If luck knocks on your louvered door you will have a chance to fight your enemy. You will stand up like a crackerjack prize and pay no mind to the man that broke your backbone.

Into the windowless courtroom you will trek. People lined up on hand carved benches, staring with unaroused expressions, waiting warily for their names to be called.

You feel your breath halfheartedly fill your emaciated lungs with foul and cumbersome air as you survey the miserable scene and avoid locking eyes with the man that was disguised as your one true love.

You wear a band of rubber which you snap on your wrist at the first sign of weakness so you stay focused on the gavel’s exclamation.

He tells your long-lost spouse from another life with another wife that this is not Watergate and “I don’t recall” will not suffice in his civil courtroom.

His honor dishonors his woven white robe when he yells in your direction with agape red mouth and judgmental judicial tone. When the courage strikes your hand-stitched smile will widen with words and you will command an audience of perjurers who will point forceful fingers at their prior partners that used to be ******* lovers and now sit dead pan wantonly waiting to bleat themselves dry.

Slam the gavel while the corn cracks in the microwave bag until all the edges have been popped out and fairness has been forced through the funnel like liquid butter with a diet coke to wash it down.

You walk away, down the dark labyrinth of hallowed halls snapping your gum and tip-tapping your heels as you flee from the referee who does not understand your half eaten heart with the wiggly worm within its wind-up walls. He will pronounce your fate with a backhanded expletive and a muffled “adjourned.”

I watched your gracefully long,
inflated fingers stretch out
to dial a digital code
on your silvery, slatted intercom,
requesting, no, demanding, that Joel
hustle his way through the humble halls
to your dominion
from the flaccid factory at the opposite end
of the bulky building
that you now so proudly owned,
never willing
to proffer credit for the generous growth
to anyone but yourself.

Sitting on the seventies colorific plaid sofa
in the expanse of your stately second floor office
I watched you shuffle papers, take a long
drag of your slim menthol cigarette and
call across the hall to a father unlike your own.
Her father. That unfit, unworthy, plain Jane wife of yours.
But he wasn’t really hers, because they were all
hustling for you, weren’t they?

I heard my Papa call over to you
in his kind, quiet way,
to ask you to go easy
on the poor sucker
journeying to your jurisdiction,
which made your sky blue eyes crinkle
with obvious revulsion
at the thought of going easy
on one of the many indolent soldiers
doing your bidding
in the catacombs
of the facility, the likes of which
you rarely, if ever,
set that size 16 foot of yours.

Immediately changing face, I watched as
an enormous mustache-framed smile unfolded
over your classically Russian,
hand-carved vanilla face,
like an animated Asian fan
in a Geisha’s dexterous dance.
You looked at me in boyish anticipation as you asked me,
“Where shall we go for lunch today?”

When Joel entered the vaulted, double doorway, he made no sound
as he tread on the luxurious gold-threaded carpet that had been laid
merely one week before, at the disgust of your father-in-law.
As he entered, Joel’s hunched-back frame curved due left
and anxiety clearly riddled his fearful face.
He began to whimper aloud, like a bleating animal
in line to be slaughtered, as your booming base bravado
shook the white walls
and made, even me, wince in astonishment.

It was the first time that I saw your potent power,
the likes of which I dared not ever ask to be
directed toward me, the eldest of your clan
and the most subservient of us all.
I learned early on that Daddy knows everything
important to know, that Daddy rules
the rectilinear roost, that Daddy should not
be questioned, even if my childish certainty
told me otherwise.
You needed me to believe in you.
It was your right to be followed
as a censured book of law
in the judicial system of life.

Once Joel’s injured suit of armor thumped its way
out the detached double door,
your face lightened five shades of pale
and delight beamed through your bright eyes
like a small child tasting the salty sweetness
of your very first kaleidoscopic-colored candy.
It was time for me to name
the extravagant restaurant of my choice.
It was once again you and I
against the unworthy, wretched world.
My know-it-all, darling Dad and your gifted little angel,
the extension of yourself in all the best ways,
granted I kept my mouth from moving and
my words to a pleasant, flattering tone,
like the finely spun fibers of your
newly acquired, gilded carpet.

Where shall we go, my foolish father?
Direct me, for my innocent eyes are
yet short-sighted to an intelligence such as yours.
Help me get up from your stately sofa
and build me a faulty foundation on which to stand
my worthless and wanting self
so that I may be worthy of the
peripheral love that so far has eluded me.

Her eyes are black holes.
swirling vortexes of emptiness,
capturing everything in their path.

Her smile is a comet.
beautiful and inviting from afar,
yet terrifying up close.

Her words a supernova.
mystifying and awe inspiring,
capable of causing so much pain.

Her emotions, solar flares.
fleeting yet intense,
unpredictable and inexplicable.

She is the universe.
vast and incomprehensible.

I am the heavens.
bringing love and light.

...if only she believed in me.

you say hello
like you practice it in a mirror.
you have never been sincere.
for as long as i have known you,
all that ever mattered
was what you saw in your own reflection.
-k.j.c

From a young age, I always felt stifled
I wasn’t allowed to be me so I was muffled

Mother insisted at my school I be held back in first grade
Principal said no, she insisted and in her hands he played

She said I'd be better off ******* because someone could do something with me then
Because the way I was, I was unable to learn, refused directions again and again

Mother said I came from a loving caring family that I treated terrible
I just don't know how to appreciate, and made others lives unbearable.

Being me was really not acceptable
So I always felt quite skeptical

Everything I did, wanted to do, said or liked
Was considered bad, wrong, sinful and disliked

My having fun was not allowed
For I’d embarrass them in a crowd

I never knew what I was allowed to do
Because of that I never really had a clue

Never knowing what to do, say or how to act
Since all my actions against me were attacked

My mother said one thing to me and did another
I knew she favored others over me so why did I bother?

My entire life has been quite a farce
Attention I wanted from her were sparse

Always pretending to be such an outstanding mother
To impress the friends and family she shouldn’t bother

Mother said I couldn't work because I can’t get along with anybody
Making me dependent on her in every way, she said I was shoddy.

While mother was pretending to me that she really loved me
She was going around bashing me to any family she’d see

I’d complain that other family members treated me bad
She said all you  do is cause trouble and make me mad

If you could just grow up and learn to behave
Then everyone would be nice and about you rave

I trusted my mother when she said I was born bad, told her I  see
She asked the doctor for help but said nothing was wrong with me.

Mother spoke with fork tongue;  sold me out, lied to me constantly
Leaving me to wonder how to survive without her cautiously

I'm afraid to have fun, I'm always afraid someone will be cranky
When I did things I'd pay for it because mom would be very angry

Afraid to be me, don't know how to act, who I am, or what to do.
Today I feel the same and for that reason I will always be blue

At the age of almost 60 I'm finding out things were never my fault
I'd like to take all those bad feelings, and lock them in a vault

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