Bracelets.
Intricate weaving,
Heavy breathing,
Sharp pains,
Quick thoughts,
She tightens the knots.
She’ll strangle them into a masterpiece.
As beautiful, and innocent as her face.

So vibrant,
Too young,
Now withering with heavy thoughts.
Her head is now throbbing,
Dragging her sorrow.
Like an empty box of lead.

“Feel something.”
She says,
Only moving her lips.
Because bracelets,
They cover up the slits.
They suffocate the thoughts.
Bracelets cover the pain.
The blade calls to her,
It knows her by name.
It’s got a hold of her,
Forcing her shaking wrists to tame.

No one will notice.
They would never even look.
Not inspecting something they’d never expect.
It’ll go on,
Till those tiny slits,
Make way to dripping wounds,
She’ll hide them,
Until a point where she is doomed.
She feels no fire.
No cannot conjure up a soul.
The bracelets hid it all.
Her childhood they stole.
She lays water to skin,
Fighting for her breath.
The once clear and pure water,
Turns an ugly red.
She looks up to the ceiling,
Blank and cold.
It’s nothing she’ll be feeling.
Cause “nothing” got so old.

You can hear the voices of our peers being silenced, ignored, shunned and distorted.
Staggering out of their bedroom doorways to the street corner to score a dime bag.
Bright, insightful millennials freezing in search of warmth from something to believe in that will encourage them to look forward to see another day.
Where our economy has made financial prudence clear when talking about education, yet price tags of university tuition's skyrocket.
The refused, the ones with hope but no money or scholarships; tread the streets with the echoes of electro house pulsing in their skulls.
Those who strip themselves down and shred their own morals to scraps just to find themselves and to see their own limitations.
Searching for answers to the unknown, to ascertain what they are, who they are and why.
Timid in high school, pushed along with nothing and no one to put their creative vigor into.
The squeakiest wheels that were never even considered to be given a good greasing.
Faculties giving them lethargic hellos on the first day of school, bestowing celebrated goodbyes to them on graduation day, diplomas in hand.
Now are the ones slumped over in a lackadaisical position contemplating how they can afford an education.
They work eight to ten at seven twenty five an hour Monday to Friday; and weekends staying in as not to blow their earnings.
Those who commute to university and balance a job with it, I applaud you.
The bewilderment of adulthood, the overabundance of pressure and responsibility.
Awakened from nightmares of lost opportunities, missed trains and lost contacts.
To step out of bed and splash water onto a severely distressed face and staring into a mirror with a despairing look.
Then hoping a bus to Garfield to bring back weight for all the embryonic smokers not yet at the point of make or break, just save up enough to pave my own way.
Gazing at the town on a roof top, chugging down the tenth…no…twelfth beer of the night wondering how this all happened.
Wild sensations of kissing an attractive stranger, the rush of touching on things never felt, tasting pleasures only the lucky have known.
The passionate, yet dissolute yearning for that ever eluding ******* adrenaline. Pounding, Pounding, Pounding until the culmination of energy has come.
Flip sided to those dizzying, tear jerking thoughts of suicide, annihilation of ones being, the contradictions of their faith in themselves and the people around them.
Unexplainable waves of anxiety crashing onto the shore of a diminutive island of optimism
Striving to look past the panic, the gloominess and fury that may or may not be present. But to remain composed and press forward to what awaits them.
Coffee keeps them going. Cup after cup, late night cramming every bit they can; into their caffeine driven psyches until the indisputable crash and failure.
Packs and packs of menthol cigarettes to calm their rattling nerves but at the same time killing them slowly. Their lives will seem shorter than the time it took to finish one bogey when death is near.
Marijuana induced ventures to run down burger shacks, laughing hysterical in the car ride, eyes heavy with a most ridiculous elastic grin extending from ear to ear. While inside millions of thoughts and realizations of consciously simple speculations and troubles become clear and unproblematic. So the joy is mirrored outside in.
LSD trips in Petruska dancing and singing in the rain! Making music, making love; playing pretend and creating art. Becoming a family while kicking back under the warmth of an illuminated tree on a cool fall night.
MDMA streaming through the body, everything is as it should be
Beautiful, lovely to touch, wondrous to stroke, marvelous to move.
To contact and connect, converse and converge with the dwelling desire to share what you feel with everyone for it would be selfish and unpleasant to keep it in.
Mushrooms oh the emotional overflow I need not say more but ****.
Then there are over the counter candies, Oxycontin, ******, Adderall and Xanax, painkillers and antidepressants. Ups, downs, side ways and backwards.
Selling addiction and dependency legally to kids. Making heroine, ******* and speed easily obtainable to them. Changing the names and giving out prescriptions so the parents can feel like they're actually helping their children but are subconsciously making it easier on themselves because they cannot handle the way their offsprings actually are. Some parents a feel it is the only way, I wish it wasn't so. Becoming zombies, mindless addicts before they even start to mature into puberty. I've seen it, firsthand front row.
Oh, the monotonous, mundane rituals and agendas of our lives. School, work, sleep eat, the sluggish schedules and repetitions of yesterday's conversations and redundancy of itineraries we had plotted months prior.
Same people, the constant faces of boredom that groan in apathy and hold the fear of complacency.
We talk about how hum drum out lives have become and what we could to put some color in our world but don’t.
We speak of how unfair the system is but ultimately confuse ourselves and everyone else due to lack or organization and dedication so nothing is changed.
We speak of breath taking women we want to share ****** fantasies with but can’t even muster enough courage to send a trivial friend request.
Texting away for hours trying to court those who now occupy our minds and possess our hearts hoping they may allow us to acquire their attention and affection. Calling them only to receive futile dial tones and know we are being evaded.
Weeping on and on for seemingly endless time frames of a dilapidated relationship that was so strained that a miniscule breeze could cause it to collapse but still clinging to every memory as if they were vital hieroglyphics depicting your very essence.
Brilliant theories blurted out in a drunken stupor.
Ingenious hypothesis shrouded in marijuana smoked out room.
Remembrance of friends long gone.
The marines, the navy.
The casualties of drug addiction.
The conquerors or their afflictions.
The scholars.
The insane locked away on the flight deck never to be seen again.
Teenage mothers unsure of themselves, abandoned by their families for they believe that they brought fictional shame upon the family’s name. The fate of the child is unclear but the mother’s everlasting love shines through any obscurities in its way.
Dear mother of the new born winter’s moon may the aura of life protect you and your baby.
The father gone without a trace.
He will never know his daughter.
And it will haunt him forever.
Parents bringing up their kids with values and morals, The Holy Bible, mantras and meditation, the Holy Quran, The Bhagavad Gita, and Upanishads. Islamic anecdotes and Jewish parables.
The names all different
The message the same
The stories unlike
Goals equivalent
Faith
Kabala, Scientology and Wicca
Amish and Mormons
All separate paths that intertwine and runoff each other then pool into the plateau of eternal life.
But do we have faith in our country, our government?
They do not have faith in us. Cameras on every street corner, FBI agents stalking social media, recordings of our personal lives and police brutality. 4th amendment where have you gone?
We say farewell to Oresko the last veteran of the last great war. And revisit the Arab spring, Al-Assad’s soldiers opening fire on innocent protesters, one hundred fifteen thousand lay dead. Bin laden dead, Hussein hanged, Gaddafi receiving every ounce of his comeuppance. War, terrorism, the fear of being attacked or is it an excuse to secure our nation's investments across the sea? Throwing trillions of dollars to keep the ****** machine cranking away, taxes, pensions, credit scores, insurance and annuities all cogs in the convoluted contraptions plight.
My dear friend contemplates this every night laying in bed, fetal position; the anxiety if having to be a part of this.
Falling apart on the inside but on the outside, an Adonis, *******, Casanova wanna be. Who worshiped the almighty dollar, gripping it so tightly until it made change, drank until he had his fill falling face first into the snow. The guy who lead on legions of clueless girls wearing their hearts on their sleeves not knowing he had a girlfriend the entire time. Arranging secret meetings in hidden gardens, streaking into the early morning. Driving to Ewing in his yellow Mustang to woo a sado masochistic girl. The chains and whips do nothing to him he is already numbed by the thrill. Then he comes home, lays in bed until one, with no job and having people pay for his meals.
He knows what he does and who he is wrong. He recites and regurgitates excuses endlessly. He cries because he knows he is weak, he knows he must fix himself. I sit on the edge of myself with my fingers crossed hoping maybe, maybe he will set himself straight.
My chum who can talk his way out of any confrontation and into a woman’s *******. Multitudes of amorous affairs in backrooms, backseats, front rows of movies theaters. Selfish, boastful and ignorant, yet woman fling themselves at him like catapulted boulders over a medieval battle field just to say hello. These girls blind to see what going on, for their eyes were taken by low self esteem. A need to be accepted, to feel wanted even only for fifteen minutes. Poor self image, daddy issues, anorexic razor blade slicing sirens screaming on about counted calories and social status. Their uncontrollable mental breakdowns and emotional collapse. Their uncles who ***** them, their parents who split up and confusing their definition of love and loyalty for the rest of their lives. Broken homes, domestic abuse and raised voices, sending jolts of fright into the young girl’s fragile minds. I send my sorrows to you ladies, to see such beautiful creatures suffer then be used and thrown away with the ****** that was just ****** deep into their *****.
Then I see women and men of marvelous stature, romantic in the streets holding everyone and everything in high regards. Finding beauty in anything and anyone. Enjoying every second as if the rapture was over head eating exotic foods from unheard of countries and cultures. Bouncing to the sound of whimsical , reverb ricochets and sense stimulating music. Huffing inspiration to create something out of thin air. Dancing to retired jazz and swing albums as if no time had past since their conception. Wearing bold colors and patterns, thrifty leather shoes or suede.
Dawning pre-owned blazers because why spend hundreds of dollars on new clothes just to look good but feel uncomfortable with a hole in your pocket. Dressing up but dressing down, so class yet urban I love it, chinos, pea coats and flannels so simple but chic.
At night they go to underground dens, sweaty bodies, loud music and freedom. Expressive manifestations glowing fueled with MDMA and other substances to further their enjoyment of the dark glorious occasion. Kandi kids sporting colorful bracelets, not watches for time is of no concern to them, they have all eternity they know that.
Going to book stores, coffee shops just to have some peace of mind and a moment of silence to themselves so that can weave the tapestry of imaginative innovation. Writing their own versions of the same story, endless doors of perception, reading news papers and taking it with a grain of salt. Watching the news on TV with a hand full of salt. Searching for the real story so they can know if the world they all live in is actually safe.
She who made her own way breaking hearts, rolling blunts and making deals. The flower child of the modern age, left the rainy days in search of radiant sunshine, idealistic. Reality was subjective, purple dyed hair, multicolored sweater with sandals on her feet. A ten inch bowl with bud from California packed in tightly. Coming from Dumont to Bergenfeild then on to Philly to Mount Vernon. Off to Astoria and the Heights. Now to Sweden laying in the grassy plains below the mountains. Good for you my friend whom I have loved, may fortunes of unsullied joy come to you and all you meet.
Since you’ve left I have encountered drunken burly firemen just trying to have a good time. Pounding down Pabst Blue Ribbon as if it were water; as if it were good tasting beer. But heroes none the less.
EMT's, young eighteen years old high school graduates, saving lives reviving people who are a mere inch close to death.
Sport stars getting scholarships thanks to their superior skills and strength.
Striking beauty school students who are into making the people of this world a little bit more beautiful on the outside.
All these people, successful, doing things. Departing to their desired destinations. I see inside them, they carry baggage, loneliness and insecurities. I can feel their guilt slowing them down. All have their loads but it’s the way they carry them that shows who they really are. And to me their all gems.
Not far in Paterson I watch the junkies limping across busy winding street, perusing a severely needed fix. “Diesel!” they shout beneath flickering streetlights, asking for spare change and if bold enough a ride to some shady sketchy place. I give them a dollar and politely decline. They’ll die without it. Vomiting up bile and blood, twitches and shivers are all you feel when it’s not in you. They cannot stop, they need help. Why not help them instead of “assisting” those who are homosexual? Cleansing so they can be granted entry to the kingdom of God. Looking down on people who have found love and understanding and a deep attraction to others who just so happen to share alike genitals.
Narrow minded uproars about the spread of AIDS, nonsense! The puritanical onslaught of those who want nothing more than the rest of us, love. "Gay", "****", "******", "queer", how about "kind", "funny", "genuine human being"? The right to be married and divorced should be an option for everyone to enjoy. The strains and hardships of matrimony are yours if you want them. If you don’t agree don’t hate or harm just allow them to be peacefully. Same goes for anything for that matter, Jehovah's going door to door, Mormons from Burbank. New ideas are never a bad thing, they’re not a waste of time. On average you have about eighty years to mull over your options.
Some people don’t live long enough to do so, cancer is rampant, blood diseases, ****** diseases, natural disasters coming right out of left field and blindsiding the innocent bystanders of both hemispheres. Some go through life handicapped, autism is apparent these days. Schizophrenia, Asperburgers, ADD and ADHD. Some lose their golden memories of their many valuable years walking down Alzheimer's Lane, not being able to remember whatever transpired only a few moments ago but revisiting gold nuggets from from fifty-some-odd years ago with ease. Some go through life delusional or bipolar. Some can't even sleep at night but they still carry on. And if assistance is needed it is our job as a race to help our brothers and sisters, no one deserves to be excluded from the gala of life. Or be denied by society and pumped with brightly colored pills from doctors promising a cure but prescribing a crutch.
Finding solace in sincerity.
The serendipity of it all hasn’t been uncovered and that keeps me going.
“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world above, below and across. Unhindered without ill will without enmity.” Oh Buddha the truth as it ever was.
Who is he who keeps these thoughts from the conscious minds of the population?
Who is it that distracts us from the humbling beauty and overwhelming devastation of this place of existence we’re in?
It’s they who do under the table parlor trick behind our backs.
Those who broadcast mind numbing so called reality TV shows without an underlying value or meaning.
Those who produce music, proclaiming extravagance to be the end all be all gluttonous goal we all should aim to achieve.
And those who turn noble causes into money making scams and defile pure ideas.
And of course those who give false promises of easily obtained  bright futures, those who don’t care, those who steal, ****, curse, bad mouth and lie. But still manage to get elected into positions that more or less decide out fates. Monsters, demons, banshees howling inconsequential worries and leaving us deaf to hear the real issues.
The

