this is my excavation to
the days coming along
running hands with laughter
throwing it down on the table
straight
flush
okay, cool

sister, these things don’t matter
when we’re twisting into the sun
with pants that are too short
the fountain rich with
iced chai
tangled with the peculiar
the beautiful
through these moments
I commend
our hearts for finding each other

love is always on the move
as sure as shoe shine
as mahogany
like timidity to relinquish
to let the universe take hold
and instill this emotion
into my body
fit it all in my heart
O, singer of love
fit it all in my heart
the knell
the reverberation
the cotton that lands
on your hair
the sunscreen stuck in my ear

we are a sketch of two travelers
sleeping under stars
the fire
finally dies down
the rapture of the universe
is overwhelming
everything flows
everyone is connected
and this music we hear
is constant
like gentle waters falling

this too, sister
makes my cane solemn
and I draw you in the sand
only to watch the tide
wash you next to me
the emotion
wrangled in English
simply means good
simply means
a full listen and
dear sister
because everything begins
and will be remembered always
as love

Sleight of hand
creates illusion
politicians the rich
in collusion.
Good slaves we
buy their Solutions
titrated diluted pollution.

They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle.
I see black holes
You See Stars Spangled.

"Disseminate fear keep them numb and Confused
they'll reward our
egregious abuse"
but fools won't believe
when it's dark
they see day
so now I tell you
what's the use anyway?

They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle...
You see white stripes.....
I see liberty.....***** and strangled

Keep it obscure,
then hand you a cure,  
their best phishing lure
To make you believe
that this country's great
they use a little bitty hook
and a tiny bit of bait

They've got you dangling with the carrots they're wrangling.
I see black holes
you see stars spangling

They've got you wrangled with the bait they dangle...
you  see white stripes,
I see liberty ***** and strangled

They got you dangling
with the **** they're wrangling....
Open your eyes
you'll see there angling.

the river flows as
living memory

the birds of the
Nile are its
knowing eyes

fly catchers
ply the rich
delta
probing
sediments
of sand
washed
from
distant
Nubian
mountains
eons
ago

layers of
recollection
go fathoms
deep

shrieking
gulls
plumb the
mud flats
with heroic
persistence
as they did
when the
first rafts
drifted out
of the
Great Rift
ferrying
civilizations
forebears
to the
opening chapters
of world history

the first
seafarers
competed with
greedy spoonbills
to navigate
porous
papyrus
crafts
through
the narrow
channels
of the
Damietta,
transporting
ideas, skills
and goods
to build an
emerging
world

mallards
troll the
same
gentile
eddies that
goaded the
Mother of
All Waters
to float the
basket cradling
Yahweh’s
infant prophet
Musa, into the
loving arms
of Bithiah
who nurtured
the vanquisher
of Osiris’
galleries of
Gods

a litany
of conquests
rolled on the
silver waves
of this river

conquerors
maneuvered
the truculent
currents
like sharp
eyed hawks
skimming the
pliant waters
with well
extended
razor quick
talons
picking the
Nile’s bounty
clean

this fertile
delta remembers
more than
6,000 seasons
of harvests

the
cycles of time
has produced
seasons of plenteous
abundance and
desperate privation
all cleverly exploited
by generations of
fearless herons
who wrangled
the demons
of hardship
to route the
dread of hunger
expelling despair
from the Egyptian
DNA, etching
a new hieroglyph
of freedom onto
survivors hearts

the Niles
sorrows
and glories
perpetually
wash this
magnanimous
delta
surely as
the gentle
wakes
of feluccas
continue
to lap its
shore

the marshes
have not withered

the verdant
reeds prosper

flamingos find
the water
rich in fish

in due
season
the red
lotus will
paint
the arcuate
alluvial
fans in
scarlet
autumnal
hues

