There are several approaches to climbing Everest.
Some are easier than some others, none are easy.
This mountain is littered with discarded equipment
and the evidence of loss and unforced errors.
The cold here, at the top of the world,
pierces through your clothes
Like a million acupuncture needles.
The air is so thin
That hypoxia is a constant danger.
There is exhilaration at the summit
For those who reach the top
They stand where Mallory and Irvine stood
before they suffered their fatal drop.
We climb mountains because we are men.
We are addicted to the adrenaline rush.
We climb Everest because it is there.
We climb Everest because we must.

Silver tongues, diamond cut,
Artfully place pandering
And articulate acupuncture
Dragging your cheeks up with hooks
Until you are caught by strings
A marionette madly dancing
To another's fine sour tune

Lining up batteries of anti-aircraft anti-everything
all anti- something this and that
distribution centre for psychological pressure
backed by radio, TV presidents staring straight
newspapers, journals and dialogues around
flash round tables on the whys how’s and who’s
sneaky microphone hidden in flower pots,
long distance listening devices. Telephones tapped
wives tapped, senior diplomats and doormats tapped
wives tapped on shoulders
whispered to: watch out for Joe blogs he has a roving eye.
see me tonight, after dinner.

The russians have warship A into Zone B
the chinese have shifted anti-missile up
the mountains near tibet, near nepal
near taiwan, near  the hormuz straits
into africa, zimbabwe, fiji, and northern china
who cares. Tomorrow they will shift out again.
the pressure is building in the ukraine, turkey is on fire
The north koreans have no power
as seen from satelllites
The president has run of tomato sauce so he has asked
for a shipload from us of a
ship it with some spies dressed as tomatoes

god its killing me
these acupuncture points
three more needles please!

Author Notes
Relentless. ( an wacky I s'pose). Think about it all.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

I would like to tell you a story about a soul. A soul that was as clean, pure and gentle as soul can be. Rarely in live do we meet someone or some animal who never wanted anything but to give love. This story can’t be told without talking about her caretaker and my wife.

About 12 years ago an injured kitten was released to Everett Animal Shelter. The kitten had no use of it’s hind legs and was incontinent. In those day it was almost 100% chance that this kitten was going to be put down. Don’t feel sad/mad about this, nature’s way can be very cruel. The her fate sealed, this was much more humane ending.

My wife took it home to see if the kitten could be rehabilitated. We had been fostering kittens for a while and had a safe room for her. After getting her settled in we look at each other saying without words “Now what”?

Well the first thing that needed to be done was give her a name. We talked for a bit and I explained to my wife “She needs a strong name. She needs a strong black female name. She going need it to help her through life”. The strongest black female name I knew was Rosa Parks. That became her name.

Rosa being incontinent was, well to be honest, was a stinky kitten. Stinky kitten became one of her many nicknames, HA. Rosa needed to learn how to take a bath. If you ever tried to give a kitten/cat a bath you know it’s not really a good idea. So my wife dives right in, picks her up and takes her to bathroom for her first bath. Rosa being the soul she was just sat in the sink and took her bath. She didn’t fight it, she never hissed or got angry. She just took her bath. This attitude towards water lead us to try water therapy.

Water therapy was a home job for us. We would fill a storage tote with warm water and put this rear palatalized kitten in it up to her neck. Now for first time in a few weeks this kitten Rosa could stand up with the water supporting her weight. This went on for the first year of her life. This was the start of many treatments such as acupuncture, a sling in her room and massage. She did all of it never complained about anything.

It didn’t take to long and soon Rosa was strong enough to stand and wobble out a step or two. After a few months of no more improvement it became clear that a decision needed to be made about what to do with her. Is her quality of life such that gets returned for euthanasia or is she happy and do we commit to her care. We knew that she could never live the life of a normal cat. She would never be able to go outside unsupervised, she could never be inside unsupervised except in her safe room. She was healthy and always happy so the commitment was made.