Time to quit ribbons, pins, and rubber bands
I don't need them to take a stand
The bracelets cut blood flow to my hands
And the pins just hurt my *******

Red, Blue, Green, white, Pink, Yellow, black
Show just what causes that I back
The rubber bands, just hurt me jack
And the pins....they hurt my *******

Donations work and show my support
But, **** those pins, they really hurt
I'll take the makers all to court
Their pins...they hurt my *******

Most people don't know what they mean
Be it white, or blue or black or green
Wear them all on one side, and you will lean
and those pins..just hurt my *******

I  leave the ribbons home instead
And the bracelets stay beside my bed
The pins go on my hats instead
They done ripped apart my *******

when you make friendship bracelets
it symbolizes something
between you and them
it means you're willing
to sit down and
tie a million **** knots
with thin, tiny
pieces of floss
doing nothing else
hour after hour
except knotting the strings
it's an act of love & power
so that you will create
something beautiful
in hopes that they
will do the same

"I just like bracelets."
She says.
That's not true.
She just likes to cover up the marks of her pain and sorrow,
And hide the true part of her,
The side she never wishes to see the light of day.
As far as people are concerned,
That part of her doesn't exist,
And never has.
Its the part of her,
Thats her demons,
Behind her teeth that slip through her smile,
And behind her emerald green eyes,
That are the gateway to her miserable,
And ever-suffering soul,
Of a teenage girl,
A teenage cutter,
A teenage disaster.

My tinkling clattering bracelets
You provide such interesting theme music for my
For my daily wanderings through life
Chiming as small bells do
Clinking together as I shift my hands
Subtle movements and quiet sounds
A flow of water over you
Merely adds to the harmony
A quick **** of my arm
A jolt from being pushed
And the music adjusts accordingly
The same movement gives rise
To the same chords
Yet the meaning changes for
Every single moment of life

[Intro: Big Sean]
I look up
Yeah and I take my time, *****
I'mma take my time, whoa
Power moves only, *****

[Verse 1: Big Sean]
Boy I'm 'bout my business on business, I drink liquor on liquor
I had women on women, yeah that's bunk bed *******
I've done lived more than an eighty year old man still kickin'
Cause they live for some moments, and I live for a livin'
But this for the girls who barely let me get to first base
On some ground ball ****
Cause now I run my city on some town hall ****
They prayin' on my *******' downfall *****, like a drought, but
You gon' get this rain like it's May weather
G.O.O.D. Music, Ye weather
Champagne just tastes better
They told me I never boy, never say never
Swear flow special like an infant's first steps
I got paid then reversed debts
Then I finally found a girl that reverse stress
So now I'm talkin' to the reaper to reverse death
Yep, so I can kick it with my granddad, take him for a ride
Show him I made somethin' out myself and not just tried
Show him the house I bought the fam, let him tour inside
No matter how far ahead I get, I always feel behind
In my mind, but **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I said **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I grew up to Em, B.I.G. and Pac *****, and got ruined
So until I got the same crib B.I.G. had in that Juicy vid
*****, I can't *******' stop movin'
Go against me, you won't stop losin'
From the city where every month is May-Day at home, spray your dome
****** get sprayed up like AK was cologne for a paycheck or loan
Yeah I know that **** ain't fair
They say Detroit ain't got a chance, we ain't even got a mayor
You write your name with a Sharpie, I write mine in stone
I knew the world was for the taking and wouldn't take long
We on, tryna be better than everybody that's better than everybody
Rep Detroit, everybody, Detroit versus everybody
I'm so ******' first class, I could spit up on every pilot
The city's my Metropolis, feel it, it's metabolic
And I'm over ****** sayin' they're the hottest ******
Then run to the hottest ****** just to stay hot
I'm one of the hottest because I flame drop
Drop fire, and not because I'm name dropping, Hall of Fame droppin'
And I ain't takin' **** from nobody unless they're OG's
Cause that ain't the way of a OG
So I G-O collect more G's, every dollar
Never changed though, I'm just the new version of old me
Forever hot headed but never got cold feet
Got up in the game won't look back at my old seats
Clique so deep we take up the whole street
I need a ***** so bad that she take up my whole week, Sean Don

[Bridge: Kendrick Lamar]
Miscellaneous minds are never explainin' their minds
Devilish grin for my alias aliens to respond
Peddlin' sin, thinkin' maybe when you get old you realize
I'm not gonna fold or demise
(I don't smoke crack, ******* I sell it!)
*****, everything I rap is a quarter piece to your melon
So if you have a relapse, just relax and pop in my disc
Don't you pop me no ******* pill, I'mma a pop you and give you this

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]
Tell Flex to drop a bomb on this ****
So many bombs, ring the alarm like Vietnam on this ****
So many bombs, make Farrakhan think that Saddam in this *****
One at a time, I line them up
And bomb on they mom while she watching the kids
I'm in a destruction mode if the gold exists
I'm important like the Pope, I'm a Muslim on pork
I'm Makaveli's offspring, I'm the king of New York
King of the Coast, one hand, I juggle them both
The juggernaut's all in your jugular, you take me for jokes
Live in the basement, church pews and funeral faces
Cartier bracelets for my women friends, I'm in Vegas
Who the **** y'all thought it's supposed to be?
If Phil Jackson came back, still no coachin' me
I'm uncoachable, I'm unsociable, **** y'all clubs
**** y'all pictures, your Instagram can gobble these nuts
Gobble **** up til you hiccup, my big homie Kurupt
This the same flow that put the rap game on a crutch (West x6)
I've seen ****** transform like villain Decepticons
Mollies'll prolly turn these ****** to ******* Lindsay Lohan
A bunch of rich *** white girls looking for parties
Playing with Barbies, wreck the Porsche before you give them the car key
Judgment to the monarchy, blessings to Paul McCartney
You called me a black Beatle, I'm either that or a Marley
(I don't smoke crack, *******, I sell it)
I'm dressed in all black, this is not for the fan of Elvis
I'm aiming straight for your pelvis, you can't stomach me
You plan on stumpin' me? ***** I’ve been jumped before you put a gun on me
***** I put one on yours, I'm Sean Connery
James Bonding with none of you ******, climbing 100 mil in front of me
And I'm gonna get it even if you're in the way
And if you're in it, better run for Pete's sake
I heard the barbershops be in great debates all the time
Bout who's the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas
Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of y'all
New ****** just new ******, don't get involved
And I ain't rocking no more designer ****
White T’s and Nike Cortez, this red Corvettes anonymous
I'm usually homeboys with the same ****** I'm rhymin' with
But this is hip-hop and them ****** should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I'm tryna ****** you ******
Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you ******
They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ******
What is competition? I'm trying to raise the bar high
Who tryna jump and get it? You're better off trying to skydive
Out the exit window of 5 G5’s with 5 grand
With your granddad as the pilot he drunk as **** trying land
With the hand full of arthritis and popping prosthetic leg
Bumpin Pac in the cockpit so the **** that pops in his head
Is an option of violence, someone heard the stewardess said
That your parachute is a latex ****** hooked to a dread
West Coast

[Verse 3: Jay Electronica]
You could check my name on the books
I Earth, Wind, and Fire’d the verse, then rained on the hook
The legend of Dorothy Flowers proclaimed from the roof
The tale of a magnificent king who came from the nooks
Of the wild magnolia, mother of many soldiers
We live by every single word she ever told us
Watch over your shoulders
And keep a tin of beans for when the weather turns the coldest
The Lord is our shepherd, so our cup runneth over
Put your trust in the Lord but tether your Chevy Nova
I’m spittin' this **** for closure
And God is my witness, so you could get it from Hova
To all you magicians that’s fidgeting with the cobra
I’m silent as a rock, ‘cause I came from a rock
That’s why I came with the rock, then signed my name on the Roc
Draw a line around some Earth, then put my name on the plot
Cause I endured a lot of pain for everything that I got
The eyelashes like umbrellas when it rains from the heart
And the tissue is like an angel kissin you in the dark
You go from blind sight to hindsight, passion of the Christ
Right, to baskin' in the limelight, it take time to get your mind right
Jay Electricity, PBS mysteries
In a lofty place, tangling with Satan over history
You can’t say **** to me - Alhamdulillah
It’s strictly by faith that we made it this far

I wear beads and  African bracelets for beauty. I forget why the people before me wore them. I wear them with pride not because I earned them but because I simply look beautiful. Beautiful!? What does that even mean? My Nana has scars on her body. She shows them to me with pride. Narrates stories of the war in the past like an action movie only she didn't have a gun only bows and poisonous arrows. The missing teeth in her mouth causes her to spit almost every second she talks. But this embarrassment is only felt by me. She is proud of the hole in her mouth. Suddenly I feel the urge to remove my African beads. They have no meaning only that they are African and I am and so am entitled. But I have done nothing for my heritage. Not even fight for it. Slowly it's being forgotten and people are crossing over without a care in the world. 'To civilisation' we say.  'For the good of the people' we say. But is it? We were a community wrong as we were to circumcise women, marry them off at an early age, burn the wrong... We were a community. We loved each other. We cared. We taught our children how to feel and be the earth. We taught our children to respect the earth and in return the earth blesses us with herbs to cure. What did they call it? Aaah yes 'witchcraft'. We were not animals who forget their children in  pit latrines or by the river side just because we cannot afford them or don't want them. We cared not of individualism because together we grew in spirit, body and soul. It was not backward it was culture. And culture is flexible. It can change but can never be terminated. It is not a shoe that when you grow out of  you throw and buy another.
And so I am not telling you to go back to your roots because if am quite honest you were never in it. Rather embrace it. See how 'civilised' you will feel then.

yours
The Red_Head

she wears her jewelry proudly
purple, sometimes green,
maybe yellow
but it is always
beautiful.

she will tip back her head
and show you her
long neck and you
are overcome by the sight
of such
beauty
in one person.