In the
Valley of
the Kings
the shadows
of migratory
flocks mark
the foundation
stones of the
pyramids
as they did
when slaves
pushed them
into place

the eternal
lines of
pharaohs
rule has fallen,
their gods
imprisoned
in hieroglyphs
adorning their
royal tombs
on display
in the worlds
museums

the weathered
pyramids continue
to crumble

the face of
the sphinx
withers away

torrents of
blood flowed
in this rivers
currents, now
strained clear
by the reeds
anchoring
its banks

the fleeting
rule of regimes
are pictured
as momentary
reflections
skimming along
the ripppling
water; the
rise and fall
of rulers is
captured like
the shifting hues
sunrises and
sunsets bespeak
upon the waters

the ascending
waves of
the Sacred Ibis
dance atop
the Nile’s gray
waters; the
river jumps
to life as the
graceful wings
take flight
to foreign
destinations;
expecting
to return
again as
the cycles
of seasons
round once
more

as the Nile flows
its memory deepens
the eyes of the birds
watch and remember


Music Selection:
Gary Bartz, I've Known Rivers

Oakland
3/31/12
jbm

We pass the
walled incline
of Barbour Park

during the day
a foreboding
patch…an open
air market for
the slave merchants
hustling crack and
**** drippin ****
that's been stepped
on so many times
its a wonder the cut
can still chide a high
out of a wrangled soul

the park’s
modest elevation
is an advantageous
lookout for
runners dealing
dimes while
petty ante
gangstas
daydream
gun blazing glories
of their next big job

not long ago
the park was
refurbed with
an industrial
strength plastic
Jungle Jim,
soon after
the park was
condemned
as a no go
zone for kids,
the litter of
hypodermic
needles and
mounds of
lead spiked
soil, deemed
a public health
risk for youth...
quickly
repurposed
as a crib
for ballers…

back in the
day, the shady
pocket park
lifted Paterson’s
citizenry off
the heated
pavements of
a bustling
thoroughfare

a respite from
the pulsing
tensions of urbanity,
a secular sanctuary,
balancing the urgent
industry of commerce
with the propriety of
residential life

compacting a
brief escape
from the clanging
metronome with
a viewing stand
offering elevation...
a heightened
perspective on
life’s parade
marching
up and down
Broadway…

this urban
oasis planted
at the center
of Silk City’s
grandiloquent
boulevard,
occupies
the most
democratic
equidistant
transit point
between opulent
Eastside mansions
of livin large tycoons
at one end….
and the
industrial district of
The Great Falls,
rising at Broadway’s
western terminus,
assiduously
manufacturing
dollars for the darlings
of fortune and
subsistence for
workers yearning to taste
the crumbs of
prosperity that may fall
from the tables of
opportunity

the park once a
pleasant face of
the landlocked
4th Ward filled
with homage to
a nation's greatest
citizens, Hamilton,
Rosa Parks,
Lafayette,
Madison, Fulton,
Montgomery and
Franklin has
denounced the
virtuous pursuit of
their aspirational
yearnings

now playas
feast on
the mead
of sustenance
harvested from
emaciated streets

commerce has taken
up full residency...
the wards cottage industry
cannibalizing
homes, hoods and
homeboys

as the
4th Ward
grows ugly,
the healthy
matrix of
bustling
street life
breaks down
the peeps
weakened
lay prostate
offer veins
to blood *******
predators
roaming
distressed
going south
neighborhoods

wise guy
knuckleheads,
get busy
gaming
the system
short changing
themselves and
hustling game
to get by
in the sweet bye
and buy of life

at night
a back lit
Barbour Park
floods with the
yellow haze of
blinking Fair St.
lamp posts
and the pulsing
halations
crowning the
Baptist's
of St. Luke's

sentient figures
shift between
park benches
flitting among the
black torsos
of skeletal trees
blending into
the faded
complexion
of abandoned
swing sets

I swear I see
Hurricane Carter
shadow boxing
dancing
around a gangling
Elm, jabbing
away, lifting
a sweet uppercut
working combos
of left hooks
and right crosses
hoping to drop an
intractable
presence
banging away
at a body politic
forming the walls
of taunting
inequities

Hurricane stays
busy delivering
body blows
to burst
through the
prison bars
surrounding
Barbour Park

Music selection:
Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Paterson
01/30/13
jbm

A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.

