Summer recess had come
and she sat with you
out in the field
over looking her house

and the railway
was not far off
where the occasional train
puffed by sending

a sprouting of white smoke
as it went by
and she looked at it passing
and spoke of after school days

when she would begin
her adult life and settle down
and have children
but you were thinking

of a train trip with your parents
years before
to some seaside place
and you watched

the scenery go by
and the steam go by
the window
and the smell

and the sight excited you
and stuck itself
inside your head
and Judith said

what do you think?
and you said
about what?
and she said

about children's names?
what names
would you choose?
your brain struggled

to the surface
and whirled through
a list of names
that came to mind

boy or girl?
you asked
she sighed
either

haven't you been
listening to me?
sorry got distracted
by the train smoke

had a Proustian moment
you said
a what?
she said

a Proustian moment
you replied
what the heck is that?
she said

pulling her skirt
over her knees
where it had risen up
as she moved  

Marcel Proust wrote
that eating a certain cake
took him back
to a certain moment

of his life
but you
haven't been eating cake
Judith said

her hand rested
on her knees
her eyes focusing on you
no it's just an example

you said
about how things
can remind you
of other things

or places or times
do you recall
the first time we kissed?
she asked

yes
you said
of course I do
it was near Christmas

and we were carol singing
and it was dark
and the moon was out
and the stars were bright

and your lips pressed
onto mine
ok ok
she said laughing

at least you remember
and as she moved forward
the buttons
of her white blouse

parted briefly
to reveal a hint
of fleshy *******
so what names

do you like?
she asked
none come to mind
you said

she shook her head
what about Rachel or David?
she said
fine

you said
nice religious names
although David
brings to mind

a kid with a catapult
and a girl I once knew
with buckteeth who smelt
of old socks

she looked skywards
and sighed
and lay back
on to the grass

and you lay beside her
both of you  
gazing up
at the expanse

of blue and white
her hand reaching out
for yours
in that one moment

of life
in the great
out of doors.

He laced her morning coffee with Ecstasy and prayed for the worst.
Trudging footsteps down the stairs as she slips on his shirt,
buttons done up halfheartedly as the soft blue denim hung delicately
about her.
her hair kissed at her shoulders and her breath lay in her mouth
tainted with whiskey and malt liquor, as she yawned and stretched;
bare feet padding against the cold floorboards, as they creaked beneath her.
She walks to greet her lover, grins painted on faces as the coffee cup
simmers and the drugs dissolve; as the love she had for him, dissolves alongside it.

After the screams
I was coming undone,
splitting at the seams.
I hauled all my watercolors
out of my brother's office.
I took the paintbrushes
and palettes of a thousand hues
lodged between his camo army vest
and his heavy shoes
and I sprawled out in the
spinach-green living room.
I painted
willow trees and silhouettes
and viridian snakes spilling from ***** lips.

At 2am I got up
headed to the deck
and watched the stars
Because sometimes I forget.
I let my nights
be slaughtered by sobs.

These nights, this view
It’s mine, you can’t have it.
Everyone needs a place
and this is mine,
this tiny nirvana,
2 o'clock constellations
in the dark purple bruise of night
are my home.

A pool of watercolors,
magenta, cyan, indigo, emerald and cerulean,
swells in my chest,
in the empty space between my lungs.
A drowning, a baptism.

Everywhere, in everything,
your unblinking ghost.
It refuses to dissolve.

Can you solve me?

unfold me expose my problems.maybe not. a simple bow slowly becoming a masterpiece of interwoven components. pick up sticks. twister. limbo. on the brink of collapse. One. two. three strikes your out. those are the rules, are you ready? go! drugs. depression. disability.drinking. abuse. blasting any sound to keep out the shouts. deceit. lies. regret. curses spewed out. careful you might trip. Or maybe you already are. like I said a bow, so easy to undo, so simplistic, internally it becomes equivalent to rocket science.  Where's the key to success? the missing puzzle piece? buried in as-seen-on-tv purchases and old moldy mattresses children's toys and croc pots. smothering the pain of a loved one passed. is he dead or alive?who knows. Is she going to make it to 50?unlikely. suicide just in time for a birthday. unfair exchange. continuing pattern. someone has to make up the hoi palloi  no one can or will solve it. you can take that to the bank...just wait a couple weeks.

Doors slam like Satan himself is
in a fit of rage below us, even if he is
in the deepest level of Hell, I feel the floor
shaking like a 6.0 has just swept us but it
is only a consequence of wood slamming
against wood and fists fighting doorknobs.

Voices rise like the temperature in Arizona
in the summer, abruptly, hot and heavy, so
quickly stifling any chance of relief—
anger is an emotion I am far too familiar with.

Some people live quiet family lives, are never
interrupted in their sleep by screams from a
father who dreams of death and a mother who
carries a scythe of shame as if she is the Reaper,
some people wake up in the morning knowing
there is breakfast waiting on the table, fresh eggs
hot off the stove and orange juice with pulp, but
others wake up and make coffee for themselves,
knowing parents sleep past noon and
we are the ones who are doomed to repeat the
history of abuse and psychological suffering but:
we are the ones who will help to stifle the shouts,
to put a stop to slamming doors and shrill screams,
dysfunctional daily routines and waiting for hope
that never arrives, we have had lives consisting
of always having to act stronger than we feel
when the floorboards seem to be breaking just
beneath the force of our feet, because our
bodies are not just our bodies, we are carrying
burdens that weigh more than our bones and
blood cells combined, so when we step on the
scale the number we're reading is really how
much hurt we have been holding, not how
much food we've been hoarding inside of us.

We are the children of complex family situations,
we are spend-more-time-in-psychologist-offices-than
we-do-in-our-own-roo­ms, we are no-parent-to-tuck
us-in-at-night-read-yourself-a-story-it-builds-­ability.
We are daydreams of escaping like Rapunzel,
we are how do I save myself from a nightmare when
I am already awake? We are years of reading self-help
books in Barnes and Noble until we finally understood
that the only thing to do is to help the world help us:
we are strong. And we understand that family exists,
but for us it is different. We are the children who find
comfort in books and coffee and anything outside
of a house so filled with tension and hatred, and we
have been waiting to fix ourselves for too long.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.