I won't understand why
saving a thought or an
inspiration for myself
causes it to be all the more vibrant and I
live vicariously through what people
would think of me if they knew
my secret.

A nod of the head, a twist of the wrist and

jumping back in fright of
what you'll do
next.

I'm cracking under
no pressure just
pleasure and I'm feeling part-
icularly bold this afternoon, sitting
on my sofa in my den in my
by-all-means-I-do-matter life!

I'm loving the sunlight coming through that
window and thinking how much I'd like
to be part of it, to go up in flames and give someone
else a chance to sit comfortably in my
blazing glory..


I think maybe I need to step everything up a notch.
I'm not very good at math.
Perhaps I could do that.

I miss that stupid ache of
                                                     it.
I miss what you  
                                                 used to
THINK
                                                  of me.


I miss anything that made me think
of anything that relates to
this thing
we had.

LOVERS
is that what we were?

Or were we just floating
in our own excrement and
stuff like

drugs and drinking and
you saying to me,
"STOP
all this nonsense and
GIVE me anything to
go
on."

I'd give you looks and you'd throw
me words that I ate,
no questions
asked.
                      

I miss the ache,
                                                        I do.
I miss things that
                                                I used to have,
YES, I miss you
                                                        too.


But somewhere in there
I lost that unchain-able        
                                            ­          WANT
and
                                              ­       DESIRE


for
you.

I feel like all the time I have this
feeling of being under
cover (keep me warm)

Heavy-duty
winter covers with the
cigarette burns from fifth grade
and the smell of *** forever
ingrained from high school.

It's the kind of night where I can't
breathe because of this smothering mother
of a blanket, and if I venture from my fortress
I'll surely be bitten
by the outside,

I'll surely
be (keep me
warm) bitten
in this

cold.

I'm so cold. You have no idea.
I'm sitting in the swells of my own mind,
thinking about how I'm thinking about how I got to thinking about you again.


This can't be healthy.
I have a bruise that's spreading from my chest to the rest of my body,
and for that, I'm being punished. Because it's my fault
my body tells me,


it's my fault for letting my mind meander through the desolate halls,
where the walls are lined with grease-marks from oily human hands,
with each individual swirl of the person ingrained in every one of those brown stains.


And it's my fault for not knowing what my stain is, what an individual is.
Perhaps I have yet to "possess myself", in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson.


But I can't think about me without thinking about you.
I can't think about you without thinking about everything else that left a stain.

Today, though it is warm
I can smell the
bitter *****
that winter
is.

If you hold her
for the allotted time of
20 seconds

it is enough time for
a masterpiece to be finished
a pair of pants mended
a riot to ensue and  

for the endorphins in her brain
to be released and she'll forget
whatever it was

she was yelling
about.

oh
yes

work your way
into my arms, love,
work your way into
my hands, work
your hands into
mine, love,
into

mine.

I feel as if I lost this gigantic piece of myself in the storm drain,
sifting through gunk and garbarge you can see an enormous
chunk of skin and self left over.

It's been cut from my side and from some of my head,
and the odd thing is, if I remember correctly, I was the on holding the axe.
A small little axe like the one everyone has hidden in
their pockets and their backpacks and for the creative ones,
on their chests.

I feel as if..I lost what I lost because I'd decided to keep it,
and when decisions are made,
others are still straddling the line
and every decision affects the other.
So. I had fifty decisions
and only one that I could see clearly enough to
work out an outline that made some sense and
had some flair.

And the hole in my head has grown teeth and lips and a tongue and it's screaming,
"Make me younger!
Make me younger!"
in a voice that seems all too familiar.

My mother's voice,
my father's voice

But awakened from reality, it's not so hard to realize that
smaller things are versions of larger.



I have smaller fish to fry, though.
I have something to gain.

tonight is speaking in some strange tongue that I can't
quite make out while you're standing and staring at
my neck with your 'a heck of a lot' of hair and my
scalp, practically visible beneath the
moon at the moment, I can feel something slide
inside myself and though I have yet to 'click'
the sound will come from you, I feel,
with you, I feel
with you.

I'm thinking that I'm
(until then) thinking

I'm thinking that I'm
finally thinking (again) about
something
other than
you
(again and)
again

I'm finding that
I am not (until then) you and
we are not part of
us (again)

And again,
(again again)
you will speak to me
and we
will be

(until then)friends.

