Inside of my body
Amidst death and poison
a virus lurks

in every
puddle,
pumping
blood that flushes
my tired heart
like
the river
Styx

Amidst this
battlezone
that is my
failing being
lies
a secret, sleeping

The cells swim by
They are
rarer
now like precious gems
the factories of my
fighting body

produced like
diamonds
born amidst feverish
forges within
a toxic mine

The gems,
they call them T-cells,
are now suicide bombers
converted daily
by the
whisper of
necromancy

They call
this
hex ***
a war against
your own
treasures

Yet my T-cells
are more,
runes blazing
mystic and
glowing,
antigen sorcery
that wards against
failing

Amidst
the 300,000 +sleeper
cells
that abandoned
my cause

Insurgence
bulges with
nightmare

The cells
clamour
growing with the whispers
of past victims
now roped into the
mystic chains, the wizards
call it RNA,
that bind us

An ironic family
of ghosts
who live
in each other
"junk DNA"

My body
is no junk;
instead a treasure
- what do they say
one man's trash?

My body
an
amalgamation
30 years
magic growing
twisted
like thorny vines
that must consume
their
helpless host

My
T-cells
inception
Worlds within me
the "JUNK"
of
lovers past
becomes entangled
in archives
carved in my bones.

Amidst recipes
of a poison
I cannot trace,
I am
ironically
linked
into

a
family of
ancestors
whose cries
beat in
my still
working heart

The drum
of the long fallen
crying for justice
...My blood

Our blood.
chains enmeshing
....ghosts I
will never know

Now parts of me
that lie sleeping in
Trojan horses,
all my own.

Fruit ripens on the vine
Sweet
They tasted wet
Smushing on my lips
Like you did, do, always will

The first time I tasted you, I bit
Peeled. Tore. Ripped.
Into your flesh, heart, (soul?)
I was too rough, now I know
...But so wet.

You had to pop, burst,
when your skin slid against my tongue
your eyes on my heart, I was just as vulnerable.
We were both open, damp, nature, natural, raw,
Gushing. The sound was wet
The sound ran like tears, like truths, like
Juice running, running, running….
I remember how it dripped.

How full your softness
yielded to my thumbs which grabbed you,
cradled, worshiped, wanted
to pull words, truths, adoration and
mysteries to my lips.
To consume you. To eat you.
To invite you to become
a part of me.

But the summer ended too quickly
The harvest begins to yield
We watched as vines, now entangled, withered
hibernated, disappeared, napped in the sunset

As full, firm flesh
yielded to silence, darkness, fear
I searched through thorny bramble
to be cut on your thorns
that guard an
innocent heart.

I am hungry. I yearn to know your
sound, sight, texture, explosions
As the nights get cooler,
My summer is leaving.
I pull my blankets closer
each night
wishing they were skins,
caressing skins, hiding bliss
in entangled fingers, glances
and hearts that
I dream of

Sweetness, sticky like honey
comes in summer and lasts
year after year,
bite after bite

strange fruit that
I never thought I'd
find while wandering
misty, drunken twilights
that you've claimed
with nectar that
burns so good into
dark, wooded places.

Lost in misty woods,
you've become what I
crave, desire, long for
cherish

I'll wait to pluck you
from green thickets
the scrapes of thorns,
difficulty finding you,
nurturing exploding fruit

The effort is worth all the work,
With glowing eyes and sweaty palms
Like a child, I am patient
for the first time.

Oh, strange fruit!
I dream of summers
lost in your grove
The mysterious copse
where vines cradle,
thorns please, moons burn
and suns hang above the horizon
drunk from a fruit so
dangerously sweet,
wet and supple with morning's
cool dew.

The men shout at me as they drive by
“******, walk like a man!”
They hoot, shout, and laugh
As sunlight blinds their white-trash getaway.

I look around and think
How ridiculous to be unable to walk
How insane for me to think that these legs
Move on their own.
How silly for me, the queen that I am,
To think that my kingdom was
Any place I was welcome.

To be queer and visible
Is to challenge
The stained muscle shirts
“wife beaters,” strung across
Tattooed skin and handlebar
Mustaches of the “real men”
Whose siren calls
Police my step.

Most men hate us
The Children of Naomi Campbell
Men, YES MEN, too unafraid
To straighten our walk
Loosen our pant legs
And be invisible.

