Does your life
feel like a bad flight
on an airplane?

You saved and saved
to pay for first class
but got stuck in coach.

No matter where you went
or who you met
there was always turbulence.

And even that all-expenses-paid
dream vacation to paradise
went down in flames.

somehow
I was a mystery
   To you

But I was a broken piece
   A tired soul
     feeling unease

I closed doors
  windows
built fences around my home

all I wanted was control
  Of the car
   My life was driving

and wasn't it nice
      every other sunsets
   a shadow beneath the surface
we collided

a disruption
    my routine gone
anticipation
   and back to drama

It was uncontrollable
  the fifth gear
    I am scared

The wind flying my hair
    car radio, top volume
it was going too fast

   It was beyond
me, my white fences disappeared
and my living room couch is occupied
        Why cannot I stop this mess

Soon it will be too late
   A repeat of fate
       Or maybe this is not a mistake?

April showers
bring with them atomic flowers,
strewn about Elena’s hair,
her forest painted
the colors of Red Square.
Children play in the fun zone
where radiation particles
are active and windblown,
forming flakes on rosy cheeks,
floating down toxic creeks.
The smell of graphite burning in a kiln
makes the nostrils flare,
what’s this metallic taste in the air?

Clouds drift over weddings
and Ferris wheels,
rain falls black and surreal.
Mother goes about her routine
humming dirges like a godless fiend.
36 hours to figure the science,
past time to evacuate
a city in brisk silence.
Brides scream and children cry,
from the fall-out they mummify.
Pripyat’s dying metropolis
they euthanize and lay to rest
in a sarcophagus.

And atop her shallow grave,
deep within the exclusion zone,
sit the sickened stems
and decaying fragrance
of nuclear flora over bone.
Here in the jackal's sanctum,
a capsule car on the lifeless
pleasure wheel
swings like a pendulum,
over a wooded lot with not a soul in sight,
only fresh morbid blooms
that glow in the night.

Rain sounds stir within
My very being
Sometimes I'm scared
Like a lost child
Looking for their mother
Seeking shelter
As rain increases
So do my fears
Of yesteryear and today
Soft patters of rain.
Reminders of dancing
In the rain
Rain rain go away
Come again another day
Perhaps when I'm ready
To weather the storm.
In my heart