I am a
plenipotentiary
of your heart
but not your tongue
Which whips
with shout
Inflicting
all this
doubt
--
Try not to see my glaring mistakes
when uncaring I am trumpeting arrogant aches.
--
I became lost in channels of the self and now-
I have smoothed out my spikes,
inverted my aversions, diluted my delusions-
I have incrementally expanded my positive mentality.
I am the Xenolith within the conglomerate
uncomfortable with chafing sand.
Displaying dependability with the straightening of back,
gone is lithe youth's unbecoming stand.

I shall trust inappropriately and love exponentially.
I shall treat you, The Stranger-
even stranger
like family.

She’s the daughter I never had,
All grown now, I am not her Dad.
All her childhood, I did not see
And yet, somehow, she seems like me.

She’s the daughter I never knew,
Only close to her a time or two.
Of my influence she's completely free,
And yet, somehow, she thinks like me.

But now I have a fleeting gift,
Of time with her to fill the rift.
Paths long parted finally blend,
I believe that she is now my friend.

Even if we had never met,
Her path to success has long been set.
She needs nothing that I have to give,
To live the life she is going to live.

And so, although I’ll never be a Dad,
I hope to provide what she has not had,
Shade underneath my family tree,
And a chance to know someone like me.

I despise names and
call them the false handle-
that they are.
A grip of pre-molded proportions,
framed in impertinent memory.
An acerbic peremptory command of character
stamped neatly at birth,
a great girth of foreshadowing
left pregnant by passing humanity. Crystallized now,
dutifully,
by the willful populace,
which we the children- bear in baleful ignorance.
You cannot help but have an altered perception and
unconsciously define,
as if,
a title was the crux of my character.

your cheeks rough
from          the                  cold when i brushed them
snow on Monday afternoons, and our numb fingers trying to
feel each other.

Listen closely and hear our collective vernacular in a state of constant mitosis.
Live and see our language begin to rival our own complexity.
A myriad of inter-connecting word highways with more twists,
turns and travelers than that of any physical road.
A body of thought massing in our collective conscious,
an infinite man-made addition to our finite physical reality.
Every addition is another color, another taste,
relative to the user in enunciation,
becoming ever less limited by geography.
Emotion attaches and tints the tone of individual words as we grow with age.
Without it enabling us to define ourselves, we are left ignorant and insular.
Memory accumulates casting a shadow and adds depth,
communication cultivating perception to leverage change in corporeality.
Pulsating slang spreading locally with fresh life to be globally colloquial.
A wordsmith may use this power to celebrate
or condemn their perception of reality,
more still- will wield words like plowshares
and escapism flourishes with such an expansive field
where all of humanity is brought out to play.


And sometimes-
for me,
it is just barely enough to grip a word with impunity.

Let’s go fly in my rocket ship
Out where the air is thin.
So I can learn all about the moon
And why the earth does spin.

And when we’re ready to take off
I hope there will be no delays
I’ve already got my white helmet on
And I’m wearing my favorite P.J.’s

I’m so glad you’re coming with me,
Rocket noises might make me scared
It seems this kind of adventure
Is one that’s better when shared.

We are flying out in space together
Past the Moon and out to Mars.
I am such a good “rememberer”
I won’t forget all of these stars.

I think that it’s time to fly back now,
To our Earth and it’s changing moon
I’m sleepy and I want to go to bed,
But I hope that we fly again soon.

For now I am just pretending
That I’m Space Girl Kailey May.
But I can do anything when I’m grown up,
On some bright and future day

flit over piano
keys, spin out something just for me, newly invented,
never spoken before
Not for me, but I will pretend as much
just so myself will be
satisfied, Play and watch me breathe and hitch
I will sit listless and listening as you
unknowingly
break me and make me with each slight motion of your wrists
a sickening, Lovely rhythm that I cannot close my ears to,
because you are too beautiful and so I am
drawn,
victim of lawless Delusions of love.

Here is some water for the dead tree,
Beauty I found in its imperfections.
A dark-haired girl appears and looks at me,
Seen in the tarnished water's reflection.

"How foolish," she scoffs, and narrows brown eyes.
"You're wasting time on this tree, it's hopeless."
I look up to the sorry, laughing sky,
Turning to her moonlit face. "I confess..."

"It's gone now, and though I shouldn't linger,
The living memory I can't betray."
She plucked a branch with delicate fingers
Carelessly dropped it, and then walked away.

Your tree creaks in empty winds. This is me,
Without you, watering a long-dead tree.

I strip you naked,
leave you firmly fixed to the spot
in the cold
encircled by a metal
fence.

You're rooted to that spot.
Without me, you'll never
leave
and with my cold metal devices
I will find the disease in you.
Driving it out
for fear it will reach the core.

--

You're curled inward,
dense limbs jumbled  
hindering my stare.
Arms overlapping,
heavy with dew
clinging to each blond hair.

I carve voluptuous curves
out of your jagged exterior,
slicing membrane cleanly.

My body is worn thoroughly
and I want so badly to stop,
wrists sore, plastic catching
anything I drop.

--

Everyday is aggravated
by the sweltering sun then
you're purple in the aging cold
and wilted you sleep half done
in the embrace of dark.

I worry in the morning
I will find you gone,

but I don't burn with it
rejoicing for you have no
tongue.

--

I have untied you piece by piece
from your wire and wood cradle,

and will with loving care
hang
you.