Some people eat dreams

for
breakfast

and
lunch

and
dinner

and it's not even because
they can't afford food

He had a big belly
but he wasn't a fat man
he wished he was a fat man

his daughter was four
and she told him that he
looked like a
turtle
born
on the wrong side of
its shell

and mother laughed.
He didn't.

Surely he would have if the
swelling wasn't a terminal
disease
a type of cancer of the
stomach and guts whose
name he struggled very
hard to
forget
but the regular visits to
the doctor kept reminding him

his wife kept laughing
she said that laughing
is the key
the best healing
Laughter and love
lots and lots of love
Love

but the other night when
he tucked the little girl
in bed and kissed her forehead and
said "I love you."
she poked her tongue at him
and said "I don't! You ugly and weird.
I love mommy and puppy Bran. Good
night." And she put her
head on the pillow and
closed her eyes.

It was I who went to the shelter
and brought puppy Bran home, he though
as he closed the door, tears
blurring his vision
He didn't go into the
bedroom where his wife
was probably asleep

he went into the bathroom
vomited
washed his face
rinsed his mouth
went into the kitchen
and grabbed the leash
went outside
and took puppy Bran
for a walk

the moon lighted their path
and the shadow of his
big, swollen belly
covered all of puppy Bran

I cannot recall the best advice
I got from my father
but the best
advice I got from
a man that's not
my father
is to
make friends with loneliness

If you and loneliness are enemies
you'll be lonely

but once you and loneliness are
friends you'll be solitary

The difference between loneliness
and solitude
is the difference
between
the naive kid who thinks one's
happiness depends upon others
and the wise sage who knows that
one's happiness depends
only on
one's self
and one's self alone.

I visited my girlfriend in the hospital
after her appendicitis operation.
she looked good
and her smile made me smile

"I made a friend," she told me.

There had been another girl in the room with her
and this girl,
she was in the hospital because she sprayed a whole
can of bug repellent into a cup and drank it

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh, well," said my girlfriend. "You wouldn't understand.
Let's just say she wanted to **** the butterflies
in her stomach."

"Okay."

He ate flowers.

this mentally challenged boy
from the countryside
I used to watch him
in the fields
when I visited my grandparents
as a kid
He was like an exotic thing
a wild beast chasing
static pray
They had no chance,
the flowers
he would assault them
with a killer's smile, frothing,
and would grab
and tear and rip them from
the stem and
would eat them

Nobody knew why
and the only explanation given
was that he was insane

then the men and women
who saw him would
scream at him
to stop and he would raise
his head and watch them
like a deer surprised by
headlights
Then he would spit the colorful
froth from his big mouth
and would run home
hopping and leaping like a horse
through the tall grass

He was mostly inoffensive,
this flower eating boy
but they all told me to stay away
from him and would
always chase him away when
he got too close

Time passed and I moved to the
city and went to school there
and stopped visiting the
countryside and its wonders
I got busy
and my busy life drove away the
magic and mystery of childhood

The flower eating boy is now but
a memory
neither good
nor bad
just strange, interesting

He doesn't eat flowers anymore
because he doesn't live in the
countryside anymore
No, from what I've heard
he's in some mental facility and it was
his last flowery meal that sent him there

I don't know,
maybe if they hanged signs with
"Don't wear flowers in your hair!"
around the village and the fields
that little girl would've been saved
and the village would still have its
magic beast.

When the moon retires running her length
the river lies a fishbone on the white plate
feebly breathing like the slosh from oars,
the shadow digs a hole in the bush.

The faintest chill rattles don't escape
and the chatters dull as broken notes,
the shadow picks up from the mist
with the intent of an absorbed dreamer.

The gold diggers in that forbidden land
filter their preys keen to fill some more
from the mines lining the grey riverbank
with each reap a little closer to attainment.

The precise compass weighs the measure
tightening the muscles into a symphony
for that climb onto the ****** in one spring
before stealing the stilled, deep into silence.

Close your eyes
I want you to visualize
And look deep into my mind
Feed into my thoughts
And play with my emotions
You'll be surprised with what you'll find
There are some things I only want you to see
Look at my past, present, and future
Look at the good and bad
And tell me what you see

Now imagine walking in my shoes
Seeing what I've gone through
The obstacles I've overcome
The struggles I've faced
Some things will never be the same
Life is such a crazy thing
It's never really what it seems
But before you, I stand tall
And through it all
I've become the person that I am today