sometimes she wears bracelets,
delicate
purple bands encircling
her dainty
wrists
and the colors are so beautiful.

she hardly ever wears rings
but for the purple one,
maybe an amethyst
that sits upon one of her fingers
and she will flinch
even wince if you try
to touch it.

but sometimes, maybe just once or twice,
you might even manage to
forget
that her necklace,
and those lovely bracelets
and that beautiful amethyst
which she wears so very proudly
is made up of

**fingerprints.

My Mom needed something from the store
So I told her I’d walk up there for her and get it.
We were barely getting by
The two of us.
She was living on a disability check
And I was in between jobs
Again
So these little walks to the store were all I had.
I got her some Epsom salts and was walking back
Had just walked past the hardware store
When a small, sleek, black, BMW pulled up next to me.
To my surprise it was a chick
A big titted redhead with pink sunglasses.
There was something in her eyes
When she peeked below the sunglasses
I saw something in them
that frightened me
A voice inside was screaming at me
Just keep walking
Just keep walking
But like a fool
I ignored it
And bent over the passenger seat
In the convertible that smelled new.
“How big is your ****?”
The lady asked
Her chest just heaving and jiggling
With every breath she took
And every word she spoke.
“What?”
“I said….how big is your ****?”
“Ha ha!”
I took a look around
Expecting to see a hidden camera
Or a film crew in a van across the street.
There was no one
No witnesses.
I leaned back down
“7 inches? Maybe 8? I don’t know lady, I haven’t measured my **** since the 11th grade!”
The redhead took off the sunglasses completely and looked me up and down
Those bright green eyes scanning me
From my worn out Converse to my greasy pompadour on my head.
It seemed like an eternity
I got uncomfortable.
Just standing there
Squirming
While the redheaded fox
Kept inspecting me.
“Okay. Get in. Hurry up.”
I wasn’t even thinking
Just reacting to it all.
I’d always dreamed of this
When I was walking down that
Same old ******* street
The only street that I ever saw
Dreaming of
A beautiful woman in a sports car.
And now here she was.
Here we were
Driving down the street
The breeze blowing in our hair
She made an immediate right turn
Onto a suburban side street.
She parked in front of a house that was up for sale.
Again she took off the sunglasses.
“Let me see it.”
She said, staring at my crotch.
“Whoa, whoa, lady. What’s this all about?”
“My husband and I…..we have certain…..tastes. Things we like, things we enjoy. He’s an older guy, so he likes to watch young guys **** me. I mean, just really give it to me good, make me scream. And of course after your services have been….rendered….you’ll be paid two-thousand dollars. Now do you think you can do that?”
“Uh……I—I think so.”
“Well, I need you to know so. And if you were bullshitting me, if that **** isn’t at least 7 inches, you can get out of the car right ******* now.”
“No it is, it is.”
“Well...”
“Well...you gotta start my engine first—“
Before I could finish my cheesy line
She was in the passenger seat
Climbing on top of me.
“Rip it open” She said looking down.
I did as I was told
And ripped the front of her blouse open
The buttons flying in all directions
Bouncing off the windows and rolling on the dashboard.
Her two, round, fake, **** sprang out of the top
Hitting me in the face
As she rubbed them up and down
And all around.
She kissed me sloppily
And then started in with that biting *******.
She met my lip so hard
It drew blood
acting purely on reflex
I grabbed her by the arms very hard
And pulled her back from me
Staring at her with those crazy, intense, eyes
That I sometimes got when startled.
“Oh…..” She said looking down, at the ******* in my Levi’s.
“Alright. You wanna see the house?” She asked.
I let go of her arms and she rolled off of me,
hopping into the driver’s seat and starting the car up.

She drove all the way to the edge of the city
Where the Red Mountains in the east
Meets the long winding road out of town
And into the desert.
It was a large ranch style mansion
Decorated with cowboy themed ****.
The redhead parked the sports car in
A massive garage
Filled with dozen of rare and expensive automobiles .
She told me to leave my plastic grocery bag of Epsom salts
In the car
She said I could get it later, when we were done.
I followed her to an elevator at the back of the garage.
We took it all the way down to the very bottom.
Stepping out of the elevator
I found myself in a large expansive grey room.
The floors were concrete
But they were shiny and slick
Reminded me of the floor in the meat department
At the job I had just lost.
The room had a few beds in it
Some custom built sets were erected all over the room
An office, a jail cell, a medieval dungeon, a medical examination room,
There were a lot these little sets built all over
In the back of the room
The corners
Were pitch black and covered in darkness.
I wondered what they had over there.
“So what do we do?” I asked, fidgeting in my pants
thumbing my switchblade stiletto in my right front pocket.
“We have to wait for my husband to come down. I just texted him.”
“Oh okay.”
“You should take your clothes off and put this on.”
The redhead said, taking a hospital gown from a hanger
Next to the medical examination set.
“….put that on and I’m gonna go get into character.”
She said, walking behind a white privacy screen
The old kind, like they used to have in doctor’s offices.
I undressed myself and got into the hospital gown.
I can’t say what it was exactly
But I still had that real nervous feeling
I couldn’t ignore it
So for some reason
I hid my switchblade on me.
Put it in the waistband of my underwear.
And that made me feel a little bit safer
This whole thing was beyond belief
I was never this lucky
Something was rotten in Denmark
I could feel it in my bones.
But there was no backing out now
I was riding this all the way
No choice.
I took a seat on the medical examination table
The thin paper crunching loudly beneath my ***
They had it down to the finest detail.
Even the little slots with the Highlights magazines.
I watched the black & white clock on the wall
And it took them 28 minutes to finally come out
The two of them together.
The tall, beautiful, redhead and the rich old man.
But they matched in an odd way
His face was nearly the same color as her hair.
A red faced, big nosed, drinker,
I’ve seen that face a thousand times
Ain’t no mistakin’ it.
He had white hair all spiked up
Like how young people have it
And he wore nothing but gold
All over himself.
Gold necklace, full fists of rings, bracelets,
I couldn’t ******* believe it
I tried my best not to laugh
I was snorting to myself
The ******* had a Mercedes medallion around his neck
Like Flavor Flav or something, it was that flamboyant.
But the guy was like 70 years old
None of it made any ******* sense.
The florescent lighting above
it did this thing where
his eyes were so sunken in
that it created these two black shadows
where his eyes should’ve been
just pitch black
endlessly hollow and empty
with a red face.
Satan himself, covered in gold and diamonds.

“What’s up?” He said, extending his well tanned, leathery claw.
“Hey.”
“Alright, so let’s not waste any time. Let’s get down to business? Huh?”
“Yeah, sure.” I said.
“**** yeah! Let’s ****! You wanna **** him baby?”
”Why do you think I got him? Hell, I almost ****** him on the way home.”
“Did you now?” He said, looking over at me with this look
I couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or rage.
“Alright, alright then.”
The chick started to walk up the three little steps
Of the examination table
Her feet were pale as snow and her toes
Shiny and red like a the paint job on a brand new Cadillac in 1956
I remember that.
She climbed on top of me
Started kissing me and
Rubbing my ****
Under the examination gown.
From the corner of my eye
I saw the husband moving over to the camera
Which was setup a few feet away
Looked to be hi-def ****.
She bit my lip again
Really ******* hard
Pulled a big chunk of skin off
“*******!” I yelled.
“What?” The husband shouted back.
“He hates it when I bite him!” The redhead shouted with a smile
blood on her lips, from mine.
“Well, don’t take any **** son! If she does that again, you just give her a good smack!”
“What?”
“Yeah, don’t be timid boy! This ain’t ******’ Sunday school! We’re ******’, here!”
She did it again
And I wasn’t even thinking of what that old coot was yelling about
I just hit her on principle.
A good open handed smack across the cheek.
“There ya ******’ go! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
The old man threw his hands in the air
And started doing this little dance it was the weirdest ****
I had ever seen.
The redhead grabbed my face with her hands
Taking my eyes off the old man
Who was now singing some song
And shuffling around the floor.
She looked right into my eyes
Those mint colored eyes
She whispered to me
But I read her lips
“I’m sorry.”
And she pulled me in and kissed me
Put my hands to her *******
And proceeded to kiss me
Like a long lost love
Not some guy off the street.
And that’s the last thing I remember.
Besides the ***** of the needle in my neck.
Just her red hair hanging in my face
The florescent light shining through.
When I came to
I was standing upright
But I was strapped to a table
My arms
My legs
My head
Every part of me strapped down
Tight.
I wasn’t going anywhere
This was that bad feeling I got when she looked at me.
This was where it ended. Right now.
They were both standing there
Staring at me
Smiling with drinks in their hands
The cameras rolling
They had multiple cameras setup
Some 80’s techno playing from an iPod dock.
“What? What are you gonna do?” I slurred, it was hard to talk.
“I know, I’m sorry. Okay, look. We both agree that you probably are owed an explanation, I mean….these being your last moments and all…”
The redhead interrupted, looking at me, like she had before
There was love in her eyes
“Honey…remember what I said? About how there are things that we like and things that we enjoy? I’m sorry, but this is what we like.”
“*****?” I managed to choke out,
just the sound of the words chilled my ******* blood.
“Yeah. Hey…son, let me tell ya…we’re actually saving you a whole lot of heartache and disappointment. You weren’t gonna go anywhere, you weren’t going to accomplish anything. You’d work the same **** jobs, bouncing from one to the other, until you finally died of either ***** or drugs.”
“It’s for the best, sweetie.” The redhead said.
And I’d love to tell you that
They left the room for a few minutes
And I was able to free my hand
Taking the switchblade
From my underwear
Cutting myself free
Killing them both
And cleaning out their safe’s cash and diamonds.
But this was no movie.
Well not the kind with a happy ending anyway.
That’s when she walked over to the table
And grabbed the knife.
The song on the iPod changed
And I instantly recognized it.
It was the song.
I never could explain why
But as a boy
This song would come on the radio
This 80’s electro song
And it always scared the **** out of me
Turned my stomach
I never knew why
But now it all made sense.
That song would be the last thing I ever heard.
With the cameras rolling
The redhead gave me one more kiss.
I closed my eyes and pretended.
I pretended that she was a girl that loved me
That she was kissing me goodnight
Sending me off with a smile.
I just kept my eyes closed
Squeezing them tight
And I didn’t even feel the knife
When she slit my throat right there
In that slick, shiny, grey basement.
It didn’t hurt
I didn’t feel any pain.
Just warmth.
The blood flowing down the front of my neck and chest
pure warmth sliding down me
And I started to get light headed
Everything getting dark
Very quickly.
I could hear my heartbeat
In sync with a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
The last thing I saw
Was the redhead standing there
Luckily the husband had his head behind the camera
So I didn’t have his scary face as the last thing I ever saw.
No
It was the redhead
And those mint green eyes.
They never found my body.
The couple put me through a wood chipper
And fed my scraps to their dogs
After slicing off my biceps for dinner that night.
They went on doing this for years
Picking up guys and girls from the streets
who were down on their luck
And wouldn’t be high profile missing persons.
They acquired hundreds of DVD’s
Selling these ***** films
To their elite and powerful
Friends in high places.
But they justified it all.
Surely I wouldn’t be missed.
I didn’t have a mother
Like they had a mother
I didn’t laugh and love
Like they did
I was expendable
Disposable
Use once and discard.
The rich eating the poor
Blood meal for their insatiable & gruesome appetites.
It’s okay though.
I’m not mad or anything now.
It’s just blackness
A dreamless sleep
I don’t even know how I’m telling you this
But the worst part
The thing I still think about the most
Is my mother.
And what she must of thought
When her only son
Went to the store for her
Epsom salts
And just never came back.

