If I could, I'd buy us enough acid to last everyday
for the rest of our natural born lives. Just hoping
that the trip would take us back to the night when
you painted rainbows on the insides of my eyelids.

If it was possible, I'd brand your fear of needles
onto the surface of all my organs.  So that I would
always remember the time you let me see the
scared sick little boy still hiding inside your skin.
So that maybe, he could hide inside my skin too.

If magic were real, I'd use a spell to make a
quilt with our story on it, the way it should have
ended. And every time I felt alone, every time
the panic threatened to close my throat, I would
pull the quilt over my head, and be able to live
in what could have been.

If I could,  I would crawl inside one of the
pink and yellow capsules the doctors gave you
and after you swallowed me down I would
climb up through your blood vessels to the brain.
Stopping only to see the heart I love so dearly.
I would build bridges over your broken synaptic cleft
and bribe your brain chemicals to walk the
straight and narrow. I'd tell them how their careless
vagrancy has left your eyes empty and your aura dark.

"You're on your way
to the grave,"
he sighed,
caressing her breast
and nuzzling her skin.

"We all are,"
she murmured,
and shoved him aside
as she raised herself off the bed
and turned to leave him behind.

He lept from the sheets
and grabbed her long hair,
yanking her to the mattress
before she could escape.
Climbing on top of her,
he stared at her body
and ate her soul with his eyes
until she had none to consume.
He slowly leaned down
and drank in her weak breath,
exhaling it out in a strong sour kiss.
She trembled, and then,
she could tremble no more,
and learned not to breathe,
and grew silent as he thirsted.

He cut the quiet
with a snicker,
and flashed a wicked red grin,
whispering into her dull lips,
"But I know a shortcut."

This could be my therapy
If I could be
Worth the effort it would take
To fix me, the mistake.

My house was built in 1926
It was plastered with white stucco
framed within a blue trim, once green
which still shows through chips of paint
flaking off like a scab
from a curious child's playground wounds

This house fended off storms and fires
for nearly one hundred years
and stood tall and strong even when
my family fell to pieces

Dad should have left a long time ago
No one could sleep with him around
as he snored through our tragedy:
A mother and a father who hated
each other, both too stubborn to leave

I had dreams at 4AM, when I could sleep,
of the house collapsing, and these walls caving in
burying us alive in dusty white gravel

Mom wanted to be free like she was
when she would smoke cigarettes in her 20's
with young men lucky enough to have her

Dad didn't want the world to see us destroyed
So he stayed inside our little white tudor
tearing down the walls as we all fell apart
and were buried beneath the wreckage
that tore us all to pieces

"A rat is a rat."
He said
"Attack, attack."
His double vision
Scares me sometimes
The way he fuses word
And ties ideas lines apart
He thinks along a separate plane
Always conscious of the next step
"A live rat is worth less than a dead one."
He looks down
"Because a dead rat is already dead."
I shake my head and
I agree, wholeheartedly
But he stares at me
Unsure if I comprehend his meaning
"Your eyes tell me you don't feel the same way,"
And his eyes dart to his shoes
I open my mouth to speak
"You don't have to explain yourself,"
He blurts
"You're the kind to pay the lowest price.
Even though you have the money."
I smile and languish the comment
I was raised in Hell
And the Devil doesn't pay well
"You're the type of man who'd never think of paying more when he can get what he wants for less.
Especially when it means he gets to **** a rat himself."
He knows me
He scares me
He lets me speak
"You know me too well."

This morning I watched you
stumble into the bus
like a drunken moth:
straw-headed, foggy,
jacket clinging to you
by one shoulder
like an ironic flag.
America has claimed you!
Just like Our Moon,
those ironic flags of liberty.

Chortling, choking
on nothing but your
immovable child-like
sadness. Leathery
wings sprawled, gaping,
stinking of whiskey and ****.
You were screaming
at a woman across the aisle
whose eyes also gaped,
who didn't see the revolution,
who feared her reflection in the
eyes of "Made In The USA".

Who is she? What form
have you given her?
The mother who soaped
your tongue with her bitter morals?
The sister who boiled her
life away on a spoon?
The lover who embraced your wounds
despite EVERYTHING
and then became one?

You were eating an apple
from your pocket,
"Red Delicious,
the MOST American fruit!"
It was mostly rotten, sweaty
brown core staring into me
like a terrible moth's eye.

I watched you until
my stop,
I'm sorry I don't know why.
When the bus-man shoo'ed you off
I heard you scream after me,
really howling.

I'm sorry I can't save you,
I'm a moth too.

I ran home this morning
and left all the lights on.

Love is cruel
only if it is lost.

A man, a woman
can only love so much.

So only the love
of my Savior I first trust.

Sometimes, I cannot help but sigh
and wonder--
wonder deep inside of me
whether I could ever be like you.

I riffle through the pages of my soul
and find a lot of them empty
Unlike yours, which seem to be bursting, blinding,
bursting, and still continuing to burst with brilliance...

So much so,
that your soul's light
has spread far and wide,
very much like sunlight's fingers
opening the morning sky curtains,
touching and warming
those who need it.

Tanglaw
each step that you take,
each breath that you exhale,
each prayer that you whisper,
each beat of your heart
Tanglaw

I receive a smile,
and chat
with that man
who you've helped change...
Because of you,
the silent man now speaks, smiles.

You sit down to rest,
I see you talking to someone,
and I am almost fooled,
since you seem like old friends.
Because of you,
the lonely strangers become kindred.

It mystifies me sometimes,
of how you never seem to get tired.
It seems like I am the one who gets tired for you,
who gets worried for your own strength...
Then I see that glow from all around,
and I am reminded how you glean from this glow.

I see you as this beautiful ball of energy--
Never static,
bouncing from soul to soul,
illuminating parts of themselves
that even they never knew existed.

It is so amazing seeing this at work,
since the next thing I know,
the place is lit up,
Alive.
...and it is all because of you.

It makes me feel unworthy at times,
but oh how it also makes me feel so proud,
that I am a part of you,
and you are a part of me.

I have a lot of catching up to do,
since it seems I am lightyears from where you are

But I will try.
I will catch the tail end of your light,
clutch to it with my life, winding it around me,
let it embrace me--tight, so tight.
And I will never let it go. Never.
Until I also begin to glow.
Until I too, become that ball of light.

Hopefully when someone
riffles through the pages of my soul,
they will not find it blank,
but filled with gilt pages of light.

Just like yours.
Bursting and brilliant just like yours.