VACUUM CLEANER TANGO

---Lyrics by Jonathan Caswell

(Some misspellings are due to rhythm keeping)



The Vac…cuum Clea…ner Tango,

Is like…a juicy…mango,

Those fi…bers will…entangle

Your teeth or brushes, pretty quick!



The girls…who do…the cleaning,

Are ev…ver so…well-meaning,

To move…around…guys leaning,

That watch…and approve…the show!



Plugs must…be changed…more frequently,

If lon…ger hallways…decently,

Are cleaned…the most…expediently,

It’s all…a part of…the dance!



The vac…cuum clea…ner tango,

A dai…ly chore…is wrangled,

By clea…ners star…spangled,

Perfor…ming it with…extra class!

"That's it! I'll take it to the scissors myself!"
Mangled, wrangled, tangled mess,
meandering tendrils coil and cross, clump.

Split ends,
knots so impossibly tied the eagle scout is left bewildered,
sun damage: fried, frizzled, frazzled, frayed.

Broken teeth in a gasping comb,
choking brushes enveloped in the furling mess,
hairspray, fruitless, face it:
(Another) Bad Hair Day.

"That's it! Today's the day!"
The call is made, the appointment scheduled,
you sit and wait.

X's mark the calendar, the day is nigh,
your do's judgement day is at hand.
It's time to settle this.

The day before, you wake up,
absentmindedly getting dressed, drudging through routine,
mirror's the last thing you see.

Crusty eyes suddenly open wide,
as split ends seal and knots unfurl,
sun damage heals and combs sing ceaselessly.

The day is met with a new life,
and the dark days of yore seem like a past life,
as this sunny day seems like all there is.

You laugh at what now appears to be such trivialities,
"Twas a bad hair day! And merely so!"
You allow yourself such a shallow deception.

Your hand grabs the phone, your fingers make the call,
your voice makes the cancellation--
"How could I have been so foolish to resort to such measures?!"

You hang up and scoff at yourself,
a hearty laugh in jest at such hastiness,
tossing and swishing your luscious mane to and fro.

You allow it to slip through your fingers,
on the cusp of the cure,
as the bad hair days truly outnumber the good (you know it to be so).

For the next day will come--
You'll greet the mirror with that heart-wrenching sigh,
in visible anguish at the chaotic mess that encroaches upon your head.

          Don't let a good hair day fool you;
                                                        make the call.