To be properly gay
Acceptably gay, to be
Tolerable is to be invisible
To hide, to be “real man”

My manhood is ghostly
Terrifying even
My walk so dangerous that
It is unsafe to even drive by

My community is still
Dangerous, unreal
Waiting for the next truck to drive by
To beat me, tie me to a fence and leave me
Like Matthew Shepard
A ghost on a fencepole

Unwanted, dangerous,
My people are a threat
Legs too long threatening the ability of
“real men” to have simple desires
They will do whatever it takes
To keep it easy.

Walk like a man, they yelled.
I yell back the names of my family:
Tiffany Edwards,
Zoraida Reyes, Kandy Hall
Yaz’min Shancez

Bodies that didn’t walk the right way
These ghosts were once threatening too.
Simply existing means threatening
"real men" and their women

Swinging my hips is literally deadly
To be flirtatious is to be threatening
To invite violence, attention
To get what I want, to be made a man

Real man, I am not real
As if my only job is to
Show others how to walk,
As if the rest of me
Is simply fake, fantasy, irrelevant

See how easily queer people
Are watered down to something unidimensional,
Something that is only a fragment of
“real” people – we are ghosts
Moving among you

Threatening, ******
Never just going to work
But always somehow
threatening, challenging
And forcing fantasies onto the world

Why do we always challenge
What is real? What is normal?
Why can’t a man strut? Why isn’t manhood
Something other than what swings with my
Legs?

Real. Ghostly. Fake. Invisible. Dangerous.
What I hear is powerful, noted, interesting,
….maybe even desirable. (GASP!)

When I walk now, I walk with an army of ghosts
Led by the fallen, queens, and divas
who threatened the men of the past.
I live their lessons and proudly
swish my hips in honor of my adopted
****** ancestors.

We Sashay however we want
Because we've realized that
a "real" men is always
Just a step away.

Falling in deep,
Or...sending you 19 consecutive text messages
Because I can't sleep without knowing that your head and heart is racing with mine.

Or...smiling for the first time at a compliment
After years of inauthentic grins because you
See my scars ...and you love them.

Or.... Questioning everything I do
Because the day feels meaningless
Without exchanging torn pages
Of our histories to cherish like bibles.

Or... Falling deeply into your melancholy
And wondering if I can ever breathe again.
..It's 5 am and I find myself amidst
The shards of your heart again....

I lay them around me like diamond dust
Scraping the hopelessness from each
Resolved to peer into your memories
and find the light to rebuild the heart
that has blinded you
From shining for two for so long.

Falling... into your twilight...
...and finding my own beauty along the way.
Falling is flying for the first time.

Deeply, I'm falling.

Mentally, I started titling my poems
“If you only knew…”
the minute that you left

See, we were more like
Mother Nature’s children
Than we thought

Both of us polluted
Like the Ocean, I’m so full of this
Trash that everyone seems to leave me with

You were like poisoned vines,
Twisted and full of thorns
And roses you hide from the light

We built a garden though,
psychedelic and shining through the nights
we always stayed up
late for

Three psychics told me I’d love you
And one of them
In a dying breath told me you’d be
A rose

Boy was he right
I pricked myself just to
Hold you and adore you
Every single time
And I’d do it again

See, gardening takes work
So I cultivate this imaginary love
I hold something fragile every day and
Practice moving slowly enough
Not to break it

I listen to strangers talk
Until I’m bored and I keep….on….
Listening
So that I never miss another word
Love speaks

I look at myself in the mirror
And I find something beautiful
So that I can try to grasp
At how it felt the few times you
Actually looked at me like
I was (AM) a flower too.

I AM A ROSE TOO, ******* IT

I breathe you in like the fragrance
Of these roses that bleed my heart dry
And I wish you cut yourself on my poetry
Half as hard as we both have cut ourselves
Wishing we could bleed out whatever
Makes us undesirable

If only you knew
That I hungered for the few times
You came and watered me with your tears
Nourished my roots with your lips
Rolled around in the dirt
And loved our garden

….More than you loved her.

The quiet growl
of phantom leopards
amidst the forest of night's
dreaming
that agitate
forbidden,
low-hanging fruits of rest
amidst branches we dare
not climb
until light

Waking to the
thought of you
is
Birds cooing
pulling me from
soft dreams.

Your lips
Morning dew
nectar

You've been with me all the while
Just behind me
standing still

I've seen you in the summer sun
against the snow when cold winds come
and have never felt alone

I still cannot catch you
and yet we still chase our tails,
never calmly chasing after
places we will never be,
never know and never see

You kept me, and I know
when all the lights went out
you were my blanket of darkness

And now I must release you
I cannot catch you,
cannot keep you

Through my hands you've always slipped,
I call and you can no longer come
I run and you no longer chase

I guess we are blind and cannot see
or are unable to run anymore
time holds no place for darkness

Forever we'll be together
In the shadows of memories
that none can remember,
that do not run, nor sing
nor dream.

