With starshine beaming from beaded eyes,
I could only nod and grin,
while aspiration                  and sworn sorrow disintegration
rained upon            me.

Anna killed future Septembers with a promising
ring in newly righteous                hand.

In rabbit trails she talked --
                                               high fashion and porcelain skin,
but like all rabbit trails,
most of the stories ended               with a dead rabbit.

Anna still entertained my company
       despite the gleam of my once longing glance
burning out                     light years ago.

                     Healthy, we.
                     Settling, sea.
                     Sailing, no.
                     Drifting, yes.
                     Purely bruised.
                     Sighing in dream.

I'd follow Anna into the rabbit hole.
           I'd                                       feast on
her mouth                                 wet with honey.
           I'd                                       sleep in the milk
of her skin.
           I'd                                       happily allow
destruction                                  in her care
and become
            
                       freshly hewn in
                       the river's bend,
                       the wrinkles and
                       the calluses of
                       her weary hands.

In blood I sat,
defeated rabbit.

No prize to gloat,
only picket crypt
        to curl.

Jackie read from my grey iris prompter.
With dew covered eyes, she explained
the suffocating moss of her past life.

Jackie told me she was ***** at thirteen
by her brother.

"I didn't know you had a brother."

Jackie then said, "I have a half-brother."

Jackie told me she cut her wrists to feel alive.

"I thought you said you had never handled a knife."

Jackie then said, "I handled shaving razors."

Jackie told me her father was a drunk.

"I thought he was a minister."

Jackie then said "My father is a drunk minister".

Jackie told me she had an abortion.

"I thought you were abstaining."

Jackie then said, "I've had *** and those times didn't count".

Jackie told me she loved me.

"I thought you moved on."

Jackie then said, "I'm allowed a past and present."

A bad mix of Shorty's Irish Whisky
and a whimper riding the wind,
has got me lying about my past.
A roomful of men in nooseties surround,
crowbar stares prying at my mindsafe of secrets--
I drink until the grimace gives way to birthday cake grin
and my watering eyes burst in confetti.

Martha emerges from the black suits
in her spiderweb burgundy dress.
Jack and Nathan drool in the corner.
Martha whispers, "Hey Harvey," and then a terribly long
something-or-other in my ear,
but I'm too far gone to comprehend
or to care about comprehending.
The crafted playlist for this party
hiccups and dies, creating a suffocating silence.
The beady eyes turn shifty, erratic strayfire gazes
fill the room.

I begin to laugh.

I notice Jack talking to a grey-haired man and pointing at me.
Martha looks at me and nods with a sense of urgency.
New music coughs across the room,
I slide into a small, desperate clan of dreamy-talkers,
hungry for a new pair of ears to beesting with *******.
I listen, while my aging wolf scours the room.
I make a swift break for the door,
the night lies naked in front of me--
light pollution pours fake beams on the contours of the evening.
A middle-aged woman snags my arm before I can reach my car.
I pull until my arm frees, but she delays me enough
for the grey-haired man to catch up.

He introduces himself with a lightning one-two punch.
One being a sharp left hook.
Two being a dusting right uppercut.

"You stay the hell away from my daughter!"

I begin to ***** a river of orange, red, dotted with black chunks.
More than a few drops land on his shiny black leather shoes,
so he proceeds to break my nose with a vicious kick.

Amidst my moans, I am able to ask, "Who is your daughter?"

"Karen, Karen Newman."

"I have no idea who that is!" I cry.

"Don't lie to me, Jack! She told us all about you."

"My name is Harvey."

I look out into the road.
A blue sedan stops momentarily.

"I owe you one, buddy!" Jack shouts.

The Newman parents disappear without
so much as an apology.
I lay listening to the low hum of the city's traffic.
A few minutes pass, sending me into a haze.
Delicate fingers lift my head from the concrete,
I look up.
Martha begins to clean the blood and ***** from
my face with a wash cloth.
I feel soft and pure in her hands.

Anna's kiss hit harder,
than most ****** climaxes--
left me stuttering,
sidestepping, scared of the
what's next?

Anna's hair on fire,
billowing smoke and
beckoning me to come in--
left me boiling,
bracing, barely conscious
of what's left?

Anna's bed of nails,
bled out and breathing--
left me dangerously
dumb, deaf
of what's she saying?

Anna's sharpened heels,
daggered the docile beige carpet--
left me sweating,
sighing, searching for further savior
in what are we?

Anna's black fingernails,
sunk into my shoulder--
left me lonely,
lusting, lashing in empty parking lot
now knowing,
rebirth requires a death.

While Rachel slept lost in twisted sheets,
I fixed myself a drink.
I sat outside for an hour to breathe
cigarette smoke -- my mind on the brink.
All my time spent with couples,
my wanderings tamed for privacy fences--
a third wheel in groups of four rubble,
am I *****, prophet, poet or menace?
I thought as the stars coughed across
the acidic sky; I wish for a spark to ignite--
the powder trail of ambition I lost
in swampy suburban repetition cries.
On the steps of my porch, I felt no God.
In the arms of worship or between a lover's thighs,
no sanctity, nor blessing, just scattered dirt clods--
I miss the old ignorance -- kept my heart from whys.
But now those same whys taunt and entice.
A supreme darkness surrounds me--
one my eyes have adjusted to--
one my justifications turn free--
leaving me hungry for new dark territories
and the kind of knowledge that never
lets you sleep.

I spent three months pulling red hairs from my teeth,
eight lodged in ***** hair,
two sipping bottom shelf wine,
and now learning how to drive
past cream-colored envelopes,
filled with future foe.

Sorrow takes getting used to --
happiness wanes over paranoid shoulder --
I mark calendars,
I stock coffee filters,
but the ends and beginnings
blur in boredom.

I spent a century waging a war,
four more making amends,
and now the record skips.

Memory bends,
bedrooms and bathrooms
smell the same--
funeral parlor
and pulpit martyrs
sound the same--
centuries and months
age the same.