3 weeks, that's all it takes,
      how many necessary things could have
been said, but weren't...
    i could have written to my local m.p.,
or say - an imaginary letter to
Lorca, like Jack Spicer -
     instead, i wrote a few pieces of
verbal-diarrhea - sheer frustration -
      how debasing i sometimes see myself
becoming, all this talk of self-censorship,
     it's this ominous shadow of some third
party sources... the more you write
it seems, the more you start fearing
in the existence of that famous chestnut
known as writer's block...
                         it's such a fear that it's
impossible to call it irrational,
a tiny fear, a phobia, fear without a narrative...
so you end up becoming debasing for a while:
thankfully: there's nothing in concreto
about it...
                    you begin almost in trance
blurting out words to no civilised purpose -
  just to go beyond the rust and stiffness of
3 weeks sober, as if starved from the world:
because your grandparents don't have an internet
connection...
      and you return from a place where
you have to time to read books, and be content
at being fed by a television set...
                rather than having to feed
the computer and that amassing of knowledge
and shared experience...
      a digital detox they call it...
   i call it a double-whammy detox... and strange
how doable it is: it doesn't require
a rehab...    or some guru telling you
       that you have to block out thoughts
immersed to the internet...
                    but then again, is it about that?
all i can claim to say is that:
    the internet can really become a cul de sac...
i'd feign to believe that anyone with
   it can read a novel these days...
                       i know i can't -
     in the most ordinary circumstances -
                     a complete shut-down can provide
enough furniture to be so less itchy
and nagging to touch...
                               and it wasn't even a case
of a self-imposed hiatus...
                    don't know what it actually meant
other than an immersion in: what
life was like in the 20th century...
                              and on that touchy subject of
certain words being treated as if said
by children and deserving the scorn from an elder...
well sure, would that give us many more
graces to: write in the fxxx?   and if i actually did -
if only the english language used some sort of
orthographic, but it can't: since it has no diacritical
markings...
    the aesthetic is so different in Poland...
you don't censor certain words so might think you're
talking roses and adorable puppies for some
grand social project...
       there's a graffiti joke in Poland...
              and there about four different variations
of the same word (as it sounds) -
huj                         hój
             chuj                                and chój...
  there are no others... but there's only one accepted
spelling of the word: given the orthographic convention...
and if this word is seen on walls
   without the correct orthography, it's a good joke...
  (it's the first spelling of the word that's correct,
if you want to know)...
     what i can't understand is creating these excessive
emotional associations with words,
not sentences that lead to a fuller meaning:
but isolated words...
                         it's a simple bewilderment that
using such words, for the sake of using them, might
suddenly lead toward some antagonism of
an ethnicity -
                                 it's black on white -
there are no hues of words... but when it's used
from fear of a writer's block, and it has to be used,
once again: not in concreto...
                        then it's again, used like i might
throw everything into grammatical categorisation of
words, and get back a lesson in grammar...
    that's 3 weeks without a keyboard - you're
bound to vent out some frustration...
                    at least there's an antidote to it,
on saturday i experienced zenith of the frustration,
until it dwindled away, overnight...
                             rarely do you see a review of a poetry
book in english newspapers...
   perhaps the guardian, but in the times?
               once in a blue moon...
           the review: if jeremy corbyn wrote poems...
    for almost a whole evening i was experiencing this
sort of: debilitating paralysis, debilitating because it
was wholly mental... i equated reading this review
with an experience of: ethical monopoly of vocab...
    and it really does exist... its not a question of political
correctness, but a case of ethics:
                  could i use the word nxxxer or not?
    can it really be so scary to see that correct spelling?
and what if i wrote about the river Niger, because
i felt like it... or took to the fancy of a trip to Nigeria?
       boy, Niagara falls must be stunning to look at too!
i don't understand that privacy can be so usurped,
so wrangled out one's on comfort...
    so we have our closet racists and closet intellectuals
(who i call the bearded white boys
                 in chequered shirts and torn jeans) -
    but in a fit of personal transitioning, are we really
about to censor each other, and on what ground?
      yes, i have a ku klux **** hood in my closet
and i'm about to shout ye ha! on a lynch frenzy...
      it's a word said out of context with a historical content
