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?

You're spitting blood at me instead of words,
grasping onto clothing,
retching onto your knees,
pleading,
begging,
stupid.
I'm simply kicking the chair from underneath you,
you strung yourself up.
Consider it the lesson of your life,
and the end of it.

I feel that old twinge of bitterness creeping up again from the shadows.
I almost don't recognize the pattering footsteps of the old fiend.
never the less, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and my eyes glaze over.
Next thing you know I'm foaming at the mouth speaking gibberish in-between nips at your ankles.
Ah! the familiar pang of imaginary injustices,
piling up and filing in to rows of sentences without pauses.
Oh what a wonderful feeling is that of the raw ball of hate caught in the throat!
Venom drips from the fangs hidden in nonchalant inquisitions.
Tread carefully for I lay in brush of amber straws waiting for the perfect time to lunge.
Needless to say, I did not seek out the dog that teethed upon me. Nevertheless, I've become unforgiving and rabid.

Every time it happens she can feel it breaking off,
branching out and reforming.
Every time she utters a word,
she is walking down a new path constructed a millisecond before she steps.
She is choosing her realities with no particular discrimination.
It isn't that she wafts through the wind without care,
it is that she calculatedly assembles her existence but fails at being an active member in it's design.
She could be,
though in doing so she would doom herself to a path of bland ever-constant introspection and would have to forgo living life altogether.
A billion or so versions of her move in unison so perfectly that even the most scrupulous judge would not find fault in her chorus lines.
However there is always something amiss,
even if it be nothing more than a hair they are all separate and un-touching.
Which of these 'perfect' copies is the 'real' one is an utter mystery.
I think it is safe to say that they are all the 'real' ones,
what is important here is the particular one.
There are trillions of paths that hold her,
but not quite the her that we are speaking of now;
not the her that moves her pencil to the left in such a way as to create a stray mark on the paper;
not the her that wrote this.

And then you say, "All we are is dust in the wind."
Little specks,
enumerable and miniscule,
grains of the infinitesimal,
listless,
pointless,
directionless,
fading dreams of nothing.
Well, I say "Thank God, I love the prospect,
there is freedom in being nothing."
Why are you so displeased with this conclusion?
Is it that the contention you wrought is dispersed by my contentment?
We'll let it drift then on the wings of some updraft on it's way to God.
invisible to the naked eye,
just as you and I shall drift thoughtlessly into the atmosphere.
Little particles of dust fading into nothing and immeasurably free.

I'm leaning on a stand for support of something or other,
he's putting the mic closer to the speakers;
feedback.
It's a response to questions I was caught screaming towards the back wall,
only to hear them break at the far-end over the tops of 'them'.
Vibrations making my skin tremble,
in fear,
in repose,
in envy,
of those whose lights shine brighter than mine do.
In this dark secluded resting place of weary alcoholics and cheap lays,
who am I trying to impress but the bartender who gives shoddy looks through ***** glasses.
She's squiggling on the floor and I doubt she even knows why,
but he can dig it.
Nobody gives a **** what's playing as long as they hear it.
So I have them hear it,
they have them feel it
and we go on like this for forty-five minutes.
They're grateful,
but their drunk so that's not saying much.
This is all the fantasy I psych myself up for,
I'm projecting.

I'm laying in the ruins of my own new lifestyle.
Tipped over bottles of ***** aside,
I still feel okay.
I wonder if the world's crusted over pedestals still condescend to me
or if I have gone beyond their gaze.
There are little plastic fairy tales dancing around in my head like tipsy gumdrops.
What wonders shall spring from this:
(the new day,
the old day,
the ever increasingly frequented day)
except hangovers and light thoughts about how I'm handling this well,
I'm handling this extremely well.
Again.
I still feel okay as long as there is 80 proof to wake up to.

Everyone is up to their knees in **** talk,
They all word ***** in mass.
So I sit back and I watch them eat each other,
whilst falling over themselves.
It's something akin to the end of days.
Revelations revealed in all it's gory details.
I'm just waiting for the ravens to pluck out their eyes.
It's ravenous and disgusting the way they drool at the scent of blood.
It sickens me the way they tear at their own flesh.
They're so consumed with blood-lust and so attached to their own need to feed that they lost track of where their skin ends and their prey's begins.

Cry me a river.
Douse me in the irony of conflict.
I'm just a rock on the edge of it,
sitting patiently for your sigh.
We both sit idly by, tensed for the precious birth of words in silence. Trust the ever-living body of guilt that is boiling over the edges of my self-concept.
Don't speak to me as if I'm some dignitary for justice, but simply as if I might irk out some monochrome of truth whilst I sip my coffee in exasperation.
Irritation is also intoxication might I remind,
so I'm fumbling and tripping over my own flawed reasoning.
I got to this point somehow,
so let us examine it rationally and see why I drowned in the liquor of my own rhetoric.
Or, we can sit tentatively vacant waiting for some resolution to spring from the ether that is the growing chasm between us.

Everything's closed down.
It's like I could feel the 7-11's halogen lights flickering off and everybody shut the **** up for long enough for me to feel the silence.
For once, it was as if somebody gave respect for all the dead in all the countries at all times for all reasons.
You didn't have to be well known or do anything exceptional
you were counted, even though you weren't conscious to revel in it.
I think when I die I'll be my own moment of silence.