Late at night you'll still be there
- holding me, maybe
we cannot know what we cannot see

In this way you will be my potential,
ever-present, ever-gone,
ever-loving and never real

My
Fleeting
Shadow

Dust has settled
on the cool, tile floors
where I dropped my heart
after ripping it out

It got tired of counting
unused pillows, the same ol'
memories that don't
comfort us to sleep.

Aware that it
owns enough silverware
for twenty but
is always re-using
the same spoon

Laying on the counter
in hazy morning light,
a reminder that we (My Heart and I)
have our secret, lonely routine.

Laying there on the *****
tile mosaics that have
danced in the window's pall
petrifying slowly.


Dusty; in need of
repair,
the streetlamps dance
against shadows
on the pillows that
have forgotten

*what it's like to be
cradled(?)

Am I real?

The deceptively simple
Gushes out of me
Finally

....dangerously.
****.

The desert eats me
Just when I see my
Self

I walk, like Don Quixote,
stumbling drunk
On hope that
Over the next hill
An oasis affords rest

Wanderers like me
Forget friend, follow foe
Running from
Loneliness, regret

We are parched
The sun has baked through
Tattered rags I cling to,
Hide behind

What led me here?
I only remember thirst.
My lips bleed as I tell myself
"Press on"

I sought forgiveness
Mecca, some holy place,
Where I might reclaim
The sparkle I now see
In mythic treasures

...Did I once sparkle?
My feet trail prints in sand
Landmarks blur
False epiphany, hope
Stole me from the path

When you look at me
I see hope in your eyes too
Your mouth wet,
Thirsty even,
To have found me.

Am I back? Are you finally
Leading me home?
I weep at the sight and rush,
Sand flying, feet aflame

...but always I trip
You are gone, the last flickers
Of your eyes shifting away
As you realize I'm a visage in the
Desert sunset

I am left again to endless
Grains of sand falling
Marking the fleeting
Strength and sanity
That leaves to chase you, chase me,
Chase something that will last.

Am I the mirage of your
Once-present companion?
Or are you some angelic vision,
Delusion I crave,
Some taste of an end to
This trek that has worn bone down

Am I real or just another
Flickering light in
This desert where
Illusion and thirst for
Healing

...stand on the horizon before me,
Glinting between rags, tears,
And the echoes of my
Infinite footsteps
In the sand

Privilege: A Poetic Illustration
The open sky
available to birds
free of cages that have
entrapped the
rest of us.
To soar in any direction
knowing no headwind,
net, bars or
wings clipped.
The free bird sings
not so much of power,
for he is
most often blind
to his blessing ,
but of
Choice.
The caged bird,
knowing no
such sky,
watches as
flying
tires faster,
as song
sounds of
battles past.
The sky alone,
rich in pitfalls unseen,
knows
which sky-corner
will be available
to thee.

Here I stand
Toes in your cold, vast forever
Your soothing crescendos
Mask my fear
That your infinite skirts
Could swallow me up
Amidst your churning strength

For the first time
I understand your fierce love
And can open
My eyes to let my own
Heart gush forth salty and
Streaming down my face.

My sister, strong
Endless mother,
Ancestor, progenitor
Always spinning one,
Mother of the beautiful
swimming schools
Wife of mysteries.

Iya
Mother
Mystery
Queen
I find you in my
Grandmother's stern love
My sister's crying eyes
Your children's strength
And my own will to love.

May I float
In your foam-topped cradle
Sheltered from the storm
Within me until
I no longer
Fear the smashing of your
Waves that echo
My own restless heart.

Omi O!
Adupe Yemoja

Thick like butter,
My thighs and feelings are delicious
Eat me up
After all – you’re like the little kid who sticks their finger in the batter.