still ascribed to it... if this word were taken into
an urban environment: it would be an epitome of
what once was used with the words *******...
         i'm not concerned with the word historically...
       historically speaking: it's urban now...
                               it can literally mean: thick-as-night...
and can you start to begin finalising such
nano experiences in life...
                           some people get to sky-dive,
or hunt lions on safaris...
                                i'm stuck with a wasted evening
duped into thinking this out:
  like so horror minority report, said the word:
predestined to do the most god-awful evil...
                       or like i said the word:
and that's equivalent to not washing my mouth for
2 weeks... 2 weeks spent on a diet of onions,
garlic and raw beef...
                           it's this absurdity that has nothing
fancy about it, this could not be written by
Albert Camus... it's too worm-like absurd...
                 i don't whether to laugh or cry, or tell you
how i had to find a counter-frustration...
but i did, the review of a poetry book in a saturday newspaper...
philip collins' take on unreconciled - poems 1991 - 2013
   by michel houellebecq...
                               i'm guessing the actual book
would make me feel less frictive than the reviewer's take on it...
   such this huge ball of fungus dropped into
my cranium and started to cannibalise itself with
digestive juices of nihilism... thankfully reviews like this
would spur me on and make me want to read such a book...
just to get the antithesis (if that's correct word to use)...
   to me, it sounds like a book
that's supposed to oppose the european use of the haiku...
   for me not all haikus are philosophical...
     although i know they're intended as such...
personally, i think that the art behind the haiku is
more than the actual haiku...
    say, someone who invented this medium,
yes, an easterner would probably write 20 haikus in
a period of 20 years...
     writing too many haikus (usually done by westerners)
is precisely the opposite of the art-form...
      how can a haiku be written without a year-long
restraint, and when finally the pressure is too much:
you get ''so little''?
                      well sure, i can write a haiku any moment
i can... but i'd have to have a gnat's worth of
consciousness to write one without having meditated for
a year...
                we europeans can at least write
absurd excerpts from our rigid lives...
                        and houellebecq does that -
   we live in these snappy narcissistic observations taken
from the world we have so made systematic -
    and i guess reason is a big tender dog -
given that unreason is a ******* chiwawa that
constantly keeps barking... or any other small dog
for that matter...       well: once again -
who told these people who review poetry books that
poetry is an Ikea manual?
                               lack of imagination, i'd say...
   and i'll say that about any other liar out there who
can say that visualising poems is easy -
     modern art can be seen as pretentious ******* -
but then what can you verbalise about it is the whole trick...
   just asking, because i was thinking about when
that famous school of fine art in Florence is going to
reopen, and why no one bothered to remember the techniques
using oil on canvas...
                 evidently something is up in the zeitgeist -
    i'm guessing we'll not see a **** study by edward calvet
any time soon... and it'll remain so, for quiete some time -
something is being revised - i'd call all modern art
by the movement: revisionism -
                      well: the dark ages were revising something -
everything's crude once more...
                  as came with the over-exposure to our
******... and did i say there's something wrong with that?
but evidently seeing too much fucky-fucky
    has created jelly in the eyes of artists who have to
go back to basics... it's like artists are looking for words...
they want to return to a dialogue of the reneissance...
    or at least it sounds like that... oh no, not from them:
from the people that have a critical eye on the matter:
the intellectuals... i see it as a hope for coming back to
dialogue... if you can't return to a dialogue over
a very simple modern canvas... there's no point
talking about the greater intricacies...
                             that leave you speechless -
  i mean: what's the point of talking about a mona lisa
when you can enjoy a joke asking whether
the devil didn't have his hand up her skirt?
       or the ecstasy of st. theresa... what's there to talk about?
i look at that statue and just want to get a hard-on...
but first i guess i have to rediscover a dialogue
with what the current times prescribe me...
and these really are works of prescription... there's no
point look into pharmacology's list of prescriptions...
   as going about saying it's all a load of *******,
leads to the first step toward modern alienation...
       if darwinism can be a humanism, a study of
the human... i can only give it a motto:
there's a reason behind everything... there's a reason
snakes don't have eyelids...
                              or that giraffes look funny...
             or that camels are the most vile mammals
to walk this earth...
                       personally i

