Floating with a neon cross
I plug your neon holes.
I gross our incomes both
But watch you do it up your nose.
I wish you knew how much those boys just
want to *** on you then leave.

There were flashing lights,
lasers, where we met.
There was loud music
and cheap drinks.

I found myself with the three of you,
only one of whom I'd met before.

That was the year I only wore plaid, mostly.
I was protesting make up at the time,
a leftover idea from my two year flowerchild period.
You were arrogant as ever,
self involved ****
with great taste in music.

I remember in all the conversations that followed
you'd compliment my impeccably perfect playlists.
I digress.

You stayed away from me that night,
let me hit on your friends.
But you got me that shirt.
I still wear it.

I had forgotten that night for over a year.
Even when I saw you next,
I didn't remember you.
I didn't remember you
and that has always bothered me.

I don't forget people.
I just don't.
Especially since it was both our first night out with that crowd.

You remembered me though.
And I'll never know why
I forgot and you remembered.

But now you forget me,
and I never shall forget you.
I promise you I'll never forget you.

And if you recall,
I don't break my promises to those I love.

There's a reason I notice your name where I never thought it belonged before, and I don't think my heart can project my feelings where I set my eyes to look because if it could it wouldn't jump so hard and fast at the slightest vocalizing of your name. I try to shut that book like I violently slam the door shut on any negative thought of you. I've never seen signs like this before, it's almost as if they were flashing neon lights that were actually important to someone.
No.
Not someone.

Me.

This terribleness. The blur of traffic lights and puddles paints Los Angeles on my face at night. It's so hard to know who will doze in my blind spots. Sunflower seeds and ******* lining the carpet. I sat on the front porch for five hours gutting the wolves from my appendices. Usually the headaches go away with the squashing of the lights. Fluorescents are the worst, halogens second, and 60-watt 120-volt light bulb the bane of my existence. I look at my phone but I cannot summon a quirky 120 character quip. I need excedrin but all I have to grape flavored children's aspirin. I should have asked for the water. How many unfinished glasses of water have I left around this world?
     Maybe Bruce and I will squash after work. I can hear his weekly catalog of two night stands with those married transient women who drive from Santa B. I hate golf, I could have made carried a career in this resentment. Maybe rolling down the window will alleviate some of this pressure. Maybe it's barometric pressure, The Baby is here in time to drag the houses out to sea. It feels like Michelangelo is carving The David in my head and it's the chiseling I've never wanted. It's Tuesday and the drugs were horrible. They killed five of them today. We wrapped their heads in blankets from the Thrifty, and had to have the interns find clothes that would fit for the Christian caskets. Two days until Giving Thanks Day.
     I am wrapped in copper and stuck in amber. I am acquitted by nonsense and stipulation, sick with nausea and pushing my forehead into the steering wheel. This is all terrible. The lying I've never told myself. The people that don't even know it's lying. Her and I always seem to escape with our happiness and pleasure in tow. The odds are slim, but our clothes have never fit too tightly.

dark corners in the carnival..
what goes on there?
i want to play too..
i want a little darkness..
i want to feel inside..
the reds shine and glow..
some blues also..
neon wrist bands..
in they dark corners..
how they float in the blackness..

Every time I fall
You're there
With open arms
And neon veins
So I can see what it is
That makes you tick
With bleeding wrists so I can see the way
Straight to your heart
We're not perfect,
But we're art
And it never is
You would agree
Looking into my weighed down eyes
That you could always get to look up
You always saw the white in them
When others would see my dilated pupils
That seem to you like
Beautiful mirrors
Caught in arms of neon
That get cut in the process
To keep me from shattering
You say its worth it

Metal work rises higher than the cold air from your mouth,
The cold falls on the streets, faster than the birds flying south.
My hand in yours and we walk a few blocks,
Sounds of the city fill our ears:
Gunshots at earshot, screams louder and whispers hot,
I wrap this ratty coat around your nape, wiping away your fears.

The color is grey and the sky mirrors the hue,
The clouds cover sun and the cover brings shade,
This shade covers people, hasty and grimy they are,
Colored by the neon and the night with no star.

‘These thoughts make me angry,’ I say,
You turn your head.
You know the thoughts I think, you nod and reply,
‘I think about them everyday,’
I stop, gently holding your gaze and sigh,

‘I loved this city, and now I love you,
I loved these streets, and these buildings too,’
I turn grave for a moment, ‘It’s sad but true,
The crashes are many and the trees too few,’
So you look at me and say, ‘Alright, what should we do?’

I stand there awhile while the people walk by,
They push, grunt and sneer; no care from the passerby,
I don’t have to think but I try and pretend,
The answer is so clear; this is the end.

‘Let’s leave this place,” I say,
“Okay. Let’s.”

Are you listening to yourself?

High staring at myself on neon lights

Playing with the powerful immortals

You are never gonna get
everything you want in this world.
First things first,
get what you deserve.

Be good to yourself!
So says the neon sign
Hanging above the pizza shop.
For some reason it means
Something
To me.
I'm not sure what,
Or why.
But it is to me what the green light was to gatsby.
Or sweaters were to Cosby.
I loved that sign
Even after it switched off for the last time.