What is death, I ask.
What is life, you ask.
I give them both my buttocks,
my two wheels rolling off toward Nirvana.
They are neat as a wallet,
opening and closing on their coins,
the quarters, the nickels,
straight into the crapper.
Why shouldn't I pull down my pants
and moon the executioner
as well as paste raisins on my *******?
Why shouldn't I pull down my pants
and show my little ***** to Tom
and Albert? They wee-wee funny.
I wee-wee like a squaw.
I have ink but no pen, still
I dream that I can **** in God's eye.
I dream I'm a boy with a zipper.
It's so practical, la de dah.
The trouble with being a woman, Skeezix,
is being a little girl in the first place.
Not all the books of the world will change that.
I have swallowed an orange, being woman.
You have swallowed a ruler, being man.
Yet waiting to die we are the same thing.
Jehovah pleasures himself with his axe
before we are both overthrown.
Skeezix, you are me. La de dah.
You grow a beard but our drool is identical.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Today is November 14th, 1972.
I live in Weston, Mass., Middlesex County,
U.S.A., and it rains steadily
in the pond like white puppy eyes.
The pond is waiting for its skin.
the pond is waiting for its leather.
The pond is waiting for December and its Novocain.

It begins:

Interrogator:
What can you say of your last seven days?

Anne:
They were tired.

Interrogator:
One day is enough to perfect a man.

Anne:
I watered and fed the plant.

*

My undertaker waits for me.
he is probably twenty-three now,
learning his trade.
He'll stitch up the gren,
he'll fasten the bones down
lest they fly away.
I am flying today.
I am not tired today.
I am a motor.
I am cramming in the sugar.
I am running up the hallways.
I am squeezing out the milk.
I am dissecting the dictionary.
I am God, la de dah.
Peanut butter is the American food.
We all eat it, being patriotic.

Ms. Dog is out fighting the dollars,
rolling in a field of bucks.
You've got it made if you take the wafer,
take some wine,
take some bucks,
the green papery song of the office.
What a jello she could make with it,
the fives, the tens, the twenties,
all in a goo to feed the baby.
Andrew Jackson as an hors d'oeuvre,
la de dah.
I wish I were the U.S. Mint,
turning it all out,
turtle green
and monk black.
Who's that at the podium
in black and white,
blurting into the mike?
Ms. Dog.
Is she spilling her guts?
You bet.
Otherwise they cough...
The day is slipping away, why am I
out here, what do they want?
I am sorrowful in November...
(no they don't want that,
they want bee stings).
Toot, toot, tootsy don't cry.
Toot, toot, tootsy good-bye.
If you don't get a letter then
you'll know I'm in jail...
Remember that, Skeezix,
our first song?

Who's thinking those things?
Ms. Dog! She's out fighting the dollars.
Milk is the American drink.
Oh queens of sorrows,
oh water lady,
place me in your cup
and pull over the clouds
so no one can see.
She don't want no dollars.
She done want a mama.
The white of the white.

Anne says:
This is the rainy season.
I am sorrowful in November.
The kettle is whistling.
I must butter the toast.
And give it jam too.
My kitchen is a heart.
I must feed it oxygen once in a while
and mother the mother.

*

Say the woman is forty-four.
Say she is five seven-and-a-half.
Say her hair is stick color.
Say her eyes are chameleon.
Would you put her in a sack and bury her,
**** her down into the dumb dirt?
Some would.
If not, time will.
Ms. Dog, how much time you got left?
Ms. Dog, when you gonna feel that cold nose?
You better get straight with the Maker
cuz it's coming, it's a coming!
The cup of coffee is growing and growing
and they're gonna stick your little doll's head
into it and your lungs a gonna get paid
and your clothes a gonna melt.
Hear that, Ms. Dog!
You of the songs,
you of the classroom,
you of the pocketa-pocketa,
you hungry mother,
you spleen baby!
Them angels gonna be cut down like wheat.
Them songs gonna be sliced with a razor.
Them kitchens gonna get a boulder in the belly.
Them phones gonna be torn out at the root.
There's power in the Lord, baby,
and he's gonna turn off the moon.
He's gonna nail you up in a closet
and there'll be no more Atlantic,
no more dreams, no more seeds.
One noon as you walk out to the mailbox
He'll ****** you up --
a wopman beside the road like a red mitten.

There's a sack over my head.
I can't see. I'm blind.
The sea collapses.
The sun is a bone.
Hi-** the derry-o,
we all fall down.
If I were a fisherman I could comprehend.
They fish right through the door
and pull eyes from the fire.
They rock upon the daybreak
and amputate the waters.
They are beating the sea,
they are hurting it,
delving down into the inscrutable salt.

*

When mother left the room
and left me in the *******
and sent away my kitty
to be fried in the camps
and took away my blanket
to wash the me out of it
I lay in the soiled cold and prayed.
It was a little jail in which
I was never slapped with kisses.
I was the engine that couldn't.
Cold wigs blew on the trees outside
and car lights flew like roosters
on the ceiling.
Cradle, you are a grave place.

Interrogator:
What color is the devil?

Anne:
Black and blue.

Interrogator:
What goes up the chimney?

Anne:
Fat Lazarus in his red suit.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Ms. Dog prefers to sunbathe ****.
Let the indifferent sky look on.
So what!
Let Mrs. Sewal pull the curtain back,
from her second story.
So what!
Let United Parcel Service see my parcel.
La de dah.
Sun, you hammer of yellow,
you hat on fire,
you honeysuckle mama,
pour your blonde on me!
Let me laugh for an entire hour
at your supreme being, your Cadillac stuff,
because I've come a long way
from Brussels sprouts.
I've come a long way to peel off my clothes
and lay me down in the grass.
Once only my palms showed.
Once I hung around in my woolly tank suit,
drying my hair in those little meatball curls.
Now I am clothed in gold air with
one dozen halos glistening on my skin.
I am a fortunate lady.
I've gotten out of my pouch
and my teeth are glad
and my heart, that witness,
beats well at the thought.

Oh body, be glad.
You are good goods.

*

Middle-class lady,
you make me smile.
You dig a hole
and come out with a sunburn.
If someone hands you a glass of water
you start constructing a sailboat.
If someone hands you a candy wrapper,
you take it to the book binder.
Pocketa-pocketa.

Once upon a time Ms. Dog was sixty-six.
She had white hair and wrinkles deep as splinters.
her portrait was nailed up like Christ
and she said of it:
That's when I was forty-two,
down in Rockport with a hat on for the sun,
and Barbara drew a line drawing.
We were, at that moment, drinking *****
and ginger beer and there was a chill in the air,
although it was July, and she gave me her sweater
to bundle up in. The next summer Skeezix tied
strings in that hat when we were fishing in Maine.
(It had gone into the lake twice.)
Of such moments is happiness made.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Once upon a time we were all born,
popped out like jelly rolls
forgetting our fishdom,
the pleasuring seas,
the country of comfort,
spanked into the oxygens of death,
Good morning life, we say when we wake,
hail mary coffee toast
and we Americans take juice,
a liquid sun going down.
Good morning life.
To wake up is to be born.
To brush your teeth is to be alive.
To make a bowel movement is also desireable.
La de dah,
it's all routine.
Often there are wars
yet the shops keep open
and sausages are still fried.
People rub someone.
People copulate
entering each other's blood,
tying each other's tendons in knots,
transplanting their lives into the bed.
It doesn't matter if there are wars,
the business of life continues
unless you're the one that gets it.
Mama, they say, as their intestines
leak out. Even without wars
life is dangerous.
Boats spring leaks.
Cigarettes explode.
The snow could be radioactive.
Cancer could ooze out of the radio.
Who knows?
Ms. Dog stands on the shore
and the sea keeps rocking in
and she wants to talk to God.

Interrogator:
Why talk to God?

Anne:
It's better than playing bridge.

*

Learning to talk is a complex business.
My daughter's first word was utta,
meaning button.
Before there are words
do you dream?
In utero
do you dream?
Who taught you to ****?
And how come?
You don't need to be taught to cry.
The soul presses a button.
Is the cry saying something?
Does it mean help?
Or hello?
The cry of a gull is beautiful
and the cry of a crow is ugly
but what I want to know
is whether they mean the same thing.
Somewhere a man sits with indigestion
and he doesn't care.
A woman is buying bracelets
and earrings and she doesn't care.
La de dah.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

There are stars and faces.
There is ketchup and guitars.
There is the hand of a small child
when you're crossing the street.
There is the old man's last words:
More light! More light!
Ms. Dog wouldn't give them her buttocks.
She wouldn't moon at them.
Just at the killers of the dream.
The bus boys of the soul.
Or at death
who wants to make her a mummy.
And you too!
Wants to stuf her in a cold shoe
and then amputate the foot.
And you too!
La de dah.
What's the point of fighting the dollars
when all you need is a warm bed?
When the dog barks you let him in.
All we need is someone to let us in.
And one other thing:
to consider the lilies in the field.
Of course earth is a stranger, we pull at its
arms and still it won't speak.
The sea is worse.
It comes in, falling to its knees
but we can't translate the language.
It is only known that they are here to worship,
to worship the terror of the rain,
the mud and all its people,
the body itself,
working like a city,
the night and its slow blood
the autumn sky, mary blue.
but more than that,
to worship the question itself,
though the buildings burn
and the big people topple over in a faint.
Bring a flashlight, Ms. Dog,
and look in every corner of the brain
and ask and ask and ask
until the kingdom,
however queer,
will come.

Sunday, I am eating a
grapefruit, church is over at the Russian
Orthadox to the
west.

she is dark
of Eastern descent,
large brown eyes look up from the Bible
then down. a small red and black
Bible, and as she reads
her legs keep moving, moving,
she is doing a slow rythmic dance
reading the Bible. . .

long gold earrings;
2 gold bracelets on each arm,
and it's a mini-suit, I suppose,
the cloth hugs her body,
the lightest of tans is that cloth,
she twists this way and that,
long yellow legs warm in the sun. . .

there is no escaping her being
there is no desire to. . .

my radio is playing symphonic music
that she cannot hear
but her movements coincide exactly
to the rythms of the
symphony. . .

she is dark, she is dark
she is reading about God.
I am God.

In the same space where once laid rubies and pearls
now lies a tangled necklace of simple gold.
Knotted, tarnished and with one broken end,
it rests there for a long time, almost hidden,
amidst bracelets of diamonds
and waits to shine again.

My heart breaks every spring break
It breaks for kids like me who watch as others visit their home countries
While we cannot leave the USA
We have to sit and watch people butcher bachata
Watch how they're hips refuse to accept something other than Taylor swift
We listen when they come back with stories of how they thought our food was too different and not “Mexican” enough as if all Latin America is Mexico
We hear the laughs they make at our cousins back home for just being themselves
My heart cannot handle the privilege they wear on their sleeves when they come back
Knowing I might never see my own island
How I am thought it is ***** and dangerous
A place where girls should not be left alone
While they get the clean streets, they get to avoid the gangs
How they assault our girls
Don't tell me to just save my money and go next year
It is not that simple
We don't stay in your resorts
We live en el capital y los campos nunca los hoteles y la vida blanco
Aka the places you never set foot
You go to my island
You buy bracelets de mi bandera
You try to live my roots
But complain when I dare show pride for my people
The hypocrisy breaks my heart
It's blood pours onto my all American soil
Is my island nice?
Tell me do the trees sway as if they are dancing to Anthony Santos?
Do the branches act as the leading man guiding the leaves to swing their stems to beat?
Does the Dominican anthem ring in the hearts of the people
A pride that is new and vibrant radiating off their faces
How they have clear all their schedules to make sure you see the highlights of our land
When you eat do you feel as though each bite was made with the love of thousand of abuelas?
Can you envision the hours she spends over a hot gas stove stirring los habichuelas y arroz
Using what little food they have left over to feed you over their own blood?
Tell me does my island make you proud?
It makes my heart filled with joy
To know my people did something right that you would walk the same land as slaves
That somehow we got enough pride to make sure you had a good time that you were safe that you can have whatever you wanted
On my island
Tell me, what left is there to complain about?
Mi isla es mi corazón, mi sueño, es mi vida
Pero to you it is just another week out the calendar
My heart will break every march
Because when you come back you complain how in the Dominican Republic no one spoke to you in English
And I worry, how you think when Dominicans come here we should speak English
But when you come to our home you don't want us to speak our language
Your hypocrisy hurts
My island does all it can to make you happy
But you are never pleased
What more can we do
You take pieces of us and use them in your portrait of appropriation
You take our pride and use it as joke
My heart breaks
For the children like me
Never seeing their land
Except on Instagram in the middle of march

Ch. 1.

