They stood proudly above the tall horizon.
Strong gusts of wind were second nature to them.
But when targeted, they didn’t stand a chance.
Cries for help erupted from their windows
And smoke billowed gray and thick
Higher and higher into the stratosphere.
While death cascades one atop another,
Life continues in my fourth grade classroom.
I tried to understand what there was the learn
Beyond multiplication tables
And long division – from the previous year
When suddenly the class erupted into
Stark silence
As authority notified the uninformed youth.
“Go home,” they said.
And home I did go
In fear that the smoke would follow me,
Sinking its claws into my skin.
That fear was not for naught.
It follows me to this day.
A decade of dark, deadly destruction
Carelessly cutting at the very veins that keep me alive.

You’re crowded into a room with a view
Of the social smokers and baseball players
Giggling outside to a foreign language.
And the noise opposite your door
Makes you feel like you’re missing out.
And the dread of walking outside
Because people don’t swarm to you like bees
But simply ignore you
Keeps your eyes locked to the computer screen
Mercilessly fighting for contact.
And when hope arises,
It is crushed by the realization
That true, quality contact is miles away
Safely content with that same contact.
And every attempt at interaction
Brings out your personal awkwardness
Yet you offer advice on making friends
To someone in need.
What a hypocrite.
This is why you will forever remain
In the cycle of retaliation against
Your own desires.
But good night, sleepless one
For your loneliness will breed company
One day.

Like the percussive beat of a drum
Ba-dum-dum
“Dumb as a post,” she says.
“Doesn’t know when to take her shoes off,” she says.
Because what are you doing, tracking dirt in my house
Under my roof
Unlike your friend who knew
When it was time to behave himself?
“You filthy slob.”
And I think, “What about Bob?”
A ******’ ****** who was just so gosh-****
Lovable.
And even if you haven’t seen that movie
You would know
That it’s the ones who can’t stand still
And who stick their hands in flames
And who grind their brains
For answers
Who make the world go round.
And round and round
She spun her snippy little tongue
Without even a break for air.
But who needs air when you’ve got sand
Filling up your lungs
In the arid desert.
They call it Death Valley for a reason.
I’ve never been
But I heard in the summer months
The temperature maintains a balmy 120 degrees.

I’ve been absorbing the heat ever since I could
Make heads and tails of her
Ba-dum-dum.
So here we are at round two.
She says it’s preferable to be sitting in one place
Because the jabbering jaw is where all the exercise comes from.
And the winner will be declared when there is no more *******
Coming out of the other person’s mouth.
Well that’s *******.
I’m not sitting around waiting for you
To throw blades at my head
And expect me to just take it.
I also can’t fake it.
I need to get out of here, don’t you understand?
Your hand has abandoned the idea of holding mine
Long ago, I know.
It serves a more physical purpose now:
To make me regret
Standing up for myself.

Ba-dum-dum
She’s still going at it!
Not hard to believe,
Since she’s gotten half a life time of practice with it.
Ba-dum-dum
It’s gotten progressively less steady.
No longer the even pulse that I was able to
Drown out earlier.
Ba-dum-dum
There she goes putting emphasis
On things that don’t matter.
I’ll be heading towards the door now…
Ba-dum-dum
Let me just –
Ba-dum-dum
Can you move please?
Ba-dum-dum
I’ll take that as a “no.”
I sigh. Not yet at the point of resignation somehow.
Ba-dum-dum
MAKE IT STOP!
Ba-dum-dum
Ba-dum-dum-dummm

I used to believe in the magic of eyelashes.
I would find one on my cheek
After rubbing my eyes "good morning."
I stared it down from my finger
As the words to make the wish
Would formulate in my mind,
Watching the long, thin hair
Like the slits of my mother's mistrustful eyes
When her cherry-colored face
Shakes with vigor opposite
My father, gaunt.
The wind gathered strength
Inside of me,
The eyelash would float away -
A black dandelion.
How many eyelashes does it take
To stop the stickiness
Rolling toward my chin?
One day I may find my eyes bare
With no way
To stop the blotches of ink from smudging
On the paper that I write on.
But that's if I still believed in the magic of eyelashes.

