I **** & it's okay because
I **** for my country

Wait no, that was a father
that was a son
I watched the life ebb from
the body of an uncle
whose favorite color was green
who loved old music.
I turned this husband,
this pro stone-skipper
into less than a corpse;
into a statistic
a number.

I **** for my country

Honesty is
doing a perfect job
on a blind woman's
hairstyle.

I've made graphs,
charts & labels
I've taken tests,
quizzes, solved
equations with
functions & facts
& limits & rules
& statistics
I've put commas
where commas
go, I've used
all of the laws
of punctuation

But I still don't know why it is that I am *me.

She fell in love with
the curtain he hung up
around himself;
with the gloss of
woven power.
She became deeply
infatuated with
the slippery silk
hunger of the facade,
obsessing over the
little lustful
beads.

It amazes me that God made mouths,
knowing that they'd talk this much;
                                   judge this much,
                                   hurt this much,
                                   curse this much,
But everybody rambles, everybody spits venom at their mirrored flesh,
people who are just like you, just like me, just like everyone.
We do it anyway.

Below, blades are not
safe from snooping golden glares.
And at night, the moon.

float to me

lean on me

I will catch you

weak as the legs

I use to stand

may be,

lay it all on

me,

& I will

requite your

trust with all

the love I have

ever had to

give, just call

I know

you need a

friend, & here

I am;

a stranger

She laughed & told me
life's not fair
& if there's anything that I learned
in school that week,
it was that

sometimes, the dunes
are not caressed by the ocean waves,
not kissed goodnight
in laps of foamy seas in high tides.

Some nights, the darkness
of the atmosphere is not illuminated,
not awakened by nature's nightlight
O, how the stars ache!

Sometimes, green-painted men
are shipped across oceans
like little plastic toys
to **** people they've never met.

God.

God is the shapes
on my ceiling.
He is the sliver of light
filtered through my window.

God is the thirty-inch space
between roof & fallen branch.
He is the kiss of dew drops
& the breeze on my neck.

God is the flame
of discipline.
He is the declaration
of saddened exile.

God is goosebumps
that proclaim "I hear you!"
He is the rise &
the fall of empires.

God is the sky
which engulfs all
in loving despair.

If I never remember you,
how many times did we touch?

If there are no pictures,
where did we go together?

The past is the dust on
the dashboard of your car,
one speck for each moment
that is forgotten--
Did we ever happen?

There is a ****,
a toxic bit of cancer,
in the garden of my soul

It wraps around
my dreams--
a python of the greenery

Raspy hisses that
the real world doesn't
work that way,

You have to hide your heart
your love, your all
you don't want that pain, do you?

No, I don't, I don't want
that at all, I say,
so I put down my *****

& I am Eve,
banished from the garden
but I do not feel a thing.

The wind
                                                       at my door
                                                                                                              RATTLES me

shakes me
                                                       free of my
                                                                                                               pointed finger

Blameless, I
                                                       turn inwards,
                                                                                                               concave,

I search
                                                       for the love
                                                                                                                in me

& return
                                                       with a bunch
                                                                                                                of old bones,

skeletons of
                                                        myself that
                                                                                                                 I have wasted

away on
                                                         pleasing other
                                                                                                                   people's needs

so that
                                                         they could use me
                                                                                                                   as a net

when they
                                                         fall, & tell me
                                                                                                                   that I pushed

them, that
                                                         it's all my
                                                                                                                   fault.

Meaning is entirely
subjective in a
world where
some
starve &
others *******
& someone,
somewhere,
breaks an iPhone.

How do I find unanimity
in the midst of spectrums,
ranges, & degrees in which
one
falls?

Who is like me?
Who is like you?

I wake up, it's noon,
I bounce around my mind to find
that it'd be better if you were here,
but I'm not alone anyway.
Endless options sing me songs
as I dance around an empty house,
seemingly infinite.
I hear Emily Dickinson's call of irony
"Dwell in Possibility"
from a girl who never left her home
Perhaps, I, now, should do it too--
dwell, but never pick a road,
as Robert Frost did.
Maybe I will stay idle
& watch my choices melt away
as I let time run free,
crawl into bed & watch the
sun slide across the blue
& call today "No Paths Were Traveled"

What does it mean when
ear-charming, dressed up
collections of sound
what a nation wants to hear
does not match the honest
desperation, heart screams
it isn't that way
of pleading eyes?

Take away my treasures
sexless connections
no touch no guilt
no lies to our parents
when they ask where we've been.
I want to scream how could
you? But I know exactly
how you could
God you say

& who could argue with that?
who could argue
with God?

Three nights in a row, you came to me,
And it still was only Wednesday.
I tried to help you each time--
I sang songs of my heart,
But you demanded
An orchestra.
So I failed,
Of course.
"Thanks."

The world will not stop
spinning for me,
not ever.
The birds will not be
mute for me,
not a chance.

The only thing that will
stop for me
is a heartbeat--
for I am too
small of an amazement
for the traffic,
the rain.

Though, I do not
expect the world to
cease in the moment of
my passing,
my mysterious disappearance.
(an empty body,
an empty shell).

Being a part of this
world means being
disposable.

Knowing you means that
I wish I could love you more,
perhaps differently.

Knowing you means that
I will finally know loss.

I will not cease to pause for you.

post mirrors
everywhere so you
can be sure to see me out in


the open


in the closed   , at any angle
I am observed
      close in your eyes

     you see
I am   e       x   p     o  s    e  d
I have  no
secrets    my doors are

open &    what's to see but
complete & total emptiness?


sleep I'm falling it's
funny how we
fall into the mindless;
sleep ,    love .
we walk through doors    we run
on tracks ,    but we
     f
     a
     L
     l
        into the overwhelming pleasures
             of


vulnerability

a victim of post-modern culture
where people feel that
whatever they think is
right or feels right,
is right