a dusty family
hangs on the wall.

never touched,
they never fall.

Nonchalant on
the way to the bathroom
he said
"we're all girls here"

He takes his testosterone on
tuesdays; the alliteration
seems to fit the occasion.

The sun sets gentle as it is painted
and painted over,
a portrait of sliding sky.
in gradients too slow for
notice the painter erase the day's melodies
brooding all the
while the sky finishes its fall
onto the rising night.

He is a quiet man, all
calloused hands, stained forearms,
more accustomed to solitude than
the daylight of scrutiny.

With the precision of an almanac,
the painter finishes, canvas cleaned
of its light and
sliding quiet beneath his blanket of tattered stars,
the man waits
in hope, that tender lunacy,
to find the lady who resides in the corners of his dreams.
He longs to touch her outside his mind's eye,
but all too soon he is asleep
and she is nowhere to be found.

His breathing evens out and
rising unconscious from the bed,
he shuffles towards the canvas.
Sitting picturesque before the easel,
he eases the woman into existence,
champagne beneath his brush.
She never stays longs, though,
leaving with the drop
of her mimosa glass,
bleeding orange onto background and body;
he rushes to catch her oils as she
drips between his fingers.
The painter sighs deep
and begins to cover his work.

Every night his heart breaks
as he paints and paints her over.

When he finally wakes,
dropping the shredded sky from his frame,
he finds the canvas inexplicably different
than how it was left.
It will be forever, it seems,
until their two shadows will be allowed to meet,
concrete as a realist's ache
for resolution.

I asked a stranger once,
what is fortune?

is it the sands that
erased great alexander’s
cruel body?

or  waking to find
a man whose golden eyes sing
the hymns of a simpler time,
the tiniest Midas sideshow?

and she looked at me,
breathed deeply and spoke,

fortune is the bargaining chip
of the broke.

See how her cheeks blush
So feverishly, hands tremble
As she paces and sighs repeatedly.

Some would call it love,
but she knows
It’s only the amphetamines.

In my first life, I died
The year I turned 25,
And now that I’m in the hours before I ******* second,
I want to make it all the way to
28.27 years
cause when you divide that by 9,
You’re left with pi.

And because the universe isn’t just a
Straight line, you’ve got to use a formula to get around,
Get all up on that pi d because piety just
isn't logic enough for me, where  even the repentant
Are told they’re going to burn in purgatory, sweetheart, please.
Being alive and feeling was
sometimes hell enough for me.

In just a few hours before I’m sent through that
Tight tunnel,
I want to be judged by the god of
3.14159, the baker that made me
Mr. Blueberry Buddah
Master in the art of reincarnation.
I want to be birthed **** with just a dab of pure whipped
cream for a soul,
Drizzled sweet with the blood I never watched my
mother bleed for me
on the morning of my second birth.

But I gotta say, this bardo ****'s pretty odd,
Here the sky ranges in color gradients too specific like
“violent salmon” all the way to “lukewarm smoothie”
But once I get out, I know things will be strange,
owning a life that’s not quite mine to lose.
And even though I’ll have no answer to give, I desperately
Want someone to ask,

Stranger, tell me, how did it feel?

Theoretically, I’ll respond,
Well, I was kicked back into some ancestral dream
To meet everyone I will ever be, everyone
I have ever been and
Once I’ve met all of them,
Everyone I will never meet again.

And they'll ask,
Friend, is that why babies take so long to be born?

Yes, its because they’re shaking hands with the universe
On the way out of the womb.
At least, the one who will reach nirvana
After this life cycle circles through.

Lover, if I were to meet you again, will you remember?
Does your soul still have my story
Etched on it somewhere,
Or will you be washed clean of me,
The tabula rasa upon which Locke never wrote?

I won’t remember you, but
I have faith that you’ll find me,
Even lifetimes grow apart after too long.
It’s all about the company you keep because
They never stay.
And if that should happen, well,
We just met each other in an inconvenient life.

he's been
very good
lately about
losing his parts.

it's been at least a
month since we've
had to piece him
back together.