“I hear a bug buzzing,” he says.
I turn him on his side to face me on the bed and whisper,
“I hear it too. But get some sleep; it’s good for you.”
****, who am I kidding?
I haven’t gotten a wink of real sleep for the last 20 years.
OK, to be fair, maybe it’s been more like 17.
I hear it too, I hear the buzzing.
The incessant, inescapable dread that comes with
Dormancy.
The feeling when sound transcends your inner ear
And streams through your veins like
Blood.

I’ve let this feeling wake me from sweet slumber
Way too many a time.
Poor Ms. Clavel, I understand you all too well:
“Something is not right!”
When is anything ever right?
When will he and she start meaning “we”
And “I” will not equate with failure?

That’s when the buzzing will stop.
That’s when I will stop serving as my baby brother’s
Teddy Bear at night.
Can he really not fall asleep without me next to him
Or is he just afraid of being
Alone
With the sound of buzzing in his ear?

The day he sat my parents down and said to them:
“Stop fighting!”
Was the day I knew we were truly related.
You will never be alone, my dear.
Never ever…
Let those words buzz through your ear.

I bounce the energetic toddler on my knee.
His diapered ****
Is cushioned nicely against my lap
And he feels seated.

I let my **** rest on the wooden platform
Supplied with a comfortable place to put my back
And I feel seated.

I watch the cat curl around itself
Winding her tail to reach her nose
On the couch
And she feels seated.

After a long day’s work
My father stares longingly at the slender back
Curving elegantly into a wide ****
Resting on four sturdy legs
And decides to sit.

It is no accident that we have palms
With fingers extending from them
For when we unite our two hands,
They become a blooming flower.
We can follow the veins with our eyes
From fingertips to hearts
Blushing red.

Pumping into us another day
Another hope
Another dream
To find within ourselves the petals
To water faithfully.

I have watered fatefully.
Yet my flower has grown too long
In chilly dark basements
With mold growing in the corners and
Cobwebs decorating cracking walls.

I’ve only the strength to crack a thin beam of light
To dance upon the corners of my flower.
When will the music invite more?

Transform me, dear child
Show me your visions
Help me find Hope in my name.
For I've been listening
To Peacelessness in my veins.

Your time here isn't done
Battles rage without a single one won
The Lies reach past fingertips
And Truth is painfully shy.

Please restore my faith.
Say those kind words you always manage to say.
People crane their necks
For leaders left and right
But you and I know
Leadership moves forward
With flashlight eyes in the night.

When my fingers curl into fists
Imagining your neck is between them,
Does that mean I hate you?
When the tears I shed
Because of words you said
Go unnoticed,
Is that because I see a river
Where you see a desert?

You crawl like a lizard up my back
And spit in my face
With your nasty little tongue.
Then leave me hung
Surrounded by spectators
Like the racist you are
And walk away
Like the sorry excuse for a biped
That you are.

And though DNA tests would say
That you and I have matching blood
Coursing through our veins
And our peachy skin is chiseled
Almost the same way,
I don’t see the resemblance.

In your mind,
I am out of place, harvesting cotton in pre-Civil War
Southern America.
In my mind,
You are exactly where you are:
Struggling to construct sentences
That don’t make me question
Whether I hate you.

So keep talking
And see how far you can drown me
In your gluttonous and alcohol-stained spittle
Before I stop questioning
And give you a definite answer.

A Few lines etched where no words give weight.

Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and loneliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.

Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.

These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees, those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.

So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.

The water-trough falls to where the electric line banishes, connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.

