I got this idea I would write you a poem,
One you could read sitting safely at home,
Or keep with you out and about while you roam.

A poem about all of the memories I held sacred,
Laughing, singing, kissing, and cuddling in bed,
One to remind you our time wasn't wasted.

So I laced up my heart and I shrugged on my soul,
I popped open my noggin and I went for a stroll,
Right down Memory Lane and left at the Rabbit Hole.

I kept on goin' 'til I hit a velvet rope with posts of brass,
But I musta gotten too close to the bulletproof glass,
Cause a big grumpy guard threw me out on my...

I realized, still rolling, it's all one massive museum,
Motionless memories mummified so I can keep 'em,
Lined up and locked away, as if someone would steal 'em.

Arduously ordered, organized for instant access,
A mental palace fit to make even Sherlock jealous,
That Dewey Decimal dude don't got nothin' on this.

The slide shows replay every minute on the minute,
Time-compressed and Tetrised-in so each moment fits,
Bio-digitally encoded on neurode and inked onto skin.

Tear-rusty gears grind waterlogged cogs in reverse,
This melancholy machine made to reflect you in verse,
Is a planetarium perpetually projecting my universe.

To experience something through another's eyes.               
So different, yet the same,         
like McCartney and Lennon,               
like jam and jelly.                       
          
Different characters featured in paintings,                              
scrapbook
the cast in an artist's tv show.                                        
Some sitcoms, some dramas,
and others a genre of their own.                           
      
There’s Madonna’s and their babies,           
looking innocent as the bible.     
Why is it that baby Jesus         
in Renaissance paintings             
always gives me nightmares?                                          

The self portraits take their place
among the respected walls of color.
Their eyes draw you in,
burning holes in your skin.
They seem to appear wise.
Looking old as the moon,
but with significantly less bumps and crevices.

The modern pieces stick out,
like a lone spoon in the knife drawer.
They appear more youthful,
wrinkle-free and vibrantly alive.
“A child could have made this”,
I hear someone say.
What a beautiful thought to have.

In every art and artifacts,
I'll still find that is pleasing to my eyes,
Like seeing lychee that makes want to crave,
Craving for resentment in someone's eyes,
Turns out I was seeing myself in solitude,

This time, it was no ordinary day,
I think of every word I have to say,
But I had none to lay,
Instead of laying in those eyes,
Thinking myself what I bargained,
To be the highest bidder.

Meaning to say, I wasn't looking at any art,
I saw something that pleased my eyes,
In a quiet place that made it felt like home,
Glass panes are all I can see but a single sight to see.

A sight that I won't lose till its wings spread
A statue that I'm willing to mold by a thread
Humanity restored in my eyes.
By a single whip of your coiffed hair

Like the morning brew that struck me
By the color of your hair, that is full of bliss
Nevertheless, I'll still get lost in those eyes
Making every gaze in my mind
A dream that i made, to get lost by the so-called life
Moments that i'll spend, for me to keep it from being tainted
Savoring every beauty till i faint.

you took me to the natural history museum
the one next to the flower garden
you didn't hold my hand
or you might have
my hair locked in an abrasive ponytail pulling at my ears everytime
the ceilings were like giants
making me feel meek and important
in a forgetful way
the way you don't think about the leaves coming back
in early March
one day they're just there and you're opening the windows again
the way you're meant to
you walked the spotless corridors and I trailed behind
always fearing the immense T-Rex at the front of the room
that followed you with its' eyes
one blink and the head could swivel
the knees would buckle and the colossus
could devour you in a dignified gulp
ending at the bottom of a salacious belly
full of tender body parts and terrifying things
like men pretending to be gods
trapped at the bottom of a well
no invention of fire could extinguish that darkness
reaching into my pocket for binoculars
when I finally look up you're gone past the ancient artifacts
there's a grin and a woman attached to it
and I can see that you're nervous because your feet are dancing back and forth
from their heels to their toes
and the laughter echoes through all the rooms
poignant and full
each room has a theme and I swim from
one diorama to the next alone
I can feel myself melting
with history sticking to my clothes like gum
cotton candy falling into a puddle
gone before you can even taste it

In the cancer museum
I imagine where mine
would rest in peace and ease.

My eyes scan rows of organs:
Disney’s lungs on top of
Newman’s own **** pair;

Ingrid Bergman’s left breast
bump Bette Davis’ right—
indiscreet voyagers;

Audrey Hepburn’s colon
nesting Farrah Fawcett’s
like Tiffany Angels.

I saw my spot next to…
but the doctor called me
back to look at the scans.

He pointed out my growths
grouped in a triangle,
told me of their plan/cure-

called them clouds but they seemed
caterpillars vegging
out on my intestines.

I imagined them cocooning,
metamorphosing to
surgical butterflies

or staying just rounders,
yellow earrings just for
Audrey’s and Farrah’s lobes.

Then the doctor turned it
and the picture became
more terrible things:

rats, sharks, wasps all vying
for valuable shelf space
in the small gallery.

Tourists and soldiers from
the plane crash/war museum
wander in wondering

why there are no jet planes
reassembling in slow
motion horror, dog tags

melted into the seats,
flesh in the torn engines,
no screams of real terror,

just the crowd bumping and
marching into me in silence,
sometimes taking pictures

while **** yellow chemo
solution runs down my
leg in pupae slime lines.  

The last one opens me,
looking for spikes of grief
or fury.  Finding none,

not even a cold tomb,
just a rip, tear, dim sounds
as the crowd echoes down

and surges out the door
for all the Holocaust
store souvenirs next door.

I hear my heart rustle
in the computer bytes,
the breath of trees

and swallows in my files,
a dusty cross inside
releasing butterflies

to the sky as I step
back and watch all
****** into the blue.

“Do you think I got it
all in?” the doctor says,
snapping my last picture