1.

Behold, thou art dark and comely, my love;
richly hath the sun favoured thee,
delighting in thy presence.
Let me savour thy kisses of wine;
for in the gardens of the temple
the lotus furls open,
wild bees fall asleep on her face.


2.

Lilies and jasmine bloom
in the garden of my love;
falls of wisteria,
carpets of thyme.
Let us lie in the shade of the olives
to gaze on the sky.


3.

For many hours my love slept
  beneath the cedars,
couched on cool swathes of linen,
like the Lord of Midnight enthroned on a cloud.
Long tresses of willows shivered to cool his face.
I called his name but he heard me not,
being entranced in slumber,
deep in the thrall of dreams;
therefore I shall let him awaken when he please.




Ch. 2.

4.

A warm breath of nard is my master, my king,
A great golden deity haloed with stars.
Behold, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In my dearest dreams he standeth before me
out of my reach, gesturing for me to follow,
calling unto me like the very embodiment of love.


5.

Night comes softly, o daughters of Jerusalem,
My king's desirous eyes have grown heavy with sleep.
His black hair ripples about his face
  like curtains of smoke,
gold bracelets entice my gaze to
the sinews of his arms.
Like roses unfurling, so open the lips of my love,
  I burn for their flavour,
yet awaken him not till he please.





Ch. 3.

6.

Out of the forest I came, with my
maidens and minions;
with carpets of hibiscus strewn at my feet.
Columns of frankincense curved into the air,
burning from lamps of copper and gold.
From the broad slopes of Edom
my soul's love stopped to observe us.
I felt his warm gaze upon me,
so soft a look as touched like caresses of hands.
I am weary with desire, my lord and king,
Bring me the looks of thine eyes, dark as midnight,
That regard me with touches of silk.


7.

Though I may stand with my legion before thee,
an army behind me,
The west wind roars to my left,
the east to my right,
a million strong with all my banners, warriors
and standard-bearers,
still my delight were only to serve thee,
see how I tremble with awe by thy side.


8.

Behold, my ladies, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
My king is a custodian of the sanctity of love,
see those arms with the strength to smite
yet full of the will to embrace.
Nightly cometh he to my chambers,
whispering of love,
with the stealth of a lion,
as meek as a lamb.




Ch. 4.

9.

Preparing for my beloved,
I have put on my mantle of midnight sky
garlanded with stars.
My black locks are hung with beads of gold,
my neck is anointed with sandalwood and rose.
Come, my ladies,
Bring me my white chargers,
my sedan lined with silks from Lebanon,
my heralds and cavalcades of guards;
My beloved king awaits my pleasure.






10.

When I am in the embrace of my beloved,
He is worlds of landscapes of desire,
he is all the earth, air and sky to me.
His eyes shineth as my sun and moon,
his broad chest becometh as the
cool desert dunes by night,
where I may rest my head.
Go safely in thy dreams, beloved king,
with sentinel angels, to roost with the doves.




Ch. 5.

11.

Such a turmoil of a dream
hath troubled me, my sisters,
I dreamed that my love approached my window,
Calling unto me through the
rosewood trefoils of the lattice.
Forgetful of our tryst I answered him not,
all oils and fine trappings were put away,
mine eyes were full of slumber.
When finally I rose from my bed
   he had gone.


12.

Overwrought and afraid,
I went out in the streets,
  calling unto my beloved,
receiving no answer and calling again.
  The night watchmen came and found me,
they smote me and denounced me as pagan,
calling me harlot and worshipper of false idols,
harshly they beat me with flails
and threw me into the darkest cellars
of the palace of Solomon.


13.

Awakening at last,
I felt a warm breeze,
It was my love's breath upon my face.
Let all the world suspend in time,
let hate, rage and darkness flee as a shadow,
otherwise let me die here in the arms of my king.
There is but this one hour, one place,
in one lingering moment,
When my soul's love and I are conjoined
in the petals of love.




Ch. 6.

14.

Midnight has fallen in the gardens
  of the temple of Solomon.
The moon communes with her sister in the lake,
painting the magnolias with mother-of-pearl,
turning her buds into silver doves.
Passion and beauty intertwine in my love's garden,
Like the twisted trunks of the fig trees of Judea.
Behold, my beloved,
thou art more comely even than the moon.
Come and walk with me
in the balmy air of night.


15.

Only through the love of another may
a soul come to know of itself.
My king is mine and I am his;
The sun and moon each taketh their
turn in the sky,
the shepherds go sure-footed
over their hills and valleys,
the merchants go their ways in the
spice markets of Lebanon,
while he and I are lost in one another's eyes.




Ch. 7.

16.

Love's weariness hath overcome me,
beloved lord and king.
Bring me thy pleasant fruits, thy tender words,
Lie betwixt my *******; my hair shall
be thy curtain,
these arms shall be as thy cocoon.
Let the tides cease their turning
and the winds give pause to hold their breath.
Awaken not my dearest love, until he please.


17.

Even in sleep,
such beautiful eyes hath my beloved;
his eyelashes rest upon his cheek
like the feet of a butterfly on a lily.
Come, my sisters, we shall make him
a bed of hemp and poppies,
with fruit of the lotus,
that he may languish beside me
for many days and nights.




Ch. 8.

18.

Filling my days and dreams,
here is a man with the grace of a young hart,
whose honeyed voice speaketh mantras of desire.
Arise and follow me, beloved, for my vineyards
are ripe with luscious fruits,
the doves beat their wings and fly from the cots.
Emerging from the amber of sunrise,
with a swirling of veils,
summer dances into the season of our love.


19.

Lying amid the twisting vines
My love and I are deep in each other's embrace
and his lips taste of roses heavy with dew.
I am a queen of the Red Sea,
an orchid from a sacred garden,
and my kingdom reacheth to the farthest hills.
None but my love shall pass the boundary
where my vines bear the sweetest fruit,
nor taste their heady wine.


20.

The gates of my vineyard are wrought of
iron clad with gold,
taller than cedars, decorated with
the royal insignia,
guarded by three score watchmen,
by day and night.
While other men are kept without
and the foxes are driven back by dogs,
see how swiftly they open for thee.




Ch. 9.

21.

Behold, the noble stature of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In the sanctity of love
we may walk in the realm of paradise,
undisturbed by the foibles of men.
Come beloved, awaken,
the new dawn opens as wide and fresh
as infant eyes.
Come run with me through the spice hills
  and gardens of Lebanon.

I sleep on white bed sheets
with the windows open
so the breeze can brush my face
and the rain can fall on my lips.
I sleep in the gray half-light that
washes the color from my walls.

My skin is bare, fingers tangled in
the blankets, hair drying in the
same air that dries the dew
off of the leaves.

Get drunk on dreams
crumple the sheets
ice packs and underwear
poetry, bracelets, books.

I sleep with tearstained cheeks
swollen eyes and a runny nose
and bite marks in my mouth.
I sleep with a heavy heart
and fingertips on fire.

Dizzy, fuzzy eyesight
and fantastic scenarios
played out like film in my head.

I sleep in the warmest
and coldest room of my house.
I sleep under quilts and blankets
curled up against the cold,
and I sleep naked
with the air warm against my skin.

I always sleep with a book
at my bedside
and the drapes opened
so I can see the stars.

I sleep through sunsets and sunrises
and lightning that cracks open the sky.
I sleep through delicate snowstorms
and hazy summer smoke.

I sleep by myself
and I seize the quiet
as a moment of my own,
not shared
not secret.

I sleep for life and rebirth
and tranquility,
for peace and second chances.
I sleep for mornings.

I'm weighed down by their judgmental glances
they're watching, judging me  
from my colored hair to my ripped jeans
the scars they caused litter my arms
covered by bracelets

I'm the outcast with a smile on my face
a misfit of the ******
you beat me down leaving me in pieces
one day our roles will reverse
I'll be the bully
you'll be the outcast

people ask why I wear bracelets

It is the same reason why I wear long sleeves

can you guess why?

I can not see my hand in front of me
It's being swallowed by darkness
And maybe that's a good thing
Because the dark can hide scars better than any long-sleeve can

And that's why I love it so much
Because I never have to look at those horrifying lines at night
Those purple-pink scratches that have formed a moat around my wrist
But the thing about this moat is that it is too good at keeping the dragons out
Fire-breathing thoughts that storm into my castle

And don't they understand why I wear bracelets?
Apparently not because they ask me far too often
And I always have the same answer
Invisibility
Because it's the truth
These bracelets hide battle wounds better than metal armor
Because these bracelets are my armor
And these razors in my drawer are swords that are more familiar than the back of my hand

And yet, nobody ever notices
They never notice when I wear sweaters in 70° weather
Nobody notices the days I fidget with my sleeves because they aren't long enough
Because nobody ever pays attention to the sad girl
Nobody, except her razors

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes.

THE PAWN-SHOP man knows hunger,
And how far hunger has eaten the heart
Of one who comes with an old keepsake.
Here are wedding rings and baby bracelets,
Scarf pins and shoe buckles, jeweled garters,
Old-fashioned knives with inlaid handles,
Watches of old gold and silver,
Old coins worn with finger-marks.
They tell stories.

“Pepsi employee killed in Hawkins car crash.”
“Maine Vice Mayor Deaver killed in car accident in Castle Rock.”
“Woman ‘dead’ after car crash found alive in morgue.”

The news reports on radio echoed through her whole car as she indulged her third bottle of Russian Standard. Weird, she thought; she has been hearing news about road collisions all day. She was sure that the alcohol wasn’t intoxicating her mind to hear different things, she knew she was still sober. Everybody knew she always had low alcohol tolerance, even herself knew that; now she couldn’t even taste the bitterness of the liquor, she feels it inside of her. Drinking was the thing her mother told her to never do, perhaps because it turns her father into a monster with a closed fist as a weapon.

She looked at her rear-view mirror and realised she was travelling alone on an empty road. People had told her before to never travel alone in Derry Road or else something might happen. She wasn’t travelling; she was running away. It fits her, she thought, she and the road were the same; they were both empty.

She heard an unfamiliar noise, like the sound of a steel colliding with another steel. She had realized that her car engine died while she was driving. “Seriously?” she said to herself, “Is everything I own dead now? Like me?”

She stepped outside of her car and walked to find any gasoline stations or houses that could help her. There is no luck for any signs of functioning establishments on an empty road like this, she thought. However, a place filled with buried muscle cars, abandoned pickup trucks, and old bulldozers caught her attention. It’s an empty road. How is there supposed to be a car junkyard? She thought to herself. What’s even stranger is, she didn’t see it while she was driving.

“Well this day couldn’t get any weirder,” she said. First she couldn’t get drunk after drinking three bottles, then she kept on hearing news about car crashes, and now she suddenly saw a car junkyard out of the blue? She opened her hood and a massive smoke appeared, causing her to inhale it. She was coughing while staring at the oils leaking. She didn’t know what to do. She had no choice but to look for people who could help her with her car. She didn’t know anything about it, she didn’t even know what the problem of her car was. She glanced at the sky and saw the sun was slowly setting as well as her hope in what’s happening. She thought to herself, maybe this creepy car junkyard could actually help her.

She walked towards the old car junkyard and the sight of it surprised her. Her eyes widened when she saw people hanging out, beer bottles everywhere, and some couples having the time of their lives.

“May I help you?” A long haired guy who was wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt appeared by her side. She was having second thoughts in answering him back, but she really needed help, especially if she reeks of alcohol on an empty road.

“Yes, actually I was driving and then my car suddenly stopped. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but a smoke appeared and the oils were leaking. I figured you can help me.”

“You think we know everything about cars just because we’re hanging out in a car junkyard?” He asked while laughing. Her embarrassment was overflowing at that moment which caused her to look down, she was still hearing the guy’s chuckles.

“I just guessed. I think.” She said this while looking at the ground since she was too humiliated to look at him. Much to her surprise, his laughter was no longer heard. “Thank God.” She whispered to herself.

