Some people
promise unity, but the
                                next day they are just different                people  *
              wanting different things, thrown back     *into
             the world like the unwanted      fish,
                                   hook still buried                           *deep

A b s t r a c t

never ending
never starting


cannot be
seen



what was ever
so true
about

love,

anyway?

There is a certain luring
guilt in weakening
the strong.

G-d meant something
when He made a tree

I wish I had that many
branches myself,
to reach out
up

Sometimes I look at
the sky & wonder
how much bluer
it could get, & just
when I think that
there is no limit,
the sky turns on me
& asks me, "how
blue can you get?"
& then I realize that
the scariest part of
me is that I just don't
know where the



























bottom is.

s                                                           y
u                                                                 o
r                                 O                                u
r                               \ | /                                r
o                                 |                                 s
u                            /\                           e
n                                                   l
   d                                        f  
with your own warm water,

emerged. never experience

fresh air

I overdosed on you
How could I forget that I can only
take so much of mostly everybody
before I need a break, I need
space?
& who
would have known
that of course, I would stumble
upon you, the little dot of glue that I could
not manage to scrape off my thumb so
that I could hide from people I
love?
Jesus
Christ, I knew I was
a monster & waves of oceans can
not cleanse me, what I hope I am no longer
I just needed time, didn't I? I picked out
too much of you, & everyone knows
that you can't leave the table
without finishing
it all
I
couldn't leave you
in the start, when I thought that
maybe I could handle it, maybe I could skip
my break & work overtime. But now I see how
you saw me & all the guilt I have been feeling
for months doubles in pain and agony.
I need change, you need stability
& we were a match made
in nuclear
war
fare, I guess. I
really should have done
what you do, read the trends & not
search me out, but my fingertips, so ripe with
curiosity, looked at responses from a certain poet we both
enjoy, & the first one I saw, I clicked & found you & I
read everything, like I should not have. Even if I
needed it, mercy, the things I wish
I could unsee, even though
I deserve to stare at it
for the rest of
my ****
life.

& then it begins;
the first moment,
the second moment,
the first & second
series of moments
where there is beauty
outside of you
& it is so very unreal
that even the sun
seems to shine brighter
in places where you
are not.

desperate air
& every piece of body,
named on countless charts
in countless schoolroom closets
but only felt to me
in shimmers of springs
& soft running steps
on moss & oak leaves,
trembles & thrives in the space
between roots.
I feel it when there is wind
in the valley of the small of
the back of the adolescent cedar,
& unpolished beetles play me
twilight nocturnes in hopes
that I will break out of
silk fetters into the
dense of August to be
no one but myself.

Just
think
about all of
the unopened
Christmas presents
under the tree in Newtown
Connecticut this holiday season
-----

Stop drowning
my reality in
sappy little
secondhand
fantasies.

& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give

What do we need
except for life
& the things
we cannot
see?