We packed in tighter and tighter.
Searching in the dim-lit room for a proper foothold.
The only space for my arms
Was close by my sides.
Movement was limited.
***** of sweat condensed
All over my skin.
It served as the perfect glue for my clothes.
My shirt wrapped tightly
Around me
As if it was holding on for dear life!
I felt imprisoned in black and white stripes
And donning a blood-red skirt
That just had to come off.
I grappled with the clenching fabric
As a steady, percussive beat
Rumbled through my head.
But no, it would have been wrong.
What kind of sick pleasure
Would I derive from this?
So what if another girl had
Teased him
With her stripping?
So what if others had chosen to fling their
34D size bras at him
With pleasure?
And he hung the black cups
From his neck
As if that was the civilized way
To catch sweat
Dripping from his moustache.
But the crowd was entertained
The band played on.

As the halo icicles melt
From the slender fingers of the trees,
They reassemble themselves
As sharp shards throughout my hair
And make me feel enshrined
In the Snow Queen’s palace;
Although slightly confused
As to whether her spell has worked on me.

For rage bubbles up inside of me
Like the volcanic lava of Vesuvius
As I carefully remove the icicles from my hair
And attempt to reassemble them
Into miniature castles,
Under the Queen’s command.

But then once the Vesuvius of my mind
Erupts,
Innocent soapy bubbles float out
And children shriek with laughter
Leaving Pompeii safe from harm.
But the ancient people worry anyway
Since historically-speaking,
Molten lava is scheduled to surface.

Should I then worry?
It hasn’t yet singed my pores
But rains have attempted to fabricate themselves.
Yet something has managed to hold them back.
I am not so grateful.

Noble stranger
Assemble these words
For the occasion
Building worlds
With my persuasion
Let's save them all
With mirth and missiles
And embrace the fall
Deuces wild, a duality
Every smile's a commodity

Turn left
Turn right
The coast is blank
My thoughts grow rank
Forgive me for this suicidal explosion
Yet I don't regret
The commotion
Seen in faces brightened by
Cloudless skies

Or in eyes
Blinded by mushroom clouds
That burned away our doubt
No clout
A gasmask and a nuclear sword
But it's not a word
Or a bullet
It's the action that kills

And the smoke that fills
Our lungs
Bulging through the spaces
Between our rib rungs:
The stepping stones to
Hearts waiting to be
Healed.

From dried blood
Long congealed
Picked off
Like the scabs that sealed
Summers wounds
Gathered together
And reaped from harvest boons

Glimmering
Underneath the convalescent moons
Struggling
With the twisted fate
They've to endure...
But the crowd stands
Demure.

The apple sits
Begging to pulsate.
But the damage of the worm
Strengthens.
It continuously burrows
Burrows
Until nothing but the core of the apple is left.
The round plumpness of the apple
Has been reduced to
Nothing.
It wobbles and shivers.
The core falls over
Helpless.

“I love yous” waft through the room
As erratically as weeds growing in a garden.
Constant notes and hugs engulf me
To the point where
I’m suffocating.
Like in a plastic ball pit.
Every time I try to pull out
I sink deeper and deeper.

Though I’ve considered returning the love
So equally,
It was more for the sake of easiness
Than true reciprocal feelings.
Or was it?
Maybe I feel so suffocated now
That I can’t think,
Can’t comprehend the cataclysmic
Underpinnings of the situation.

But how do I ask for space
Without jumping to another planet?
The Earth’s pull is too daunting.
The innocent image of
Gluing our hands together with Elmer’s
Reverberates through my head.
I don’t want full escape,
Just a blessing for another
Path in life.

The defendant approaches the bench
And gently removes the dust from the bible.
The courtroom looks in confusion.
“I’m not putting my hand on that filthy thing,” the defendant says.
“I’d be lying if I were to declare that a book that was written by someone who never knew me is something I can put my faith in.”
The jury, judge, plaintiff, and television viewers were astonished.
The defendant was asked simply to defend the case
And was already not looking very innocent.
But who are these strangers to judge anyway?
The defendant was brought to the court because of refusal to comply with
Orientation Sanctions.
Insert snicker here

Orientation is a path.
Whether you believe it’s God-given,
Hell-driven,
Or some spiritual la-di-da pinning people’s noses upward in the air,
Orientation is an unavoidable path.