Rosa had her safe room but what to do with her when we can supervise her. Rosa needed a wheelchair. After doing some research we found a local company that makes wheelchairs for pets. After getting her sized up the day came she had her chair. We put Rosa in her chair and in no time she was zooming around the room. Rosa is mobile!!!

My wife and I would take Rosa and Cocoa (look for the story ‘Cocoa’s Ghost’) for walks around the block. Animal Rescue Foundation who had paid for Cocoa issues and Rosa’s early expenses told the Everett Herald newspaper about this and Rosa went mainstream. Look up the news article ‘Pets get a second chance’ if your interested reading it. Needless to say walking a cat in a tiny wheelchair got attention.

One of the things that was very special about Rosa was she loved being a foster mom. My wife would often bring home sick kittens, tiny kittens and just overflow from the Everett Shelter and put them in Rosa’s safe room. Rosa always excepted those kittens as her own within a day or two. I often thought it would have been funny to learn about the birds and the bees from her perspective.

Me “Rosa, where do kittens come from”.

Rosa “Well first you eat some food, then you ****, then you go to sleep and BAM kittens”.

There were many, many times a sick kitten would just curl up in her belly and sleep with it’s now mother Rosa. She was so good with the kittens. She would cuddle, discipline, clean and try to feed when needed. The kittens in her care got a family with a loving mother and bothers and sisters, often unrelated. She truly seemed to enjoy motherhood.

This was Rosa’s and my wife’s life for 12 years. Feed Rosa, squeeze Rosa, clean Rosa and love Rosa. Last night that most of that ended. A few weeks ago Rosa stopped eating and drinking. After $1000 of tests, weeks of fluids, syringe feedings and with no answers we made the choice and gave the gift. Rosa died the same way she came into our lives, in my wife’s arms.

I wrote this not to make you sad. I wrote this to share a clean, pure and gentle soul with you. Some of you reading this may have one of her kittens living with you now: a small piece of her soul living with you now.  Enjoy her gift to you.

I was attacked by jellyfish.
Clear umbrellas
circus tents with mardi gras beads
hung down the side
like indian fringe
tentacles stretching stretching stretching stretching
and stopping.

And stinging.

Those mother smuckers
shooting venom
like Belushi shot ******
through my skin
Chinese acupuncture
sticky jelly arms sticking
plucked off suction cups
like fake tattoos rubbed off
with bare fingers
skin burned
a sixteen alarm salt fire
contained by ocean
no flame but pain
and water stings
the tickle from tentacle to skin
not even a fish
but a gillfree zooplankton
free from captivity
but caged to my skin
like a remora
those shark suckers
but I'm not a host
just prey in the way
for a swim in the gulf
or a walk on the shore
or a pet at the zoo
my chest my feet my hands
stung like ghost bees
not seen but felt
glossed with mud
this time tide sand
wet like tsunamis
mixed with vinegar
rubbed like bay leaves
under the nose
to relieve congestion
but on the wound
to relieve infection
my skin reddens
like rose bloom
from gypsum sands
and I want to sleep
sound as Beethoven
but wake again
like an immortal sea jellie
roaming every ocean
like De Soto or Marco Polo.

Marco

Polo

Marco

Polo

Fish out of water.

Users and abusers
come one and all
there is a freak show
down in the glass house
winos and crack heads
coke freaks and nitrous suckers
acupuncture skin punctures
and candy land pill poppers
*** heads and shroom munchers
users and abusers
one and all
come on down to church
in the basement of the glass house
wet your tongue in holy water
and revel the gospel of our lord and savior
(Insert dead pop culture icon here)
and don't forget to pay the tithe
to mother superior

Incandescent

The frost coats our windowpane,
and outside the world sleeps
in its arctic cocoon.
You are my fire,
we are wrapped up in our warmth
while staring at the moon.
The pheromones in the air
produce pins and needles
which tingle up my skin.
Acupuncture
to heal my sickness for love,
detoxifying me from within.
If I were angry
you would pacify me.
If I had a disease
you would medicate me.
I once was blind,
but now I can see,
that with you, my wise master,
I can erase the past
and rewrite history.
Winter creeps up
with its icy touch,
looking to barren my soul.
But enveloped in your embrace,
I have full control.
Turning up the heat to help me survive,
this journey we have,
all through the night.
The frost coats our windowpane,
while you glaze my heart with your
warm honey…
Restore my oxygen,
pump my veins,
Turn up the dial on by body
a few degrees.
Even if the world freezes over
from Winter’s mad spell,
we will still live through the
Cryogenics of our love,
and deny all law of physics.
For as long as your heart is beating…
mine will reside-
although the world sleeps
through the storm,
while frozen on the outside.
But the brilliance of our love
will always be…
Incandescent.

