I sit upon an tall bar stool and watch them play.

The air is humid and full of mosquitoes.

One falls into my cocktail and writhes about in what I like to think is terror. Really its just instinct, electrical signals firing through the body of something small and insignificant.

Though its all too easy to think that.

My eyes and attention stray from those I had been previously observing. Drawn to the glass as though it were a beacon.

"Hello little guy." I whisper into my glass. "Want me to help you?"

I laugh quietly to myself for a moment, then down the contents. "A new page tonight?" I ask myself mockingly.

Smoke is billowing into the dimming sky. It is far away, but almost perceptible to my nostrils.

I wonder: is anyone burning? Perhaps a once happy family. Too far away for me to help anyhow. Even though the desire is there.

Hopefully it works out how I hope it will.

I regress with closed eyes back to the day a relation brought home a retriever puppy. Remembering how I had kicked it like one would a football to make it stop crying.

Such bad behaviour. Deserving a beating that. Its a shame my relative was such a soft-hearted one. More punishment would have been deserved.

My eyes open and dart back to the place I was watching before. I notice they're gone.

Playing a childish game near the poolside. One falls into the pool and splashes about furiously. No one is around to help it.

I stand up and walk over.

A look of terror, perhaps hope, appears on its face as it looks up at me. I know better of course.

Really its just instinct, electrical signals firing through the body of something small and insignificant.

After all,
The mosquito,
Fire,
Dog...

It all just depends on personal perspective.

Lust, when it grips us,  is a sudden swell,  
occasional in a mountain river flowing downhill,
from the high ranges of inflamed emotions.

The ecstatic roar while the  discharge is easily forgotten ,
the river  runs dry soon enough , when the torrents abruptly stop,
as the winds chase away the clouds, all of a sudden.

But those pools, your blue,beautiful eyes, clearly defy,
rules of seasons,brims invariably with love pure, all along,
and yes,it gets replenished,from the deep well springs
of your heart, it remains full whether I am far or near.

maybe it was the light reflecting off the water that made it all feel surreal
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of unspoken want
we shed our clothes and bore our skin out into the night air
and we told you not to look knowing full well that you would anyway
but anyway
here's another night spent in proximity to another life
secreted away in city lights and manufactured stars
you lifted me over the fence just to carry me until morning light
pale
open
blunt.
vulnerable in the dark water
flash junk imagery of your hands on my waist
gold and black and crystalline in the low light from the parking lot
your visual stimulation an ever present hum in the background of the moment
we broke in just to break out of routine
six of us small thin and brittle in exposure
connected by the weight of unspoken want
just don't leave it for too long
and I told you not to knowing that you would
you looked and I fell and they laughed knowing it was the slow burn all along
and I know that on the ride home you'll wait for glimpses of my figure illuminated by break lights
and that I'll search for your arms in the darkened car
but for now it's the light reflecting off the water
and your iconic longing
the type that sets a lover into eternity in photographs and sighs
thin wrists and thighs
this is the long drive and the slow dive
and six feet under isn't so scary in a swimming pool
dark blue and numbing the weight fades away only to resurface along the arch of my spine
reignited by your hands cautious and thin
and the waves tumble in
reckless son sick coughing up blood like I need this
nervous soul set alight in the waining darkness
you'll catch me before they catch us
and I'll be the first to confess
that it was the weight all along
exposed and half dressed faded in the wave pool
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of want in your arms.

I often fear the idea of being forgotten,
being pushed onto the sidelines, out of sight and out of mind.
I fear that no one will say my name as if it were a song that echoes through my very soul.
And they will not tell the story about how I got the scar on my cheek or the time I nearly drowned in the pool, because I will no longer matter.
I will no longer matter one day- and that scares me.
-o.b

The sky, a plate
in kindly blue,
smooth
as the ceramic face
of this, my swimming pool;

the bobbing palm
glazing the back
of my starfish shape
like white liquid icing;

sweet, the water's after-taste;
gently
pungent smell lodged
in the nape of my neck

I will wash the blue
off my skin, in a tiled doll-box
cubicle
I will smell the smell fade
out of my fizzled wet-strung hair
just as sugar dissipates
into the hot
nothingness of drinks.

I will pretend to forget,
then forget
I was offered a plate
in a summery shade, bordered by
tree branches
I was in that half
amniotic vessel -
weightless

as a seed pearl in
an ocean or a lover
exhaling in the depths
of a kiss;

a posy of
air on liquid.

When I'm home,
I have an apple every night,
It makes me feel good.

When I'm in school,
I don't even have an apple everyday.

I spend more time in school,
Than I do at home,
It's torture,
And home;
Home doesn't leave me feeling so dandy either,
The apples help me.

I guess that partially explains,
Why this sea of depression,
Is only getting deeper,
And I still don't know how to swim,
In a pool.

That open window on the bus,
that purple hue of the dawn sky,
is just as it is.

Those repeating lyrics,
those melodies which never irritate,
whispering through earbuds,
are just as they are.

That hotel I stop at,
that sea salt pool,
its warmth in coldness,
its missing chlorine,
is just as it is.

Not so gracefully
We swam nakedly
Underneath the light switch in your childhood bedroom
Just a touch or two
We look up at the blue from the swimming pool at
The stars in the skies
Inside your eyes I dive
So dead not so alive
I'll be for another year or two
I don't know that much about you

Swimming in the cold waters
I feel a shame that bothers
Me. I don't know what you see
But it's something I don't know about me
Painfully I cry
And curse the good things in life and try to find my inner desires
You hold me tight under the stars in the swimming pool
A place in time a peace of mind

So casually we cease to be
A bittersweet memory
Of a time I wanted more than I could be
And now we might have a sight clouded by the darkness of a night
The stars are the only light to guide us through our dreams
When we dream you're going to dream with me
Life is another place separated from our dream reality
And at night the stars shine again.

Do you remember?
You know what I'm talking about.
Those times when the entire family was gathered at our house,
simply enjoying the pleasure of each other's company.
The smell of the grilled fajitas.
The sight of the women cooking in the kitchen, preparing the side dishes.
The kids playing in the pool as if the day were endless.
Oh, how I long for those days!
How I wish I could relive them.
Truth is you never appreciate anything until you look back in time,
cause in the moment you're too busy feeling alive!