She sits upon her royal chair,
eating a donut, drinking coffee, smoking a plume
smoke rising like a phantom menace in the air.

She calls upon her royal friends she sees,
the batting false eyelashes to a perfect stranger
asking the "gentleman" only for his "hand" by all means.

She drives in her royal chariot,
A red and orange one, flaming stripes at the sides, singing
Songs about the battles and triumphs of wartime's "great" merit.

One day this lovely newborn bird will fly the coop,
the child I know by rights was a born queen! She'll
win first in pageants and then we'll drink to soul's soup.

She called out my name,
It sounded really loud
Like that of one in distress,
Screaming from a crowd;

Felt a cold chill
Moving on my skin;
I was home alone last night
Or where else could i have been?

So i turned on the light
To know who's in bed with me,
There she lay- a frozen corpse,
Staring back at me.

I can still hear you,
Singing to me softly,
Your eyes on me only,
Whispering "do you still love me?"
I can still feel you,
Cradeling my bones,
Your arms around me,
It still feels like home.
I still see you,
In every boy I kiss,
And every crack
On the sidewalk
I stay up late,
I grow weak,
I can't stop these feelings,
I can't stop you.
You flood my mind,
My brain is New Orleans,
And you're my Katrina,
And my levees break every time.
I know I can never have you again,
But at least I can miss you.
My body aches from
Aging too early
Because living without you
Is like adding decades to my heart,
And no fountain of youth
Can quench my thirst
You're my phantom limb,
Ive lost you, but I feel you
With every move
Every step
Every time.

The atoms around me are exploding
My body is eroding
Every particle of me is floating
It's all in my DNA coding
Starting my ascent
This I will not circumvent
Now I'm out in outerspace
Up to the great fates
The vibrant colors around me swirl
I'm no longer a person, no longer a girl
I am particals, I am pieces, I am atoms
Floating around like a phantom
Ground down so much I am star dust
Pushed along by the cosmic gust
Destined to land in another galaxy
Far away from all the inhumanity

There's a difference in these woods,
drifting between grey, scabby bark,
sifting into the moist, wormy soil,
beckoning for purpose,
breaking into the sound of a
becoming yet battered nature.

The footprints can be light, thorough --
almost a trait granted by the torture of eternity.
With head-weaves buoyant above tree-leaves,
a hyper-vigilance stemmed from the abuse
of a darkly philosophy weaponized;
an extension of the elbows, forearms, wrists
of huntsmen seeking inferno.

A hollow is an ideal resting place,
beyond the greased veins of trees,
fingertips delving into clustered black,
grasping an illusory livelihood,
only to imprison itself,
hoping for only a thoroughness
granted by the torture of eternity.

When love enters the picture,
it's best to fade into the skyline,
becoming a blue phantom,
hiding behind q-tip clouds,
balanced feebly, anxiously,
unable to realize
how easy you can be seen.
How easy it is to underestimate
your own significance.

You can drag a razor horizontally,
thinking the ink of space
will pour through, staining yourself,
watching yourself disappear,
hoping for only a thoroughness
granted by the torture of eternity.

-

I dance with her, a light caramel mutt,
in a purgatory of racial tension,
between black and white,
living in the grey area of society,
not knowing that it's okay --
and she is like me,
I've just realized.

AWHILE, withdrawn in secret fields of thought,
Her mind moved in a many-imaged past
That lived again and saw its end approach:
Dying, it lived imperishably in her;
Transient and vanishing from transient eyes,
Invisible, a fateful ghost of self,
It bore the future on its phantom breast.
Along the fleeting event’s far-backward trail
Regressed the stream of the insistent hours,
And on the bank of the mysterious flood
Peopled with well-loved forms now seen no more
And the subtle images of things that were,
Her witness spirit stood reviewing Time.
All that she once had hoped and dreamed and been,
Flew past her eagle-winged through memory’s skies.
As in a many-hued flaming inner dawn,
Her life’s broad highways and its sweet bypaths
Lay mapped to her sun-clear recording view,
From the bright country of her childhood’s days
And the blue mountains of her soaring youth
And the paradise groves and peacock wings of Love
To joy clutched under the silent shadow of doom
In a last turn where heaven raced with hell.
Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate.
An absolute supernatural darkness falls
On man sometimes when he draws near to God:
An hour arrives when fail all Nature’s means;
Forced out from the protecting Ignorance
And flung back on his naked primal need,
He at length must cast from him his surface soul
And be the ungarbed entity within:
                               -By Sri Auro,Book I,Canto II

1 second:
my mind drags my languid body across the tundra of insanity
my eyes focused on a space
a blurry shape focused
something in between reality and the real world
2 seconds:
roles of films show screenplays flickering across my mind, lighting up possibilities of what could go wrong
One goes by, and the film starts again running over and over
as the films play, I slowly drown in a sea of attacks
1,000 feet, my world spins
2,000 feet, my world fades
3,000 feet, my world becomes red, blocking the rest of the colors of the world
preventing the peace of the world into sight
4,000 feet, my soul mending into an entity with no right of way
it drifts upwards as I drift away
3 seconds:
my mind becomes the phantom
black, hollow, clustered, dreadful, worrisome
following my hollow body, swarming with words
creeping up behind me, people pass in blurs
their energy sweeps me up, fills me, empties me, making me feel even more alone
4 seconds:
do I cry, show the world the Prince of Darkness that clings onto my body
pulling strands of my hair, slowing my world to where I stare at myself and see a mess
see the tearing across skin, my face, only my red eyes can see, when they see my reflection
it’s a happy girl, who is never too sad, but the red can see through the mask that is always glued on
or should I **** it up and keep the beast swimming through my brain
prying my mouth open, keep it inside and let it eat me alive
5 seconds:
my heart, feeling four times as heavier as it did 6 seconds before
telling me *you’re okay, it will pass, the storms almost over, the friend always there to help the in pain
even when the expression shows different
the brain, feeling four times heavier as it did 6 seconds before
telling me you’re not okay, nobody cares, see they just passed you, why would someone care?
The common enemy, the one who's always there to tear you down even when the sun shines bright
6 seconds:
to keep the phantom from attacking, breathe steadily, never miss a beat
which would you chose to believe?
The phantom, the common enemy, the one who controls your thoughts
or the friend, there to keep you running through it all?
The choice seems easy, but sometimes
the choice isn’t yours to make

i thought you will
last forever.
in the same way
i thought poetry only
rhymes.

but it doesn't,
and so are you.


it was a long time ago.
too long to remember now
but i do,
anyway.


like fireflies on a  summer's eve,
you illumined every path
leading to this final solitude.


briefly but brightly.


the show was beautiful while it lasted;
i'm honest enough to admit that.

but like everything you
ever taught me:
illusion has a way of obscuring reality.

it was a little late
when i became aware
of your cryptic absence.

for a while,
i thought you would come back.


no, i believed you would.


over the years, though,
that faith slowly dampened.

until, one day, it completely disappeared.


like you.


i wonder,
from that first moment,

were you ever there at all?

Rain showers, mazes uncovered
Dancing like a little child with a toy
Reclaimed as the drizzles recovers
Pouncing  jumps like a kangaroo

The winter burns as the fire blaze
Warmed by the ambience of the logs
Reflections denuded, secrets unearthed
Times lost bouncing like a ball

Bare and **** in the cool mist and fog
A shadowy phantom arises me
An Orion exhibit, my alpha constellation
Carving me out of the hidden cave