Isn’t it funny how a taste is all it takes to get hooked?
Watch as every confection I formulate becomes
Another fool’s “gold,” a temporary treasure

Hours spent, sweat dripping down my brow
Staining my favorite outfit, that’s what chasing you feels like
Giving you my heart feels like catering to the President
Hell, I make you three meals a day

At breakfast, I start pulling myself together
Eggs, brilliance, cream, sugar, spice, insecurity, vulnerability
And just a dash of sass

From the shower, I go to work
Where I'll inevitably toil harder than the other kiddies in their
Creepy crawler kitchen sets
Like cream, I rise to the top
Hoping to get the grade A stamp that makes me
Gourmet-quality

At lunch, I’d write you poems
Drizzle my words into pans, into molds, into text boxes, letters and journals
Pour out my soul and scrape the things I normally hide out
With a spatula
****! I let you lick the batter while I starved in the hopes of
Looking appetizing enough for you

By dinner, you needed a snack
As usual, you don’t know what you want
Chocolate or vanilla, me or the other boy, or maybe we’re on a diet again?
What’s mother say, “You just need to watch what you put in your mouth?” I'll try to avoid it but inevitably I'll be stocking the pantry hoping to be diverse enough

Then the finale,
Served up on a platter, I throw myself at you nightly.
The waitresses couldn’t package this cake more easily
Aged for 25 years, this is a deceptive little ****

See, I’m richer than any other slice you’ve ordered
Even though I’m poor. Nutritious and wholesome, I make sure I’m brains, body and as balanced as I could be to taste so sweet. I make sure I’m your favorite flavor despite knowing that I’ll never satisfy your cravings. You've had your fill elsewhere but you're here to eat it too...

It doesn’t matter how well-stocked this bakery is
I’m always the desert that’s just too much, maybe you need something less substantial?I’ll watch from the bakery window while you skip on over to the nearest fast food stop to buy your love from the dollar menu
You’re not good enough for these words, this icing, heavy like my heart,
A unique recipe

Baby, you might want this cake
unfortunately, it’s a seasonal treat
and you just missed me on the menu
You always say you could have it, but you
just can't eat it too...

When you left my house
I almost offered you a receipt
Because you left me like
Tourists leave a hotel room

I look back now and
Know why I lost so much weight
I was trying to make more room for you
So that you could fill me with your love,
I thought

Really, I just made it that much easier
For you to rip my heart out
Without even rolling up your sleeves
It was that easy

“Going to stay with a friend”
Felt like you stole the kingdom’s
Jewels and left.

That’s why I stay up so late
I’ve realized that it’s always when I let you in
That you let yourself out the door

So I fall “in love” with
Grindr profiles that remind me of
Pieces of us that I’m still picking up
Sorting out which pieces go to which
Of our puzzles

I just wish I could tell myself
Apart from you
I’ve inhaled so much of you
Like the smoke that burnt
Every time we touched

It had to be that way
Because I was playing with fire
And I didn’t realize that
We may as well have been
Slow dancing in a burning room

I write letters to you that I’ll never mail
In secret languages, I tell you how stupid we both are
Knowing **** well that what I’m really saying is
That parts of me are still confused

Confused as to whether or not you actually
Ever loved me or if
I was more like the lab specimens
We hung out with

I want to be the fire that burns
Against the skin of lovers who speak in secret tongues
Not in notes I tear up in the dark
But in gasps and croaks

Instead of croaking
Like another dissection frog
You experimented with:
**Even though you earned an A for your work,
I failed you because you never appreciated the class

Heart thief, Dream crusher,
You fooled me,
disabled my defenses.

Invader with tortured eyes
I gave you the
keys to the kingdom
Why?

Why did I fall again
for a wounded heart
And a brilliant mind
And your silver tongue?

Why baby, what a big heart you have.
All the better to distract you with!
Why baby, what a rough past.
All the better to fool you!
What a great communicator
All the better to lull your suspicion...

You disappeared into the night
a bunch of empty promises
a mirage in the desert

Heart thief, soldier
in the night, hope assassin
just another man
who left too quickly
to see my tears

I hope I haunt you
that the desperate thump!
Thump! THUMP!
Of my heart
drives you mad

I hope you
notice the chips in
that treasure you stole

The scars where men
Deceived me like you
And dug nails into my
once-soft heart

I hope....
you come back
And lie to me
convince me there was a reason...

Drug me into
the blissful submission
that was our potential

Dream crusher, heart breaker,
broker of lies, silence dealer,
Poison lips... I wish you had
Kissed me goodbye.

Synchronicity -
It means all of the events
flying, WHIZZING!, d-r-i-f-t-ing by us
as we ourselves float through the world
are related, connected, entangled,
and emerge from some kind of
divine symphony.