The holy cardinal said:
who bare rib?
fresh cut new did,
he said -- who is this?
He slowly tread; wrangled thee
there's a 4x4 in his 20/20,
he asked -- “double play?”
the kid ran away

Titanic barnstorms the Tennessee plain through jet powered airplane
As though the Lusitania New York City could hardly proffer a contradictory profane
Nevertheless the intricacies of gamboling and gambling garble too many dice
Listerine rinses a whitewashed flaw until it singes gravity sawed twice
Three pieces of would form a tripartite could, that can’t because beggars are mute and rude
That beggars whisper the hymns of an immemorial festivity churlish upon listless attitude
So we hearken the classics and drop the ink quill upon that pile of effluvium and molasses
We invent friction just to pass a fall’s worth of failed jack-*****
“No more” he exclaimed just as the leaky faucet marginally contained
“Know more reason and you will be fully redeemed”
So I cannot pinpoint the provenance of despair among discrete colonies with barter too unfair
With ***** dens conflagration’s dead blank stare
The pit of the useful and the heap of the useless sorted into neat piles on either side of the River Nile
And each pottery keepsake is a husk of a land long ago defiled
But the hunters that talismans comfort shadowed into a grave crypt
They marooned a contact with pedigree to become flimsy with vogue equipped
So they lament on an August morning, lugubrious in toil and minatory in warning
The darkest nights yet seen by sirs yet sheen rollicking in mourning
We skedaddle the limited spectrum of shallow rust becoming hard work’s dross
Draining the swamp of career politicians that prefer the aroma of cod over the swagger of skunks with high sunk costs
Filch me a new coast Bill the Butcher and secure my passage for bonanzas of wealth
A fool’s card is now the traipsed parliament of one world stealth
Among the aristocracy an impediment to change locks all race in internecine game
Racecar palindromes offered as sacrifice to winsome but momentary glares aglow with disdain
Neuter the profligate, neutralize the builder’s set, stain the chastity of the Marmoset
Suddenly the zero-sum game adds up to twenty
With every dime and dozen going to infinity beyond debt with prosperity aplenty
As the laggards play dominoes on quaint tables frittering at the surface
Foment the disregarded rage and wrangled page into a classic Ace of Base
But who really is Walter White?
Does he live in camouflaged tents next to trees daring an alien but mutual fright?
Is he the kind of Wizard that never had consanguinity with alarmist rite and expeditious lies that aleatory fate is somehow too proximal to become in lambent sight?
Questions answer themselves over time with droned litanies of every conceivable tome
Forgotten in an ash heap in Alexandria more so than Rome
Supersonic flight that hedges prizes qualified kites
Encyclopedias of knowledge won’t even decode ghastly ghoulish capes of an off-color might
Now we simper at the glowering ignorance of menial men
Swimming with sharks and synchronized with the obnoxious hen
They won’t learn nearly as much from the Sun as warmth as they would the Moon for guidance
They won’t plaster Paris with the vandalism as counseling for pilfered tridents
So maybe the Anglophones have a menagerie yet seen
Maybe the game was introduced so early the royalty knows explicitly of beatific beams.
All is lost can never be forgiven in the land before time
In the land before precise minutes, seconds and momentary fragrance of threadbare design
So horology is horrific, when the jaws of the aliens in time thresh galloping headless horsemen Revered in this part of town
The imperial switchboard was stocked to the brim
The counterbalance of a Washington winter was equally grim
Embittered by the bellicose autonomy of fledgling families with endless land but limited prosperity
The dragooned riposte resounded among church bells with alarmism in sincerity
But the attrition of winter and the conditions of every primordial printer
Staged the coup that led to the walloped whimper
As the world shrank and wealth enlarged
As the shark tank of time plowed through shares like an ice threshing barge
We found that history is the caretaker of fringe reason becoming indomitable arbitrage
And for ever space that exists from now to the beginning of time there has always been space that begins with a luxurious spa and thereafter credit charged.

The game played no longer how it once was
No votes on new posts
don't check the trends
or check your own for views and comments
The substantive roaming data of broken WiFi connections
Mangle your jangling words, hide your swollen faces behind forced smiles, Rembrandt bastardisations or smeared oil paintings of the black soul(less) beasts that lurk in satiate tree shadows fawned over the lawnmower blue cycle rinse washed acid soaked daydream ***** slap nation
So you revere the works once read on poetical facsimile sites
only to smear words of younger wordsmith wrangled teen angst
and now in your age and ardor it seems advantageous to judge
But then that will leave you hollow inside
or in fact, you could jump from a tall building only to bounce off the concrete into a children's pool and drown there in three inches of **** coloured rain water
But so instead the workload decreases as your dementia bedpost nightmares
all come aflutter
The laced lily white throng of petal pinched patterns masks
the marked men on their dusty knees
There, watch how heads explode
or listen to foley artists rendering the lacquered finish of the watermelon headjuice
Make up words
or make up lies
Wear make-up daily, earn some prize
or don't
I don't care
idc
idk
Resemble rhyme or reason
Disassemble the times and season
Return to pejorative pretensions, rants in verse verse verse verse prose format and **** the rest
Or simply return to the old ways of playing the game
Upvote this, and maybe they'll take interest
Comment here
return one there
Use tags, hashtags, wash rags, fat slags, arm chair fat cats
But always separated by spaces, prettyblankspaces
No, I don't do slam poetry, I'm too white and not nearly rich enough to not care
Reassemble the times and season, maybe make sense of it
Maybe not
Just don't let them become a passing trend, please

