A roach came to work with me
in my shoe.

It's a true story.

I shook him out of my laces

And he joined in with a new group
of bugs on the ground.

He can get renter's insurance for
$10 a month.

I'm back, eating lunch in the car
by the path.

And cake.

That's a start.

the wind shines softly on my skin
the leaves blow in a small way
this bench created gravity
there is one butterfly in the world
just like me

there is a moth that resides on my bedside table
inside the warm lamp like a womb
like an endearing cozy hand
reaching for your face in the middle of a frozen hysteria
he rises from his bed of light every night
a bottom floor full of mirth and fuzz
ready to relay the songs of his memories
slow dancing in the small space of my room like he's memorized where the floor slants and what parts creak
his mouth moves in a jagged frenzy and I am devoured inside the falsetto of a pregnant hum so constant my breathing loops in significant O's
he waits for my eyes to close so that his wings open up
moving the dust to gather itself and move to another part of the house
the fluttering in sync with the wavering of the hypnotic sound waves
the antennae sighing along with the mist outside slowly forming on the windowsill
my head becomes a hot sun and as the beads of sweat trickle he moves closer until he reaches with spindly legs
drying the perspiration from my forehead with a tongue that shushes me to sleep until I am still in a cocoon of silk
telling me that want and need are always the same things
always the same things

I L U like my ***** clothes
Love being forgotten
On my bedroom floor

I L U like chores love the
music that helps them
forget they're chores

I L U like ***** dishes
Love hot showers and
the other side of the sink

I L U like I love spilling
Salt, and warding off the evil,
By tossing some behind my back

I L U like I love
Breaking rules about
my own supposed
non-Superstition

I L U like black cats love
Bad luck, cause to them,
It's just Friday, you know?

I L U like the hot dog bun
Loves staring at the beef patty,
Wishing "if only, if only"

I L U like bread loves
Being forgotten till we're really hungry
And then we're all ungrateful, like
"Hey bread, you remember us?"
And bread is high above us, like
"Always."
Not even a hint of scorn

I L U like the first time I saw
Jurassic Park, The dinosaurs
Were real enough
sans chicken feathers, and
Who needs modern science anyways
when love has no fossil records?

I L U like the weather loves
Surprise parties.
I L U like painful
surprise party memories love
being forgotten on my bedroom floor

I love you like Mayflies love living,
oh so briefly, once a day, every single day,
Chapter one to chapter none

I love you like mayflies love themselves,
brevity and all, stirred by nothing but
the glow of Dawn's light,
Dead by dusk, the Mayfly never
knows its final form.
It dies
in complete
incompletion,
but that's okay.

It drank the salt ocean,
it breathed the living air,
And that's how I want to L U

The sun is napping behind a cloud,
though loud plane engines call her awake.

Pollen is prancing around the patch,
and tiny critters follow their lead.

A big dog lies on the patio,
his smelly body absorbing heat.

You rest here with a pen in your hand,
tossing small diamonds into the sand.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow
(Alek the Poet)