The sounds of laughter, tears dripping,
hearts BREAKING, SMASHING, SHATTERING,
the scraping knees crawling through the rubble,
hands SLAPPING TOGETHER as heads turn
towards heaven in prayer-

The warm embraces, -sighs- of comfort, lips smacking,
bodies pressing together in the hopes of being
reunified for a few moments, the glances,
the poems, the letters, the rings exchanged
and matching cemetery plots-

The triumphs, WOO-HOOS, celebrations,
toasts, clinking wine glasses, bottles, mugs
bumping fists, patting hands drumming
confidence into chests-

They are all supposed to be
one godly plan.
Like high notes, tragic sonatas
and joyous fingers plucking
heavens strings into
gracious cords and
silent pauses between tracks
are all one concert that we're conducting.

But doesn't it all feel so fragile?
One broken instrument, one
distracted player, one missing page in
your play book, a hand swished too hard,
eyes-too-penetrating or overly
aggressive dismissal of your
prized pianist
and the whole orchestra
falls into chaos.

What's it mean? What was that lyric?
What key is it in? What is the right tempo?
Do I emphasize the earthy drums that provide stability?
Do I drag you along on a magical carpet ride of echoing
falsettos, throats tugged like the handle-strings
drawing across my violin eyes on an exciting journey?

Or do I sink into the minor keys of my pain-
Songs that I don't share, playing on headphones
now I want to blast them, sob them out, sing them in whispers
at first, let them grow in me like my apathy, swell into tumors of
fear, and hurt and eat me from the inside out!

I want to shout songs of suffering. Have my piano keys
spin you into my anxiety, guitars raising the key like water rising
one floor at a time in the Titanic that is my beating heart.

I want to watch the drummers sweat as they beat out the rage
of having my most precious friends, objects and opportunities
snatched away - over and over - despite the progressive movements.

I want to draw you back into my finale with my fear. It will have to be so disturbing that each note raises hairs on your neck. When I drop my baton, leaves you with my night terrors - so foreign from the concert I'm playing that I'll need

electric guitars, wild wind instruments, theramin and a chorus of sirens and banshees to scare you back into your seat. Songs inspired by fear, pain and sadness, anxiety and misery are all you'll find at this concert. Songs that make bowing an act of submission and never respect or adoration. My forums lack fan clubs. Covers of my songs don't exist.

Please - leave your hearts at the door. Chances are that fate,
the ultimate conductor, will rip me out of this black-and-white
universe that traps me like a suit made from
straightjacket fibers, anyhow. Because life, no matter how unified they tell you it is, LIFE doesn't get remastered. There is no deluxe version, b-side, or re-recording.

No one can auto-tune my words. The dangerous, raging guitar solos of insults and fury that have wrecked
all of the men who really cared at one point.
The friends who survived the mounting anxiety of watching me
skip like a CD in the broken walkmen we had as kids. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I meant to! Mean-! Mea! Meant, Meant, Meant, Meant <silence>, SLAM "Meant to call you,"

Or maybe ([SARCASM] IF YOU'RE LUCKY!) you'll hear track 4. I'll sing, "I need your help!", "Wow, *****, just come over!", "This *****!", "I didn't mean it", "Don't get like this again!". Against the anxious, building, manic tones, my panick blares while "I'm not good enough", "Can't do that", "my disease makes that hard", "Do you like me?", "**** this!!!" blares like an infernal choir pressing you to madness.

See, human symphonies aren't coherent - music theory isn't a predictive corpus. Experience shows that you can't make it come together. Too often, we don't get any rehearsal time. The death dirges that have stolen away my family, one at a time, creeping up from a silent, whispering stocatto'd-doom drown out any of the romantic, epic harpsichord solos that I still only dream of.

The angry, head-banging, 'where's that mosh-pit for grown-up children with kneepads?' beats don't motivate me anymore. They break down the walls to the studios where I was writing expert concertos. The earthquake-like blasts of my self-loathing fear have already torn down too much sound-proofing and the record studio collapsed because noone had the credentials to get in. My only dance consists of turning off the lights and yanking up the covers. Being a one-hint wonder isn't happening. Then again, can you blame me for not stopping? I don't pass this after I hit it.

In the end, the musicians don't always show up. It's like, - We've all been to that concert. Ya know, where everyone feels the awkward energy of a 4th grade Christmas Carol musical? Where, the costumes weren't convincing. Of course neither were the conductor's falsehoods, lies, omissions, or the promise that you'd enjoy this show. Cover art, like my critic's ratings, just don't do me justice . "Smart, engaging, relatable" the new listener's proclamation that "I'm falling in love! I can't get enough!" are marketing gimicks that just don't last.

