A drunken soul asked me:
Will you marry me?
His words slurred however his intentions were not blurred as they spilled out of my delicate sleepers mind.
Suddenly that one question seemed all too real to me
and I smiled.
I smiled a thousand suns and a million other galaxies because of the one question.
Will you marry me?

Suddenly the images of a bright white wedding dress bombarded my vision,
the silk like clouds,
and a prominent black suit stood by its side.
Faceless yet I knew who it was.
Then the vivid daydream ended,
and I found myself sat on my bed,
in front of a phone,
typing,
'not quite yet we're too young baby **'.
Yet that answer felt wrong.

Saying yes would mean the world to me.
But being 16 is a number that marriage would regret ever meeting.
Age is just a number right?
But when it implies the world's prominent questions...
Age is a limit.
So I said maybe.

Maybe.
Maybe one day.
Maybe today.
Maybe next week, next month, next year.

But for now,
how about we settle with a promise.
I promise my dear to always love you,
cherish you.
I will never cheat.
Lie.
Or steal your love.
I am yours and you are mine.

Will I marry you?
Yes.
Just some other time.

her morning pleasure occasionally actually exercised,
a substituted delight for gym-going work with Lulu exercised,
no man can, will ever, understand

the nature/nurture debate over,
in my mind resolved, nature, hands up and hands down

RR's^  query, is god dead,
no longer rumbles around in my head cause when he speaks,
I can't get a word in edgewise

what i did in the sixties, lost to time in memoriam,
especially some really bad poetry

but this gender differentiation
a matter that Aristotle dutifully, so wisely, philosophically avoided

there is no Socratic method rationality in what is just crazy insanely meiosis,
there is no comprehension of the essence of  elemental genetic division,
like the NY Mets,
ya just gotta believe, or just accept

but from the other side of the bed
comes a surly, dry rejoinder, a gelled spike

thanks to modern science,
why don't you come over to the
right side, maybe then,
you'll understand the true meaning
of pleasure

transgend your self,
show your willingness per the bible,
to be god's new and improved version of a human being

So,
a pretty little, light A-line,
with a summer floral pattern,
a size 12, (20? ***)
I,
will wear with great
human pride,
come June

I search for him in my sleep.
His name falling from moon kissed lips,
and slipping into the tangled sheets.

I reach for him.
beyond blurred shadows and blanket barriers,
Arms stretching across vacant space so hopelessly.

Nightmares stay on the edge.
Pawing in frustration that his adoration elevates me,
placing me upon a pedestal far beyond their monstrous grip.

Night fades in a kaleidoscope of rising colors.
Crumbling the darkness into opulent  light,
leaving me always breathless in this unspoken place.

depleted
of energy,
a weight of gold
upon my heart,
its heavy dull luster
pushes down hard
squeezing out
        the light
suffocating
    my staccato
of breath
     I crouch        
quietly
in the brush,
the next step in
my process
                 pending
a dense rock
of pendulum
swaying time
  tick ticking
in my blood
cells reaching
the boiling point
just shy
of spilling over
into froth
waiting for
this conundrum
        to unravel,
my inner tigress
about to unfurl
             her heart
    to leap
and pounce
from
   within
into the
  tight
white
          of blinding
snow, the silent
storm of  
      the unknown
forever

My daughter sleeps to the sound of the ocean
softly, gently rocked
forth and afar into dreams and nightmares
a soft static blanket
the assonance of water

My daughter sleeps
to the sound of an ocean that she has never heard
a loop of imagined waves that have
never wet her feet
she has never run screaming and laughing
from the imagined horrors of seaweed, foam
Tangaroa’s arms enfolding her

As my daughter sleeps, I cry
as salty as the swells she’s never seen
in this landlocked room
slowly falling from my cheek
to land on hers
a soft saline baptism

As my daughter sleeps, my thoughts fly
wondering how I can fill her
with the awe that something as elemental
something as capricious
something as beautiful
can exist in this tattered world

but still, my daughter sleeps