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He downloads an app
"how to please a woman"
it's all ******* and rutting...

nowhere does it say
*"make a brew now and then"
I fell of a pavement curb once. 
I was a tightrope walker with an audience of thousands;
I could smell damp straw and hear the gasps as I lost my footing.  
Girls threw their hands to their faces
and relinquished their eyesight to their boyfriend’s shoulders,
who took the opportunity for a shifty *****.  
My chin split and the blood didn’t show up on the red dress
but the audience had gone.

I can still put my finger in the hole, see?  
Even now, 30 years later.  
The tip of my index finger goes right down to the bone,
missing muscular structure,
and it makes me think of a skull with a cleft chin,
kinda how Kirk Douglas will look given a few years of grave time.  
If I wiggle the finger in a circular motion it makes me wince,
something about gristle, gristle makes me wince,
even the word, a sensation of chewing wool.  

It was never fixed.  
My jaw clicks on the right side and, just this one time,
I yawned and couldn’t shut my mouth.  
Blind panic lassoed my heart and yanked it into my throat,
perhaps it was even visible.  
The longest 10 seconds of my life in which I spent a night in hospital,
sat up in bed, howling through my wide open gob.  
How would I drink tea?  
I don’t yawn properly now, I do little demi-yawns,
too terrified of the consequences of Open Gob.  
How would I smoke? 

I used to wonder why it was never fixed.  
Why wasn’t I taken to hospital
and given stitches and x-rays and pain killers? 
I worked that out when I was older.  
It could easily have been a fist.
when he touches you is it like gold?
eyes like prying words
scalpel,
tweezers.


******* look at me when we're talking,
like the soft skin of my back
and the orange marks you drew with a gun
back when we thought it was safe.
everything was safe.
cigarettes were safe.
it doesn't make sense.

they take longer drags than they should,
but their fingers are longer.
it makes sense.

you play this instrument
so that you can tell me the things you can't express with words.
you cannot make a sound yet
you have no feelings.
it's mixy
it's a     w    or
d.

you'll just have to trust me on this one.
no matter how tired you are.
The wind used to carry your whispers to me
gently,
lifting them from your distanced lips,
carrying them to my distanced ears.
The wind loved our delicate romance
and would do any favor
simply to hear
your next beautiful dance of words,
or to watch me smile,
heart melting,
at your whispered adoration.

But now it is restless, itchy summer
and though the wind rarely blows past
my ears,
I know your words drift slowly to me,
floating,
lingering,
whispering:
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
You were the only one who held my stares,
your eyes were moons
invisibly courting me, sleeping next to me,
whispering to me gently as soft as you were.
I was not soft,
but angry and calloused and alone.

I cradled you each night as if you were ice cream,
or pills
or anything to take the pain away.
You were warm and solid and alive,
but I wasted it;
went out buying lemons and mouse traps
until I could figure out what I really needed.

All you had to do was sit with me,
watch me,
play with me,
nap with me,
to teach me how to live.

But it wasn't until you were gone
that I knew I was in love.
Wrap a scarf about your hairy neck,
something fur—something warm.
Drive an iceberg,
but don’t fall asleep at the wheel
(that is far too typical).

Follow the red dots lining the edge of the sky,
they will lead you to the drop-off
so you won’t be late for school
or work.
But leave time for coffee,
and always ***.

Listen to talk radio,
it will keep you in good humor
make your hair grow longer
fix your handwriting.
It is always important to listen with only one ear,
for you never know when God will speak.

Limit yourself to one meal a day.
You will shrink, sprout wings,
like the taste of beetles.
Remember the name of your grandmother, though,
it will be the password.

If your hair is long enough,
untie it and let it become a river.
It will stretch for miles
and you will never want for water,
but you might miss the stars
so watch closely, they like to play tricks.

Paint the trees blue;
they have never been that color.
And wash your hands—
the fine is hefty for changing things too much.
People become confused
and get lost when they do not recognize their own driveway.