Finding it may take some time for one,
And it may have lit someone’s way like a clear day from birth for another.
But no one can deny that each human being’s compass
Has a magnetic pull North.
Some are just not looking for Santa Claus.

Some are still looking for how to get Atlantis to resurface
Because everyone knows
That the depths of the sea
Are not always the best places for
Deep Dark Secrets.

“Someone’s not getting very many presents this Christmas!”
Court Transcriber types: Defendant rolls eyes.

I breathed in fear                                and exhaled
magnetic force.
Our bodies were not yet ready
to touch.
I bent
my knees,
his did the same

And we dragged                                                         the tips
of our feet                                                       across

The wooden floor

so                                                                     slow
            so                                                                     methodic
Like walking                                       on                                water


                        Forward

Left                                         Right
                        Back

Then a (hip) twist                                (but no shout)
Then he folded his hand around
Mine
Like holding a dove
And embraced me with
The other

And I felt
I could move
to his power
forever.

The echoes of her screams
Reverberate throughout my head
As the most untender slap across the face
Lulls me to sleep.
Then morning comes
And my wrists have become tense
With his fingered bracelets
As I try to break free.
Clenched teeth appear like jail bars before me
And it would take the reverse of all the guilt
I can muster
To knock them down.
I don't have that.
I have plenty of bystanders
All eagerly entertained by someone else's misery.
Heck, I manage to entertain myself
With my masochistic tendencies.
Welcome to the show, my friends.
I gather it will be worth your time.

When swirls of heavy air begin to
Curl up in the
Core of your
Throat and
To speak is a
Feat you
Don’t wish to
Endure
Because you
Fear a
Frog will
Leap out in place of
Thought-out
Words and you
Can’t risk that;
Can’t process the
Unspeakable,
No pun intended

So assume your worst about my
Desert-dry lips and my
Purple-bagged eyes and my
Shuffling trot.
But truth be told,
You know the feeling of
Tadpoles growing into
Bullfrogs
In the pit of your
Voicebox
And you avoid those people
At all costs
So the frog won’t leap
From my throat to yours,
Good luck.

I can trace the contours of your body
As it once lay snug against my back
And your legs curved into the nooks of mine
Like a jigsaw puzzle piece.
But when I reach for your hand,
I realize I am pawing at the air.

We keep our eyes closed deeply
Traipsing into the severed night.
Pandora's box of thoughts
Invades our mind's delight.
Yet even when earthly eyelashes

Capture tears
From the insomnia of the moon
We oft forget to ask about her.
It is the sun's turn to loom.

One night I'll prop my elbows by the window
And wonder with my eyes:
What's lurking in your shadows, moon,
Leading to your silent cries?
Answer she may, or she may not
That is not why I ask.
I hope to bring her fullness back
So she may shine at last.

He said that monsters and hunters
Occupied his room.
Searching for him.
Lurking in the shadows
Of train tracks
And construction sites.
Is anybody really safe?

All I could do was
Hold him.
Each shiver
Bubbling up on the surface
Of his body
Left me paralyzed.

Each clattering tooth
Was a reminder
Of the empty basements
And windowless, doorless rooms
I shivered in once
Or twice.

I reminded him
To let light linger
In the shadows.
Shivering ceased.
The dark feels colder
When you travel it alone.

It is past midnight.
A light glows outside my window
Like warm *****.
Welcome to New York City.
The self-loathing,
Self-loving city.
I am a proud citizen of this
American Isle,
In the most un-American style.
No white picket fence
Can be seen for miles
(Unless you count barricades
of graying snow that leaves
blizzard scars on my boots)
But those scars are worth it.

The clang of metal wheel
Against metal track
In the literal underside
When high life meets
Low life
And the hair cells in my ears
Shiver
From each rhythmic heart beat:
Is worth it.

