Conversations
changed like tidal  waves
we entered thrilled and nervous
clenching new book bags
and praying freshman friday didn't exist

Now I enter
scared
clenching my hopes and dreams
weighing my gpa
and my options
praying I will be proven worthy of acceptance

Yet I can not shake the feeling
of not learning
who I was
who I am
or who I want to be

does my diploma fill
the absence of my growth

E.R.

High school was the peak of your ecstasy high.
High school was coming down, and needing the coke to feel fine.
High school was floating in space--
'Cause ****** was massaging your brain.
Like a masseuse,
But like any good masseuse
they kneaded out your knots, and your neck became inflamed.
High school was all that.
The greats and the awfuls of every electric event.
You never felt the equilibrium
We were always at full max or the lowest minimum.
Temporary bipolar,
That's what we called it.
Temporary bipolar.

High school; we ******* felt it all.
The times Mary Jane showed us the moon
The times we were all sad and danced in my room.
Nobody knew it but Air baby and Alien and Fire baby too,
We were all in a war;
Well, not me.
I simply watched and kept my foot in the door.
So that to never let it close forever
So that to keep everybody together.

like when we hugged and became one
That was when everything was good,
When we no longer felt like the past was erased and our present had won.
When hugs didn't intermingle with the word resentment.
When kisses didn't intermingle with the thoughts of coerced ***.

When WE hugged we were in an empty white room.
Together yet so alone.
In high school there were secrets,
And when we were all there together hugging and dancing in my room,
We were one;
And nobody even had to know
that fire, air, and water were about to explode and come undone.

High school was Lester leaving town,
And injecting anxt into the walls of my house.
High school was forgotten elevator rides next to police officers,
And middle aged women having drinks and making an offer.
Im gonna make him an offer he can't refuse,
sock on the door and it's off to bed.

High school was being afraid to break a boy's heart, and dreaming of another home.
High school was leaving early from a party to let him cry on your shoulder.
High school was food left on the plate and narcissistic mirrors.
High school was cigarettes burning holes in relationships and the number four controlling people's lives.

High school was us being so real it almost felt fake,
High school was seeing how many pills you could take.

Up up into the clouds was where we always were,
Because in high school,
That was better than being anywhere.

Senseless beauty,

Indulge every chance you get.
In that galactic heart of yours,
Where stars are dense as wild flowers
Covering the dark ranges of space.
Where the greatest lessons are distilled
In your subtle flavours and delicate
complexities of your new sensorium.
Eat your guilt, and do not look at your tortured mate.

*The lesson is pleasure not pride.

I hope my good old ******* holds out
60 years it's been mostly OK
Tho in Bolivia a fissure operation
     survived the altiplano hospital--
a little blood, no polyps, occasionally
a small hemorrhoid
active, eager, receptive to phallus
     coke bottle, candle, carrot
     banana & fingers -
Now AIDS makes it shy, but still
     eager to serve -
out with the dumps, in with the ******'d
     ******* friend -
still rubbery muscular,
unashamed wide open for joy
But another 20 years who knows,
     old folks got troubles everywhere -
necks, prostates, stomachs, joints--
     Hope the old hole stays young
     till death, relax

                                        March 15, 1986, 1:00 PM

The phone crazed against its plastic receiver.
Tossing her clippers on the counter
with an exasperated sigh, she picked up.

"Mary's."

She began to pace around her paisley-floored
salon when she read the Caller ID.
Crosby General Hospital

The cord stretched further across the room
with each diagnosis like a tightrope that was
threadbare from decades of grim news and heartbreak.

A single thread kept her composure.

When word came across that her daughter
had died, the wire snapped and her faced turned
scarlet like she was crying barbicide.