Budweiser cans lay on the floor like empty mortar rounds,
the smell of Jack Daniels as potent as battlefield blood.

Weekend wars where we fight ourselves for pleasure.
Waging conquest on the banal.
Losing limbs and liver for a life less ordinary.

The air in my apartment is stale like cigarette butts,
buried in mass graves in an ashtray over full.

Weekend warriors where we battle for a new fix.
Waging conquest on the week day.
Losing steady vision for a life less ordinary.

"I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows."
Every syllable was the pitter patter of water on glass panes.

But the feeling he gave me was hurricanes on concrete.

"I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows."
The fluidity of the liquid would fill the crevices in my mind to the very tip and remind me that I was not alone.

You do not have to read the meniscus to look deeper into my being.

"I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows."
He formed his words and dragged them quietly across pavements, reminiscent of the deep tint of the clouds and the rumbling of thunder.

But when the sun came out,
I did not feel radiant
I felt alone.

Throwing up will make you beautiful
After all, beauty is pain
Waxing every square inch of your human body
Squeezing into those Spanx to hide your smallest flaws

Your daughter, she needs help with her eating disorder
There's no beauty in that. Strictly pain.
Or telling your 20 year old best friend everyday for 6 years a size 3 isn't anywhere neat fat
Having the same conversation with a 10 year old girl: is that any more beautiful? No.
Forget that beauty isn't painful

A mother experiencing excruciating pain yet forgetting it all when she holds her child for the first time
Death of a man with terminal illness--all the pain built up to the soul finally at ease
The battered woman seeking courage to break free and begin new life

Actual emphasis to "beauty is pain" is one who pushes through the undesired struggle-- beauty is the reward
Remember that beauty can be painful
What's beautiful in your life?

What do you say to a man
Who has lost his heart
Because his dream of life
Was so torn apart.

What do you say to the flowers
Whose petals and odor so sweet
Left a man begging love
At her feet.

What do you say to the world
Where love and peace are so void
Of any connection with religion.

What do you say to the political king
Who rules with the mighty button
And dreams of everyone knowing
Who is Boss.

Well, I probably say zilch
And go my walkabout way,
Waiting until the day I will
Mark an x within a circle
And try again.

Fingers and thumbs tapping out messages
so many texts written, so many read, smiles apart
faces, eyes, feelings, never shared
music videos; lips and music separate
empty sounds, never tugging the heart strings.

Thumbs and fingers keying in distance
so much data, so little experience shared, time apart
laptops, smart phones, processing emptiness
unfeeling, sampling blandness, subtleties lost
empty words, crowding our lives.

Curves, flowing lines and spaces, passion
compressed
squashed out are the senses
sweat and smells, laughter lost.

All in the empty kingdom of bits and bytes
reigned by the gods of technology
the mantra being faster, faster
but still
all fingers and thumbs in the affairs of the heart.

As surely as we are propelled forward
into tomorrow
we hurtle
back to the dark ages
the dark castles of aloneness
Empty words, lost in the cells of our separation
all fingers and thumbs.