Act I
Enter two navies inspecting a robbery scene, Norman staring at a table on a stage full of empty shuffled tea cups and scattered roses.

Norman: well wouldn’t you see! isn’t this the most balanced tea!

Enter Dover eyeing the table and Norman with sharp inspection.

Dover: what the shambles you mean? (picking a rose up)

Norman:oh the shambles! where’s the gleaming fire within the clear clouds!

Dover:what even caused such a commotion?

Norman: oh what’s the withered moon without the staggering sun! the founded prism underneath the leaves when they hum
the lookers- instead of the rounds could have taken onboard routes!

Dover stands unsure as Norman roams around like he’s on shore.

Dover: what’s buzzing in that wits of yours?

Norman halts all of a sudden picking up the pieces of a broken glass, roses, and stems.

Norman: fine time how it had tethered! if the tea cups hadn’t fallen under ink of roses on their surface! then who’d rip the poor roses out their wombs!

Dover listening to Norman, picks up the labeled teabag’s paper inspecting.

Awfully surprised Dover reads.

Dover: Sugarlime Tea? how’d that not succumbed from thrills of morbid totes! my heavened lord!

Norman halts amidst his tumble around the lowered velvet curtains.

Norman: oh that must’ve been treading on dreadful strings that led to delightful things— thorns in their cups but roses around their mugs just like vibrant flowers inhaled beneath wooden brutes!

swords do twist oftentimes!, just like forsworn letters carved inside hearts oh how the mighty wind had rumbled their grounds their cups! their roses! their mugs!

It must’ve been when the lime in that whiff had hit! oh do come abrupt thrills! to forsaken wills!

Dover shakes his head exasperated.

Dover: not even the hastiest of blades could highlight your lines you rot witted Norman! if anything but, sons of your lips could fill all those bare rugged stones!

End act 1

~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~

the banshee wails loud -
coddles the heart of darkness;
the echoes shiver.

Her eyes, they see every 
True things within me
Her lips, they paint words 
In the air like a delicate butterflies 
Her gaze, deeper than oceans,
Vaster than the skies 
Her energy, a pulsating force 
Vivacious and bright 
Her silhouette, a gentle outline 
Against the evening sky 
Her aroma, a blend of blooming 
Flowers and a lightning struck night 
Every single part of her 
Perfections that nobody can change
Her voice, a melody,
Carved from whispers of the winds,
It dances in the corridors of my soul,
A song only my heart understands.
Her touch, a gentle spark,
Igniting constellations on my skin,
Fingers like wandering artists,
Sketching galaxies within.
Her laughter, a cascade of stars,
Each note a prism of light,
It lingers, a haunting echo,
Through the stillness of my nights.
Her mind, a labyrinth of wonders,
Where dreams take their first flight,
A tapestry woven with wisdom and grace,
A sanctuary of infinite light.
Her presence, a radiant eclipse,
Both shadow and shine entwined,
A paradox of chaos and calm,
A mystery only time can find.
Her heart, an eternal fire,
Unyielding to the fiercest storm,
A beacon in my darkest seas,
A place I long to call home.
Every fragment of her existence,
A symphony of unspoken art,
She is the universe itself,
And I, a wanderer in her heart.

walk me down the alley, will you?
it’s so dark, and terribly true:
the walls close in;
the air cuts thin;
on a skin that’s weary of
a diabolical flu.

i’ll walk behind ya, all the way -
for i have nothing good to say -
of the ones who lurk
in dreary corners -  
where hope turns bleak;
i dare not speak -

for they can sense
my breathless words;
my every move;
even thoughts, unheard;
you must take caution,
stay low, stay far:
they might mistake us
for who we are  

almost there,
just a few more yards…
you may drop me off yonder -
that moonlit graveyard:
will be there, for a while -
don’t wait too long;
the night isn’t over -
things could go wrong.

i snort the pillow;
lick shampoo off her hair strands;
she’s on to witchcraft.

Look, here is a puzzle.

A mystery for you to solve.

You don't have the answer?

You're meant to have them all.

Just read the signs, in faces, reach out,

but never call. Don't ever ask the questions,

that's against the rules. You are the only one

that find the silence cruel. Only you find it to be

troubling. Everyone else can play this game, no problem.

I’m told that I’m a dream produced
by time and space and DNA, that’s organized in such a way
that chemistry and physics are enough to make it dream,
so let’s accept that really there’s no ghost in the machine.

But still it seems that I exist, and isn’t it amazing dreams
can interact with other dreams,
do calculus and higher math,
gaze at the stars, make art, make love,
investigate it all and find
we’re just another accident of chemistry and space and time.