In the shadows of the walls
where laughter once reverberated
as a symphony of gleeful bliss,
intonational inclines arise in the dark
as dancing phantoms haunt
the smirking silence which dissipates
from the splotched, upended floorboards,  
while midnight footprints breathlessly creak,
cradling the demonizing affirmations whispered,
the very ones I knew would never become true.

We stood by, powerlessly spectating
as the love we once shared
gasped for air, red in the face,
its gushing carotid bulging in desperation,
four lungs incinerating themselves
with imminent anticipation
of the death gleaming
just over the horizon,
its violet hues juxtaposing
with the glimmering night skies
of faded constellations comprising the celestial
as moonlit silhouettes waltzed across the water,
a bright cerulean rippling in our presence,
the genesis of a journey unforeseen.

Brutal acceptance rains from my eyes,
a rumbling river that reigns supreme
over the rounded stones stacked high
as a towering dam of branches and rubble,
leftover waste long forgotten and forlorn;
hometown fantasies of childhood memories
linger longer than our lost loyalty,
liberating me from the rusted chains
you'd stapled into my brittle bones,
a leash tied tightly around my throat
to **** me from my courageous caution
back into the splintered wheel
dictating our selfish agendas,
empty promises of dilapidated affirmations
now turned weary and worn
with this newfound sense of reflection,
a dichotomy depicting time's own passage,
the consequence of a metamorphic resolution
of open wounds blossoming into eroded scars.  

Futuristic visions of lesions now mended
seamlessly fuse with renewed self-reception,
your broken promises stitched with the threads
ripped from the capillaries comprising my core,
blood-stained carpet of scarlet and crimson
fading into an aged and weathered maroon,
never truly waning in its acquainted pigment
yet blossoming into a stained fabric
portraying the promises of the past,
of decayed ruins now industriously erected
into a radiant utopia of gallant, rubious valor,
the final product of an unyielding resolve
to have our story rewritten, our own steadfast evolution.

The sun never rises here, the moon never falls,
despite the nightly intrusion of thoughts
that never seem to expire into the current.

Two birds screech above but I do not listen:
“Our religion is one of love,” they tell me
while they slam the door in my face
to go and vote for a straight man elated
to erase the love I have for nobody but me.

“Church is the only path to Salvation,” he tells me
after a night spent in my hometown bed;
hypocrisy is the root embedded throughout the forest
of Fatherly Love, created only to benefit those
normal enough to write the rules
before anyone else could…
                                                  How convenient.
Our Father makes no mistake
and carefully creates us all,
yet my love is seen as a ******* painted onto
a blank canvas thrown across a rusted floor.

“A genetic error,” say the men who later imagine
the ache of my nails digging deep into
their rugged, tightened backs;
the wedding ring on their finger
refracts the light of the bathroom mirror
as cans of crushed beer pile high
in the trash strewn
on the ground behind them...
                                                  So many frauds.
I live my days on the edge of whitewashed insanity,
yet forever closing my eyes to darkness
is a life I wish not live:
the mothers who birthed us to fade into the grave,
the love they lent evaporating upon expiration,
our fathers who protected us far removed,
their eyes forever closed, their life no more.
I cannot fade into nothing, this I won’t believe…
                                                                                      So hopeless.
The God I love does not punish
those defying the rules He’d always known
would one day be certainly shattered;
He does not make me love men
and sentence me to die in the same command
despite the thousands of hymns I whispered
in the solace of my childhood room.

He does not send men to sleep at night
and force them to question what they feel—
tossing the sour taste into the background,
ignoring the truth of the real me…  
                                                             How cruel.
The God I know made me the way I am
and is proud of me for taking it in stride.

He does not wish to see me change --  
He frowns at the men desiring revenge
on us who wish to be left alone --  
we do not need your opinion,
we do not need your love,
we do not need your thoughts or your prayers,
for the God I love welcomes me with open arms
unlike the multitude of others I no longer remember…
                                                                                          So unimportant.

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

My stomach churns like the deck of a ship
amid a raging mid-Atlantic tempest,
its bowels tender and full of friction,
a morose resentment of an azure message sent.

The Dungan name supports its own;
the pain of one is felt by the majority,
an empathetic woe of a blessing understated,
our emotional reason ranging far and true.

One text sent and the world turns dim;
I've tried to manage the mania and valleys
of the experiences endemic to our core,
but the truth remains that I've not healed at all.

I can envision the late New York nights,
our Hoboken studio glimmering in the sunset,
the white walls imprinted with our fingertips;
open bottles of wine half-drank scattered around
while the subway roars underneath the Hudson
as it zips to a jolting halt.

Meanwhile, the scars embedding my skin
have healed themselves through and clear,
yet the bruises around the perimeter remain,
their coarse outlines distant reminders
of the pitfalls of the love we once shared.

