I am shallow.
I have that physical checklist,
of eyes, hair, body.
Impress me.
I'd say it's just my programming,
but that's not the whole story.

I am mesopelagic.
Sometimes all I need is a smile,
a witty remark, a spark.
The true person lurking
just below the shallow water.
Light still reaches here,
but it's not as important
what the eyes see.

I am abyssal.
There is only darkness here.
It doesn't matter what you look like,
I have fallen far for you.
I do not need any light to know why,
I just know I would stay down here forever.

I crave a love so deep
the ocean would be jealous.

Sly second skin hanging off my bedpost or
curled under my pillow.
It climbs into my dreams,
snugs up against me, the thinnest safest skin.
These words are my epidermis
pulled tight over me like a hood or a sheet
or socks and I can tell
anyone anything.

He poured the coffee
Into the cup
He put the milk
Into the cup of coffee
He put the sugar
Into the coffee with milk
With a small spoon
He churned
He drank the coffee
And he put down the cup
Without any word to me
He emptied the coffee with milk
And he put down the cup
Without any word to me
He lighted
One cigarette
He made circles
With the smoke
He shook off the ash
Into the ashtray
Without any word to me
Without any look at me
He got up
He put on
A hat on his head
He put on
A raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
Into the rain
Without any word to me
Without any look at me
And I buried
My face in my hands
And I cried

What would the elders think about their home?
Stone edifices claw the earth they’d known.
These mortar-crusted bellies are sustained
By humans living lost and self-contained.
My jaundiced leaves cry out against the wind
Yet my unheard laments instill chagrin.
The soil beneath, an arid, grimy bed,
The air surrounding, acrid fumes instead.

O, Mother, we forsaken sons desire
A Nat’ral renaissance You may inspire!
Reverse the spell upon the human mass,
And set them free from terra cotta caste.
Reveal Your pow’r; rock the very ground
The buildings claim as theirs and let resound
Their crumbling corpses shattered by your might,
And pleasing may it be within Your sight.

My prayer concludes, but still, the hellish ‘scape
encroaches with the goal of global ****.
And ‘til great Eden’s comeback I do see,
I’m powerless: a sickly city tree.

I saw a meteor scream across the dark,
a chemical green flash above the park.
Breathless, I sought another--just one more?--
no, that was it--all quiet as before.

Thus left alone, with nothing but the smack
of waves necking with rocks behind my back,
I sank into the cool, slow-breathing grass
and shut my eyes to the star-strewn morass.

*Oh, your name is a raft,
   and my mind is a lake,
and all the night I sailed that craft,
   meteors trailing in my wake.

why do i love skin?

because it tells warm infinite stories.

it opens your eyes and mind to a life lived in.

some could say It reminds them of personal pain

covered in scars and goosebumps like tattooed shame

and of course no one would argue

that the interactions theyve had when their skin received each ****

was more ****** than a loss of virtue

but its still an untarnished truth  

that they remain exquisite;

imperfectly honest and enchanting, too.

The smell of that night,
every movement, just right.
Made for you, with spite