I hear you on the radio,
driving to work.
I swear, I almost get sick in the car
at the rush of memory
sometimes.
I remember firelight flickering
across your face,
a dark corner of a bar you wanted
to get away to
after you played a show,
when everyone wanted a piece
of beautiful you
except me, blushing.

Passion Pit was blaring overhead.
I told you about my family,
we're beekeepers from Ohio.
You watched me as
friends of friends approached me,
flirted, I was sultry.
You asked me
if I was warmed by the beers.
Made eyes
like you wanted
to get the hell out of there.

A customer from work, some
rich investor shmuck,
texts me today.
"What are you wearing?"
I'll tell you.
How many ways can I say "remorse"
before it sounds ****?
It does nothing for me anymore.

But no jokes come to mind,
no evasive, coy replies.
Just a flashing cursor on my
telephone
as I remember summer *******
and someone I left behind.

Make outs in a photobooth
that lasted all night
as they swept the floor to
close up shop.
Only our shoes peeked out
under the curtain
threatening to blow our cover.
You wouldn't be thinking about
our cover.
You'd be thinking about what
I was wearing.

You remember
the color of my tights.
You've told me.
The way my sweater fell off my shoulders.
Saltwater-sealed
sandcastle collarbones.
The more you were obsessed
with me,
the more I didn't need you.

You placed my
hand over your heart
that night in the photobooth,
so I could feel the butterflies
surging through your chest.
They ruptured in rhythm
with each flashbulb
of light
at the magic, calculated touch
of a girl who had learned
to trust no one.

I didn't want any
attachments.
Doesn't everyone always leave?
No, recording in Richmond,
touring across the country,
passing through Brooklyn,
sleeping on a friend's
floor in Denver,
You still asked me what I was
wearing.

A sly grin watching you, breathy and
raw, finish yourself in front
of the camera
late nights when you were away,
listening to you beg for me.
Just the way you'd say my name
And all the words when
we wouldn't speak.
You brought me back honey
from Honduras.
Told me about beekeepers there
and scuba shops on little islands.

I was afraid to start my life
again with someone.
Too young to plan to
run away with you.
The unspeakable distance
I never told you:
I was sleeping with a man I had
loved once
the week before I met you.
He had stopped loving me
long before.

I left you before you could leave me.

It was some cheap hotel off I-75.
A Korean movie with subtitles
was playing in the dark
and we were slushing wine
and sliding bodies
Your sweat was like nectar
and you gasped as you entered me.

I didn't know when I met you
there was nothing left
of me to offer.
Isn't timing half the battle in life?
I never explained it.
Couldn't bring myself
to drive your nice car like you wanted
while you were away.
Drink your honey in my tea
without grimacing at
the bitter taste of grief to it.

I got tired acting confident.
I got bored telling you what I was wearing.
I got angry that you had never been hurt
by someone
not wearing anything.
You were
empty
and easy and
looking for something I couldn't give.

You brought me with you.
I don't know how,
VIP passes and interviews,
always on the road.
We stopped talking,
but you reinvented me
so many times over
different in your mind.

Maybe it was my aire
of not needing you like
the other girls.
Not remarking on
the contour of your jawline,
Your firm muscles,
clenching
and pulsing for me, leaving you
crawling, still
now,
remembering
what I was wearing.

pencil
slithering      along paper
projecting a negative
spilling with meaning
enduring
the human condition
coiled abstracted
killing
the beekeepers  daughter
dimming
with every other mistake
just another
scrumpled piece of paper
census taker
wet
with excitement
cabinets, pills, waste
a false flag
fundamental
our angels of materialism
cue commercials
peasants whim
never finding
the key to expression

Sickness, death, disease,
rats, bugs, ***** fleas;
Royal knights at ease,
not trying to appease
the masses anymore
as bodies amass on the floor.

Stomping down the corridor,
black-gowned conquistador
in court known as le docteur.
Majestically pointed beak,
leather satchel, utensils squeak
as one two three and four
the man takes to the floor-
And Waltz!

Clack the Castle door.
The wicker-faced figure
grows taller, grows bigger,
and one goes to figure
who first pulls the trigger
And Clasp!
Hands come together as one
step by step, step on the gown
almost trip and fall down,
white as silk and black as dawn;
A smirk met with a frown.

Endless days, deadly gaze
from beyond the red-glass eyes:
A mosaic from the skies
as God's son met his demise,
idolized by commonfolk,
glass sculptures embedded into walls.

The ******* of angels,
interlacing strangers;
masked visage from nature
in the form of bustling bees
busy beguiling Byzantine baronesses,
backstabbing brides, burning bioessence,
*******, burdens, nature's reconnaissance.
Tiny creatures nestled into wooden crates,
by the hands of humans' race;
the beekeepers their only living grace.

The two figures intertwined
Ying-yang dancing under starlight
Snow-white and the seven plagues
dressed in crystal, black parade.

The court jester coughs and gargles,
the monarchs paint the floors with blood,
as the silk road lifts embargoes;
a thousand-year old flood
of plague-infested spices,
time to roll the dices,
is it rats or mices,
who really cares,
everyone's already dead.

It was the place where I'd step from the train
and the sea air bouyed and supported me.
It felt just right. No sense of human drain
and exploitation. There I could just be.

Then I thought about it: About the men
so so beautiful and sparkling who chose
other girls. About the sweet fishermen,
surfers, beekeepers, gardeners, those

cool cafe workers, the greenie coop
community, musos, artists, weavers,
woodworkers and keepers of chicken coops.
Reality checks sometimes find dreamers.

Of all those lovely people I admired
not one reached out to teach me anything.