreath
of the funeral home door;
beautiful to none

She wanders with a ponderance
of an unfulfilling existence .
It's like she missed the instance
when life was handing out
purpose. She became subverted
by her own thoughts.
Self-image contorted
like spaghetti noodles or dreadlocks.
The simplicity of existing has become brutal.
She keeps the gold within
vaulted like Fort Knox.
That protection is like an island
preventing her journey's beginning.

Honesty is
doing a perfect job
on a blind woman's
hairstyle.

I can't move forward
Considering where I've been
Gravity suspends

She was in an
Orange dress with yellow accents.
Wishing I was the blacksmith
That forged her silhouette.
As I watch those stiletto steps
fence across the concrete.

Each strut piercing
the pavement like needles.
The way her hips are waving is lethal.
And that dress is almost see-through.
I want to stand beside her
and see her through the b-sides
that nobody wants to listen to.

We held hands as time's sand
passed between. Night chocked
the last sun beams. Our conversation
was pertinent to the dwindling
red wine bottle. As the moon glazed
shore began to roar, she whispered
"Let's cuddle." I dropped you, holding her,
and thought "Oh" and began to coddle.

I wrapped myself around her like a shell to a turtle
and she began to nestle on my chest. I guessed
the indigestion came from the Bordeaux bottom.
Boy, was I wrong. See, as I lay with her,
forgetting about you, I remembered
blood is thicker than water. The loves
we choose are stronger than ones
We've fallen into. I wasn't falling there,
underneath the stars, next to the parked car.
I was laying. I was contemplating
as the wind was spraying the lake
into the air.

I came to the conclusion
I was in an illusion of  love.
Confounded by smoke and reflections
from movie magicians. She looked up
to me and I guess she could see
my reality crumbling in the breeze.
She asked if I was ok. My slight smile alluded
I was and we laid in love
until the sun's intrusion.

I lay in the bathtub soaking
wet with water running
around my silhouette.  Shaking
as the washcloth smeared regrets
over my skin. The bubbles
give my sins a scent.

As I vent I leave the shower
running so my sobs
are the only thing drowning.
The constant tapping on my face
keeps me awake as I sink into
the various stews my mind creates.

Weights are lifted with pruning. Peeling
of dead skin keeps me from
reeling into depression. There is a harmonic
progression between the faucet and my face,
the scrubbing and my disgrace, the steam and
my own embrace.

I need this state. The decompression
from being bottled up, like a coke, with a smile
is worthwhile. It teaches me
that the expression of  weakness
is key in the building of a better Timothy.

If we are all just for our own sake,
what conclusion could we ever come to?
What are we then,
how--what makes us so great
that even our mere existance is
the explanation of our presence;
each some sort of unique gift to the universe?
I, you, we are each a bundle of cells,
hormones, arguably a soul,
but definitely atoms in space--
space, which is both infinitely large
& infinitely small.

Instead of right or wrong,
we are diminished to foolish little snowflakes,
all dumbly in our own way, "human."
"Art for art's sake," we are all
paintings on the mantle:
abstract & upside-down,
but nobody can tell the difference.