Word gets around about
a girl who never speaks.
She sits in the diner for lunch
every tuesday, and just stares.
Kids make it into a novelty.
Trying to taunt her into speaking.
Into telling everyone why she lives
in that broken down store up the
dirt road, but she never tries to
explain.  Instead she looks in your
eyes like she can see every bad
thing you've ever done, then takes
her coffee, and leaves. It's no wonder
that she isn't the most popular
in town. Eventually she'd stop coming to
the diner, and if anyone ever cared to
check on her, they'd climb through
the broken panes of a door that no
longer opened, and it wouldn't take long
to notice the ratty couch, the leaky sink,
or the empty and hanging open cupboards.
It would be easy to spot the holes in the
floor and ceiling, and the table filled
with ***** plates. These are all things that should
should jump out at them right away,
but instead they'd see the floor covered
with envelopes and paper.
And before they discovered her broken body
in the back room, they'd realize that every
piece of paper was a written letter, and every
envelope was over stuffed with them as well.
Letters filled with all the words she never
bothered to say, answering all the questions
that she'd ever been asked, and some, just
a select few, crying out for help.
In the back room her body rested, broken
at the neck and cold to the touch. Next to her
a final letter, about how she felt jealous of
those who never lived at all.

walking into smoke shop,
hoping to find a girl named
Expectations. hoping she'll
have legs, eyes, all the usual
contrived sights. careful, con-
trolled tiny burns. no one's
blowing up the bridges.
no one is trying for attention.
hoping to catch it strutting like
a Bird of Paradise. strutting
isolated, too lazed to clear the
grounds. too lazed to give too
much of a **** for attraction.
lips broken by the winter wind,
lonesome travelling with
Expectations aside. she's waiting.
hoping. to rise, to strive, to arrive
at finality. and then onward. and
then **** Expectations after.
gripping hands, mine alone,
forcing friction to dry qualm'd
sweats. to remove embarrassment
of inaction in inexperienced persons.
citing her, citing everything
foreseen and predict'd. all in
hopes at removing consequence,
but Expectations' voice threw tog-
ether a string of words unbecoming
of her vocabulary. they were unbe-
coming for a girl in that place of society.

walking out, rebuffing time and ad-
vances. fighting this mortal fight for
invincibility. to be of highland descent.
amending to Expectations on the side.
amending for waste of sacred days. lights
cast where darkness was. and these thoughts
enlightened by Son of Vonnegut on his
northward journey for Nirvana.
spitting blood, searching for immortality.
******* Expectations. *******
up life in the blood-lust. throwing a second
pair of shoes in the trash. waiting to ask
questions of persons un-wanting when questions
unwanted ask'd by persons of a cloud'd past.
and the infection is in the heart, is in the soul,
is in the lungs. with each words' passing from
putrid mouth, with each word infect'd in entirety.
pushing into the world meaningless
****. these un-embodied words are only a
passing lip-service, and have never relfect'd -
never realized - on the recant'd lives they've
run thru. nor the current running. recanting,
redacting, refracting - a disease of distraction.
Expectations lurking by ruined road.
that chance to rise, to strive, never
let her more than some inch of give.

holding prejudices, clinging with
desperation. held by throat.
sacrificial lamb found through
re-imaged scapegoat. watching
hours fleet, awaiting death
of muscles strength. awaiting
ravenous claws at pit's bottom.
Expectations peeking through
slit'd fingers, avoiding direct
contact of vision. learn-
ing to forget promises.
her eyes shine hazel.
learning of life, roots grind the ground
as scapegoat - throat released - gnarls hair
in fingers. feet force avalanche of scree
falling in eyes of ones attached ravenous claws.

silent with-holdings. Expectations
with hand over heart. spitting blood,
and whoa. something's not right.
Expectations *******, partial nakedness
and truth of truth. tears of mud caked
mountains. weighing down, and stare
never longer leaves the ground. and
blood turn'd stone, spitting worlds
with creationist vigor. making some-
thing for sake of nothing and feet
fall to repetitive rhythms. Expectations
falling, Expectations *******,
Expectations' hazel-stained eyes.

Because we both know the sound of gunfire
Except I, didn’t grow up in a war zone
It was a different kind from yours
Our bullets were words
Sounds of breaking glass
And the shards of which made it into my cheerios the next day
Chewed them anyway to spite
The sound that
Breaking makes

You,
you know the sound of falling bodies too readily
  you can mimic them in your footsteps
The smell of rotting corpses
What kind of scars shrapnel really leaves

What the color of blood really looks like
I see that shade of red every time you speak
  The way you keep it hidden in those paintings
In the drawer that I sneak into when you sleep
Know too well what evil looks like

I can find a place for all the words buried in my chest
inside your bullet wounds easily

If I were not a coward

Staring into the dark irises of men in uniforms dirtier than their conscience,
Find it easier to look into a barrel of a gun
Only one of them holds salvation
  
No, you are not afraid of guns
Nor the sound that breaking makes


But I still remove the safety pin
Just in case

these feet, a rambler's. wanderlust
soles tied from genetics of the epi-
kind. his feet did ramble so as these
now do. his difference, he trek'd with
steel shunt in arm. he trek'd slums'
floors. grit-ingrain'd skin, pox'd wh-
olly and now pushing onlys. pushing
ash against the walls of Death's
container. body aged thru time,
more than doubled - more like
end'd - by that refined infusion.
these feet, a rambler's. walking forth
existences' hundred-mile wilderness.
his feet had also, and his feet defer'd
before sixty-six. these continuing
onward searching ancient trails. loo-
king to start another day, looking
for to never quit seeking another
day before the unlit walls of Death.
before the darkness consuming
of depths never known, always near.
these feet, a rambler's. of well-worn
leather. relinquish'd of cares, desire
or ambitions by brambles strangling.
blood running by access of natural
means. slate ****'d soles, crevices
open'd of the crust throwing chal-
lenges toward the sky. heights im-
aginable if only to forsake lazed
calves. heights set for disappearing,
where tracks never lead. no wrong
side in non-existence, no wrong
sight for the rambling feet worn lea-
ther.

Daylight to look out a window
and midnight to see into one.
Say some name three times
at a candlelit face, a flashback
to fear at such a young age.
These were stories that were told
to us by older brothers and sisters
during our weekend sleepovers.
We're mirror images of them
no matter how old we grow.
Children playing in the snow
in the coldest of northern winters,
making a snowman, giving a name,
topping him with a black-ribboned hat
and an added lit cigarette to allow
easy passing of a lampless evening
faced an overbearing, light-speckled sky.

The image passes away in the day,
everything melted to bring spring
anew to the streets and city pools.
Clean them out, remove their stories
from the past year for the new ones
to come. Crop your face to bring light
back in and to tabula rasa our crevices.
Spiderwebs and crows feet.
Let your frame pass into the attic
to lean on your dusty, keylocked journals
and that 19th century armoire
that has no place in your place anymore.
Tell me those stories, tell me your stories.
Tell me your stories, and I'll tell you mine.