One can almost hear the operatic chorus
Cry out in emotion,
As they ascend the marbled stairs,
Hands shaking so in excitement,
That the ornate metal railing cannot be felt beneath them.
Down a hall, feet gliding on the polished floors,
Around the corner,
And there it is,
On the wall like an altar,
Mountain range of colors,
Geometric patterns,
Like gilded windows into other worlds,
And a resting place of alabaster skin,
The calm prairie
Amidst a festival of shimmering lights,
Celebrating with vigor
The peace
The eye of the storm
In her expression,
The Woman in Gold.
Her figure rising from the extravagance
Like the simple and graceful tendrils of steam
From a cup of tea.
Amiable and tender,
In the middle of a bustling cafe.
At once, you are spun onto a dancefloor,
Crafted by Midas,
Twirling and dipping and dancing,
With explosions of royal sunlight,
Before the gentle partner takes you by the hand,
And leads you into a steady, yet balletic waltz.
Say her name,
This secret woman,
She deserves more than anonimity,
Say her name,
In a whisper as quiet as her poised hands,
Or in a glorious cry of admiration,
As cacophonous as the color of the robes
She is swathed in.
Say her name,
Like a prayer,
Or a pledge,
Or a dutiful anthem,
With your hand to your heart,
Say her name,
And never let the memory of the sound slipping off of your tongue.
Say her name,
Like you survived the war in her honor,
Say her name,
She is not just a woman,
Say her name,
No matter her religion,
Say her name,
Because she was forgotten,
But no longer,
Never again,
For you, we’ll remember,
Adele.

Without books,
There would not be love,
Without poems,
There would not be love,
Without art, and literature, and music,
There would not be love.
Humans like magic and fairies and giants,
But science is a terrible sound,
And it wakes us from such fantastic dreams.
But there’s something close to magic,
The closest thing we have-
Love.
We can still dream about wild,
Unconditional love.
We can dream that there’s only one, true soul,
A perfect fit,
Two people designed for one another.
We can still dream,
About love.
It’s in every written word,
Sung note and brushstroke,
And every artist breathes it in through a mask,
Refusing the oxygen of reality.
We reject the uncertainty of our world in favor,
of the mysticism of that near-magic, love.
It’s a masochistic affair,
Worshipping that feeling that lives in our art,
Just out of reach.
I do not accept deceit.
I do not yearn for fiction to enter the tangible world.
But I do long for love,
For I do love,
I love art itself.

That still silence
Like everything has been dead,
But the real life still thriving,
That sterile scent,
That chilled air,
That dimming light
Shining right- right
On them...
Oh, you are all so beautiful, so beautiful,
And I eat you up like red meat,
Swallow you down like red wine,
I consume you more and more because I can't get enough,
I'm insatiable.
I taste that hot, coppery light on the tip of my tongue,
Adele, The Kiss, Medicine...
Like heat, joy, tangible joy like metal in my mouth, but I swallow it,
And there it is some more, some hazy, intoxicating impressionism
With that feeling of decadence, like icing on a wedding cake,
And there they go, the Water Lilies,
Still I swallow and swallow some more,
REMBRANDT, your pallet be ******,
Dark liquor, washing away the empty eyes of the sad, real people you make,
But I consume and I consume, because
I want to feel the colors run down my throat,
I want to feel the burn like whiskey,
I want to taste and taste and taste,
I want to taste the culture,
I want to taste the talent,
I want to know the hands that made them,
I want to feel the strokes the way they felt them,
I want to feel those oils rubbing between my hands,
I want to spend hours staring, making, drinking it in,
And I want to sit and stare and stare and stare and drink and drink and drink
In my wicker chair I want to stay
In an empty room
Just with you
Just tasting how you look,
Inhaling how you feel,
In an empty room
Just you and me
Bouguereau,
Just you and me.

