I wanted to control the things I couldn’t avoid.
Growing up, disappointment,
and how my heart gets destroyed.
Pieces shattered in my hands as I tried to hold
moments of my life
created uncontrolled.

Curating a mind grown with unchecked panic.
Thoughts clashing around like violent storms from the Atlantic.
Wishing my words came out less frantic
and more romantic.

From the moment
the tale of her ruin
made itself known,
mankind has
coveted proof
of her existence.

Many a curious hand
has stalked across
the glossy veins of maps
and the cracked vertebrae of books
enclosing information
most pivotal to
her secret whereabouts
and the tragic evanescence
that initiated her exile.

Many a
sailor
explorer
scientist
poet
have perished among
the gnashing jaws of the sea
in their pursuit of
the glory
her exploitation
would surely bring.  

In response to such
grievances--
the reality
of losing oneself
in the midst of
searching for what
has already been lost--
imagination--
the belief in magic,
in the seemingly
unbelievable--
was outlawed
within the
human psyche;

now,
they say she is merely
a madman's legend,
a myth concocted by Plato
so as to warn against
the perils of greed.

But never did they consider
that perhaps she did not
want to be found to begin with,
that her seclusion
has always been a necessity
so as not to repeat
the monstrosities of the past--
so she should not resurface
to satiate their earthly desires
only so she can be drowned anew.

{Atlantic}

Kissing your cheeks
Is like kissing the ocean
When speckles of salt
Drip down my lips

My mouth full
Of these waves and whispers
Like I drank the Atlantic
In the smallest of sips

The Atlantic howls
Wet and windy
Boughs and branches bending.

The sea a stew
Of white foam
Against the black abyss

Deep in the moving bowels of the ocean
Is a calling.
A restless voice like reeds ripping the wind
Beckoning you to the foreshore

Torn from rest, you are pulled
As the wind places its magnet on the buttons of your nightshirt
Tossing your coat off the hook to clothe you

The tide pulls your feet
Step by quickening step
Towards the sand

Only now can you
Stop to gaze at the clouds
Scudding across the moon
Like flounder across the seabed.

All rages around you
And yet, silence descends
Like the ringing of tinnitus in your ears
And you are told what it is you are called to hear...

we danced in the streets as the days were long
only recess and reckoning while water crept in
this city of dead, our place, where the stench lives
and bodies float, lying above the crypt's graves  

hurricane red absinthe & hand grenades
slugging the gulf like a shooter's brigade
a forecast shifts, flooding any escape
so we fire our motors with boats on em.

school starts soon
smoking joints on the weekday afternoon

in a sidelined shady
freight car, property of
Norfolk Southern

debating if this car will be
northbound or southbound
and master-bating our fantasy
where we want to be taken

knowing full well maybe one of us -
(and they all looking at me)

will get out of this car and live to
see foreign places without having to
return in a body bag

we argue lazy who should go get the beer,
collect the quarters and sweaty dollar bills
and **** if I am not reappointed
leader of the beer fetching

besides it’s my
tan lab panting needing water so it’s my
responsibility and the nasty liquor store owner don’t hate me that much as the others so he’ll sell me beer without too much **** talk (some for sure)

asking where I’m laying low on a **** hot day like this one

tell him i’m getting on a train getting out of this two bit town which makes him reminisce and ask which direction

could be northbound could be southbound
hell could be west
but for sure won’t be
going eastbound

cause I seen the Atlantic and didn’t like it

too **** big and too **** cold,
too **** mean

I want to be a materialist as much as I could.
I want to kiss the sun and marry the moon!

I want to invite all the stars, sending them a tweet,
and I’d like them all to join me on Facebook!

I want to carry the Himalayas on my shoulder,
and I’d like to swim across the Atlantic water!

I want to wax lyrical over the waves
and would like to fly with the clouds.

I want to be in the green
and would like to spread across the spring.

I want to paint on the sky
keeping my head held high.  

I want to wear the perfect fit ring,
as perfect as the pi-perfect circle,
with no endless nano-decimal hole,
just fine-tuned to my finger hole!

when grainy seas
are wholly shrilly
their fulcrum grants coquille
with hair's tied asunder
till this expedition cloud
will turn her under again

when they'd dock by her mountains
in the rain of yesterday's news
while their heels soon die
in the murky waters nigh
by the sunset or tomorrow
if she'll be with me again
in woebegone togs