I'm starting to dream in color
swimming in Silvia red night gowns
and dancing into silhouettes of purple and crimson.
psychedelic actually,
if you take the time to think within that perspective.
it's like a toned-down rave set in slow motion by overdose.
and where are you?
are you passed out on the lawn in front of some closed down swapmeet?
did the flicker of insomnia turn you off like a light switch you hadn't paid the bill for?
who now, will answer your phone or pay homage to your quips
or late night phone calls to God?
I wish I could say that I relayed the message
but my nerves never were enough.
I wonder if the angels ever picked up on the twisted games you played on their names.
Many people never bothered to decipher it all.
But on occasion I did.
When the time was convenient,
when the moments were dull.
I delved into it.
I tried anyhow.
Forgive me for never letting you pass.
For standing arms and legs wide apart to halt the inevitable.
I wish for so many seconds
that I was there to do something,
to show something,
some inkling of understanding through sarcastic grimaces.
To you, who will read this and play dead for flair,
may you call upon me from the imaginary casket when you get this.
Fore I do see that you could never leave like that.

I've payed my dues, so to speak, when it comes to being in your gestures and your manners and your rigid forms.
Now I believe is a time for movement,
for adjustment,
for freedom.
Since you have no sense of these terms,
I will ask you to pay full attention as I define them for you
in no uncertain language.

Movement is the outstretched arm towards another,
the subtle nuances of fingers upon hand,
or back
or lip;
the tiny twitches of a toe in beat also cleave themselves to this definition.

Adjustment is the shift between lines that adds to the complexity of a speech.
It is the new extra last minute bits of imagination introduced to a new dish,
or a conversation,
or in your case an institution.

Freedom, though it be plastered on every hall and shouted in the name of horrendous injustice,
is not what you have perceived it as.
You seem to be tricked by the simplicity of the word and have such lost its meaning.

Freedom is the gift that we are given by having the mind to interpret the sickness of this most insidious crime against humanity,
this marring of creativity,
this block of nonsense-
we receive via what you like to call 'Education'.

Sing softer to me,
Oh fading masterpiece of my own discrepancy.
Let the tremulous vowels resound furtively upon your delicate lips.
Fading swiftly we have only just begun to transcribe the messages underlying this fantastic fever.
So shiver with me in the cold of my own vacancy.
Trust that the smoke that escapes me now is only a product of my own frozen tyranny and that you are the foundation of this great work which I lay down my discrepancies upon;
the alter that I sacrifice my pride at.
These stone monoliths enclose my memories half-constructed,
the other a moiety of truth.

Stranger things occur to mock you darling in the subtle mornings of a rainbow's kiss.
I exist, only in this ever wanting,
I digress, into this mirror image of justification that we both missed on feelings outstretched.
Fading figments of ever-longing trepidation,
my love we are like the tears of the ocean;
over swept and baring no great elegance or depth.
Faster. Shall we traipse across the furrowed brows of our former keepers?
Or let lie the soft negligence of doubt?
Sinuous hopes, fears and phantoms play about the skirt of this magnificent oak that bares down upon us.
What of it's age and wisdom will it bestow upon our humble countenance?
Far be it me to describe such forbidden things.

Check your back pockets.
Did you check them? Because I think you might have left your mind in there.
Since you can't find it anymore, I've learned its always a good thing to check your back pockets-
before you wash yourself out.
Because maybe then your mind will end up being banged against loose change, wrapped and unwrapped in receipts and gum wrappers.

Just like mine was.
Now my whole worlds been dyed pink with confusion that bleeds through that one red sock of a mind of mine.

Don't be silly.
Don't obstinate.
Check those back pockets of yours.
You might find it befriending some lint in the left back pocket of some jeans left on the bathroom floor for the past week and a half.
Stuck there, having been kicked around by fumbling feet that ***** in the darkness at night;
Splashed with hot water and trampled on by moist feet fresh out of a scolding shower.
check them.
I'll wait.

Told you.

I'm taking a bath.
Scrubbing it off of me, if you wanted to know.
The dirt you left there.
The crevices crust-laden with guilt
and all that good stuff.

Steel-wooling it away from me.
To cleanse the deeper parts of me.
To scrape off every layer of dirt
you've encased me in.

'Til I see skin again.
The pinky swollen skin of mine,
that I lost when you buried me in soot and ash.
When you tarred and feathered me.
When you doused me in gasoline and set me ablaze.
When you mocked me by pouring flour over my head.

Once I've stopped scalding myself to sting away your leftovers.
Once I've ridden myself of every speck of you.
Then we can discuss-
if I 'had a good time'.

Time hasn't stood still here,
I have; stopped mid-step.
I'm a statue that gets climbed on by small children,
quicker moving than the eyes of their parents.
I am petrified
like wood in permafrost.
Forever here for thousands of years.
Trapped within this moment.
Always and forever about to commit some great crime,
or to do some beautiful act of kindness.
Always about to make a movement, but forever doing nothing.
I'm reaching towards something that has long escaped me.
Holding my hand out begging for it to return
for it to nestle itself into my hand without the need to lean closer or grasp it.
When will I learn the only thing left to collect while in this frozen state is bird crap?