White walls,
No windows,
Perfect square,
Rough carpet,
Same chairs in every room,
That trademark color,
Not green,
Not grey,
But some unfortunate color in between,
Like someone ate grey,
Then washed it down with green,
And someone else opened them up,
And that’s the partially digested color that they found.
Everything gilded in dull alluminum,
Like a poor man’s Klimt,
Cold table legs
And chalkboard trays
And door handles,
Door handles all day long,
I touch the door handles sixteen times a day here,
And I can feel the hands of every sweaty, unwashed  drone
That has touched it before me,
That unpolished texture grating against the tips of my fingernails,
The cold,
The vibrations of the grinding hinges,
And the herds of zombies on the other side,
Anyone touching the door,
Making that loud, resonating sound
That moves through to the ******, monotonous handles
And into me.
Linoleum,
All day, every day,
That God forsaken color,
Checkered with white tiles,
Something like white,
But not quite white,
Not nearly as white as the walls,
Speckled with another color,
Like something that would burst out of a caterpillar if you stepped on it,
In an infinite mosaic from hall to hall.
The mood is set on this liminal stage,
By a series of florescent spotlights.
The same light by which we watch the dreary, surreal dreams play in our heads,
It is this light that illuminates my waking nightmare,
The knocks on the nerves behind my eyeballs,
And I hide,
And pretend that no one’s home.

The world used to be so quiet
Way back before there were so many people,
The far past,
And when I had a young body,
And my ears didn’t work,
The recent past,
It was so quiet.
But I can’t hide under covers and behind drawn curtains for the rest of my life.
I want to be in the outside,
I want miles to explore,
For things to be far,
So they have to be worth it,
To get them.
And for there to be enough silence
That when a single thing happens,
I can hear it from far away.
I’m tired of running away from the noise all the time,
Being chased into corners,
Locking the doors behind me quickly,
Earplugs,
Earbuds,
Sunglasses after sundown,
Anything to create a barrier.
I’m not a person who likes walls,
But they’ve been my friends and family,
For twenty-one years now.
If it weren’t for the people,
I would embrace a world without walls,
Without buffers and veils and masks,
But the people are loud,
So loud,
That even when I feel a small,
Pebble-sized
Sense of peace,
I must tuck it away,
It’s not to be enjoyed,
Because it’ll be shattered by the people
And their voices
And their cars
And their phones
And their computers
And their people toys
And their people games
And even in the quietest corner
Of the most isolated, abandoned building,
I can still hear
The people noise.

Let’s be happy,
Real happy,
Get happy,
One after another,
Let’s just line up,
And take some happy,
Get it in a little plastic cup
Wash it down with some water,
Wait for the happy to kick in,
Hope the happy doesn’t have any side effects,
Go see a professional
And talk about how to get happy,
Spending time with friends,
Only pay attention to each other
When we can give each other happy,
But no one wants to see the stuff behind the curtain,
Because we don’t know what to do with anything
That isn’t cookie-cutter,
Perfect form,
Follow-all-the-rules,
Make your mama proud,
Textbook,
Poster-worthy
Happy.

“Go to the doctor, sit in a dim room, take a pill,
Take a test,
Map your progress on a chart-
Get better.”
“What did Dr. Doctor say?”
“How much longer will it take?”
“When will you
Get better?”
Write in a journal,
Make sure that you record
Every day
Until you
get better.
Because we care about you,
We love you,
And we just want you to
“Get better”.
But what is better?
What if I’m the best?
What if this is as
Better
As it gets?
I don’t want to spend this life
In waiting rooms
Waking up to alarms
“Take 2 @ 7 am”,
Why do I have to live this way?
No one told me this before,
When I made up my face with a smile,
And cowered in the closet,
While my doppleganger danced and performed,
And if that’s what you call better,
Hiding
Or residing
In a haze of medication,
Doped up,
Sobered down,
Nothing to hang onto,
I don’t need to lock the doors three times,
Because I don’t care if they’re locked at all.
Is this it?
Is this
Better,
Is this what they’ve been asking for?
Tell me,
Friends,
Loved ones,
Professionals,
Is that what I must do to
Get better?
Hide?
Live in an underwater world,
Where everything is slow,
And the music is muted,
And you can’t feel down,
Because you can’t feel anything at all?
Is that how I can do it?
Is that how I can
Get better?