But when I feel the need
To write of ***** and light
In the same sentence
In order to preserve my thoughts
From being trapped
Permanently inside my head
Inside these white walls,
Which I have decorated with
Rainbow colors
In order to prevent the room
From looking like a mental institution,
It doesn't seem worth it anymore.

My life belongs to a city of commitments.
One where love has graced me
With its presence
And where I can hide
In dead ends and public alleys
Without fear of being caught
For being who I am
By the people who are supposed to
Know me best.

The sand is drenched with misty water
Falling from the sky.
My shovel cradles the clustered grains until
They are ready to be deposited
Into the security of a plastic bucket.
Once it is filled,
The infamous flip happens.

Then I am bound to lift the bucket
And embrace whatever I find underneath.
I squint, only wanting to half-look
At the potential abomination.
But I find myself pleasantly surprised;
Shivering
From the cold droplets condensing on my skin,
But grateful.

Look far into the distance
What do you see?
There's a semblance of something
Tragic.
Green blurs to yellow and orange and red
Falling upon the Earth's bountiful head.

She combs through her hairs until they're prepped for her shower.
She awaits the shampoo to arrive.
And what do we do?
We stamp out the paths we need
For our little maggot selves to pass through.

It's time we stop carving out cavities
Into the head of the place we call home.
She feeds us
And clothes us
And lulls us to sleep
Remaining selfless despite arrhythmia's creep.

When the petals of a rose begin to wilt,
I drown it with water until there is no more.
The rose has lived for far too long
And I am determined for it to keep on living.
But the discoloration has already begun.
The sun whose laughter used to make the rose redden with glee
Is now disfigured by the clouds.
They play tricks on my eye
With their friendly shapes
When really they’re tears on the verge of pouring down my face.
The rose will not die!
I will mend it with my tears,
With my bare hands if I have to.
But when light blinds instead of nourishes,
I cannot help but be discouraged.

The shadows of your dreams cover your path:
False shapes bereft of warmth and gentle love.
They do engage in calculated wrath,
Hands reaching out to claw and push and shove.
But daytime swung its ax on nighttime’s noose;
You rose and ran first thing into my slumber
My eyes did slit your yells when they turn’d loose;
Not yet have I awoke to this day’s number.
Yet time does age us, now, ever so slightly
Serenity becomes you as you wake
And I will take the paths you tread so lightly
And pluck the claws from darkness for your sake.
        Take journeys deep within your world inside,
        So I may find within you a new pride.

The seeds are pressed gently into their crevices
Like hair follicles on my skin
Skin so tender
Turns so red
When juice leaks down
Sweet and bitter all at once.

Sweet
Because I heard only children cry
When they scratch their knees
Or mommy dropped them off at day care.
Yes, I have been there.

Bitter
Because I heard only children cry
Yet the space between my eyes
Carries a bridge between two worlds
That will never seem to collide.

I have reached the tender green top
My reminder of the earthly wonder
Of peace
Even in tumultuous minds.
I long to run my fingers through the grass
And listen to the sweet nothings the wind whispers
In my ear.

Sweet nothings leave bitter somethings far from near.

The sun kissed the horizon
The plump Russian babysitters have
Strolled away with their strollers
Long ago.
But I watched her make dinner
On the bark stove she carved into her mind.
She set the table with her fanciest china,
Tonight was a special occasion
I presumed.
She placed a heaping plate of potatoes
On the flower-splattered tablecloth,
Made to match the grass growing
Underneath her feet.
I could almost see the steam rising
From a distance
As she scooped each golden yellow tater
One by one into each dish:
First, second, third.
How sweet,
She’s preparing for our family dinner.
It will be as likely as the willow branches,
Serving as her ceiling,
Will protect her from lightning.
It starts to pour
I start to leave
The horizon has swallowed the sun whole.
I want to run back and tell her
That the willow will not be the only one
Weeping
some day.
The branches will curl onto themselves
And the stove will rust with age
Until it can no longer be used.

