WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF CASUAL *****
True romance is dead
it is buried in the dense rocks
eroded from the cliffs to the valleys
it's silenced in the pitch of a symphony

It's a poet dream
to write sweet sentiments
kiss in the nothingness
sketch love as if a masterpiece

Now a Tinder
where you can plunder
curves and bossoms
with no responsibility

Then Ok Cupid
where conversations
tender and ponder
before unleashing the game

There is always POF
where fishes dare in a swim
kissing and pinching
punching and finishing

True love is an illusionary debt
a cheque in deficit
An emotional injustice
the unrighteous pursuit

It's a poet's dreams to love
count the stars and watch the moon
nurture emotions and connections
The probability is the world won't let us

It won't let us be
Ladies just undress and expose the jubblies
Men just undress and measure your *****
the world won't let us be

Yes, it's true.
I'm incapable of love-
Too broken for the challenge;
Too fragile for repair.

At times, euphoria~
Other times, thick apathy\

Too many lovers in one lifetime/
And I'm so jaded.

I knew it wasn't you that passed me
On a bike this morning, but oh,
It looked like you. God,
He looked like you.

And I'm glad he was on a bike,
Somewhat because he wasn't you and
That meant I could let my head
Turn, let myself watch him pass by
With open hunger the way
I could never watch you,
But mostly because on foot I would have
Pulled him close by the coat that
Looked like one you wear and
Whisper in his ear,
"You look like the boy I want to ****,"

And I didn't want to get arrested,
And I didn't want him to take me up
On my offer
(But part of me wanted him to take me

Up on my offer
Because you never would)
Because I didn't know this was
Anything more than hero worship,
I thought this was little love,
Hearts in margins and
Poems in black ink,
I didn't know this was the kind of
Feeling that had people accosting
Delivery boys for wearing dark jackets

And I think I need to give up quick
Before you, me, or the delivery boy
Gets hurt.

'Q

I've harkened dark trails, nonexistent of earth. If we went across the spring or across the Snake we'd be bush whacking for sure. I had been on packed earth, trails of dirt on the daytime, not the late midnight snack of predators as I slowly moved past their game trails. Moose and black bears hovered in the willows, while my footsteps fell out beneath me, up to my knees, up to my calves, couldn't somebody have stopped this. Our spotlight blew out, but later I found out the batteries hadn't died. It was just the hold button was locked my fearless spotlight alive, like three small pots of honey, we slowly moved through the thicket, not a creature moved its digits, not even a cricket stridulated. Oddly peculiar we crept around each bush, only to find horse, bear, and cat ****, the bear's so fresh I could squish it. Heavenly fodder, please lead me astray, from everything that's bigger than I, living on these back-trails. Because all I've got is my OKC should a grizzly be hot on my tail. If I bleed I know evil should find me dead or eat me for certain.

the earth shook
last night
sending a tremor
through six feet of
dirt, wreath and wood
to my rotting corpse
beneath

and I rolled over

for 16 months
I  tried to
rest in peace
as my spirit wandered
restlessly
but last night
even the stoic palms
shuddered in disbelief

and I rolled over

I was just
going home....ma,
talking
on the phone...ma,
when a '*******'
with a gun
shot be down...ma
now maggots and fleas
are crunching
my bones ...ma

and the '*******' is free???

maybe if
I were white
like lanza and holmes
I'd be left alone,
not profiled;
given a pass,
to commit
mass homicides,
not take a bullet
through the heart

for being black!!!

I was born in '95
the year 168 died
in OKC
and 1 million men marched
in DC
but last night
justice exploded
in sanford

and
I
rolled
over...

~ P

I feel so helpless in the backseat
Speed-complacent
car crash risk
Apparently, obviously,
worth taking.

Orange warm highway street lamps
Somniferous strobelights
melodic-hypnotic
through the blackred veil of my
Stubborn eyelids.

Highway streelights Like when I was twelve
and
Every Tuesday/Thursday
Mom picked me up from school
And drove me straight to
ACTS Acting Academy
In Northwest OKC.

How simple it was back then,
The only problem or
So it seemed
was
the 49 minute drive to and
Especially from.

...

Yet strangely so peaceful.


I had actual friends in acting class,
I waited all week to see them.

I practiced my monologue fifteen minutes everyday
Just to prove to dad
That I cared enough to justify the time and the money (mostly the money)
That mom had to spend
To drive me  tothe city twice a week
To see my friends
To see my friends from acting class.

How was I supposed to know
That those highway drives homes
9:15pm
Would be the most peaceful memory
I would ever remember to forget?
The last refuge of contentment
I would ever
to feel?

How was I supposed to know
How much worse it'd get?

Yet even then, age twelve,
Even then
all we thought of it was a burden.
Driving there and back
There and back
There and back

...

And of course mom felt that way, too.
Tired from long days of home health.
Most of that job was just driving somewhere
And somewhere else.
Yet eventually
Tacitly
Under the subtle strobeof orange warn highway street lights
She found herself more at home in that car
Than anywhere else in her limited bounds.

Slowly she found herself
speaking candidly
for once
To finally someone who would listen
Even if sadly it had to be
Her twelve year old son
Driving to the city.

Equal parts proud and deeply disturbed
At the realization that I was her best friend
She became mine, too.

Sometimes she spent that whole drive there
Having the same time ten minute conversation
Five times over
To Meema in the nursing home
(How sad vascular dementia must be)

And then there was driving home.

I was tired.
I fell asleep with
my iPod headphones
Blaring awful screamo melodrama.

Driving home she had only her thoughts.
How strange I now imagine she must have felt.
Orange warm streetlamp hypnosis
Freedom.

How many decades had she gone without those thoughts?
How many years had she gone to the grocery store after work?
How long had that credit card debt been compounding?
How long had she been asleep? -- Ambien sleep--years without a dream?

How many loops to that class
That pre-teen California pilot season prep class
Did she have to make
Until she
Finally
Had a thought
of her own?

I feel so helpless in the backseat.
All those lessons I learned
And forgot
And remembered
And tried so hard to forget again
In that Oklahoma City acting class
At twelve years old
Before it all got worse
Before it eventually got comparatively better again

Helpless even more now that I realize
That I've spent the last decade plus
Trying so hard to forget
How peacefully pretragic
Those Tuesday, Thursday twelve year old nights
Actually were.

Orange warm highway street lights
tracing by
Driving home tired.

I was twelve
learning how to be kind of happy

She was 45
Also learning
How to be kind of happy

As the highway street lights traced by
And we were both so desperate to be home
Yet also happy not
To be home yet.