Kena SunGoddess Dawn 2009

Needles to threadbares.
Old Chinese secret-blood-map.
Porcupine poultice.

O *****'s opposite,
A great wall
     Of spine,
A Yin and Yang
     Of tongues,
We tug and pull
At territories,
     Acupuncture,
Our souls
     Populous
Of me and her,
As our energies, powers,
     Superpowers, stirring,
Growing, binging,
     Surging, and resurging,
Engulf
     A blazing evening.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I turned eighteen, and the floor dropped out.

The summer before, the clean-shaven men
at concerts, the ocean, at grimy
gas stations, would gaze at me
with their sallow eyes and creep
closer, stuffing their tarnished
wedding rings into their pockets. I pretend
I don't notice the approach.

I'm sweetheart now, and the world is dying
to know about my day. The artless
small talk ******
my cheeks a shameful red--
always this crass, unsolicited
acupuncture.  

Now, I'm darling. I'm baby-- my
age the next delicate question laid
across their taste buds.

A year ago, I could blush and remind
them of my mere seventeen trips around
the sun, and off they'd retreat as if
the law were the only thing keeping
my clothes on my body.

The eighteenth trip has come and
past; from here on out
I fly alone, braving the flocks of
pitiful predators.

The plan was to break up with me at a coffee shop
That’s smart, I think
A public place, entirely neutral.

That didn’t happen
I got sicker
I couldn’t drive
I could barely get out of bed.

You still came over
You still said you loved me
You still said you wanted to be friends
You still walked away while I cried

I didn’t cry because of you, at first
I cried because it hurt to be awake
My body was tearing itself apart
Nobody was doing anything

I got better, not all the way, not yet
I have a plan for my body, now
I had an MRI today and I have acupuncture every week
I use every oil and ointment in the book

I have space to cry over you, now
I have space to be angry
I can tell your friends how you hurt me
I have time to listen and talk

You don’t want to talk
“I want to be friends”
That’s a lie
You don’t want to take accountability or talk about what happened

We gave each other a year of our lives
We’ve only been alive 18
And yet, you don’t want to talk
You just wanted to break up with me in the coffee shop
down the street from my school

The itch that demands,
the strong impulse which shall never end.
This battle is a constant one,
this I formulate from within.

You tore up my family,
you tore up my heart.
You destroyed the one I love most,
& you've made her want to depart.

Depart from vibrancy,
the will to live soberly.
You destructed her far past a breaking point,
& now she's a reflection of brutality.

Separated from the one who raised me;
I perceived you as so strong.
You made numerous examples of heroism,
before you let yourself fall apart.

Now your but a frail,
a withered example.
Of the one you used to be,
your present image I'm unable to handle.

Handle the transformation,
that time has made apparent.
Now I'm forced to raise you,
because your brain has deteriorated.

The pain drains my energy,
the devil steals from my soul.
I know this demand all to well,
I've had this feeling since a boy.

Now here I stand,
& I'll attempt to stay strong.
For what you've done to my family,
I'll remember until my days fail to start.

Tears come and go,
but the pain remains constant.
The child-view of life left us long ago;
after this read, its apparent.

Now here we stand,
torn apart from what we had.
You reach out to me and I grit my teeth,
attempting to forget that I'm sad.

I hope I'll able to forgive,
your selfish quest for departure.
Right now its so hard to apprehend,
& the effects feel like deep acupuncture.

