April 5th 1994- Kurt Cobain dies
April 6th 1994- The President of Rwanda Dies
April 7th 1994- Kurt Cobain's body is found
April 7th 1994- A genocide begins.
Neighbors take arms against neighbors
People he once shared a sandbox with now hold a machete to his neck
Heads roll- literally
Babies cry out to their mothers who lie there choking on their own blood
Girls who 2 days ago were playing house with their dolls, now take care of their whole family
Screams of pain from girls who's innocence is taken from the man who used
           to bounce them on his knee.
Gathered in the place where God is supposed to be
Hundreds are murdered ruthlessly.
Guns not pointed at their heads
But clubs that smash them in.
Achilles' heels slashed
These men drink and feast and sleep
Over the screams of their victims
Babies born 9 months after these men took something that was not theirs to
           take
A physical representation of all that is evil and hatred and pain
She tries to love them anyway
But she sees him in them
He has daddy's eye
She has her fathers nose
She sees them in the way he looks at her when he's hungry
As if she is just there to quench that thirst with her body.

The whole word is split in 2
Nobody is Rwandan anymore
You are Hutu or Tutsi
Short or tall
Human or vermin.
The dead among the living
Sometimes I can't tell which is which
Until I see it
That sparkle of hope in that one man's eye
Because the human spirit will never die.
The father of his best friend tortured and murdered his mother on their
           front lawn.
Orphaned and afraid,
He cannot stop
He cannot slow down
He cannot give up
Because ***** Kurt Cobain
he has to tell the story of what really happened that day
Rwanda April 7th 1994

We met for coffee; well,
I had coffee and she had tea.
Her pics didn't do her justice --
Chin prim
Lips cursive
Skin that swam under mine,
Making the porcelain creamer cup blush.

She claimed
she had a quarter million members
That followed her.
it's good money she reasoned,
But not gloating;
More matter-of-factly.
Off the cuff,
I asked for her stage name.
She explained that she blocked NY
For work and family reasons,
Assuming I had asked so to
Watch her perform later
(Which isn't altogether untrue).

She measured every utterance,
Teleprompters behind eyelids
Feeding her perfectly crafted lines.

I use the Golden Ratio when I webcam
She said, as she sipped her tea.
I consider it an art -- or
At least that is what I tell myself.
I asked her to elaborate.
She said she was somewhat conflicted
About whether or not it was immoral.
But she was so even
With her response,
Almost as if it were compelled
By a formality
That was now checked off her list.

Her body language taciturn
Asleep, idle, screen-saved
Waiting waiting

Curve and line
Coffined for now to slake desires anon -
Her numbers in slumber, confined
Waiting to be crunched,
Flatlines Animated by pitchblack revelry
With one click

Turning them.

She said she liked to watch others
ya know, To see how they move.
She would even watch it at work,
Open in one of her browser tabs.
She took notes.

Lines triangulated
Liminal spaces given, hidden.

Digital lipstick smears
Tattooing amygdalas firing --
Allow them to slip in
Only to slip out of them
With an X.

We talked for an hour
And then left the café.
She asked me over.
I said not tonight --
The words coming out
As if willed by something
Outside of myself.

She walked off into the dark
And I kicked myself for saying no.

Her curves beholden to math --
Gyration of hip and waist,
Arms tendrils configuring, cavorting,
Slave to an inner-whorl
twirled and twirling --
One single objective truth, now
A convergence of secreting plurality
Into beauty and beauty and

That night I ****** off thinking of her
And came so hard
I pulled something in my back.

In between sleep and waking life
I transcended
Something.. I felt

Turned.

Bat on window sill
Still as the unflinching
Lidless abyss --
Then a quarter turn of its head --
Its beady eye catching streetlight --
Careening it off into a nonplussed
Night of nights.

you won't even look at me in school,
but when I show up unannounced
on Sunday mornings with smoothies,
your mom welcomes me in,
you descend the stairs with your graceful, conservative foxtrot of a gait.
you hug me hello and we laugh about things like normal people.
your dad comes in from the yard work to say hello to me,
ask me where I'm headed to college.
everything is the way it should be but
you won't even look at me in school.

I left my soul in a hospital room. I left her swaying to the rhythm of a failing heart, of a flat line, of sloppy “I’m sorry”s, and final goodbyes. I left her. I left my soul in a hurricane. I left her singing with the rhythm of the wind. I left her drowning, swimming, sinking, grasping, clinging. I left her empty with shattered windows, boarded up, and breaking down. I left her. I left my soul somewhere between "I meant it" and "I'm sorry." I was just wondering if you could return her soon.