I taste like rolled cigarettes and chocolate.
My fingertips are torched
a bittersweet burnt that comes
from a night of music and
thought-plagued action.
Oil and acne plot my hairline
as I stare through the orange
of the streetlamps to the
stars barely visible above,
tapping my feet to
the tune weaving in-and-out
of our arms and toes
as we cool on the autumned stoop.

Black putouts mark the sidewalk
where we wish to tread like
animal trackers, hunting the next
place for us to eat, to belong,
nomads of the land without true bearings.
Clear sight of the skymap eludes our
grasp, with our hands reaching out
against the never-ending heavens,
searching for real, and its contrast
against real.

And then it hits me:
What a ******* fraud I am.
So much so, that I become
vehemently sick to my stomach.
I ***** the remains of our ****
on the concrete table, and watch
as the deer circle us to applaud
our next musical movement
as we dance to their ancient
hove-stomped rhythm.

Welcome to the feast,
sit at my table and do not regret
anything that will not be eaten today,
for this is our sacrificial slaughter
that must call out favor
to the Gods' fervor.

We dine without thought of
slave or beast. We, lords
of the second coming,
pass judgement upon those
who tread so softly at our heels
that a whisper of thanks escapes
from their chaffed lips and yet it cannot
be heard even in our pious silence.
They dance for us in cages that
arrogantly stretch from floor-to-ceiling
for their owners,
wrapped in ribbons of ruby and gold
and tops of blackened steel.
The bars hold the imprisoned steady
as they stand tall, true, and unapologetic
to their purpose.

They call for us,
and we, you and I,
as Gods,
must answer them.

Never been interested in
a conversation, just in
conversation itself.

I talked about the weather with
an acquaintence and a
friend of a friend last night
for forty minutes.
The latter isn't someone that
I really know know,
but you know what I'm saying.

We chatted about the coldness that hovers
over San Francisco and how
the heat in the summertime is actually frosty and how
the winter's warmth is, surprisingly, quite pleasant.
"You will only understand this from living it."

A conversation about weather
isn't supposed to actually play out
completely,
and yet, I'm still scratching my head
as to how forty minutes passed
with the two of them
in our Connecticut woods,
covered in striped longsleeves
and sunglasses to protect
our thoughts from a day passed under the sun,
walking around the Bay Area.

An old, sitcom-like joke
come to completion at a party, drowned
in ***** and musical-chatting,
chord-by-chord,
by guitar, drum, and bass,
in the room adjacent
to our tongue-chilled garage.

Generous coasting of the west coast
leaves me tangled in roots from roads
intersecting with waves surfed by
long blond-haired beach bums and
babes who pant at a muscular man
that pushups on the boardwalk
next to towels drying on the
handlebars of my bicycle.

I ride and ride and ride
through weather thought to be
unrideable by most cyclists
even if million-dollar-prize
tempted them at the finish line
and a set-for-life sponsorship
was promised to any and all
who could fight through the storms
of what I stoically battle.

No gear or goggles,
just legs of toned steel from
nights spent heating them over
a log-lit fireplace on spit
while keeping intense conversation
with lover across my gaze
until she escapes unexpectedly
into dreams, unaccompanied by me.

My legs are on fire,
no rain can extinguish them
and no slick roads
will stop my going.

I don't know why
my mind flies
through space and stars
to hit blinded satelites
in the hope of redirecting
itself to yours.

I don't know how
a homeless old man,
who only knows English,
picks up on the Arabic conversation
of ill will directed toward him
from across the crowded restaurant.
He begins to shake and scream and curse.

I don't know who is at fault for thinking of another
or if it matters at all.

When I was thirteen, I had a running coach.
He was short, lean, and muscular.
An Italian man
with a whistle hanging around his neck,
farmer's tan, and below his black widow's peak
sat silver aviators, propped upon his shiny beak.
I ran miles and miles a day, but,
no matter how much I'd run
he never followed. He always trusted me to
stride my roads and lift my knees high
during the kick at the end of the races
against myself.

"If you want to run
you gotta drop that baggage," he'd laugh
between sips from his water bottle
as he towered over little me,
panting and red. We both stood
tall under the blazing sun.
I couldn't comprehend exactly what he meant,
I mean, I told him,
"I have ultra-light, top-of-the-line shoes,
compression shorts and athletic toes,
a hairless chest for maximum speed,
sweat running rivers down my spine,
legs that never exhaust, and,
above all, Coach,
a spirit that can move mountains." His response,
silence and a smirk.
Who was he to teach me about running?

"You're weighing yourself down boy,
you gotta drop that baggage."
It was his motto for me
every time my time would increase,
because, you see, when running,
increase is bad. Except for hills.
I can still hear his voice in my head,
"Uphill, increase exertion."
He never ran with me, he just told me to go.
He showed me the route and I did as expected,
six days a week, sometimes three miles, sometimes ten,
day after day, again and again,
shoulders hunched and me out of breath,
"runners high," they called it.

I hated running, I hated my coach,
I didn't understand why
anyone would want run to anywhere.
Not now. Now, I love it.
It has become my hobby, a specialty
for when one grows up,
your body is built for it, and your mind
has been ready to run since junior high.
It starts as a seedling, when you're barely able to walk,
and by the time your cardiovascular system
has been assaulted by packs of tobacco
and rolled marijuana, it blooms green.
That's when you realize:
Running is easy.

And coaching?
Don't even get me started on how easy that is.

Night beckons to strange people.
Actually, if you can accept this premise,
then the mind makes everyone strange.
And still yet, there is something specific about darkness,
I cannot put my finger on it,
that sends odd sparks of real life
on a mission to city street corners.

I hide in my car after leaving the café
with the hope of seeing, "The Pigtailed Man."
This isn't his name.
However, I need say no more to any stranger
for him to envision my character.
We objectify him and his image becomes clear
even when spotted in narrowed alleyway darkness.

He has a beautiful wife
with locks past her shoulder
of auburn and lillies,
and two wonderfully bright children
who sit on his knee when listening
to nighty-night, bedtime stories.
Their ringing laughter illuminates
the darkest corners of their happy home.
They'll never know why he needs
to go bye-bye at dangerous evening hours,
hunting sour scowls from passers-by.

He's unkempt: legs unshaven, chin covered
by midnight shadow, beer belly hanging over his
plaid picnic-basket red schoolgirl skirt,
and his face sags as if a topical novocaine
was applied generously to his chubby, rosy cheeks.
Upon seeing his aimless strut
and dead-to-self eyes, I wonder: Where does he dress?
Does he put his outfit on from plastic grocery bag
around the block from the lamp-lit looks of
the neighbors' friendly daytime greetings?
More importantly, if I were friend
and was to catch him in the act,
would I say anything?

Darkness calls out the most intriguing creatures.
We're afraid to call them "human beings,"
because being human most certainly
does not look like this.
Or, does it not look like this?
Shadows claw walls around all
because not one body projects light.
There are some who know, and some who appease.
The pigtails hang to his knees as he stares
at the mannequins of pretty women
in the window of the closed department store.