cool. lightly scented. i sit alone in the reception of a spa. tranquil tones soothe the atmosphere. i lean against the wall, and wait. a fear of physical contact roots me to the spot; they will not touch me. impatiently. silently. i wait.

grey, cloud-tinted sunlight blankets the day. it was blistering heat earlier. i think of the way sweat pooled in the hollow of my chest as your tongue dipped over my collarbone. my back in damp grass. hoodies abandoned. who cares about a little mud when the things we do to each other go beyond *****? somebody might see was a quiet worry drowned out by rough breaths and guilty little whimpers.

now, i am thousands of miles away from you. six hours of time difference. phone vibrations. my unshakable conviction that you might leave me be if i ignore you, even as i miss your touch. sitting alone in a spa reception, too uncomfortable with the idea of hands on my skin. but i miss the pads of your fingertips digging into my sides. palms clamping my wrists either side of my head. pinned in place by ocean eyes that drown me.

we will leave for the secret garden soon. coffee will be placed between my palms. maybe hot. i'm feeling a chill in my bones that wants to be chased away. my mind's eyes conjures an image. memory. you sit across from me on four hours of sleep. your body vibrates on caffiene overload. you are like me sometimes. but my poison is bitter, coffee beans; your poison is an attack of fizzing sugar on your cardiovascular system.

maybe. maybe that's the answer. why you're sweet. why you escape confined spaces (read: relationships. you are like me sometimes.) like bubbles leaping from a can. maybe it's why i'm dark. with an aftertaste almost everybody is determined to chase away.

something tangy hangs on the air despite the spa's best attempts to provide aroma therapy. my mind pines for your natural scent. light washing powder. a little musky, like faint sweat. not the sweetest, but real and warm. i can find it. i reach for it, fingers finding warm skin. we press chest to chest and this hardly feels real. motorbikes and scooters rumble by. your voice is a ghost in my ear. too quiet to be present.

eyes open. receptionists wander. you are far away. my eyes glaze over anyway. sleepless nights and busy days. i slump into scenery: green grass, wrangled trees, a brick wall decorated with poison berries and stinging nettles, a blue sky with white clouds. your body above me.

Apparently, there is a word for people who like to cover up pain with a smile.
That's such an odd thing to have a label and concept around
Considering how broad the meaning could be.
Are these people simply masochists?
What type of pain are they subject to?
Physical?
Mental?
Emotional?
My body doesn't always know the difference.

But when I think about my personal embodiment of such a concept,
I think of tense social situations.
Either private, or public
With only one other person, or a group
And the smallest tip of the scales has led to,
what was previously,
a tall and solid tower sculptured by your own iron will
Only to be unveiled in all its fragility
as a flimsy stack of paper sheets

Maybe you see your ex-lover are at a coffee shop
And you realize they don't think about you all that much any more
Or maybe they never did
Or maybe they just moved on.

He used to say he saw a universe inside of you
and oh, how he longed to be a part of it.
One day, he could see a future with you
One day.
But just not now.
He lied.

