Line Dancing with Lucifer

The breeze breathes like the Earth shares
the same pulse.
I trip down the rabbit hole,
but never fall.
The tingles tickle my toes.
I listen with my eyes.
Lucy isn’t in the sky with diamonds.
She’s passed out at the hotel bar.
I trip down the rabbit hole,
But always fall.
I am line dancing with Lucifer.
Erret. The record
scratches. If he likes the way
my hips sway, then
we don’t have to make a
deal. Adios,
amigo. I’m out of this hell hole.
(Literal hole leading from Hell)
The grass smells greener and
tastes taller on the
flipside. I walk on my hands everywhere
I go. Suga ****, you on your hands again?
You’ll marry a rich man
one day, they said.  He will
walk on two feet.
Barely bipedal.
EVOLUTION IS A LIE.
Que habla me nada.
The paintings started speaking soliloquies.
To be or not to be?
I don’t remember answering
the question.
I fall down the rabbit hole but
I never trip.

Where were you when words
wandered?
Without warning,
waxing.
Growing stronger.
Stop shaking
sentences, peeling pages,
purging up word
*****.

Where were you when I needed
you?
Voice shaking,
I'm sweating.
Surrender to similes,
and the soliloquies.

My words, they
squander.

Do not worry, where.
Moon, find me.
Illuminate shadows
the sun could not
shake.
A million miles
away,
in a town unheard of.
On my way to a place
I’m not sure
exists.

Do not think of me.
I leave no trace of
myself.
Stars render the inability to guide,
when the darkness isn’t
quite dark
at all.
As long as I'm gone
I give myself to
the solace of
solitude.
Under the covers of
foggy back roads,
searching for answers in
static stations.

Do not look for me.
Sun, you burn
sharp scars into my skin.
I bruised and broke until I thought I
believed.
Only to discover
I did not.
Do not believe, do not believe,
me.
Do not.

A well-rehearsed dance,
the waltzing waitress tosses The Times
on table 1 as if she’ll actually finish
the Sunday crossword this morning.
She won’t.

Grease lined lights flicker on one
by one.
Like spotlights on a stage.
It’s show time.

Twostepping while taking down chairs,
she flows to the rhythm of ritual,
across a worn checkered dancefloor.
No applause.

In a dining room of Astaire’s and Rogers
she is the coffee choreographer.  
Pirouetting to the ***,
then a sidestep, quick! Quick!
Slow.

Warming up now, she stretches.
Switching on the metal machinery.
It grinds and growls as if it prefers
decaf.

Rings from rusted bells
hanging from the door chime
to the beat. This is her
cue.

Incense smoke lingers heavily in the air,
attempting to mask the smell of stale beer
and spilled **** water.
Arrest warrants hang with straight A report cards
and dated paintings I used to call art.

You and I, woven in between soft and stained sheets
on my hand-me-down mattress.
Our clothes, thrown into heaps on the floor.
I stare at faded, falling posters while you trace my scars
left by a pair of hands before yours.

Buddha watches over dusty photo albums and
half read books I will never finish as
Mary hangs off your neck
watching over an unfinished me.

We lay underneath burned out bulbs of ceiling
string lights listening to scratched CDs skip,
sharing a sweet cigarette.
I know you and I are not forever.
like these walls I have                                                          out­grown.