He opens his Star Wars: A New Hope lunch box
Inside a hippies dream.
**** in baggies that have the superman symbol
And Batman symbol on them
Tabs of LSD
And molly.
Hunter S. Thompson would have a field day

©Gambit '13

love is an illusion
it’s just oxytocin;
a chemical in the brain
it’s not real
but the
magnocellular neurosecretory cells
must be very good
at making it
and the posterior lobe
must be very good
at releasing it
into my blood
because it feels
pretty **** real
to me

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

Chubby quivering droplets falling from the sky,
splattering themselves across my skin.
Too foolish to look up from my computer screen,
from my technology,
publicity,
my box.
To see the many shades of moss green and grey
that had been laid like a blanket
across the city
overnight.

Running.
A compulsion.
Tight tank top,
shorts,
sneakers,
and gloves.
I run with my long hair down,
whipping wildly as I dash down the street.

Into the forest I go,
It’s dangerous they say,
There are bad people there,
But I don’t care.
I run through the forest,
Dodging trees,
Hopping over logs and ditches,
My heart beating faster with each
Ominous rumble of the distant thunder.

As I run,
An uncontrollable smile breaks out across my face.
1 mile marker,
2 mile marker,
3 mile marker,
4 mile marker,
of nonstop running
and a nonstop smile.

Fresh air,
With the calming scent of rain.
You can’t run forever though,
I reach the end and see a gate,
I could go on but the thunder rumbles ferociously,
Beckoning me.
Thunder is easy to ignore when you’re otherwise occupied,
But when you’re stopped,
The irrational fear of the distant booms take over,
And I run back.
4
3
2
1
out of the forest with the lightening and
beating of the drums
smacking at my feet.
I come inside,
Soaking wet,
I open my window and turn off the lights and open my computer to write a poem.
The power goes off.
The thunder rumbles kindly,
As if asking me to come back outside,
In nature.
How beautiful it is, this rainy weather.
How sad it makes me, to know that tomorrow
I will still be wet,
Not from rain,
But from sweat.

I love the grey,
I love the moss,
I love the flashing of lightening
Streaking boldly across the blank canvas above.
I flinch at the thunder.
But I smile as the rain comes down,
Breathing vivid life into a bleak world.

I'm  not the kind of girl you say babe to.
Or the one you call beautiful
Or seek to entice.
I'm the one your curled up with in an airport,
Four days before.

I'm not the kind of girl you ask out and post on facebook.
Or worry about from miles away.
I am the hidden kind of girl,
Held in darkness,
But not with hands.

I'm not the kind of girl you move across a country for.
Or you dress up nice and take to parties.
I'm the fierce kind of girl
Who has your unwanted secret
Hidden beneath layers of flesh.

I'm not the kind of girl who doesn't notice your lies.
Or your eyes
Or your ways of showing me I'm not the kind of girl.
But I am the awful kind of girl
Who ignores it.

I am the kind of girl who will share your bed,
And do your laundry.
Agree we are together but always wonder
Why together feels so much lonelier
Then I remember.