Three days to a week.
Twice a month or skip a month.
Day Two and I hurt.

I used to have a book, books,
that I scribbled in furiously
at work, at traffic lights
in the morning and at night
after I went to bed, I'd get up again
and bled upon a page
I'd be halfway through a shower
and I'd rush through top and toe
just to drip upon the page
so the feelings would not go away

now

I write mine freehand, in the dark
after my world has gone to sleep
I take another drink
and become part of all of me
I used to think carefully
about each syllable,
each carefully constructed line
but there is no time, no time left
for me to care what falls from my brain

I read everyday, every word said
I collect emotions of others wounds
and store them as prizes in my head
I love everyone you do, or, did
and I hate them for how they treated you
or, I did, until you forgave them
or, killed them in memory or,
flogged yourself stupid for their mistakes
I get it, you write what I've lived

I draw on memories that aren't mine
Emotions I've never allowed to cut deep
Promises that were left unspoken
and crossroads where we would never meet

Hence the darkness needed to write
because I'm afraid of the shadows
that seem to hide in the light
In the dark I can pretend to be alone
Just my drink, and my dog
which occasionally likes to sit on me
and I can pretend I mean something
to just anyone, kissing emotional lips
with a passion of memories
I don't seem to own

She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother's car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls'—
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she'll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there'll be silence.
She'll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on ...
All day she'll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machines—
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach
in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.

If I had robotic arms... Man, a lot of **** would go down differently.

i sexually identify as the 28 degree january breeze sneaking through your cracked window at 5am

one time a school of fish said to me, "everything will be fine. we promise. just hang around longer."

it was mid-june, i believed them

one time i tweeted, "you have so much undiscovered depth. you are an ocean,"
referring to my gay friend who is known for being sassy and, well, gay
and not for what he really is
or what he's worth

anyway, someone replied to it
"you're a cork in the ocean"
and to this day i still think about what the **** that even means
but its poetic sounding and i like it
i guess

we are all the **** of a great cosmic joke
and i am not me anymore
i'm a hurricane aftermath
it swept away all the worth i had left
and here i am,
incompletely resolute

my favourite shade of orange is the one leaves turn before they commit suicide and if that doesn't say something about my personality then i don't know what does

all i'm trying to say is that
the grass is green for a reason and it turns brown and ugly sometimes but it always goes back to how it was before and i need you to promise me that you'll hold on

Ole used to like
the He-Man
TV cartoon series
and would enact

the main character
about the house
and stairs
and sofa

with a toy sword
tucked in the back
of his shirt
then one day

I took him
to the cinema
to see
the big screen

film version
of He-Man
with loud
booming voices

and music
and the bad guys
looking gruesome
and so on

and he began to say
he needed the crapper
and so off we went
outside and along

to the men's crapper
then back again
and sat down
to watch the film

then after a while
he would say
he wanted
the crapper again

and so off we went
and back again
and so after
the fourth visit

I said
do you want
to go home?
he nodded

in his own unique way
and off we went home
him silent
and me wondering

and knowing
that he'd been scared
but not wanting
to admit to it

he feigned the need
for the crapper
not knowing I knew
but I kept

his street cred
and smiled
down at him
and never said.