When I was young my mother painted the ceiling with every color there was.
She made the falling stucco and sealant into clouds and rainbows and horses;
horses of blue and purple and green.
One time I left my room and stared all night at the stars,
they were so much more vivid.
You couldn't deny their presence,
they were like little beings coming straight toward you.
Didn't need to look up, you could stare straight forward out of the window and it's like they were looking at you too.
But cautious, they never came close enough for me to grab them and trap them in my hand like a rolli-polly.
There were fireflies that loved to gather like tiny self supporting oil lamps by the tree next to our house.
They would swim around me because they knew they were far too clever for me.
There were toadstools that I would kick out of principal and river rocks that were never smooth enough for the current hadn't the will.
Caves where the ivy would circle for no reason but to give me the best hiding place of all time.
We ate snow that one time, when it had snowed for the one time it would in 7 years.
There was a single stoplight in a square of one tiny block where I would get dizzy riding my bike.
Then the Crawfords would let me ride their horse.
That's where I got stung by a bee for the first time and I fell on the red dirt road and cried and cried.
One time a tornado almost swallowed me whole while my trailer baby-sitter wasn't looking.
I remember asking with all sincerity for the third time how to spell cat.
Lolly-pops adorned the daycare where I watched trolls singing Kokomo.
These are all the good things I can remember,
so I cherish them.

frailty
in beauty, as if that was the way it was supposed to be.
with hollow bones, like sparrows, just a stones throw away
if she was wicker, someone paid a hefty price.
and the bed sheets smelled twice laundered.
thin and devoid of meaning.
such a silly thing,
that moved like wind and breath would sway her
willow tree, that one
bent over in eternal weakness
like a daisy, wilting
but how she lorded over all the thoughts of men like a sovereign

For the record, I suppose it should be stated I lost my soul in Vegas.
I would love to go back there and find it among those glittering lights and buffet tables of never-ending artful desserts.
It's funny that all I really remember are those pretty desserts and fried mashed potatoes.
I want those things back.

I'm like a raver with those lights.
I want to consume them.
I want to glow in my pores.
Not the cliched glow that wraps itself around the impregnated many,
but the glow that comes from sitting next to neon for too long.
That it could somehow stain you.
Rub off like fairy dust on skin.
That I could fly away due to its energy or wishful thinking.

Take me back to Vegas,
where they still hand that out for free by the boatload.
I need not gamble.
I need not glad-hand.
I would simply sit idly by the buzzing of pinks and blues and greens and reds.
And me and those cheap 1920's lights will have a moment,
a moment I can share with the cocktail waitress who asks me for the third time if I'm sure I don't need a little refresher drink.

Making new frames out of broken china,
the walls came crumbling down.
Out of new frames I make the greatest picture the world has ever found.
Of all the licks of orange,
the fabric torn,
the world and all it's sounds;
it would be you,
you and a box of matches to burn the whole thing down.
The whole thing down.

Fix me up a fine web to die in.
If you don't mind.
If it's not too much trouble.
Can you just hit me upside of the head a few times
until I forget where I am or what I was doing?
Shoot me in the face if you like.
If you find it prudent to do so,
dump me in an alleyway and leave me for dead.
Because I can't stand being stared at and waiting.

Broken boys make broken girls
who break the pavement down the road.
And all who follow best beware to tread quite lightly, tread with care.
Because broken girls make broken men,
who fall head first and break their shins.
With broken bones and broken hearts
and broken pathways from the start.

If she stands,
legs wide apart,
holding your broken soul in her hands.
Maybe she wants to grasp something greater than herself.
But what holding does is little,
and your fates are not suddenly transferred to those bones.
And if carpal tunnel should cause her to drop it,
or if her hands should simply grow tired of the weight and relax after some time,
where is the blame rested?
Whose hand do we place that in?
and in this ever exchange of weights and balancing acts,
when does anyone get to waive goodbye;
hands heavy with guilt and promise.