The anger grazes a kiss across your heartstrings
like the most vengeful angel fire
It sends low and heavy static through your bones until waves reach your seasick gut
and all of its contents beg to scrape a way back out of you now.
You're restless jaw flexes
primal reactions lead to feeling far too eager
to latch onto flesh and rip
Maybe you catch your own tongue or cheek in the process
and the blood will taste familiar
and coppery sweet

You're probably enraged.
You feel livid and betrayed and
entitled to their future and love and
at least some sort of explanation.
As if that would serve as sugar
to make the drug taste sweeter on the way down.
But, it does not change what's underneath that loud, hot and passionate aggression.

You're sad.
Your hurt, demanding to be heard.
Your body is carrying weight it wasn't a few moments before
And yet, you have not shown any of this.
You're not throwing a fit,
knocking over ****
or punching him in the face
in the way you really, really want to.
You're not screaming, or crying, disappearing or leaving
in a way you wish you could even more.

Because you may think your first response is more trouble overall if expressed
On some level you don't want to guilt or blame on this person
You may want to make it seem you're in the same boat of composure and indifference.
As if this show of self restraint will change his mind
And he'll come running back to you
As if him being impressed by apathy
and begging forgiveness is what you'd want him to do

No, on some level, its a feeling of embarrassment
and trying to cover up the fact that
four poems and two songs ago you swore
you'd stop having feelings for this boy
That your heart was your own once again,
and no one had a leash to **** you around
one way or the other.

Nonetheless, out loud, you say: "oh."
Because that is a few second window
to wrap all the dread and fury and hyperactivity
the adrenaline has shot into your bloodstream.
The entire world is frantically on full volume
There's a locomotive, crashing against your sternum
every split second
And you have to dye every sun spotted moment with him
In oily black disappointment

"Oh" buys you enough space to find bandages to hide the bruises
underneath your chest
In that "oh" you have compacted all that space junk whipping around and rattling your skeleton into a black hole
that will self destruct and,
hopefully,
collapse all it's contents unto itself

You hold that star sucker in your centre
and you slap a smile on top
You grin in the face of your own pain
Because it is safe, and what is familiar to you.
And you can hold it in a cocoon for protection
until your left alone to bleed
or breathe
or convince yourself this never really mattered.

But for right now, you show complacence in this agony
as not risk any more damage with exposure
Maybe you say something that sounds mature and impartial.
Convince them you are so happy they've had something good come into their life;
Implying that the same has come to you
Something, at the time,
you can't remember is necessarily true or not.

You are insistent not to stir the living creature
wrangled in muscle
sitting atop your lungs
And that grimace is a 'Do not Disturb' sign.

I think "oh" speaks for itself in its pain and simplicity
Its a gasp of pain
And the pause after a blow
The start to so many sentences with no end
And a reoccurring soundtrack to all my reluctant epiphanies
Played on repeat
and more consistently skipping than my lovers.

Disheartening moments like that
serve as uneven pavement I trip over and simultaneously
have gravel split my skin and break my nose on impact.

"Oh" was the delayed fire alarm
to tell you the building has already burnt to the ground.
Come and see the remaining disaster, now that it's over.
Watch helplessly as the building collapses with a whisper.
"Oh."

That is the sound of you hearing part of your friend group
Still hangs out with your local ******
Even after the dam of stories cracked onto their lap
the night they assured you that you had their ear
That they were listening
That someone cared
But now he's a different guy around me,
he doesn't remember it, I swear.

"Oh," is realizing the friend you never quite got the chance to know in school
killed themselves last week.
It's the sound that escapes me, when someone is interested in who I am
Until they realize I'm trans.
It's a noise that gets stolen when people are interested in me,
accept me for being trans,
but leave when I fall short of expectation because of who I am.

There is so much hurt encapsulated in those two letters
one syllable
one sound
for me
It's packed in pearly whites and dead eyes
a shaky wall with a tornado tucked behind.
How can a storm pass so quickly
Without any sign of trouble outside?

Simply put:
I don't want to let anyone know
I would rather be left to suffer on my own
Without any rescue team to disappoint
when they cannot find a single living body
to dredge from the rubble.