Trash can, wastebasket;
the place we throw it all away.
Used tissues--soggy mascara, dried *****,
or the babies that would never be,
and the heaps of food waste, human waste.

Wasted human.

Why do we take ourselves and the people we used to love,
toss people and our person deep within a hole of shame,
darkness, misery, guilt, worry, frustration, fear?

If someone only said to you, or to me, when we dig deep
into the ground and find the place no one will find us
or them, the people we are burying--
if they only said,
"You are not trash."

Our emotions refuse to become refuse, the remains of
being unwanted, as we perceive ourselves to be.

But we is just me, and even though I can't hear the voice
I long to hear above my own, the sounds reverberate in my chest,
next to my heart, where I heard them last.

The last time we spoke your fingers did not reach for mine.
Your jeans did not rip in the same one spot.
The dog that I picked that you picked after you went back,
his tail wagging all the way on the ride back to his new home,
did not kiss my face and my eyes and ears like he loves to do.
Even though you didn't still love me, you did before,
now thrown hastily, yet decidedly in the trash can outside your door.

I dropped off the last remnant of your physical being,
an old rabbit-eared antennae.
I didn't, couldn't look in your trash can,
or stand in the driveway longer than was needed to drop and run
the hell away from crumbling gravel, a window newly aluminum foiled, and the motorcycle kept under surveillance at all times.

I hope he looked on his camera screen and saw walking,
talking, feeling, breathing human trash gliding
down the sidewalk, feet pattering into a jog.
The grass licked my feet and tangled in my toes on the way
to the one place my sighs could sink lower than my feet,
deep into the warm upholstery of my car seat, the grandma car,
the dented, imperfect, but mostly reliable car

away, far away, to a place where someone would look curiously,
pick up the trash, my trash, me, and say,
"It's beautiful."

When the rain falls
the sidewalk makes room.
The plants sigh and stretch back,
extending their arms, hands, and feet.
Every pore of every possible thing breathes
and remembers a time without a drop to drink.

The people curse and grab newspapers and plastic bags.
Some weather men and women smugly reveal tiny umbrellas.
As if they were tucked in their shirt sleeve.
Like a magic trick for the stupid crowd before them.
but how did you do that? how did you know?

Rain nourishes and devastates in one downpour.

The crazies and the weirdos dance in circles and
someone yells out, "Thanks gypsy!"
to his girlfriend who has a knack for making things be.

All she did was close her eyes and thank the earth, sun, stars, and moon.
And smile so fiercely the Universe thought,
Well I guess we can give her this one gift. She is so awfully strange.

Thank you.
earth.
sun.
stars.
moon.

You know all and you give life to what once was.

Some of us build towers with blocks.
We carefully place dull red block after worn red block
atop the one before, reaching for unattainable heights.
We knew the outcome from before
when some force sent our efforts crashing down.

Force comes way of a terrible brother, jealous gravity, or
the God who sees and knows and cannot have towers made of blocks.

Then why do we keep picking up the blocks?
Why don't we grab a few handfuls of blue light?
Just rip open your chest, dig into your soul with your fingernails,
scratch away the sediment and rock formations.
When you find the light bursting through the gaping wound,
and when you struggle to breathe and to live,
remember you know how to suture the hole.

Only take but a little of the light.
Stick it in your pocket, behind your ears, in the spaces
between your teeth.

And let them try to send the light crashing down. The light builds from beams that are ever connected. It doesn't shatter.

Though if it did, you would just create another galaxy.

"There's a target on your back,"
said the man in striped white socks and flip flops.
He swung his arms freely and slapped his face
accidentally or intentionally--his illness wasn't mine to name.

The trees wrapped their arms around one another in a huddle.
"Quick she's coming near. The target is close."
One. Two. Three. Birds flew by and splashed my forehead.
I looked back and felt one of the trees wink and point ahead.

A man on a moped waited until my back was turn and I bent down.
Whistle. Whistle. Head turn back ninety degrees.
You'll get in an accident, I thought; I secretly wanted,
his helmet-less head splat flat on the concrete, skin burning,
melting, bubbling, pooling in a puddle.

The red doors whined against my insistent grasp.
When I found my white door, I air twisted the **** that was
pushed back to show the open space inside the coolness.
I didn't live that cold. I didn't know how.
He did. And he reached into my freezer and removed his tongue.
I sank onto the floor and felt ice hit me my cheeks and my eyes and ears.
The blankets couldn't warm me. My tears couldn't melt what formed.

He tossed my key on the mat, kicked back dust into my face;
looked me square in the eyes frozen wide open, mouth gaping for air.

"I put a target on your back. See ya."

When I opened my eyes I sat in this body.
The wind ran through thick black hair.
Grass surrendered under my heels.
I didn't hate myself then, or yet, or ever.

Even now, when I part the clouds and look down down,
squinting into the tops of trees that were in my yard.
In the last home I knew, gentle hands fed me food.
We joked and my eyes smoldered for their pictures.
Why did they always take so many pictures?

You probably think I'm angry I had to leave like this.
That with one terrified bullet from two firmly planted hands,
my might and power and God given beauty did not move.
I remember that moment. The air was swept from my lungs,
through my lips, and two angels descended on my animal form.
My soul wound around one of their slender gray fingers,
while the other angel folded up my skin into a cavernous pocket.
We ascended into lush tropical rich radiant paradise--who knew?
Animals are allowed here.

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I could have morphed into human form in the right moment.
When I became human, they became animal.
You see, an animal is that which is unpredictable and wild;
terribly aggressive.

But people were scared. Now they have more reason to lock up
their kids behind bright little screens as they push them in secure strollers.
"Look at this game. Isn't it fun? Mommy's here. You're in a belt. You are
safe."

I just heard a sob from below. As I think these thoughts, I can sense
she is crying and missing me, missing a creature she never knew.
She sees God in me. She sees God in everything around her.

To shoot me was to shoot her spirit in the chest, to watch the blood
form in pools while people watched and put away their cell phones
and pushed their strollers to the next set of bars. On to more eyes that hide their secrets from the humans.

[in memory of Harambe the Gorilla]

His eyes gleamed and played in his eye sockets, like marbles on a playground. When he spoke, he waved the arms of a worn windbreaker. Dried ***** pooled down the center zipper. This was a man who stopped to compliment my boots and not my face. Or skin. Or purty smile. The wind encircled us and almost pulled the cardboard with a toothy model on both sides out of his dried finger tips. His niece insisted he carry that thing around. If only she had given him an entire billboard instead.

When I saw the gaunt streetwalker, companion of the sunrise, keeper of the bottle--he had enough to live off the recycling from years--he reminded me of the naked frightening people we are when we peel off the fifteen layers of skin, disrobe, and dismantle our pride.

The veil is yellow. Flashes of teeth and skin and widened eyes. Nails dig into the skin when she turns. Jasmine lingers when her rotations warrant a new face, a new man. The tigers stretch their paws and extend their claws. No one reaches to pet them, even though they are hers. And she is the reason we are here. We watch her skin join our dreams, until the sharp "ting ting" of ankle bells disturb the sleep we try with eyes open and mouths gaping. One man belches and blows the perfume in her face, like a kiss when she bends to pick up the coins. They didn't see her. No one saw the moisture under welling eye sockets. They didn't see the scars on her arms and around her neck and wrists. Her own strength gone wrong.

We only see plump lips and hunger. And somehow we always think we brought enough to feed her.