“We’ll see what we can do. At the moment, why won’t you just join us?” Join them? Like hang out with people who are in this creepy junk yard? She stood still while ruminating on what she should do. She was feeling a little scared that maybe these people are actually killers or ghosts but there wasn’t really anything to lose for her. This is the place she'd rather be than her house where her mistakes and failures are always included in their dinner conversations.

She walked towards people who were about her age. Girls with vibrant hair colours looked at her from head to toe, some of them smiled at her that caused her to smile too.

“Your car died?” asked a short haired girl holding a beer bottle.

“Yes. This day couldn’t get any worse. Life couldn’t get any worse, from losing everything you have to people you trusted betraying you. My life is as worthless as my rotten car.” she uttered. One problem she has always had was the inability to control her mouth. People tried to cut her tongue before, unbeknownst to them it’s a far more dangerous weapon than their sharp objects.

“If that ain’t the truth.” said the short haired girl while taking a sip of her beer. Seeing people drink their beer bottles triggered her, she was fighting the urge to go back to her car and finish the remaining bottles of her Russian Standard.

“You want one?” the short haired girl asked while giving her the beer bottle. She just shrugged and shook her head, she was never a fan of beers.

The people in the car junk yard continued to hang out and drink their beers. They talked to her and even told some stories, she was enjoying their company. Epiphany suddenly hit her when this one thought crossed her mind; people there talked to her and asked her questions, but they never asked for her name. She never knew even a single name. Abandoned cars, unusual but enthusiastic people, and a junkyard in the middle of an empty road. She was starting to think she visited the labyrinth of lost people with broken cars.

“I hope you guys don’t mind me asking but, who are you and what do you do here?” curiosity was evident in her voice. For the first time, she was starting to care about things.

“We live here.” A husky and deep voice replied, which sent shivers up and down her spine.

“You live here? Like you sleep inside the cars?” Her voice was filled with wonder and a little bit of fear. She has never heard of a lifestyle like this. What about their food? Their money? Their family? These questions surrounded the confused mind of hers.

“Yeah, you can say that.”

“I’m sorry if I ask too many questions but how did you guys meet? Like, were you all friends before or did you just meet here?”

“We all met because of one thing, our cars suddenly died. Actually, two things; our cars mysteriously stopped and we all had the desire to walk away from life.”

She immediately felt tiny little bumps over her skin. She thought this was actually a nonexistent place but she was right all along. She was feeling a combination of terror and nonchalance, like a person who is on the verge of death but has already accepted the fate that the heavens had stored for her. People already had their eyes closed while some are still staring at the constellations in the sky, wondering why their lives didn’t shine as bright in the dark as them. She’d rather sleep than look at the stars, for she knows her life would be much better with her eyes closed.

“Are you sure with your decision?” a soft but eager whisper awakened her from her thoughts. She saw the long haired guy staring at her, waiting for her answer.

“What decision?”

“Are you sure you want to walk away from everything already?”

She looked at the guy with annoyance mixed with sarcasm. “What? I’m just sleeping. When my car miraculously work again, I’ll leave immediately.”

“You’re enjoying here, aren’t you?” She didn’t try to utter some words, she knew inside of her that he already knows the answer.

“I was like that too, you know? I thought this was the place where I can finally be free. I finally walked away from my problems, I don’t have to deal with never ending problems and challenges anymore.” He paused, which caused her to look at him and wait for his reply. “But that’s only what I thought.” He said this with a broken voice that she was sure she would never forget.

“But isn’t this junkyard truly for us? For people who failed, for people whose lives don’t deserve to continue anymore. Maybe our cars stopped for a reason, maybe our engines were never meant to be fixed. Maybe we were never meant to be fixed.” She felt tears slowly streaming down her face. She remembered the sight of her lover with the person she trusted the most, she remembered the bathroom floor filled with her own blood, she remembered the bruises on her face after the night her father got drunk.

“At first it was. It felt good. Until I realised that walking away from everything isn’t the solution. It doesn’t make things right, it actually makes them worse. The fact that you didn’t even try to fight is the worst thing.” She felt it. She felt his pain. She didn’t even know who this person was but one thing is for sure, she felt everything this guy had been through.

“But I tried, you know? I tried everything and life still gives me the same, eternal problems that I will never find solutions to.”

She could see his hazelnut eyes travel around her. Her blue eyes that were filled with tears looked at the boy who told her more meaningful words than her own father ever could. “I was like that. I was dumb to think life will always be easy, that I can surround myself with happiness and positivity. But life isn’t like that. Your life will not always be like the rising sun because most of the time it’s a thunderstorm. But I was more dumb to think that the best decision was to run away. I heard all about this place ever since before. I drove all the way from my place to here, thinking I could escape it all. That’s not the right decision. There isn’t a day here when I don’t think of my mother crying while I was in the hospital bed, wondering what she did wrong. I gave up on life when the people in it didn’t give up on me. I was stupid for thinking that I could reach my destination immediately without having a journey. I was stupid to think that I can just drive for 1 kilometre and be at the place I want. It doesn’t work that way, life doesn’t work like that. There will always be a journey, a journey where your car’s engine will be dead in the middle of an empty road, but you will find a way to fix it and drive again.”

“So did you regret your decision?”

“Let’s just say I was too late.” She couldn’t find the right words, she didn’t know what to say. She lets him do all the talking for she knows he can never say these words again.

“Look, I don’t want to be the one who decides for you. Maybe you’re so fed up of everything, I get it. But I’m just asking you to think about it, before everything is too late. And piece of advice, if you decide to leave here, please, don’t ever look back.” Blue meets hazelnut, in that one occurrence, they knew their car engines aren’t the only ones they have in common.

She knew that if she walked away, she was never going to see him again. It seemed impossible that he would tell her his name, but she still took the risk and ask him for it. “Before I go, can I please know your name?”

“My name’s Kevin. Kevin Parks.” His face was filled with regret and sadness. Maybe saying his own name was a struggle for him, he knew he would never hear his loved ones say it again.

She nodded and smiled at him, it’s been too long since she put a smile on her face.

“I’m Rosa.” She said. He smiled, knowing she still has the chance to let the world know her name.

“Tell my mom I’m sorry.” And just like that, he disappeared. She was left alone with the chaotic mind of hers. This was everything she wanted, to finally walk away from everything.

She looked around all the abandoned cars and abandoned souls, this is the place she’s supposed to walk away from. The darkness, the surrendering, the giving up. The people disappeared and the smell of beer and cigarettes were no longer there. Silence was her only companion, and it was the most riveting thing she has ever stumbled upon.

She went inside the rotten car of hers and inserted her key in the ignition when her engine miraculously turned on. Hearing her father’s drunken shouts, covering her scars with bracelets, and seeing people who shattered her are the things she knew she will experience again; this reality lead to Rosa’s hesitance in leaving the car junk yard. However, she thought that maybe she could visit Kevin’s mother and talk about him when he was still not aware of this place. This place, this car junkyard filled with abandoned cars and souls unexpectedly shed a light to the road towards whatever destination she was meant for. For the first time in many years, the sun finally set in her direction again. The rear-view mirror was very tempting to look at, yet she gathered all her courage to put her foot on the gas.

I made a gold digger, ******* full of vigor,
She’s on a hairpin trigger, out to **** my rigor.
Gold digger, in love with all the stuff,
Gold digger, she can’t get enough.

I’m tired of the way she treats his gifts,
He’ll give her a boat and away she drifts—
I can’t help I didn’t give her enough
Now he sees her lying to him—he’s calling her bluff.

He puts bracelets on her wrists
His charity persists,
He puts old hats on her head,
She’ll soon be overfed
His gifts can’t harbor the ship wreck
And look I’m sticking out my neck

Perhaps I can’t afford her
My broke *** just bores her.

Perhaps it’s more than that,
Perhaps it’s under the hat.
Perhaps her head is so done with me,
That the gifts he gives are guilt-free.
Perhaps I’m loosing sight,
Of the things they have so right,
Maybe they’re cleaning horse **** holding hands
Perhaps that’s what’s turning on her adrenal glands—

Gold digger, shallow to a point
Fishing for meaning, Heaven please anoint.
I think I get it, somewhere inside,
You pompous shallow ***** go run and hide.

Surf or skate, and fall and break
The waves will crush you over-take,
And when the good get’s going and I’m out of sight
You and He, will shrink into the night,
And in your heart, Gold digger
My purpose is always Bigger.

Because you love me without cash
But you treat me like your trash,
I’ll probably get in a car crash,
Running him over cause’ I’m just so brash.

This I will confess,
Your heads a ******* mess,
Unless you give up the gold,
Your heart and mine will grow even more cold.

I made a gold digger, ******* full of vigor,
She’s on a hairpin trigger, out to **** my rigor.
Gold digger, in love with all the stuff,
Gold digger, she can’t get enough.

Twenty years locked in this cell.
well
unwell
but what the hell I could have done another twenty more behind the safety of that door and that being said,
I could have done it standing on my head.
Dead is just a state of body and not of mind, a cell that's lined by circumstance is not a cell in which one wants to dance,
but one can think as one sinks into solitude and your eyes stay shut,glued against the lid that's put upon the day.
Twenty years,enough to pay,I paid and I get out today,break free so I can break away,
well
unwell
what the hell
we're all inside
locked in the cell.

she wears her hospital bracelets like jewelry
to cover the scars that adorn her like
red-inked tattoos.
she pops pills like soda tabs
ignoring the dangers of overdosing
on caffeine highs and the sickly
sweetness of sugar.
she cannot recall the last time she didn't
wash her
antidepressants
anxiety meds
sleeping pills
mood stabilizers
down with alcohol in the hopes
someone would notice the heavy imbalance
wasn't just in her head.
she hasn't believed in god since
she crept downstairs on her ninth birthday
to stare at her reflection in the kitchen knives
and didn't see Him staring back at her.
there was nobody telling her to go
back to bed.
she hasn't gotten on her knees for
anything holy since she started
inflicting pain upon herself;
leaving traces of sadness on
her ribcage
her wrists
her thighs
her stomach
her hips.
she has been living in a grave
and her thoughts never stop playing hide and seek
she only ever searches
at the bottom of a lake
or if they're mixed in with the stones in her pockets
or hiding under the train tracks near her house.

Rubber bracelets adorn her wrists like she just strolled out of a punk concert (like she just strolled out of middle school) , she picks the scabs of playground ostracism till they look as though they were ripped into her self esteem yesterday.

In her mind, they were.

I find her burying her face between her knees during an ice breaker activity.

The quadruple piercings on one her ear portend an imagined mosh pit, but she digs her own as she cradles herself against the wall.

Her arms are bowling alley bumpers, she throws them up around her head to protect them from the familiar miasma that pervades every inch of her whenever she is in a group of more than three.

Gutterball.

She let me in her room last night. She invited me to share in solitude w/ a good book. I brought a tattered poetry anthology. She said I could sit next to her in her bed; I took a seat at the head, she sat coiled in the far back corner against the wall, legs tucked in against her body.

She was an injured rabbit, her burrow of blankets and books only gave her so much shelter.

She eats alone at breakfast amongst the group.

She starves herself. Her blood fills her stomach as the ulcers feed her imploding hunger that half glasses of chocolate milk cannot

She was dared to eat five gummy bears, and I swear by my own scars that she was about to bawl, eyelids pulled back by the judgmental demons she sees every day in the mirror, they chastise her for the chocolate milk, but her desperate hunger wins this battle. Barely.

Her headphones are like sunglasses shielding her eyes from meeting gazes with another.

I’m sorry Sarah, no matter how hard you push your spine against the bricks you will not phase through them, you are stuck with us here for five weeks my dear, and it is only day one.

I’m sorry that all I know of you is that your name is Sarah and that your last name begins with an R, I think. I haven’t had the guts to look back at the group text message our counselors sent out to check your last name because that would be closer to stalking than I feel comfortable going.

I’m sorry that I notice how your wrists and ears contradict the smile you stitch across your face just before you hide it behind your hair, and that I notice the absolute terror in your eyes as you stare at the mass of your peers before you.

I’m sorry that noticing makes me believe that I know you at all.