Big TALK

                                         Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk
                                          is all you ever did, sweetheart

talk and talk and talk

                                                 not once did you
                                          think of what your words
                                                    were doing
to me

                                                   that you were
                                                     changing
me,

                                                   ­   that I
                                                    believed
them.

--------------------------

I don't have myself
                           any
                             more

no strength
or energy to
write
this
     any
        more.


I can't            hate you.
I can't            love you.
I don't           have you to hate,
I don't           have you to love,

I don't
have you
at all

------------------------

I don't want this,
I don't want
all of
this


hurt.

you make me (the happiest
because
     you
       make
             me)
so
  very



sad.

I'm very afraid that
one day I'll wake and
find myself
as smug as can be
sitting in a pile
of my
own
mistakes,
of my own
regrets,
holding them over
everyone's heads


like you do
to me.

I thought that maybe the freeze-frames of you breathing, me breathing you and our breath hanging in the cold air, mingling like two school girls
would slip away,
like everything



and while we are quietly humming, we secretly are wishing
that the other would start dancing so that the night won't be wasted

but what we aren't aware of won't hurt us, will it?

If there really is a point where
everything
stops being
funny,
I sincerely hope that I
never
reach it.

One can't stop oneself from wondering.
At least I can't, or won't.



I see one singular thing while I feel everyone else is seeing everything in
panoramic vision.

and I focus on that one thing for about sixty seconds,
long enough for babies to be born and countries destroyed and I
have nothing to do with any of it.






You use the word 'beautiful' too often
and whatever it is that was
isn't anymore.

You say you love someone too often
and they don't anymore.

I have a theory that is the reason behind language always changing and rearranging:
and if we didn't change
things would be the same and we'd die
of boredom and
lack of interest etc..

I looked too far to the left and
it hurt my head to see that
I couldn't easily see
past my own
proximity
past your head and
past my own
past.

----------------------------------------------------------------­----------
I passed by a little old lady
and her grocery bags, heavy,
passing out fliers for a cause
too
heavy
for
me.

----------------------------------------------------------------­--------
The ads on tv speak
of cancer and her trip up the creek with
eyes that said
she never got to see
the sea, not even
in her sleep.

You kept trying
to make me
'see'
but I assure you, I
have 20/20 vision
without your specs
and I
can
see
exactly what you can.

So you tried to make me
'under
stand'

Always standing a tad taller,
just a
bit,
barely noticeable
but an eye-strain
away.

But I reached my arms
above
my head and
fooled you
into thinking
that I am as tall
as I wish I was.

Your point of
view is
a bullet
and mine
is
the
gun.

My eyes are falling
asleep for me,
and my brain has decided to buzz
and keep on
buzzing buzzing
bursting!
and then softly humming
back
to me.

I'm wandering and I wonder if
the wandering should
cease
so I can wonder a
little
longer.

There's no one here to
distract
any part
of me.

So, I am not
lonely, I am
alone.

There is a
difference, my friend and
you
can take that
to the
bank.

Ideas ideas
and running
here, there
now
now
before it's
too
late!

And I get delayed
by people traffic,
car traffic
mind traffic

Buzzing by
bursting through
doors
car doors
front doors
back doors
out
bedroom doors
and in
to
meet
your
maker.
Who just so happens
to have an appointment
at two o'clock,
so
we have to
make this
speedy.

I said 'best'
and then I realized.
I
lied.

You have never been
my 'best'
And you have never been your
'best'
You have been
and will keep on being
what you always were

a fair-
weather
friend.

I love
loving someone
on a day
like this one.

I take a picture in my head of,
you wearing blue, your dark features
contrast the light and
you look like you did in that picture
on your mother's wall
of a boy all wet from swimming and happy from living

I can say from the weight of things,
the way your hair has grown and
so have I,
the color of the clouds
that we stumble upon and
the knowing glances that elderly couple in the next booth gave us..

Today was a beautiful day.

I am as still as a rabbit who has been seen.

The exception is my heart,
leaping from the confines of my chest,
up and out into sky and birds
and my thoughts are left in my bed
while I am tugged along by my heart-strings..

If you are to spend a day alone,
what better way than to spend it in the clouds?

That looks
like
violence,
but he wears it so
proudly and
I find I like the way
his hips
swing
almost like he has a
purpose when
everyone else has lost
or not yet found
theirs.

I feel as if

maybe
as if

yes yes
as if

I need
to make
deci-
sive
deci-
sions

and re-
vise them

be
fore I
die
for

them.