Synchronicity, like destiny, has revealed itself to me as a fantasy. Reality's crumpling threads don't always find their way into skilled weaver's hands.  These strings have all snapped. In the end, I'm left smashing drums with trombones, crying over the rusted saxophones that can't croon for other hearts anymore. Just wait, my closing number is a Celine-Dion covered effort to stay afloat in the monsoon that I've been summoning for over a decade. When everyone leaves my audience, the program is either left behind or taken only by the weirdos who resonate with this kind of tortuous tune

I end each night walking the aisles of my darkened auditorium-soul now. I like to follow the echo and chase "coulda!" "woulda!" shadows across walls. I find your ticket stubs and nostalgia pulls me away from the dimming lights. In the end though, I can't counter the reviews that my show has no point. The tragedy isn't teaching any lesson and the cacophonies I birth don't generate fans. Plus, requests for autographs have become suicide invitations for an artist who can't release a polished track.

Synchronicity:A word invented and popularized by psychologist Dr. Carl Jung in the 1950s.  We all no better now that this is not a word that exists. Yet, the potential leads us all to chase after seasont tickets.

Synchronicity, defined as the false hope that it all means something. Synchronicity, the hope that you'll get to be the big strand in something special. Synchronicity - the promise of a heavenly choir, or divine symphony; of course we've already fallen from grace too often to question our unfulfillment. Sync-ro-nic-it-eeeee, like an old worn-out cassette tape, rarely comes with the equipment and support needed to hear it. Synchronicity - The jagged, little red pill that I can't take. Synronicity: the seemingly fate-driven world that we all stop believing in when the silence sets in.

Synchronicity: a series of seemingly random events that promise you a long night of unsurpassed concert sound. At least it's not alcohol I'm left lacking

Synchronicity, the artists that't leaves us entangled in distractions. Like scratched soundtracks. Synchronicity: the band I quit that has since left me wishing for buttons:

Pause. Stop. Repeat. Shuffle. Fast-Forward? Rewind!.....
..... Skip.

...................Eject.

These nights,
Like heavily molasses,
Fall on me
Sticky and thick

Lost lover, I wonder if you wish for these nights...
….Rough and paradoxically soft in all the right spots…

Laden with memories
treasures
I long to have again

….You smelled of tobacco, musk and spice…

How fast
The simplest
Gifts become
The most sacred

…You always held me when you kissed me…

These nights
Where we wander memories
Both misty eyed and longing
Yet smiling

…I am afraid I’ll never feel that close again….

These nights
When we toss and turn
Hoping to relive
sweet pasts again

....Only the stars know if you stare off into the darkness too...

These nights
Wishing sweetly
that our same dreams

...I still wake up hoping to see you in my underwear...

lived in the arms of
lovers that no longer
entangle us
like molasses

*...On these nights

It burns, rages inside of you
Tears, like gasoline, sparkle
as they fall, as they feed
the fire writhes, the fire sings.

It rips away the pain, the feeling-
a fire strong will send you reeling.
It screams against your eyes and skull
further into the fire you fall.
What is the fire but change?

Energy encapsulated in shining light.
Let it burn against the skin, let it take
the world away.

It sings an eerie siren song,
crackling as it grows strong.

Red, then orange
and sometimes blue.
The fire reflects
the worlds in you.

Be a pheonix and let it burn,
sing the song, and dance along
be the serpent on the tree
-the fire is in both you and me.

It burns and rages,
both in and out.
Tears like gasoline
sparkle as they feed
the flame.

The song, we sing-
like tiny sparks
again and again,
again and again,
again and again,
like embers sizzling,
and flames a-flickering
against the night.

True love, the kind in fairy tales - ya know the ones with witches and knights, strapping princes and tarot-reading witches - is unexpected.

Don't listen to your mother and her love stories, or those cheap dime store romances. Love is not a teenage dream, or the flings on the soap operas (winning your Lucas back from that ***** Sammie, always my grandma's favorite villain in Days of Our Lives). Grandma, the life, love and days i want are different.

Love is fluttering butterflies. The uncertainty of knowing if this moment lasts, seeing a rainbow. The feeling always has an unspoken expiration date. It is rare. So rare that we pay psychics to find it, and whole forests have been lost amidst writing out our collective fantasies.

I guess it's a good thing my ideal love isn't grown on trees then. Supernovas can't be purchased. Trading hearts isn't easy. In fact, it hurts so much that Shakespeare's ghost considers revising Romeo and Juliet any time he thinks of what love has shown me. My love burns like a broken heart might sting if you shoved it full of stardust.