The one you married can't see past,
past your current image of decadence.
The combined hatred creates your impulse to disaster,
& your destructive cycle is boundless.

You meant everything to me,
and this has not changed.
However my view of you is in shame,
and alcohol is to blame.

What you've done I can't apprehend,
and I hate myself for the same impulse.
I wonder if one day I'll give up,
because my efforts never penetrated your mental.

Days turn to months, months into years.
Your time is limited here,
from the effects of all the shears.

Your shears are permanent,
Your liver is due to fail.
However every-time you hear this,
you never seem to care.

Back to the cycle,
of your every day misery.
The alcohol has driven everyone away,
And yes mom, this is scrutiny.

Started with a bowl of blue dreams.
holdin down the smoke with oak heart ***.
feelin like a beach ***.
drunk kickin the sand between my toes.
how many joints ive smoked no one knows.

but im ****** up on this shore
feelin more silly in the dome then pauly shore.
watching the green burn
as the bacardi runs.

good life on my beach.
my swisher is peach
my **** is rich.
my buzz got me feelin like the ****.

**** poetic structure.
im pokin holes in my brain like acupuncture
not quite thrown
my writing is done.
goodnight in gone

Sept. 28 1979 Brantford*

When he gets mad
he lets off steam
through the weekend holes
of his hammock
where he allows himself
room to breathe
the week away
This mental acupuncture
completed
like a solemn meditation
once a week
he holds of the threat
of Monday ‘til Friday.

James H. Webb

As I lay on my back, I think of myself as dirt—
Not in a bad way, but like how some soil is soft, like cake.
I am soft and loose. My bones are gone; I am only flesh,
My skeleton stops protecting my heart and mind.
All this anxiety, all this stress, leaves my head
And my heart is just buried loosely under my chest.

If I don’t have any bones for a ribcage, do I have a chest?
I only know that I have my heart and mind buried in myself, my dirt.
“Do geese see God?” not a scenario, but a palindrome, a light thought, in my head.
Scenarios are the foundation of my agitation. Who cares, I guess? Let me eat cake.
(I make due with my mental health, in my mind.)
Anyways, I’m going to continue being with myself, my thoughts, my flesh.

I’m okay that my bones have disintegrated into my flesh.
I’m okay that my ribs no longer enclose my heart in my chest.
Later I will be aware that this is a meditation; it’s all in my mind
But right now, my reality is that I am dirt.
I am a soft, crumbly cake.
And this is all at once going through my head.

Another element arouses in my head:
Nails poke through the ceiling, aiming towards my flesh—
Or sharp prongs fixed on this beautiful mess of crumbly cake.
I am still, motionless, an open target, my broad chest.
I have no problem with this, because right now I am dirt.
(Death never crossed my mind.)

The sharp nails in the ceiling are now loosening, in my mind.
Now the nails fall, and drop into my chest and head
They pin me down to the ground, to the earth, to the dirt
With ease through the soft, rich, flesh
Of mine. It softly punctures my chest
I am being devoured, my body of cake.

Since my skeleton is gone, and my body is soft as cake,
I embrace the nails—a therapeutic acupuncture, I think in my mind.
My heart is heavy but happy in my chest.
And these nails keep sinking deeper in my head.
I am content being alone, by myself, a pile of flesh
I am one with the earth, with the dirt.

Nails in my chest, or prongs in the cake
I am dirt, I like to think in my mind
I am my heart, my head, my flesh.

You've placed tacks on my lungs
Pinning every vessel you could find
Calling it acupuncture
Just as I was losing my mind.
But I'm addicted to you.
I plead for you to stop
But when you remove your tacks
I'll bleed in yearning for you.
My body will go into shock
Because what is life without your pins and needles.
I'm so addicted to your presence
That I call this hell my home.
To the point that I'm confused
If this is unconditional love
Or if I'm just dying over and over again.
I thought you were good.
I never knew taking my breath away
Would cause this much pain.