I’m sorry for how they all gawk at how adorable you are when more than three people give you their attention. I can only imagine how flush your cheeks become.

But I would think that you stopped blushing years ago. The permanent outflow of blood from your aorta to your face coagulated long ago, leaving your face with a perpetual hue of dull purple. Your body doesn’t know what to do with all the excess embarrassment.

I think you compensate by blood letting.

The only bracelet you wear that suits you is of the Deathly Hallows. A tiny silver stencil on a blue piece of twine. It’s blue like the four A.M. sky.

I think it gives you strength.

Sarah, your arms are not an invisibility cloak. While your hair may hide your face and your bracelets your scars, the world will see you.

It’s ironic that the very things you use to protect yourself bear your self-loathing like a family crest.

Class time. She darts to the back corner desk like a painted swordtail to a coral shoal, she curses her opaque scarlet hue, she thinks it ugly but the reef can still see her beauty behind the jagged outcroppings of her fragmented self-esteem. It shines through and refracts off the water, viscous like teenage judgment, and we see the spectrum of her beauty.

She’s a cognitive science major. She looks for a road map through her own thoughts in the curriculum, turn left at her fear of eating in front of others, bear right at her boyfriend of four months. She tries to make herself two dimensional at the lunch table, arms strapped to her sides like a straight jacket.

She jokingly told me to stop whistling about dreamt dreams and the French Revolution, she said it would make her cry. So I stopped.

I’ve never read Les Miserables, but I’ve sung enough about dreamt dreams to know that Life can fill your lungs like a zeppelin and can resonate through your mouth like Notre Dame just before Sunday mass if you only let it.

Let Life build a cathedral inside of you Sarah. The bricks are yours for the taking, and we are all standing here beside you with mortar at the ready.

Chapter XXI
Hegira to Patmos

They dropped their moorings from Cala Cogone early, when the tide seemed to be separated from the waters like a head distanced from its body. On a lavish and romantic day they went to Genoa, to continue the logistics of the trip to Piacenza. During the trip Etréstles was stretched out in the bow under a Sun that seemed to be fearsome as it was a digestive task that would make him ingest his own dream, which perhaps he aspired to be more than a journey. While he slept, at the helm Etréstles dressed in a black robe and the comrades also sleeping with dreams that they painted with sign gestures on their faces.

Dream of Etréstles: "With the memory off-center ..., I was still in Izzana, dancing by the clouds on gray tulles of the layers of the sky that tried to stop being a Kingdom without a Crown and Sword". They glimpsed the stones melting and turning into gauze juxtaposed to the aerosolites that unfolded from the Sorcery, landing on the hands and heads of Vernarth and Himself. As he continued his dreamy journey, he dialogued with the auxiliary legate of his own dream. “He tells her that he sees them beyond where their liturgies collide. They cross eroding the vanished and itinerant reason”. He gets up and takes the moorings of the ship and ties them to his neck. Then everyone cooperates to walk along the edge of the ship, which all moved barefoot. This is how I would wake up!

Vernarth tries to wake him up, shakes him, but doesn't wake up. And when he tried to avoid him from sleep, he saw that he had the moorings around his neck, along with two Unicorns who were escorting him and were looking towards infinity, auspicious that Genoa was already coming in front of their horns. The others began to wake up and ate reclining, almost as if without any desire to get up from the deck full of self-sliding linen, which allowed everyone to pass their own meals, including those that were semi-consumed rolling on the deck. Etréstles,  transferred the dream to Vernarth, once he went to his bedroom to rest before they touched the roadstead at the foot of the homonymous promontory, 36 km from Genoa.  Portofino, close to the hydro form of the Portofino Regional Natural Park.  Being able to find different entrance doors through S. Rocco, Portofino Vetta and Nozaregoino  that led you to paths with different levels of accessibility and landscape. On the route of the path that traveled from Northwest to Southwest on the same promontory, he received the full beauty of the Mediterranean vegetation, with its beautiful pines, bluish and clean waters of the Mediterranean, which filled his lungs and especially his stem, which silenced of peace to those who accompany you through this interesting and beautiful Natural Park with deep blue eyes.
Vernarth is wrapped with two layers of linen and stands in between eclipsing each of the Unicorns. They pass her horn through her pectoral, as if wanting to insinuate affection. But her propitiated gesture was to crown her with the Power of her phalanx, the impetus in Gaugamela, an Onyx Crown, to lighten the burden of sleep and wake up before reaching the shores of Genoa.
Calling in Genoa, they all descend in a separate part and say goodbye from afar, gesturing with their hands. Their ramblings revealed multi-level radiographs of the resolved aura that invited them to an enclave hostel, to re-enter the world of their daily chores. The Unicorns who would return back to Sardinia stayed on the ship that was in the blue bay. They positioned themselves at the bow one and at the stern the other, to lighten the sails and return to Izzana.

Vernarth and Etréstles walked with their bags, letting go of their feet towards La Via ** Settembre, they travel in an east-west direction, next to Corso Italia, the promenade that runs along the promenade, which is one of the favorite places to reform the destination of Piacenza. From this road they moved near the adjacent carriage station to the Caruggio neighborhood in Sottoripa. Here they entered an inn to eat and drink liqueurs made from natural herbal recipes and sweet citrus, some fish with bread, sauce and Genovés sourdough. to satisfy their hunger.
They had dinner and opened the exit to the terminal. Before, they went to the Ponte Monumentale where the church dedicated to Santa Rita is, called Iglesia de la Consolación, whose entrance, at the level of the old streets, is slightly lower than the current street. They pass a porch and enter. "Almost like a grand cloister sensation they perceived during their stay, as if centuries had passed, but which never ended in the wanderings of any secular period. It was the impression once entered and soaked on this road, which still remains active. From this original cloister, the invocation of images on the sides placed towards the church towards Via ** Settembre, as well as the closed portal in the market access plaza on Via Galata, recur, while the other two sides are they completed attractions to admire when the eastern market in Genoa appeared before them ”.

When they entered, the masks were passed over the bones of their faces, indulgent towards both faces of the visitors, under a freshness of gravitational atmospheric fragrance, perhaps from the connected baptismal font or the lateral nave or the three naves separated by square pillars illuminating them. This is where Vernarth places his right hand on his forehead and his mouth, as a sign of catechesis detached from The Vault, the central nave and the counter-facade that were painted in fresco in 1874 by Giuseppe Isola, after reading about the intertextual verifying thus Vernarth. (Visioni dell'Apocalisse, Gloria di Nostra Signora della Consolazione and Giuditta rientra trionfante in Betulia), while Etréstles frenziedly admitted the frescoes through the side aisles that are the work of Giovanni Quinzio at an angle close to him. Observing everything, he was already indoctrinating to reprint new vigor to enter Piacenza triumphantly and head to the Region of Patmos. Giuseppe Isola's fresco was the great motive that struck his reason for being where he was to continue the threads upon threads of his lineage as the great Commander of the troops of Gaugamela and his Phalanges. Here is the church in its first tune with the duty of limitlessness before its steps to dominions that will make it recover their powers, from where they were first seen dressing in the clothes of an innocent child.


In the apse, there was the choir singing baroque pieces, and followed by elaborate wooden stalls from the 17th century. In the Altars on the left, on the Fifth Altar, Etréstles, captures a simultaneous vision. From that moment when it was the disappearance of this Santa Maria della Pace church, which could have been one structure on top of the other, perhaps in ruins but if the columns could go further from where their originals are born. Until then both had separated from each other, and they would meet again here in the apse, where they never lose sight of each other again, to turn towards the exit that required them to leave the sacred precinct. In the terminal, a grayish float awaited them, with silver trim on the edges of the structure, at the top of the front roof it said "Where you must never go and be". It was just the transport of an allegorical float. They were theatrical traveling artists, who had places available for travelers to Piacenza. The one that they just approached to move to the home, where they had to register at their own will and rejoin this excellent session "Parapsychological Regression".The Trebbia valley, a few kilometers from Piacenza. Vernarth noted that a shaft of the chariot made a strange sound. To which he notified the driver, telling him what he caught on the rear axle of the carriage. They go down to inspect all; not being able to detect anything that it would suppose would be an anomaly of filming of the instrumental east. Etréstles sees that some steeds were grazing on some meadows and he tells them all. Vernarth warns him and immediately heads to them. It reaches only a sorrel that was running its tongue over its hoof. The others flee. Vernarth approaches, and notices that he had a wound in his left hoof, noticing that in the center there was a strip of Green color, He takes his leg, and examines it. He takes out his dagger and begins to remove the stake that was inserted into his damaged leg. The others were gone, restarting the trip to Piacenza. Etréstles managed to climb a steed, and followed him - The float remained without them supposedly to arrive safely at Piacenza. But at 5 km, before reaching the city they are struck by a lightning bolt from a sudden storm. What misdirects his route - the passengers were left intact, only fatally suffered the loss of the driver. (It was verified by Vernarth when he arrived at his home in Piacenza).   As  Vernarth rode fast in the storm, trying to catch up with the carriage. Stress them towards the same to reach their brother. They rode propagating the pastures that passed near the forests of Val Trebbia. When the storm intensified instantly, it was wise to take refuge and wait for the flood to decrease. They were always close to each other. Etréstles about 18 km from Vernarth, they did not know it, but the horses sensed each other. They already distinguished, that they were close to each other, but it was necessary to take care of the horse, and have to check its hoof again. He checks it and notices that it had a green stripe in the four parts, like a pigment already placed concentrically in the middle of each hoof.


Ellipses Gaugamela - Final War
Vernarth bids farewells farewell. Once the Achaemenides are surrendered, he prepares to review them. Walk with Alikanto across the ****** plain. Reviewing his five hundred dead and three thousand wounded, he goes to recirculate in the footsteps of the attack, manages to see lead as a sentinel gathered wounded horses, but not serious. He approaches him and says Khaire; asking what unit they came from. He tells them of the Hosts of the command of Hefestion. The sentinel tells him, that he was enraptured by the fact before his eyes to see that all the horses of the line of Hefestion, Alexander the Great and Vernarth, to fascinate him that they had a green stripe on his left hoof. Wedge riders are formed, lining up the stable, towards the court of the guards and Macedonian monarchs. She dismounts from Alikanto and checks the chestnut trees, managing to insinuate that it could be Medea's ploy of the smiling charm towards her Hetairoi dancers, whose elite had bracelets on each leg on each chestnut. Also with the offensive weapon, they acted as the Macedonian's personal guard. Vernarth recalled that, before starting the offensive, with his blessed Xifos he inflicted light wounds on the left foot of his Phalanges in the act of "overtaking them before being stained by the enemy"

Vernarth says: Here is the cavalry that has received so much praise for «hammer» in the strategies, because it crushed the enemy units retained by the «anvil» or the «phalanx» that I had to command and lead the charge, intoning the riders. And even more the circumcisions that he gave them before entering combat. With the Hetairoi I was organizing squadrons of 200 to 300 soldiers, while they were checking the chestnut trees. In the campaign, they would ride the best horses, ******* or on the blanket, they were awarded the best weapons available. Each carried his long throwing spear Xyston, accompanied by a Kopis sword, for hand-to-hand combat, which in the interlude would defend his flax and bronze breastplate, with respective protective armbands and helmet, before lightly tackling his aggression . The horses were also partially protected, but not their hooves! I gave them the final instruction by decree to take them to the altarpieces and attend to them, so that they check their left hoof.Thus giving signs of great concern about the green stripe on each of its left hooves. Sentinel Hetairoi, with some of his servants, gather the animals and transport them where they have been ordered to tend and examine them. As the designs collapse over the night in gloomy litanies, Medea bursts into a great green outfit saying:

Medea: Vernarth, rancid are on my memory the potions and designs of those who want to talk about me or offer me in their lust.Where the zeal of anxiety deceives the wishful arms that welcome the victorious pleasure. Hooves are my skeptics and famous decisions, because I am weak in will but not in character. Green is the pouring of my converted powers into the veins of the horses. They were carriers in their eloquent ferocity. Instead of blood, I had sap from the magic vessels that I transferred to them so as not to doubt the doubts. Their object is that a green band was encased in their hooves as a sign of the Hipnos promontory through their Son Clovis, to plunge all the forests of the raging underworld, towards the heart of each "Valiant Hetairoi".


