Our men are heroes, of course.

They protect us, gun in hand,
against enemies plastered on posters
vandalizing once-beautiful stone storefronts.
More every day.
Stapled on top of one another
until words blend.

"But now,"
the overly made-up woman at the podium says,
"women can do our part."

They’ve gathered other pretty blondes
with symmetrical features measured
by a myriad of devices.

          Beautiful,

              demure

                   women

with

          beautiful,

              Aryan

                    genes
to breed with our handsome heroes.

Because women,
and the children we bear,
are the key to Germany’s future.  

I glance at the woman to my right,
eyes skiing down the ***** of her nose
to rest on smiling lips.
Is the blush on her cheeks genuine,
or set by rouge?

It suits her.

She catches me staring.
My breath hitches in my throat.
I throw my attention back to the woman
glorifying human broodmares.

Heat assaults my cheeks.

“Your rouge is lovely.”
Her whisper warms me.
“Can you believe this?
Us, with war heroes?”

She sighs.
I can practically see the dream
play through the air.

A husband coming home in uniform,
splaying a hand on her swollen belly
and kissing her forehead.

A fantasy.

These men…
they’ll come,
take what they want from us for granted
and claim they did us a favor
when they leave us alone
with child.

But my fingers would dance
never-ending pirouettes
across that porcelain skin.
Swirl intricate patterns
through golden hair,
all for that sigh
to carry a dream with me in it.

’Twas noontide of summer,
  And midtime of night,
And stars, in their orbits,
  Shone pale, through the light
Of the brighter, cold moon.
  ’Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
  Her beam on the waves.

  I gazed awhile
  On her cold smile;
Too cold—too cold for me—
  There passed, as a shroud,
  A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
  Proud Evening Star,
  In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
  For joy to my heart
  Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
  And more I admire
  Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

My death will be liberating.

And I do not say that in the sense
that I am going to find a cliff
and take a good jump off.

No.

I am just trying to find a
clever way to tell you

that I do not know what is going
to happen next.

You see,

there is a
fine line
between
dreaming and
mortality

and

I am finding out for myself
that being in love
does not always
involve

being awake.

And for my sake
I fall in love with daydreams,
nightmares,
hazy realities
and

the hung-over idea

of not being enough.

It is all out of my hands.
                 It is all out of time.

And the only thing I have left to do,
now,


is decide.

i think the ocean is alive and thinking
all the while
the ambivalent recollection in the mirror
looks at me and thinks
“yes i truly will love you forever”
i know so cause she told me.

It's about a girl again, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah it is.

Is she different from the rest?

Yeah, yeah she is.

Does she know?

Funny enough, yeah she does.

Welp, here's to a different one

Yeah, yeah it will be