We no longer acknowledge each other’s eyes
Or speak unless addressed explicitly
But our energy reaches like wild tentacles, grasping to be mutual once more
Tangles like vines or still-learning shoe strings
Strangles me but sympathizes in the final few when I get sky-face
I heard your laugh from behind your back and knew I would
Never cause it
Again
It surged through me like an electric shock, not
A finger in the outlet, more like a toaster bath
I have never found currents to be painful, just warm
Even as my limbs fell limp from voltage
Your complexion kept me calm down to my copper core
Now each indication of your amusement ****** me, emptying weary veins
Acupuncture from untrained hands, reckless medicine
I never thought you would be my nerve damage
Chronic companion, my endorphins still have your toxic taste

Here we go with more minerals

What have I done to myself

Yes I understand its bad for my health

It's just that I am infatuated with the body's chemistry

My entire existence is just bonding

I feel like a walking science project erupting

When I can't sleep I drink a little diphenhydramine

I lost myself with no where to hide

My mind is everywhere its gone for a ride

Another unsolved mystery from the land of the free dream

Don't pay any attention to me

Just a lowlife in the depths of debt

I do not charge here just free exhibiting

Skipping through scenes for a sneak peek

To avoid nasal congestion I'll spray some oxymetazoline

Drinking distilled spirits that cause impair judging

I can see my heart beat through my stomach

To release endorphins I swallow a blue dolphin

Walking distance between realms when I poison my stomach with fungus

Do you hear that?

The loudest noise in the room

Close your eyes and sync with my scripture

These poetry particles are my brain acupuncture

Cloak yourself like that alien predator

Rest in a piece of earth Grandpa I'll speak to you on the Ouija board later

They told me death was only the beginning

That means the last stage of a human being is not an ending

Life is to live. die. and repeat

I know these poems don't make sense

Everyone can read

Everyone can write

I'm more into making my readers feel
the words just right

Summon a tingle at the tip of your spine

I can not draw you a pair of graphs of paragraphs

Maybe assist you with your own parallel habitat

Adrenaline rush when my deficit attention disorder attacks

I can't speak a spoke of words and I'm stuck

Cold sweat and I'm out in the sun

Take this serum to compress your depression

Don't forget your coupon for the governments vaccination

Frying pneumonia for tonights digestion

This isn't a rap

This isn't a flow

This is not even poetry I'm not Edgar Allan Poe

I'm just like you looking for acceptance in a world of neglection

There are pins and needles in my feet made of guilt and cheap *****,
bits of me are missing left in kisses and paint
                                            everything else I put my heart into
too early and yanked it right back out
too quickly. I'd make promises like icicles pressed hard to my tongue
as if it wouldn't melt. The tissues in my dorm were used up
before forget-me-not's toppled  to the floor,
the dirt strewn on my slippers that I just threw out
and left the mess there for weeks
stayed in bed above it all,
acupuncture can't cure this ache. Pumping my stomach can't empty
what is already empty. It's like a quarter on a string placed in a vending machine.
I get what I want and leave
with exactly what I came with
and more. But on rare occasions the coin is left on the floor.
I don't bother to pick it up because maybe it belongs there,
dancing among dust bunnies and clumps of hair.
There are needles underneath the first layer of skin on my fingertips
and they don't hurt. It's a feeling of uneasiness like a knot
in the chain of my necklace. I'll work it out later.
Pro-cras-tin-ation. You are the crab on an aluminum can, a moon lit with moths
a ninety year old man who burnt down his house from lighting too many candles.
Take it all in
                      for yourself.
It's not selfish, it's right. Because the sun burns the top of my head
even when my body is cold. Without you in my presence, my own hand I will hold
to cross the street.
Don't count your blessings until your hand is around their necks
so they have no way to escape without suffocation.

