Begging he falls to her gun,
He ran so long but now he's rung,
She creeps up their bone flower,
But he died in this burning tower,

Her eyes break through dam cement,
Metal gowns the skeletal present,
This kiss will drop the brazier,
Third degree suits together they peel,

He felt reaction to pins,
She cried during the operation,
He'll spin her to the ground,
She screams when she's straight anyhow.

The boy who ran to the subway,
He left his girl at their wake that day,
Take care till the day she leaves,
The last Fall leaf is gone in the Spring.

-----I hear her. The quiet spatter of Spring rain tapping against my apartment window. The gentle clouds walk in a cold blue light, shadowing the kitchen and dining area towards the back. I'm standing alone, in between and behind her breath, doing as I've always done: painting with her in the light that guides my hand throughout every movement of my wrist on the canvas. Those scentless, dollar-priced candles I buy for the night – they're just cheap imitations compared to what she sheds about this room right now. The candle's fire melted through my coffee table, damaged the expensive wood from which it was crafted. I can't possibly pay to repair it just yet.

-----But right now, it's her sound. She couldn't be much more or less without losing that utter perfection of pitch. Water against glass, it leaves my cracked body feeling wet sometimes. She whispers softly, moving my arm like a puppeteer does. I breath into what she breathes out, stroking to her heartbeat, coloring to her attack. She's relentless, leaving a rhythm that's never been properly diagnosed. I ask away, “Who are you, my lovely dancer?”

-----And it's true where she walks, too. Shadows hide behind every book, album, and film case that lay about my living space. They wait, all of them, on a single call of mine to turn and show their real selves to her ever-efficient gaze. She pierces them through, turns them to stone. The colors I see are subjective and factual, her perspective. She touches my hand to the brush, brush to the paper. I, letting her do this, then make my move.

-----I stack skin onto bone and ****** structure, streaming hot blood through it. I whistle in the air a wind which beats violently on her torn sundress and on the red flag she holds high in her bare knuckled fists. The wind and shattering earth ravages the landscape in natural disaster. She's poised, slanted in the wind and on breaking rock, eyes closed and focused. My eyes fade with hers for a time, noticing the words appear on her scarlet fabric:

"I am"

My stomach's wallet breaks the pocket's seam.
I eat what I see,
I can't help with tasting everything.
The grapes and the burgers,
the peanuts and bananas.

I'm consuming as the wild beast does;
the vine grows empty and I will growl,
moving on to the next new field.
But the cheeses here are magnificent,
I'll keep coming back for just another slice of it.

These warm chocolate drippings
on mountains of cold cream
melt into gooey cookie crust;
Me and my flag stand ready for the adventure
right up and back down the mudslide.

But my buds are changing in a strange wind
and I am the wild dancer in this hurricane.
The strawberries are dipping into whipped cream
until the bowl grows empty,
refilling it with oats and milk.

My tongue lives forever in this moment,
leaping this way and that,
the day's cheetah is fast for its slab of chewy beef jerky
and afterward,
the night's panther is face forward in the wild fruits.

I pray for the day this dessert morsel is the last,
but alas,
my hunger ravages like a princess for her pony.
The king will no longer resist her screams for another stable
and I will ride this black mare forever.

A broken leg floats
After its bones sink,
yellow turns red
turns white turns pink,

sweet turns black
turns sour turns rotten,
It turns in its grave
it bangs in its coffin,

Coffee beans are chopped
and bought from them,
turned hot and then forgotten,
Turned cups flow their drink
toward the waste,

It waits in the **** and under the bandage,
based in the wound and under the scabbing,
It's soon to fall off and show us a scar,
It's color is pink, It's over the raw.

The summer sun at certain hours of the day
angles its shine into
the ample windows of this house,

The blackout is unavoidable
during these heavy heated months
in which we find ourselves,

The power outage often keeps
all the lamps on at night
while none of them can show light,

The brightness in the room
is a byproduct of guided mirrors
trailing from my next door neighbor's house,

The built-in generator they own
often satisfies the home's residents
no matter the time, weather, or otherwise,

The reflections from across the way
align throughout the living room
and up the stairs of my house I hold out in,

The recreation of light here
can be far more than recreational
for my other neighbor's mirror systems.

She takes notice, she takes focus,
She takes more than me back home,
We're flipping up and upside down,
Twisting out loud our frowns are turned around
and I'm falling,
I'm Face to face with her after
such a long stalling,

But I hear you wonder till there's thunder
with our knot-be-noose in said tangled lies,
Let me notify you that your hot and cold lenses
are making this fight,
That far away I'm noticing your ear's are just
cotton shut tight,

See,
you push the prone as I need her by my side,
Resenting to let go of possessive love
Though you know that I'm right,
Know this,
That I'll pull tight what you've towed until you detach,
You'll fall back into night without a single flash,

But like child you cut till you craft blood,
A big red stain that will wash out in rain and separate mud,
I still hear your pathetic voice
in it's low and screeching highs,
I tell you,
don't take it to my home, it's horrid,
Alone you should sing or cry
or just get over it,

But here again you're needing a loan
Though you never owed or owned,
Nevertheless I'll leave a last help
And pray it should lay like a stone,

Hear that what you needed was a backbone
Every time you hunched and never tried,
Every time you plunged blind
With no stable step in your life,

So I say good riddance and bare well,
A last goodbye and farewell,
You've poisoned your own time and mine,
Now finally let it be good,
I'll finally let it be right.

A smile is the most revealing human ****** expression I've ever witnessed. Its a habit of nature, so it always tells a good story.

The widest smiles often tell a different story with the eyes. Their smiles are long, and sometimes you can watch their eyes slowly creep with them, as if between the two a connecting valve is slowly opening. The side of their mouths grow high like an ******* with a euphoria dripping down the dimples. Eventually I can't tell if those happy-looking eyes are seeing anything anymore; that smile is preparing to close the eye lids, preparing for a flight to somewhere else. Soon enough they'll shut off completely. Are you dreaming now?

That smile's to be written often and never for yourself. You could write 'confirmation', 'dinner party', 'family photo', a myriad of others on that blank piece of paper. When used, the mouth flexes its guns as long as it can while the eyes freeze in place like a dear in headlights. It's a puppet manikin dancing The Ritual of Memories, to be seen again but never remembered in quite the same way. The iron curtain to be raised once the light enters our lenses. Was it a good one?

Sometimes her smile speaks more than a single story, dependent on which one she hopes to wear that day. Yesterday a faint smile tried to dam all the fluid behind her eyes, a couple of holes channeling salt along her face. I thought she had gone crazy. Today her Cheshire smile bars the prison room of her mouth. Any moment longer and her tongue's time will be up and it'll be the heat on the block again. I can see it in her eyes when she imagines herself moving people and objects like a comedic psychic, her lips creeping to one side. Is he wearing a bulletproof vest?

I've seen him smile with his mouth half open, teeth parted. A blind Beholder awakens in between, squinting lightly behind the shadows of those teeth. It's a faint expression, resembling an opposite of what floods the man's vision. Discovery is spearing a beast in the deepest trench of his heart, spraying its blood out from the man's eyes in a triumph. I'm just as stunned as he is; where will he go with all that victory?

A smile is so near to the essence of the human spirit. To create a smile in ourselves is to be happy, which we seek deeply. But to what end? When our smiles are masted forever, where do we as humans go? What is our next plan of action?

Wondering this to myself, I looked over the side of my coffee table and saw you smiling lightly, a glimmer in your eyes as you read a book I didn't recognize. It made me smile.