No paints and not one canvas
Nothing sellable at all
But, an artist is an artist
With art to share with all

No profit in creations
No way to sell his works
But he creates pieces of magic
With lots of different quirks

His tools are nothing special
Pastels and pieces of old chalk
His canvasses are static
They're the place that people walk

He's a sidewalk chalk pastel artist
With only digital designs
His work goes with the weather
Cracked pavement creates lines

No matter where he travels
He can work when the muse strikes
But, he has to watch out for street walkers
And folks riding through on bikes

His pictures are amazing
Where real life ends you can not tell
But, because there is no canvas
He has nothing to sell

He creates from chalk and pastels
He is an artist just the same
As those with paint and easels
He just plays a different game

Donations are his lifesblood
An empty cup beside him lies
Stand back and be awed by
His artwork before it dies.

The floor was cold under my bare feet as I crept down the stairs, listening to the noises that the house was making. The kind of noises it made when it thought everyone was asleep – the hum of the refrigerator, occasional clunks, the creaks as the walls warmed up and cooled down. By all rights, I should have been asleep.
Outside, the night was the impenetrable black that you only ever see in the dead of night, in the middle of winter. My face looked ghostly and pale in the glass of the window as I turned the tap, water sluggishly filling my glass. It was a peculiar feeling – like being disconnected from everything around you. Freefalling.

“Bit late, even for you.” I jumped, when I shouldn’t have. I don’t think you ever slept. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking.”

“Ah.” Your shadow moved towards me across the room, and I watched your reflection in the frosty window.  “It’s cold.”

“I know.” This was how we worked, this shorthand. For a guy who never shut up, and a girl who never said anything, I suppose it wasn’t unusual.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not the one who’s half-naked.”

You chuckled, and I turned to look at you. Sweatpants hugging your hips and nothing else.

“Are you allergic to shirts?” I felt compelled to ask.

“I sleep naked. This is dressed up.” You smirked.

My cheeks flushed, and I was so grateful that the dark hid it. Suddenly, I was conscious of my pyjamas. Which was ridiculous – there was nothing wrong with sleepy sheepy.

You were watching me, that slow smile messing with my head.

“What?” I snapped irritably, uncomfortable with the weight of your gaze. “What?”

“Nothing.” You said, shaking your head. “You just look nice” you reached out, caught a wave of my hair, “with your hair down.”

I tugged away, making an impatient noise, and you dropped your hand to my arm. I looked up at you, wild eyed, and you stared back. I didn’t pull away.

For the first time in your life, your eyes weren’t dancing around, constantly distracted. They were still. We were still. We were trapped in that second.

“Are you cold?” I asked, and a part of me congratulated myself. That sounded almost normal, nice one.

You smiled slowly, your pupils huge and diluted. I wanted to tell them to stop, they were swallowing the green and it wasn’t fair.

“Not anymore.”

You reached your spare arm up and cupped the side of my neck, I watched your eyes, and they watched your hand. You tangled your long, pianist’s fingers in my hair, and looked up, into my eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

Before, when we were dancing and I was so scared that the music was my drug, that I’d come around and know it had been a mistake, I had said no.

But there is nothing hypnotic about standing in a dark kitchen, skin crawling with the memory of shivers and when the soundtrack is the humming of the fridge.

“Yes.”

Your head dipped slowly towards mine, and I counted every second.

One.

I was falling.

Two.

Your breath touched my face, my eyes were closed.

Three.

Maybe you were falling too.

Four.

Your lips brushed mine, a whisper of a kiss, and then deepened. And suddenly we weren’t two, beautiful, broken teenagers with no way out and who were so, so tired. Suddenly, we were a girl in sheep pyjamas and a boy with smiling eyes. Suddenly, we were inconsequential to the grand scheme of things. Suddenly, we were all that mattered.

And when you pulled away, and my eyes opened reluctantly, I saw that you weren’t going to disappear. There was no pounding bass to hide behind and my hair was brushing my the bottom of my shoulder blades.

“Okay?” You said, and I watched the way your eyes sparked, my mind was humming.

“Okay.” I said, and I knew that, for the first time in a while, there would be no nightmares tonight.

i think by nature i'm a gasoline-pourer -
    i don't strike the match but
  goodamn it, do i set up that fire.

i am. i'm a gasoline-pourer and a poison-spreader
and i destroy fragile things.
i'm a gasoline-pourer and i'm afraid
      we might be the kindling.

My Almosts

1.
You were drunk.
I was naive.
You were older.
I fell for your charm.
You took advantage.
Too bad you’re going nowhere.
You could have been great.

2.
We had a blind date.
You brought flowers.
I stayed blind.
I forgot to see that we were awful together.
You’re a stupid ginger.

3.
You caught my interest.
We saw a bad movie
and giggled together the whole time.
You put your arm around me
in the uncomfortable movie theater seat.
Bad kisser.
Too short.

4.
We got hot and heavy.
Nostalgia stuck around for years.
You didn’t.
You kept leaving and coming back.
I wanted you so badly.
I loved everything about you.
You didn’t.

5.
We bonded.
We had things in common.
You made stupid jokes
and I laughed sincerely.
We picked out kids names
and wedding colors.
So close...


6.
We met at work.
I was loud.
You were shy.
We took it slow.
You treated me with respect.
We made a solid foundation.
You never let me go to bed angry.
I might marry you.
Almost.

COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back--
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?

if it were up to me?
   ****. it'd be cigarettes and tea
     and my giant cat by a giant window, and sparse furniture, and wooden floors.
it'd be a certain someone and poems scattered around every paint-splattered surface,
and writing on the walls in sharpie,
and tights and socks and sweaters and walks in the park.
          it'd be mid-morning sunlight and sleeping till noon and no walls separating the rooms.
         it'd be london or new york or maine or ******* canada or something -
something far away and obscure and artistic
where it rains a lot
so that i can dance.

we were sisters, weren't we?
i remember when we were young -
everything was easy then, wasn't it?
before your beauty bloomed and
my plainness stayed,
before the curve of your hips and the sparks of your smile,
set my mother's heart on fire.

we were sisters, weren't we?
when we used to kneel by the hearth for fun,
digging up buried treasure,
sifting through the ashes with our clean-girl hearts,
laughing.

that was before the bitterness choked our home.

we were sisters, weren't we?
you used to crawl under the covers with me,
whisper ghost stories and laugh at me when i got scared.
i reflected your prettiness then,
it shone on me like
the sun on a mirror,
my glass face unmemorable and making yours
all the more dazzling
(not that we knew it:
we were both beautiful,
before we knew any better)

we were sisters, weren't we?
i held your hand when my mother cut you with her words,
i stood up for you when she worked you, i did.
i never once raised a word when you would come to my room,
crying and
raving about her.
i held you when your missing for your own mother rose up sharp in your heart, and i
defended you when my mother spread words like thorns in the villages.

i never once envied you your beauty.

we were sisters, weren't we?
and when that prince came for you,
laughing and
pebbling our window with stones,
i helped you shimmy out into his arms.
i would clean the mud off your shoes when you would stumble back in,
right before the sun came up,
i would put you to bed and make you tea to warm the early-morning chill out of your rose-pink cheeks,
and i waited for you that night you didn't come back.

we were sisters, weren't we?

and you left us.

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.