don't harangue my life with care for pity at woman's idiocy, not having adopted Caesarian birth as universally adequate and prospering her, to instil this barbaric guilt in me wondering why women, of all mammals had no natural anaesthetic produced when giving birth... **** your little guilt-trip argument! Caesarian or no argument!*

to be robbed of a glorious death, and be given an
inglorious birth, esp. when women were given an ease
with a Caesarian birth diplomacy... what's there to retain for man?
ardency in labour? old age? i too was robbed of what
Caesar described as the ideal death: the sudden one...
am i to wait for my sickbed...
if i only chanced the thrill of life
within one sunset and sought no night
to encompass my life as worthy compensation
of nothing.
a life lived to the bell-tone of a replaced
uvula, no care for charity asserted...
in that one momentary exception of all life prior,
to have lived it, and hence entombed,
readied for the element acquiring me to
further its signature... as sustainable...
i'd rather die a painful death that live
a comfortable life: pain is eased with its short-lived
establishing awareness when the glory prior is "prolonged"
ascribed to the fates akin to Achilles... and indeed pain is
merely pain with its prolonging on the sickbed...
counter heroism, so defeatist;
how many times am i to be robbed? to thus experience
such shallows of thieves with cheap constantly
expedient thievery? i've had enough to concede to a juggle
of fates and fortunes! one smooth stroke of the ace
rather than the many axe-hackings of the neck
of ****** Mary. bothersome agitations via pride, honour
and braveness, only if they do not happen,
and should they, they'd be undertaken, but to no quest
of celebratory non-enactment, i.e.: farting rather than *******
prior: to be given a wave of the standard acupuncture
of infantry: as guarantee of mythology; and a nobleman
on his horse without a stirrup prior to the *** intervention.

as space sufficiently expresses, or succinctly paraphrases with the concerns for time: or hue, or suntan, or baritone hummed weakening into a humph... crazy-bone etc.; sometimes poetry is so much more than the usurping of onomatopoeia... life is the essence of being timed, but that's hardly the essence in the space we occupy - over-versed thinking never formalised toward an outer-reaching imagination that might become copper-raindrops' worth of Disney, or a way memory is made adaptive to cure dementia... yes, space is the essential component for the compartment of life... i believe time has no place in what's to be called life, i believe time exists, but on an Olympic scale, in the metres and millimetres, on the minutes and seconds scales... space is the essence of life: so diverging from known apparatus to unknown operations, thus so diverging from known operations to unknown apparatus... and so on and so forth, until dinosaurs roar and we merely say: yawn - arrogant in our guise.

true, space devalues time; as said the people between us who we never had a meal with, but had the crazed look of craving an unnecessary contentment with despair. can i guess at something? i like your alphabetical onomatopoeia, i.e. pun for knocking, a sorta p p p / b b b, not necessarily needing the suffix for rhyme, why is it that poetry requires the echo, why not rhyme upfront? anyway... but it's there, that alphabetical onomatopoeia... a repeating of the first letter, like opening an oyster... which contradicts the orthodox methodology of rhyme... meaning that there's a repeated seance of an opening... which (although alphabetically staged to a prevailing repeat) equips the reader with many more surprising alternations - basically you begin with what rhymes alphabetically, but not necessarily phonetically: the lost suffix -ing via i had a cat called blinding, and he said all things were shining...  one of your poems enabled me to spot this reversal of poetic orthodoxy, in that the rhyme became less musicological, and more rubric enlisting a coherent schema, such as a list... or rhyme via propped first, and cascading into oblivion, never really minding the waggling tail of a bouncy-ball of accepted verse. aardvark and acupuncture... the rhyme begins with A, and ends as it should end, diverging, so there's no feel for a repeat akin to drum or rhythmic bass... otherwise: shout an A into a cave and hear an echo... that's what poetry is damnably worthy to congest one's thinking with... don't rhyme: echo! and ensure that echo is alphabetical rather than musicological. perchance lessened talk, i too would have revised this example with some worthy emoticon.