I turn
Behind her still thin lenses she peers at me
With twinkling eyes;
Penetrating my already thick ones.
Her head is like a protrusion of the tree.
I want to go back and tell her
To run away with me
Far away from the willow.
But all I can manage is
A heavy yawn
Ready to swallow
The glowing beacon hanging by a thread
In the sky.
How time has flown by
And how I wish,
My little darling,
That my memory of you
Stopped haunting my dreams.

She wanted to tell me
The willow is not as ***** as it seems.
But I’m not meant to make such predictions.
With a regretful tear I turn away
And run up the hill
To what I thought was higher ground.
Maybe one day
She will greet the journey with a smile.

I’ve chewed this gum to tastelessness
For I fail to find the words to describe
How wilting day-old roses make me feel
As I cringe to the sound of cuddling nearby
Among other intimacies…
I attempt to make it a testament to my strength
And regard those sounds as mindless background noise,
Not worth my time.
But if I give in to such thoughts,
Is that not already a sign of weakness?
And what now that I’ve accepted it?
Things won’t change.
I’ll have to keep pretending
That needles don’t hurt when they ***** my heart
In the same way he deals me piercing stares
And lulls me into daydreams with his voice.
It’s senseless of me to continue
I’m simply digging myself into a bigger whole of despair
As my fantasies grow more fantastic.
If only I could say the roses were from him…

What’s in a name?
It is what turns heads
It can cause a quiver in your body
Or a smile to curl onto your lips.
A name can be tarnished
Or reborn.
It can make you stand out from the crowd
Or join the masses.
It is more than what society deems
A socially acceptable form of
Introduction.

So let me introduce myself:
I used to feel my name in harsh syllables
Rooted in the language of my people’s history.
MAR or MIR meant bitter.
Like having the wrong taste in your mouth
Reminding me of MARor –
Eaten on Passover to remember how burdensome,
Difficult and bitter the Jews’ slavery in Egypt was.
IAM (YAM) – ocean.
Tumultuous, never still.
Always swirling and scaring children out of it.
MIRIAM – my Hebrew name.
Bitter sea.
I grew into that name resentfully.
I reacted when I was called that by fellow classmates,
For what else could I do?

But time went by
And I began collecting seashells by the seashore.
The ocean became a treasure and my name
Had a new ring to it.
Yet when eighth grade graduation came around I was given the option
Of writing Mariya instead of Miriam.
I was going to high school where I didn’t know anyone.
So no one needed to know my bitter past.
I also learned that a name was not made up of syllables
But of sweet sounds.
Mmm – like the taste of something so delicious your eyes close
And you feel yourself melting.
Aaa – you’ve just finished your meal and on this hot summer day
You find solace in the cool water running down your back in the shower.
Rrr – racing, running, reaching for the sky.
That’s the sound I want my plane to make when I can hold a piece of
Cloud in the palm of my hand and feel its silver lining.
Iii – the sound of “and” in many languages. The sound of something more,
Reminding me that this is not the end.
Ya – the sound of agreement and conclusion. As if that is all I have to say…so yeah.

When bread is scarce and milk is a commodity,
When someone else makes decisions for your family’s needs,
When people cut in line because their life depends on it,
When there is yelling about portions sizes – “My family is bigger so I deserve more!”
When there is yelling about younger people deserving more because
Face it, they are going to live longer.

I’ve seen the oldest bunch in the neighborhood,
(Here in America)
Line up outside the pharmacy
Waiting for the day’s free newspaper to become available.
The news is not really a commodity but to be first informed is to be proud.
Then they can gossip all day about it in the park!
Well, that’s one way to interpret the trickle-down effect.
“It is in their blood,” I am told.
To wait – it’s all they know how to do.

I know what waiting is –
Standing in line until your knees ache
Your heart races faster than the line is moving
The people around you push and shove making absurd declarations like
“I was here first!”
I was born a little late to have the wait frenzy indoctrinate me.

I will never understand.