Her little toes splashed in the puddle
Her eyelids fluttered and she pursed her lips
She'd formed a smile, and it's all I remember now

It was just a walk in the rain, she was my clumsy cousin
Whose little stubby hand wrapped around my thumb
Was the only thing that kept her walking, but she
Was everyone's sunshine, now

Raindrops falling on that marble necklace of hers
Crashing, splashing...they bounced up and down, her brown curls
For she knew not how to stay still, even though she knew
Not how to stand straight

And she knew not what beauty was, skin deep
And she knew not what love was, betrayal
And she knew not what fear was, killing

It was like the chocolate on her tongue
And the whiskey on mine, for

While I'd been burned, she'd never seen the fire
While I'd been scarred, she'd never seen the blades
While I'd been scared, she'd never seen but the light

All she knew was that if she cries long enough, she
Will get what she wants...she got what she wanted, now

When she smiled, she was loved
When she cried, she was loved
When she laughed she was loved
When she shouted, she was loved
When she walked, she was loved
When she talked, she was loved

It's funny how age shatters
The innocence to these things
The memories of my childhood,
Burn deeper than ever now

But yesterday never becomes today,
Today just turns to, tomorrow
And I've become a bad memory
To my own self now.

A girl sat alone,
Counting the raindrops
To occupy her mind.
Hungry, but too pensive
To do anything about it.

On the windowsill,
She saw two little ants,
But not as she had seen them before.

One of the ants was carrying the other
Across the trickles of water.
Where they were going,
Only the pair knew.

She pondered what must be so great,
That the one ant should ford
Sprawling, frigid rivers
With another on its back.

It would have been easy to smash them,
To free them from their struggle,
But her hands wouldn't move.

She looked closer, and realized
That the ant on top was dead.
The carrier crawled along, unfazed.

She stood up and walked to the kitchen.

You and I
You
And
I

- I
Could drown myself in melted polar ice caps, or illusions of Niagara Falls (or does it?)
Could join a nudist colony
Could dismember my body parts 'recreationally'
Could (or will) document my own downward spiral/lay eggs in vast and immeasurable labyrinths/where the paradox of my self-pity mingles with my bragging/swaggering teen angst and date!-mate!-procreate!- into a thousand descendants of my rotting fleshhhhhh

- You
Present yourself in -
Hallways rambling in front of me with asylums spilling into corridors of confusion
Rrrrrrriiipppp of either paper pulling from notebooks or flesh pulling from bone
Virtual college applications tabbed over with two different Buy Your Own Russian Wife! websites and ignored by your -loving parents-
An arrogant 18-year-old boy standing before the Committee of Elders (pleading insanity)
Twenty-four permanent markers with generic names
The pseudo-poetic lure of "Call _ For a GOOD TIME" graffitis on the bathroom wall of a Whole Foods you spend six weeks jacking off in

- Look, that's great and all, but
I think you are a (beanstalk), no time to (talk), less of a (walk) and more of a climb - to reach your face, and when I lean to kiss it (fee fi fo fum) I smell the blood of a human one

(I'm tired of stooping and I'm tired of looking at old people)

You
And
I
Could have Been Anyone!
But no,
Just more of the same.

Trotting along,
Narrow dusty trails,
Under a black sky,
It's not like the city,
The stars don't illuminate the cold, empty dessert,
Here they just forsake you.
Lantern hitched to saddle,
All it means is you can't see more than three feet ahead of yourself,
Just deep, pitch black, inescapable darkness.
Praying for safe passage,
Armed for knowing better,
It's not fear of the dark, of course,
It's the fear of not knowing what lingers in it,
Coyotes, wolves, maybe a mountain lion,
None of 'em compare to bandits,
It's reminiscent of Twain,
Nothing like a coward using the dark to his advantage.
Red on the horizon,
Anxiety begins to sink as peach seeps into the sky,
Survived the night,
Hope to survive another,
Under a black sky

The word rose is so beautiful.
So striking.
Literally.

The rose and its thorn.
It ****** the edges of your heart.
No choice but to love.

(December 2012)