For the record, I suppose it should be stated I lost my soul in Vegas.
I would love to go back there and find it among those glittering lights and buffet tables of never-ending artful desserts.
It's funny that all I really remember are those pretty desserts and fried mashed potatoes.
I want those things back.

I'm like a raver with those lights.
I want to consume them.
I want to glow in my pores.
Not the cliched glow that wraps itself around the impregnated many,
but the glow that comes from sitting next to neon for too long.
That it could somehow stain you.
Rub off like fairy dust on skin.
That I could fly away due to its energy or wishful thinking.

Take me back to Vegas,
where they still hand that out for free by the boatload.
I need not gamble.
I need not glad-hand.
I would simply sit idly by the buzzing of pinks and blues and greens and reds.
And me and those cheap 1920's lights will have a moment,
a moment I can share with the cocktail waitress who asks me for the third time if I'm sure I don't need a little refresher drink.

i often wonder
if perfection
is attainable
in simple things
like a rose
although it has thorns.
like the neon frogs
despite its poison.
like the sun
despite it's blinding beauty.
in you,
although all you've ever done is hurt me

I remember last night
With a sunset sky
Pink
Lilac
Baby blues and glimmering golds
I wanted to see you today
But I couldn't
Not really
I remember last night
When we talked until the streetlights turned on
When I put little white daisies in your hair
And you smiled for me
I wanted to do that tonight
But I couldn't
Sadly
I remember last night
When we sat by the creek
And caught fireflies
Flickering in the dimming light
Like little neon stars
I wanted to do that tonight
But I couldn't
And it hurt

the horses are still beside the hill
the hotel still has a neon sign
that’s pleasant as the wild way he would
say it as it is

The moons are all neon
A biohazard still fabulous
The apocalypse is upon us
Let the population die

Together we'll grow extinct
Our species already endangered
The moons are still neon, my love
We'll dance to death in the burning lights

a girl sits on the pavement,
lunch in hand
wondering what kind of times they were
-neither the best nor the worst of times,
but times spent at a coffee shop
watching the cars go by.

as the rain falls
-as it always falls at 2 am,
steady and calming
a world in limbo
despite all of the chaos that i so lovingly
call mine.

the birds aren’t out yet,
but the cars softly flash their lights
i shouldn’t be here
this desolate city,
mine,
this desolate life,
mine.

the plants sway softly,
ever their vibrant green and your cat meows
-the only thing along with your short hair
and scrolling habits
and off-feelings
you’ve been able to keep alive this winter.

lone figures in the winter,
at your desks -alone in class
smiling at a laptop,
the papers on your bedroom floor flutter around you
wind in my rooms,
slashes on the push floor.

slashes -also on the peaches
nectarines
fingertips (from falls)
coffee cups in empty cafes
and unthinkably
blueberries.

all of our photographs,
a poet said they would happen,
waiting to happen,
i think they’re right and
they’ll never happen
-it’s the kind of beauty arranged and taken down,
never enjoyed.