i picked myself up
off the hardwood,
the blood is glue;
my body torn apart
with sickening anxiety;
each finger print left
on my bare skin;
trembling, with nodes
of nostalgia,
thinking
of your shapes
against me

girls do it too,
girls know how.
they know what it means.
but they abstain
for their benefit
of keeping it hanging over our heads.

but I,
I am awakened,
I know better.
I know not to let them
get the best of me.
I am More.

We are More.
so much More
than their rag-dolls
hanging off the bed
in the dark lit bedroom
wondering when will be
time to play.

We are More
than a lonesome
playmate.

waves of destruction
too familiar to relate
it is, of course,
the nature of things.

he pauses his story
of pain and suffering;
numb to the words
he does relate.

earthquake in Gilos-
omens of the impending,
eclipse of the summer sun-
infesting the sky with stars:
the exceptional occurrences

as Thucydides claims,
the laying of waste
is not exceptional;
no military action,
no ravages of war,
none of the mortal blood shed:
these are the ordinary.

understand, you must
brace for the future:
because war, of course,
is human nature.