When you arrive, present your passport,
show the whites of your eyes—
it is the only way to prove that you’re real.
You will melt and fall silent
your hands will become blue
(don’t worry, you are safe here).
No one will speak to you if you remember your ancestors.

Soon, you’ll reach the edge of the world.
Take off your shoes and drop them first.
Make your presence known
it is good to be small and silent,
that way, when you jump from the crumbling cliff of Earth
and you fly,
everyone will think you fell.
Dry tongues make for slow lies,
you prefer to use yours for kissing.
I can feel morsels of clam
between my nails, beneath the skin
but never touching—
that's impossible.

the time that counted your whiskers is still ticking,
and I am beginning to think you lied about being a cat
all I hear are dance beats in my shower.

it's not working any more to be red than it is to be any other color.
I'd gladly paint you
I'd gladly tell you exactly what you don't want to hear
even though it's not something I'm particularly good at
(it takes practice)
like ****** ******* with someone you don't love
or laying still.

there are people like you with ***** gym socks, who kiss their friends' older brothers,
who are always too late, who love something separate, who are small,
who forget to feed their cats,
who never say sorry,
who never say excuse me,
who never eat,
who never breathe,
who never remember.

tell those people for me:
if there is a time where no speech is readily available,
speak of something sad, or something incorrect.
ears are never ready to hear something they don't want to
they build up immunity
like blood cells,
but not really.

I must say, your skin looks nice when you lie,
we do like all the same things,
and have all the same mannerisms,
you are handsome,
I am gentile,
we are alone.
use six words.

I will gladly paint you any color,
as long as you supply the paint.
I followed your footprints for nearly three miles
before I realized what I'd forgotten, and by then I was three miles away.
It was neat, clean, and all in order,
but that didn't make it any less wrong;
you know all I want to feel is right.

I keep having this feeling that you love me, but you're afraid to say it.
It's almost enough to make me free,
and I've been liberated before, but not the way I am now.
Everything's new at this point, which puts you in a different section of my life,
and my heart.
I still wish you wouldn't change who you are
just because I've changed who I am.

It's that moment of seeing something you never saw before,
or the second where you know your hand fits perfectly into his;
the way you sound when you sing,
or look when you dance,
or feel when you cry from happiness,
or eat a something you made yourself,
or clean your room,
or shower,
or fall in love.

The light coming through my window streaks the ***** floor,
but there's something in the floating dust
and the garbage on the carpet
that is infinitely
beautiful.
She leaned in close to me
and She whispered, "there is no secret"
but I turned away,
and I held my hands closer than love.

She leaned in so close to me
that our noses pressed against glass,
and She held my cheekbones in the curve of Her thumb
until I was light
and pulsing
"there is no secret." She told me
again
again
still I did not believe Her.

She held me closer
until we were bone against bone, our flesh
unbuttoned and heaped on the floor.
but I turned away, bones clattering
we were just two skeletons in a closet, and I yearned for Her
"but there is no secret" she would tell me,
so I closed my eyes and wept, waiting only
for a simple answer.

“there is no secret”
She hummed to my cold, solid tears
Her thumbs held where my cheekbones had been,
eyes gleaming with my emotion,
“look at yourself.”

in a dark, cluttered room where nothing shone before,
Her fingertips glowed,
and I felt myself
covered in feelings I distantly recognized.
She unbuttoned my shell and laid it
on the floor next to my skin and bones
smiling, She said “there is no secret”
and I held Her, nose pressed against glass
nose pressed against nose
nose
nothing.
 Sep 2010 Lee Turpin
RIGAAL
outside my door
underneath the porch light

dozens of beetles
lay on their backs
          reaching for the sky
& i wonder
what gives them
the will to live?

because
          when i feel like a beetle
-all crippled and hung
         over by ***** and emotion

i dont struggle to get back up
on my feet

i just lay there
          waiting.
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