Fire and ice juxtapose into a glass of lager,
a cool glide down the warm embrace of my throat;
nightly cocktails of Lexapro, Lamictal, and Hydroxyzine
haven't succeeded in easing the terrors
plaguing my core in the brightest of nights --
it is surmisable that these wounds are lethal,
but I refuse to succumb once more to your flaws.

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

Whether it lay with your father and his bourbon
or your mother and her manipulating lies
or your brother and his ignorant resolutions
or your friends and their misogynistic gazes,
I cannot say,
yet I felt compelled to outstretch my fingertips
as a solemn branch of the willow tree
waving in the wind, scattering in the breeze,
an innocent attempt to brush aside the despondency,
a sprout into maturity to digress from the winds
raging between us while residing so far apart.

Never truly have I possessed a hatred so seething
than the alps of brimstone in the frame of you.

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

Perhaps I should have remained in oblivion,
restrained myself from the shackles of your presence.
Still, I refuse to conform to the demands of those
unaware of the true nature of my nightmares,
their benevolent intentions disregarding my truth,
white wisps of flowers stained with brutal crimson,
inching its way down the crevices of my mouth
while I reel away and encapsulate the open flesh
I'd just bitten through with this impulsive decision.  

But still...
my mother could not find her camera,
and I'd only wondered
if I'd left it with you.

For each moment we live
the universe gains a sense of meaning,
an explanation of the origins of life
on this jagged sphere pummeling through the devoid
at an alarmingly quick rate.

We are the reason the universe exists;
if we were not here to view the stars
that line these dark skies,
would there even be a sky in the first place?

Is the infinite possible
if we were not here to decide?

Is consciousness the premise of matter,
or is there an underlying meaning
to the point of this all
that supersedes our infant understanding?

Is there truly a concrete precedent
to establish the groundbreaking ideal
that we are alone in this vast expanse
as we eagerly await the impossible?

I gaze upon this world we know
and come to find that, instead,
we reign in a world unknown.

There's a newfound anger
that resides inside of me --
pent up from the terrors I'd pushed away,
it is a struggle between self-preservation
and mutualistic destruction,
a simplistic desire to never allow
another human to view me as you had.

An entire life you'd lived
before meeting the newborn me.
Special recollections endemic to you,
your portrait remains in my mind,
long-lasting forevermore,
too fragile to crack at the base,
memories withstanding the passage of time.

Hidden tears -- no sadness, just numb --
atmospheric tones of silence and refrain,
solemn notes adorn the walls of time
as they await the change in hopeful tides.
Rusted scissors in the hair of strangers,
swiftly dusting the fallen scraps
while the sun begins to dip beyond
the realms of the small town called home.

Unwillingly enduring the loss of a half
I never had the chance to meet;
those wounds never seem to scar,
yet onwards you marched through the veil
of cloaked dimensions diminishing hindsight,
a fallen flag now ripped and torn,
fabric scattered across an empty hall.

With age comes a realization
of the obscure similarities between us two:
fierce loyalty defines our name,
unabashed quips at those deserving;
our tonal blades slice into skin,
a verbalization of the anger repressed far away.
Our fingers can move, but we cannot feel
the freedom of those who dilated our gaiety.
It is easier for us to hide ourselves away
from those undeserving of the thoughts we possess,
the lies we believe, the trauma that haunts
deep into the silent night.

Mayme you were to the blood not ours;
Mother you were to the three you'd borne;
Meemaw you were to the many you loved
who sprung from the effort you selflessly poured
into raising the fruits of your labor,
the unknowing preparation of a life not yours,
a labyrinth of encouragement and love
for those who'd come after you were gone
and we who maintain your abiding legacy.

His name is ingrained into the fabric of our flag,
yes, the one you see there, waving in the December air,
with waves that glisten not from sun but from wind,
through the water turned frozen they fail to despair,
"My, oh, my, it's Washington Crossing the Delaware!"

Yet an intrinsic sense of nationalistic pride
exudes from the ink that tattoos this canvas,
the genesis of a nation they had taken for their own;
though, as truth becomes told, our pride seems to fold,
and the ink in the portrait begins to fade in color.

Still, on he trekked, though frigid and cold,
as hills bleached in snow began to unfold
potential Hessian retreats scattered across the beach,
a visualization of a battle bounding to unfold,
a strategist adept in war, in honor he was cloaked,

too determined to fail now.
But here we sit, in contemplation and wonder,
pondering the juxtaposition of privilege and patriotism --
how deceitful corruption now riddles those in charge,
empty promises as true as the navy blue

of the oils that stain this worn, cherished canvas.
Its memory lives on in the minds of many made here:
those of us who bleed the good ol' red, white, and blue,
and those of us who hide from the ones who tattoo
their whispered words into the portrait of our being.

Our quilted nation is laced with crimson,
a tapestry of history hidden from the young;
woven threads of variability outline the margins,
a picturesque vision of what could be; a voice speaks,
"Perhaps our future is just across the Delaware!"