The ancestors knew love is a mystery. The sphinx doesn't know our riddle, and if spells worked I wouldn't be reading this poem. I can't waste anymore hope on tarot cards which have become worn out, bent, and far too familiar since I met you, love. Here let me explain:

The smell of you is a kind of mystic vapor. The oracles at Delphi would trade in their visions for one of yesterday's t-shirts. Don't be embarrassed or confused, I'm not here to play The Fool. I've already proven that we both can be The Magician, High Priestess and The Emperor. The magic of love is bigger than either of us.

My love comes with keys to my kingdom, sit on my throne, direct my armies, and borrow The Chariot. Hell, you can have the castle! You know that's what fairy tale sweethearts do.

This kingdom has known no Empress. That seat sits empty. Think you're man enough for the position? In a future fantasy, you'd inspire the nation, just the way you'll inspire me. We'd leave a legacy. Pyramids, empires, new eras, and new faiths would rise in our names. Pharaohs would envy how the Hierophant pronounces us inseparable. In my fairy-tale, letting down walls is easy. Love knows no labels, no limits, no bounds. Love is fairy dust.

In my 3 part epic, love and romance are no burden. See, this fantasy is one we read through time-to-time and I'm only just learning how to trust wishes made on shooting stars and genies in bottles. No one before has ever made it past the dragons, soldiers and that Minotaur. Believe me when I say, you appeared out of thin air and I trust in fate now. Thank you. I know you aren't the one. I'm learning to let you go.
I hope I do you justice. When you showed up, I prayed to my fairy godmothers for the first time I can recall. The last ******* ran off with Excalibur, the unicorns, and my scepter. "Oh well," you said. "That isn't what counts."

I've been a hermit so long, I forgot how to smile. But when I wake up in this new fairy-tale called life, I don't notice the treasurer, my wars, and problems in the kingdom or even that all my favorite princes still dream of finding their princesses most nights. Even that doesn't scare me. This is all too authentic and the heart gets used to being rejected. Stamped return to sender so many times, I can't count.

My happily-ever-after doesn't have to be perfect. I'm a realist, and besides, we've both gained so much that it feels like we finally landed a spin on the jester's wheel of fortune. Writing poems is something I gave up when I put aside these stories I grew tired of envying. Now I am writing my own. You currently don't fit the part of Prince Charming. Ironic since you inspired him.

Ya see my physical wants are just side effect of the real bliss that I find when I am myself beside you. I don't need ruby rings, or magic slippers to feel at home here. You give me the Strength to fight my own nightmares off. That’s a gift no elves could forge into gold.

It's the way you make the world explode into color that is worth any cost. It’s your honest caring that neutralizes the occasional tragedy. Besides, the drama, which is less dramatic than any of the past “once-upon-a-times” I've fallen into, only makes the story more exciting.

You broke the spell that a Black sorceress and her 3 sister put on you. I first felt like a hero that day at your side. Hearing you renounce your former desire to be the Hanged Man, or to desire Death, is still one of my favorite chapters of the story we wrote.

The love I dream of isn't easy, as I've said. It isn't always epic or fantastical. Sometimes it’s about finding the Temperance not to push potential princes off the balcony too often. There just aren't enough magic carpets these days. I've discovered that learning not to expect change is its own school of challenging wizardry. Luckily, I'm not bad with rare wands.

My love has its risks. I get it, love is usually a surprise! Love like this is easy to deny, fear or resist. I don't want a proposal or their parent's permission for a hand! I just want my prince to be the first person willing to face down The Devil for me, the only one who climbs my Tower and really ruffles the sheets, the one who outshines The Moon.

I don't want to be "that prince." I'm no former-frog; I'm no good with a sword. Honestly, I had given up on magic until you asked me to eclipse the moon. It wasn't hard. If I have to extinguish the Sun, my tears would swell and blacken the sky. I am glad I don't need to shed them anymore.

This love, rare and mystical, is like a leprechaun. Everyone wants it, nobody seems to find it. I got to the end of the rainbow though. It will go something like this, "once upon a drunken, Vegas night..." an Urban fantasy at its finest, if I do say so myself. I just don't want the *** of gold. Give me the dark, mysterious knight. **** the prince. I know it sounds crazy. He and the princess can take the *** of gold, the baby unicorn, and my Judgment too!

My love is risky. It has no chains, guarantees, or Geico lizard to vouch for it. No time-turner to fix it when I **** up, no love potion to make you stay. In my fairy tales, the dragons are our wounded personalities. His shining armor is a defense mechanism, and my damsel-in-distress routine won't work if we let the spark go out.

