I wish I had a reason
to throw it in your face
          stab you to death with it
and put you in your place.

I wish you were filled with reason.
                         I would disembowel your thoughts,
            tear them to ******
                        oozing pieces,
but they’re already mush.

                      I wish there was a reason
you bashed me so with Nonsense,

             **** it— like cheating on your wife—
                                                           and say
                                                           by The Word,
that’s how I live my life.


I wish you’d see reason
             so I wouldn’t have to hack,
                                   smash and splatter,
cackle

rip and tear to get you back


to reality
waiting in the lobby.
A nice one, with magazines and plastic plants,
a fish tank filled with generous grants. A receptionist
with bleach blonde hair, a friend or two
who wouldn’t care that you’d gone crazy
and play it off, like you were joking.

I flew by a greening bush
hiding a bouquet of birds
and scared them all away,
save one,

her eyes— cool blue steel—
stared from the shade.
She fluttered out, falling
under my brooding wings,

her pupils—exposed
to the sun— burned away,
revealing flames hidden inside

which danced to the same orange
tune as her feathers, like the black hearts
of her eyes were meant to be eclipsed in fire

consuming every shadow of doubt
shrouding my thoughts

Will I wait and watch? Will I
hurt and hope? Brave bird, I whisper,
yes.

We are wine with cake
without calories, not
like icing or drunkenness,
but being frosted with intoxication.

We are stain glass caked
with sunbeams, holding light
suspended in time, like if right now,
just this once, it was standing still.

We are fragile but delicious,
like little Eiffel Tower replicas
made from buttery sugar— not hardened—
but the soft store bought kind without directions.

But I’m pretty sure we aren’t
a car window's fracture pattern
caked with cracks,
or shards of a beer bottle
in splattered birthday cake,
or even a recycling plant’s office celebration with catering.
Unless it was really good catering.

So to clarify…
you glass
me cake

I wanted to name her Kathryn,
because I knew the nickname Kat
was soon to follow.
Kat put kittens in my wife’s head
so she suggested we call her Kit.
Before long, there was a Kit-Kat
in my wife’s belly.

We painted kittens in the room,
cats cute and fearsome accompanied
the cradle, changing table and toys.

We took classes, and told our friends
we’d raise a fiery feline with the heart
of a lion, body of a cougar and head of a fox.

But a fox isn’t a cat they’d say, but we’d just laugh.
Kathryn will redefine feline, female, fiery, and fantastic.  

But Kit-Kat turned into candy.
We always said she’d be sweet,
like Halloween’s first treat
before you were filled to bursting,

into tears

over chocolate,

when it was gone.

trees twisted and tore with their branches
attempting to rip their roots away from the frigid wind
that whipped them and my wore-torn jacket
against my once warm chest.

i saw mid-march christmas-lights
waving on a  mailbox slowly change
from poorly timed holiday decorations,
to faded heart shaped bulbs— barely pink—
******* over choked filaments.

i didn’t look up at the stars
or down at my sneakers,
but stared into a dim lamp-lit alley
hiding dangerous characters,
who probably just needed  a light,
a smile, a fix.

But if this night
was read from a storybook’s pages
the wind would’ve wait for me
to wade through warm air,
faded hearts would breathe
their deepest red,
the stars would pulse to the rhythm
of crickets chirping who danced along
with my heartbeat’s thumping,
and the alley’s unlit cigarettes,

would glow before grins
painted on orange faces.