I wonder if the stabs are really
acupuncture

it had an attitude, so very backwards
on rainy days, it was friendly
spared the splinters
on sunny days, it was angry
gave me splinters like acupuncture
minus the goal to alleviate pain
it liked to yell as I swung back and forth
screached as I pumped my feet
pumping my feet to my heartbeat
I held my breath for fear of becoming off beat
it liked to cry, especially in the morning
I gallop through the misty grass
it's tears glisten with morning sun
my favorite air is the wet kind
when a slight chill tickles your nose as you inhale
but it was also my least favorite air
it made my swing set cry
I asked mom if I could take it inside
she said it liked being outside
but she'd never seen it's tears
it had an attitude, so full of life
now, that backyard has no life
because my swing set died

stop for a minute

that’s better
everything’s a bit clearer
count your breaths

acupuncture
does it really work ?
imbalances abound

life spent in dreams
the body needs rest
the brain won’t quit

please join my campaign
against loud noises
anywhere
it is so much easier
to think
minus the din

Where'd you find those eyes, doll
All your needles, all your dyes
Why'd you make me fall
Where'd you learn all that voodoo juju

Impromptu impromptress who are you trying to impress
Cause there's a million guys who'd like to get under your dress
They forget you're the ventriloquist
And I'm SOL when you make everything yours
Like you always do, like you're so good at
I don't bat an eye, you're the inquisitress
And I'm ******* Johnny Defenseless in your inquiry imprisonment

I feel pins entering my skin everytime I'm around you
Acupuncture queen bee, your needles might get on my nerves
But most of the time they relieve me

And I'm here, and I'm waiting
And I feel a little blind when I can't see what I want to be seeing
I'm a little flawed, I struggle with just being
You're written in a different language, and while that might be deceiving
I hear you're a good read, and I'm getting a little greedy

the concept of acupunture?
you double up on
the pain intake,..
       you simply increase
the pain "manifesto"....
   to increase the threshold
of pain endured...
      like i did, with a pair
of scissors:
scythe: the soothing weapon of
"choice"?
    no matter, there's no choice:
for death is all but
puritan democratic:
          since we all "vote" to die.

I lost my final baby tooth at age thirteen. A man came
along to pluck it out of me,
pried my chapped lips apart and said
it might hurt a lot. It might even feel like a worm, like my belly is
bloated with bottles of water or bags of blood.

But I was only reminded of
needles, the thinnest cylinder of an off-white substance
developed to cure me from my childhood.

He gave me acupuncture, he left the needles in my pocket after
so I would never forget what he gave me. Not what
he took, just what I needed
to remove the *****, size seven footprints from his floor.

I did not keep the paraphernalia,
just grew my adult molars, had dreams about crawling after him
feeling tentacles swim in my mouth again
and biting down so hard I could fill bags with blood.

I am almost eighteen and soon
he will know how it feels for someone to see what is inside your
body, then take it without your permission.

who'd have the salt to
pour over a wound,
cleansing the edges
and the in between but,
I am thinking tears would
have been more gentle
and still clean these wounds,

but there is that hover,
of a possessive lover,
standing over the para-
lyzed form, docile and with
a mixed bag of contorted
postures, and your phone/
camera takes pictures
and videos just like a drone

from above,

it hovers,
in my worst dreams,
we are lovers and i scream,
not in passion or ******,
but you began twisting
and plucking all
your perfectly placed tacks,

I guess, at this juncture,
that book on acupuncture
was worth the weight,
in flesh,
and still you hover as
I stream consciousness
on my mattress that feels
like a dry rocky creek bed,
and over my four poster bed
a black crow hovers
and the beak resembles
your nose, so please as
I sleep let me wake with
my ugly toes, and my covers
intact and no lover hovering in my
room, and no betrothal to Groom.

This early in the morning shrouded
by the negligee of night it feels
a bit silky silly to be working
partly dressed
awaiting for the dawn to push its way
into my strong coffee smell
tasks ahead. So many cups later
the light filters through the nets
and criss-crosses patterns of flowers
on a waking day.

Soon the rush and rustle
of things to be done will invade
every live moment
with acupuncture points of pressure
and to still the raging fires
of tasks undone I will
retreat into small pockets of sleep
to slow the blood rush and tumble
and cut the remaining hours
in frenzied action until
most of my diary completes its watch
over my progress
towards  a jaded evening where
a ***** and orange juice will answer
the leftover tasks asking
to be finished.

Another day. Another night. Gone.
So much yet to do.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.