Ms. Mabelline Merryweather  might not follow all rules and regulations at Social Services to a T, but she does get the job done efficiently. She knows well paper pile-ups, bureaucratic mumbo jumbo is second language to her. No unruly impatient Podunk piece of indigent indecency can rile the likes of Ms. Mabelline. She's cool as a cucumber on a chilled salad bar. Speaking of which, it is just now two minutes away from Ms. Mabelline's cherished lunch entourage with fellow ladies of the office. So, if you'd like to get your claim copied and filed quickly, you'll give Ms. Mabelline her due respect, else your *** might be chilling back in the waiting room, till she's finished laughing over your pathetic life from a table at TGIF's this noon hour. You know, claim uncertainties and misfilings have been known to jam up processing for weeks, don't ya know?

One winter closer
One degree cooler
To one degree warmer
One winter closer
One more long stride
Until we're no longer hiding
One winter closer
Three seasons more
Until we're two winters close
But we're one winter closer
We're a dozen kisses closer to each other
We're a million cents away from being one
A thousand days away from winter sun
We're impatient, ever waiting
Waiting for the waiting to be done
One winter closer
To being one

My hand brought up to salute forcefully

Even though I was about to willingly

Two seconds more

Would have been enough

Instead you blow your whistle!

And I'm charged with **disobedience

When all it was,

Was your IMPATIENCE!

I'm not quite sure if I'm drowning
In my own drunken state
Or in these emotions that I'm bleeding out
Simply because you're not here with me.
I'm not quite sure if I love you
Because I just can't have you
Or if I love you, in all honesty,
Because there is no one as **** beautiful as you.
I think it is the latter for
The way your soul shines from your eyes
And speaks from that shy smile,
There is nothing that can compete with you.
However, if it were the first,
Why is it that I may never have you?
It's just the way of the universe,
The way the Earth loves its Sun
Or how the moon loves its Earth,
Always around but never to touch.
I'm not sure how I can continue to hold it in
Or how I have for so long,
But even less do I know how to express this
For I'm not sure if you feel the same
Or like me at all
Or if you feel the same way and we're
Running in circles, after another,
Coughing up each other's dust.
I'm not sure why I feel like crying
When all I did was see you in the distance
And hear your name come from the mouths
Of people we both know, but do not know of us.
I'm not sure what us even is,
If I even have a right to use that word for us,
Us,
It sounds so alien
And as I say it, I question its existence.
I'm not sure of anything anymore,
Except that now the tears are brimming
And I replaced this liquor with some coffee
As I wait the night out,
Hoping for closure I must accept I'll never have.
I suppose I am most unsure of
How someone can fall in love with another
So effortlessly, like breathing,
But drown in their own tears
As that love is really poison:
Sweet, sweet poison
Settling deep down in my lungs.

I’m sure it has happened
To many other people before.
There comes a moment
A feeling one cannot ignore.
A want, a drive, an impulse
To have, to hold, to own
Something, someone or
A moment that is yours alone.

At a party, a face appeared
And our two eyes connected.
It seemed we were talking;
A dialogue was being erected.
A relationship of mere moments,
It seemed powerfully right.
And at just that one moment
Nothing could be more right.

We left the party immediately
And went to my place to see
If followers through with feeling
What just the right thing to be.
It was all a wonderful adventure.
I am sure we had no kind of fear.
It was an accident of timing,
One I would suffer for years.

Twice more and we were broken,
Never to be together again.
No thoughts about if ever
Not a question about when.
And after the last evening
I knew things had moved on.
When I looked into my wallet.
All of my money was gone.

All because of impatience
And not wanting to be alone
I let myself fall into a kind of
Rock and roll Twilight Zone.
Why didn’t I ask more questions?
Because in that single moment
I wanted a fantasy romance.
Nothing was more important.

It was months later I discovered
In a routine visit to my doctor
That I had contracted a disease
That would ruin my life forever.
They didn’t know what to call it
In those days before the name.
Those were the days before AIDS
And it’s horrific kind of sick fame.

And they had no way to treat it
So, most of us just quickly died.
We had no ability to resist it.
We had no resistance inside.
We lost all our friends and lovers
Because for one single moment
That one evening with a stranger,
Nothing was more important.

I fell into a frenzy of not caring,
Drugs and drink and debauchery.
I felt I had lost all hope in life
And lost all my chance at dignity.
Of course that made me sicker
My resistance went down further.
I no longer wanted to live like that
I was sick of my life altogether.

I am writing this to you, today
So you can share it with others.
Tell people that getting laid
Is not the same as a lover.
Point to me and advise them
We may have just one moment
For valuing ourselves as a person
Nothing must be more important.


(This is dedicated to many of my friends over the decades that suffered from *** and AIDS related issues.)

Why do people lie,
about such serious things?

"Your case will be looked at."
"He'll be brought to justice."
"No one is angry at you."
"It's not your fault."

Those things were said,
but I swear,
none of them were meant.
Because it's been seven months since I reported him,
and not a **** thing has happened in my favor.

My case hasn't even hit the district attorney,
and either way, I've been told it most likely won't pass.

My ****** gets to walk free;
free to violate other women,
and free for me to have to see him often
in this annoyingly small town.

My parents are ashamed.
We don't talk about it anymore;
hell, we hardly ever did.
They were angry at me.
Not him.
Never him.

All I've been shown,
is that it's my fault for letting him inside.
It's my fault for befriending him.
It's my fault that he didn't listen when I said no.

I fear this situation will never be resolved,
and I am forever cursed to carry this burden
alone.

So don't lie to me about such things.
Because I'll see the truth anyways.  

(d.d.b)

Listening to redundancy is like
    wanting to run and being tied down
I hold my mind with my
    physical self like a balloon --
    still connected, but floating free
Listening, yet allowing openness
    Then I can be present
    while I am away.