By the time,
I finish staring.
and take time to
visualize,
what you are wearing.
I internalize with my eyes,
your body language vocalize.
I focus, as I, verbalize, by
saying something nice
and polite -- on the outside.

But,
  on the inside. . .

a story about eye contact


The look in his eyes reminded me of the fall; they pleaded of death with the misty admiration of life.
Slowly intoxicating green veins to shades of orange like a drug, making my spine and my lungs go numb all at once in a single glare.
He turned swiftly and broke my focus. Suddenly the noise of the fast moving crowd and passing trains disappeared in a soft hum. Everything became still, and I escaped into the eyes of a stranger that I felt I had known for a millennium. I held my breath as if something profound were to happen, As if the danty grey of his complexion would suddenly dust off and expose bits of his soul. I sneezed.


Bless you.

“Thanks” I said.

And then we started again. Weighing out moments on our hands waiting for the next break. In a moment, we passed soundlessly through a fresco of laminate dreams silently, coated by a serene sadness and a well-timed sneeze. It felt like hours until my stop would reach on the subway, an eternity with his eyes second by second meeting mine with no expression.


Now arriving at 6th Avenue Station. 6th Avenue Station.*

And in the next moment, one of us blinked; the moment passed, and we returned to being complete strangers.



p.m

A small bit of contact
held on too long
Wince or write another angry song
'Cause after twice a lapse in trust
you'd have all been turned to cruft
After all, 'twas me did fall
................

Had you forgotten?

.................
Or was it me, seemed skinned the knee?
Now dead was the fly and buzz in the bee
Sigh of air and glimpse of hair
'Twas dusk till moonlight  brought me there
Heavy rain, tainted blame
Broken drain on the window pain
That same rain, did keep me tame
Keep me tame with ball and chain
That small bit of contact
Oh a challenge failed
To be ignored or to be inhaled

Touch me
I need to know I'm alive
Touch me
For the reminder that I'm loved
Touch me
with a hug of support
Touch me
for no reason
Touch me
I'll feel the most in my heart
Touch me
with your
words
hands
love
needs
gifts
nothing
all.

This morning I sat contemplating the wrinkled sheets of
my night of restless slumber-
I thought of the possibility behind contacting you and being
denied or sitting here and believing in the multi-verse theory.

When I was younger I took comfort in the thought of different
worlds which equate to multiple plausible outcomes.
I thought that if it rained here,
out there, another me would enjoy a sunshine bliss.
And so, by that logic, there is a universe in which you answer
positively, negatively,
one which we never met
and another which we are together from the beginning.
If so, does that mean this universe is the one of regret?

I am staring at my undone bed fully aware it won't make itself,
but I can't help and ponder that in another universe things once
broken put themselves together.
However, of action and inaction,
of to be and not to be;
this world demands and answer.
Thus this morning I make my bed quite early and wait for a reaction.

Sometimes I feel her eyes avoid mine,
As if she's trying to hide
the love in her eyes,
As if she knows if we made eye contact
I'd know n call her out on it.

She's bottled up n reserved
With such poise that no mans ever known,
They chase after her,
They come in hoards
And maybe that's why she avoids
Subjecting her self to being known.

She's got questions about me
And she's so unsure, she's just being protective of her self and more.
I'm never chasing after her though,
Cause I know the hoards that come after her,
Why subject myself to being like the rest. No! I won't,
Ill just say hello n hope you notice my tone,
It'll be a tone I rarely use with anybody else, and I just hope it'll be enough to let you know.

We let the align-
ment of our con-
tact create a new-
lyfound structure:

you dress our bed-
ding over frame-
work, shapes mold-
ing words on paper

as though our truth-
fully plaiting finger-
tips shape a stereo-
type linear tendency.

In this city, every morning begins with a Siren
one bright and brilliant Eastern Awakening
that doesn't carry with it a threat
to sing us lovingly to some romantically unknown demise.

Yet we've forgotten that our ears aren't the only part
of ourselves capable of hearing & we've forgotten
of how our eyes read each others long before language
could be taught with structure.

So we lay in bed and await
the cheaper sirens of bad news or an alarm
to superficially awake us and send us off to tally
another day towards death.

I overhear people in the bustle speak of life
as if it were paused in the present, so I buy my
black coffee and when you don't hear me say thank-you
its because you never looked up.