In my timeless romance, The Lovers learn to enjoy the moment. **** castles, I'd be happy to get a studio. I don't have a unicorn. My chariot looks the same after midnight. I can't promise riches, fame or immortality. And yeap, compared to the princesses, I'd better resemble a toad some mornings.

But I have a love that can put Shakespeare to shame. I'm more complex than Tolkien's Middle Earth, braver than Harry and just as scarred, smarter than Gandalf though I lack his beard, more patient than any of those damsels, and I bet I cook better. No, I know I do. Somehow, this quest has taught me self-confidence.

Unlike those fairy tales, I'm no finished masterpiece. This work in progress has a heart of gold, is on a quest, growing up daily and aims for future royalty. I'm looking for love, ready to leave Neverland, and all i have to offer you are my best effort, this worn deck of cards, myself, and all The World I can bewitch for us.

WANTED: one prince charming who can see themselves in this real-life fairytale.

I come
From the puddles of tears, mosaics of scars,
these glaring cracks in between
your perfect life,
mocking shadows cast by the street lights of
your corporate world.

I breathe
Fire, transforming rage,
lusting lips that
touch and dance
sing and bridge
cauterizing gaps in the heart and soul
melting between us.

I live
in the downtrodden, in the shame
of the man who made 2nd place again...
in your heart of hearts where
you weren't the one,
aren't desired, and
felt forlon

I dance
Where your fear consists only of
loving me not beating me,
kissing me, not calling me ***
listening, instead of hushing my
lips, excitement, heart -
most of all my spirit,
telling me who to be.

I am
A resuscitated catastrophe
trapped in this
prison of privilege and assumption
where affect is a key that opens doors
but can't get me out of this cell
without compromising
my identity.

I am.
I come.
I breathe.
I live.
I dance.

I am.

Dark blue infinity,
Oh, falling luminesce fading into the twilight,
how you dance across the silent sand!
The horizon shines as liquid sun cools rose gold along the ferrous peaks,
Endless strokes weave drifting clouds into fast sleep.

The awesome silence of finality
marries the shadowed mountains
cradling the firmament.
Sound abandons the valley as the dark hides the skyline;
Sight fails.

Callous fingers tighten across
Folding arms in the still air,
Let your eyes fall towards the ground,
Exhale the crisp invisible end,
Lungs rush towards bursting
with the weight of closure as
day, possibility, light are
Erased into sublime black.

Let us lower upturned faces,
Count moments as descending
Grains of sand mark the hourglass'
rest. Time embraces former possibility, their hands entwining,
joining the downcast face now
grasped by the gorgon sorrow's snare.

Rise and fall, do our dreams and hopes, creaking ribs, shifting fabric, against the petrified chest engulfed in apocalyptic surrender.

Oh, talisman of Perseus,
Cursed for resisting cruelty,
Fated to suffer despite devotion, grace, and righteous indignation,
Medusa, terrible bearer of this same curse,
What fools are we?

What monstrous resemblance does  the frozen fool now share with the ****** priestess' unfortunate victims still standing statuesque  amidst the ruins of her world?

Stone-cold eyes blink endlessly,
The figure's petrified form bears the weight of starlight and the moon's temple.

Witness as futures unfold! Gaze, like Delphi's Oracle once did as man, future, and marble pillars become a singular spectacle.

What possibility shot into the heavens, now out of reach? What mortal joy falls at each day's end joining Helios and the sun elsewhere?

Call it tragedy! Some claim her despair! Oh Dante, how wickedly you call this nightmare a comedy,
Witness as the body discovers it's dream long-gone,
whispered about by lorekeepers and bards,
The vanguards of worlds such as this one,

Jolting skyward, his jaw clenches, glazed eyes turning,
Tumbling as his form reanimates,
Walk now into that abyss.

Called myth, utopia, inferno or sometime's paradisio,
All these too are visions of man,
- Which we may
Pursue but none come to obtain -
ever fading into the absolute silence
lain now to rest amidst
the chill of the desert breeze.

Look out the
Dusty window,
Breathe in night's
Cool air.

Tell yourself again:
"I'm ok."
Pick the book back up.

Try to find
Any spot that makes
"Sense" again.

Sense again.
Knots in your shoulders,
Knots in your stomach.
Nots.

Not thinking,
Look out the window again,
Tell yourself you'll be ok

Breath because
You have to, you can
Control that.

Tell yourself again:
"I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok."
Pick up the book again...

All you can do is keep going.