Let's live just long enough to fear the compassionate desires of our ancestors.
Trust that no one save for the testimonials of strangers can save you from the 'coming evil'
To this end, we shall salute our own graciousness in response to someone else's hard work;
Make up a story filled with woe and peacemaker rallies depicting those formidable glory days.
Suffer no one but fools.
You know,
Fore you are wise and we shall all know someday what is to others like you obvious;
that everyone is blind but you.
There is a glazing in the eyes of a once mistress,
fallen over a reclining chair grasping at dusty bones.
This is what is left of the great ending,
nothing to clean up after, save for spittle looming over a coffee table.
The nightmare returns to me in a simple waning smile
and a sweet, but bitter to only me phrase:
"let's grow old together"

I'm so easily losing my mind
as if it wanted to leave me.
my mind wanders off.
drops to the floor unnoticed
and rolls under the couch
co-mingling with the change that fell out of my pants.

rescinding messages of longing and lust
cast off to the wind like a broken record
skittering, twisting down the street in early morn'
your laying to rest your tired conscience on me
like one of those lovers in a movie theater
brushed off like salt on a shoulder
twirled like a young girls hair mid flirtation giggle
i think we're dancing in the streets now
scuffing shoes against concrete
mind-melding as we soft shoe across the yellow lines
i'm kicking you to the curb
like a rock into a gutter
your blowing through me like a chilled breeze
shuffling past me hurriedly to another time
like a scarf mid swing o're a cold shoulder
i turn 'round swiftly to meet you
dizzily.

What would happen if everything just suddenly stopped.
Like the world literally did stop turning.
At the speed were going we'd all fling off in one swift defining motion.
all the CEOs
all the kindergartners
all the bus boys.
Flung off like a towel
In one passionate revealing motion.
Then I suppose the world would be naked again,
Like the day it was born.

But that's just morbid so I digress.

I want to be thrown-
def dumb and blind into your arms
So I can feel
what you really have to say.
It's only when I close my eyes and drowned out the words inside my head
that I see-
the way I am and who I really want to be

A drop in the ocean
metaphorically
speaking.
A needle in a haystack
we are searching
for meaning.
A feather in your cap
I adorn you with my attributes.
A trinket you collect
to be posted on your wall.

I want to be tossed
aside
with your other castaways.
It's only when I crash into the median
going 90
that I-
really get to see,
I mean,
really get to be
who I-
really,
truly, have to be.

A drop in the ocean
metaphorically
speaking.
A needle in a haystack
we are searching
for meaning.
A feather in your cap;
I adorn you with my attributes.
A trinket you collect
to be posted on your wall.

There's a swelter, a stickiness to life as of late.
Syrupy.
Its as if I've been coated in a thin layer of substance.
Sweat maybe.
Salty and inescapable.
I wake up drenched in it.
The smell of ripeness.
The clinging of clothing.
The desperate need to disrobe and cleanse
Only to be swallowed up again by this heat,
This permeating throbbing heat that surrounds me.
That sticks to every surface.
That claims to be more me than I am.
I'm shocking myself in ice cold water
Scrubbing it off of me,
But in a few moments past now it will return.
Thick and imposing...
So I wait for nightfall when it gets colder and I can rest again.

Oh ****, I’ve found myself.
Lurking behind something.
Covered in balloons and discarded afro-picks.
Funny out of all the places to find me I never thought it would be in the remains of an ill fated trip to buying ***** at a CVS
or while contemplating why I haven’t thrown away empty soda cans.
So be it then I suppose, I kind of missed her.
My dog looks at me like she’s pleasantly surprised about the whole ordeal;
knowing **** well I’m putting her back in the box once I’m done here.
Once I’m done cleaning up the party favors.
Still I must say, I missed you chick,
it’s been awhile.
Thanks for sticking around even though I keep you locked away places and then forget where I put you.
That’s gotta take a level of effort I can’t reproduce.
Paradoxically.

Listen.
I like you.
I’d like to keep you,
In a little box and blow smoke over you.
Hold you in my arms,
So you can’t move around freely.
I want to look deep into your eyes
And assume horrible things about your character
Listen,
To everything I say.
Because I like you so much
I can’t help but smother you;
In kisses, in grudges, in rules.
Call me some very specific time.

Ah, transactions.
Collect your free tote bag when you buy three
From our new spastic collection
Smell them,
Taste them,
Free samples for all
I bought three just the other week
Fantastic value really
A fair decent bang for your buck

That time.
It’s come ‘round again;
Reared its self to meet me.
Staring me down like a gazelle.
What I wouldn’t give for one more cup of tea,
One more glance to the left or right depending.
One more sinister smirk at another's expense to be wafted forward
With some sad regress or another in response.
Not now,
Not when it was getting all intense and fearless.
Don’t cut me off,
Give me another ounce of this.
Whatever this is.
I won’t ask questions,
I won’t move.
I’ll partake in silence.
Just give it to me for an evening more.
But there it is in front of me,
Bearing down on me,
Leaning into me,
Expectant.

I want to kiss you right on the mouth and tell you lovely things about yourself,
Just so you might deny me,
Just so you might say ‘no thank you darling I just changed’.
Just so that you might be the man in this situation that we have going on here.
This little awkward dance we seem to be doing between commitments and running.
How empowering would it be for you if I were to say ‘I like you more’
So that you might respectfully decline it.
I would like to give you that as a gift,
an offering to turn down.

Hello there old… friend
It’s nice to see you again

I suppose it’s been.. years

But I can’t help noticing you’re there and I’m here
As timeless as anything ever been put in one of those mason jars.

It’s strange to be a product of an age
Or how nothing’s really changed
You still, you
And I unabashedly I

And I love how there’s no forgiveness needed after all this time
For what would we have to say?
What do we have to say?
Here, now, in this quasi reminiscent place?
Nothing but pleasant ‘hello’s and ‘how was your days’

Still it’s comforting to know that there you are

The proof that they hide in pudding.