Outside ellipsis / near Piacenza
Vernarth and Etréstles in a post-storm clearing, a soft breeze greets them and they meet again, they greet Khaire! And together they reroute to the empty pastures, which would gradually begin to venture them through the farthest forests of the Val Trebbia. On some brown plains with poor colors that visited him falling as they faded on his mirage. From this unusual crossroads they will supremely perceive the closeness of Piacenza in their breathing.
Now they are in the vicinity of the Cimitero de Piaceza. Then they will have to go home on the Via Giovanni Codagnello, on the calendar of January 2020. The Parapsychological Regression continues.


Piacenza Cemetery, January 20, 2020
Vernarth and Etréstles entered the necropolis long before sunset. They were carrying a cake to celebrate Vernarth's birthday. Night Patrol joined the visit. In particular, they followed a night watch service that was active, trusting their guide Piacenza or the surrounding area, with 3 internal night patrol passages 365 days a year, for the rest of lives beyond all material life, perhaps turned into marble statues.
They hired a special service dedicated to the approved service for 2 people .; They were active during the caretaker's office opening hours (the same opening hours as the cemetery). With this service they overcame difficulties to walk after so much traveling. They leave the green-hoofed horses, now turned into statues. They request authorization from the entrance cemetery offices, to honor their belonging and to please those who visit them on their behalf. In Genoa, after having passed through the exterior without entering, they were ecstatic with the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa (the most monumental in Italy).But if they enter the Piacenza, where the sanitary monumentality passed through the real function of such an enclosure in the contingency. It was commented by the neighboring offices that the migration of corpses from Bergamos were moved to Modena, Acqui Terme, Domodossola, Parma, Piacenza to carry out the respective ceremonies. Due to the great Viral Pandemic that decimated a great majority of Italian citizens in these areas. Vernarth became aware of the current reality, saw how a gravedigger conversed with the crowds, there was a nurse, a doctor and a prodigal man who concentrated on uploading moods to those who were there, almost like a caster, to relieve them of this transitory despite humanity.
They continue past the pyramidal pines, to the central pavilion. They sit on the edge of some flagstones, and take the cake to celebrate their birthday. They sing a hymn and they both enjoy it lovingly. Etréstles saw that he had a little cream left on his nose and cheekbone, running his hand to remove it. In the instant, the guard calls them; it was time to go because it was time to close the compound. They say goodbye with a monumental hug paying tribute to their brother!


Etréstles says: Honors Vernarth, for your immeasurable Valor! It is a great contribution that we divide our work and commitments. From here I go to the Messolonghi Cemetery. I will only wait for the crescent moon to meet the Charioteer, then leave with him and my beloved Drestnia. My Xifos Sword in my right hand and the head that I cut off in my left hand, in Gaugamela before that rugged fate! Khaire, My honors Commander Etréstles!. It remains in the shadow of some pyramidal pine trees of this sublime night, and then they distance themselves. Vernarth leaves the compound heading towards his house relatively close to the cemetery, on the Via Giovanni Codagnello.


Final session in Vía Codagnello, Piacenza:
Vernarth enters opens the door and everyone is waiting for him. Huge groups of friends, work colleagues, family, their pets, and especially the Parapsychologist, who had commanded this whole great session. They all approach her and in the instant, Vernarth awakes abruptly from the parapsychological session. They stabilize it and check your vital signs. There were many days of this odyssey. His awakening was mediatic, since they were attentive to him to question him and confess everything, but he was clear that his purpose would lead him to the confines of Patmos along with Raeder and Petrobus. It remained only to wait for the tenuity of a simple immortal warrior to assist in the services of John the Evangelist. The parapsychologist says you have to wake up, you can no longer be AND stay here in this temporary tube!
Once he has refused to wake up, he takes the itinerary to return to Macedonia. The visibly worn and stunned parapsychologist demands that he give up and obey his command. The effort was unproductive, only letting himself be carried by the grip of his right hand, taking his other with great vigor to remove it from shamelessness, from whom he does not suppress his pride to who still remains wounded by the swords that bleed his soul in Gaugamela. "Everyone is amazed and resigned !, pointing out that he must have always been in the surroundings of his beloved Macedonia, cutting the bursts of succulent insolence on the same temperate cliffs, where some variation of the sounds of the wind would make him saddle his Alikanto to acclaim the gods who came looking for him ”

Vernarth is engulfed in ambivalence, almost celebrating his birthday and waking up from his parapsychological journey. Both will take place, but the session will continue irrevocably. After a few days close to the first day of the crescent moon, he greeted him from a privileged place on his house Etréstles de Kalavrita who was with the Charioteer in his car and Drestnia, they went in that masterful car to join the chores of the Koumetrium Messolonghi (Editorial Palibrio - USA) .So returning to Messolonghi, to meet his disciples and essences of the foundation of his naturalness.


Hegira to Patmos
On a gray day in July 1820. Piacenza slept under the ambush of the revolution, in Italy there was a situation similar to that of another European nation. Vernarth was preparing his last details with the parapsychologist, to undertake his Hegira to Patmos, since he was a revolutionary and this was of great motivation to emigrate from this constant stage of Wars and sociopolitical processes. Manage to be a participant in this revolt in the Piedmont area. Its ideological axes were liberalism and nationalism. Given that the most affected countries were those of southern Europe (episodes from other areas, such as Germany or France, were much less important), with Spain as epicenter of a movement that extended to Italy and Portugal, and on the other hand Greece; It has been called the Mediterranean cycle as opposed to the Atlantic cycle that had preceded it in the previous generation (the first liberal revolutions or bourgeois revolutions, produced on both sides of the ocean: the Independence of the United States -1776- and the French Revolution -1789- ). As compromised great principalities of much of Europe were banned, it participates in great dissolution of collisions and invasions that involved it. In this way he would liberate his Homeland, especially his province of Piacenza.

Although the "Kingdom of Italy" as such did not exist, there were two great kingdoms that participated in the Revolutions of 1820: the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Piedmont. However, most of the revolutionary movements were driven by secret societies, such as coal. The Kingdom of Piedmont was also one of the most affected, since it was at the epicenter of Italian nationalism. It was controlled by Víctor Manuel I, member of the House of Savoy and defender of the Old Regime. The monarch had only been on the throne for 6 years, since he returned to Turin in 1814 due to the defeat of Napoleon. Since his return, various factions within the country advocated for a unification of all the Italian kingdoms. The unstable situation of its neighbor, the Kingdom of Naples, caused the carbonarians within Piedmont to revolt in March 1821.

Conclusive Hegira ellipsis to Patmos:
After this great conflict, he orders his parapsychologist to resume his final session in Patmos; he begins the procedure for the era that he had to trespass anachronistically, returning to the era of the Macedonian Empire. The parapsychologist asks him time, place, dates, clothing, customs, and manages to meet his request. He enters the portal, and in the backwaters of Messolonghi he meets Raeder and Petrobus. They were close to this heroic land, Messolonghi in the Gulf of Patras, the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania. Nothing less than in the land of his Brother Etréstles "Koumeterium Messolonghi".


"They all approach the vicinity, pray three times to heaven, and manage to be abducted to the underworld of Messolonghi. When they were snooping through the catacombs, they make out the surroundings of a luminous vault, thus distinguishing a woman passing by with others. It was the beautiful nymph Eurydice inaugurating The Constitution of a new Government”.
Eurydice and the gravediggers worked for the new government to be instituted. They were reviewing the last ground plans that converged on the tenth cemetery.
Eurydice ...: with the absence of Etréstles and Drestnia we will make her awakening continue, whose awakening phase closely relates to her wife.
Grave ...: Where do we start?
Eurydice ...: by the southwestern statue of Ashurbanipal, to pay tribute to Botsaris. Then, we will go up to receive the cordoned off tomb of Bramante and Ghiberti, so that the latter can advise us regarding the work to be erected.
They climb the northeast pavilion to the foundations of a mausoleum. They approach the slab of Ghiberti, who was loosening his fingers, sitting on the shore of a Pyramid-shaped cypress. Bramante vanished into the gray beams of light...

Ghiberti ...: I already know your mission. I am summoned to the Council on the day of the sailors' return. To start, they went to the mines to look for precious stones, stones to build Markos Botsaris.
Eurydice ...: Good! Well, in nine moons and nine suns they will return from the coasts of Morocco, the last docking point, so that they can then return. At the moment they are already warned.
Just back, there was a Lover with her right hand holding her chin.

Inamorada In Love ...: Five centuries ago I awaited my awakening, my lover promised to return ... with these verses...:
"I want to be different,
I want to take you my love...
and tell you that by missing you
there is no greater sadness than not seeing you ...
Forgive me for not coming back...
before my absence caused your death,
Wait for me ... I'm going to tell you ... how I miss you
Along with my immortality of feeling...!  How I miss you...!!

... He still tells me this, but from here, under the embankment of the cemetery I feel that he is far away and I can do nothing. Also, I have it in my memory and one day we will meet here. The Enamorada continues to sit and watch armies of soldiers being thrown into graves, their bodies severed. As she continues; ... there is more life here than on the surface, and the trenches replace the concave wombs, as vessels! As everything here lives, even the flowing and hallucinatory invocations are perceived from the Poets, Alchemists and Astronomers. They make the invisible go in a formidable adventure to the site of their magical hallucinations.
Eurydice ...: Stay on your stone, with your chiffon dress; here you will see the arrival of Etréstles. He will bring news from other lands to answer you. Now dispense if we delay, sadness will fall on the other beings who are being buried and transhumated. The Enamorada remained on the stone with her knees resting on her chest. Eurydice and her assistants went to their rooms. "
All this they manage to witness, and then go in search of Etréstles on the same tenth cemetery floor. Raeder and Petrobus were laughing and at the same time they were impressed, as if wanting to remember him when they have to leave directly from Messolonghi to Patmos, towards the Dodecanese region. In the meantime Vernarth was searching for his brother in all the nearby areas of the catacombs flashing penetrating light, unable to find him. He arrives at the ninth cemetery and is fascinated by a feminine image that would seem like a phantasmagorical chimera ..., it was Drestnia moistening some ferns on some crypts making gestures to see them already grown, even if they had just been planted...!

They approach her intimacy and ask her greetings, Drestnia answers them abstractedly that Etréstles traveled to Patmos to applaud the maiden ceremonies that would be wed in the spring in the nearby meadows. Being able to settle in The Monastery of Zoodochos Pigi, and who later went to the hills of Castelli, as it has been known that everything has been celebrated on a hill that many hundreds of years ago has sheltered our historical fragrances in the unity of the ethereal until the present. Such ruins among some works as well as the Temple of Apollo that will continue to survive with its prevailing mystery not revealed.
Etréstles gives them their congratulations and wraps his arms around Drestnia. They evacuate the cemetery, remaining abstracted in the internal darkness of the catacombs with fewer lights than a feasible twilight of darkness, as if immediately leaving Etréstles to be with him in the spring, shedding light on herself taking them to the Castelli hills, which they would figure in the sweetened exaltation of the pollinations of the nymphs on the maternal and ****** maidens.

They go out and spread their impulses over the promontory of the Koumeterium of Messolonghi with Raeder and Petrobus on Raeder's shoulders. Vernarth invoked the north with her staff where Alikanto would appear with her hooves with greenish stripes.

Raeder says:  Let's go. On those warm currents to follow we will not unite you Vernarth. Smiling, the fantastic boy danced, forming figures that enlivened him to hold on to the legs of Petrobus. They both stared at Vernarth and raised high above the warm clouds. Beneath the Messolonghi miniature, she had Vernarth's sights on them; she was putting reins and her Hoplite tunic, to mount Alikanto. He looks around and makes a big sign to Raeder to follow him to where he was, they suspend themselves and manage to go back to the highest mass of misty airs that would take them against the clock towards Patmos to meet Saint John and Etréstles.

Today I wrote to you. I haven’t seen you in seven months and sixteen days, as of 10 AM this morning. Only two weeks left. It seems unreal… It also seems that to write to you is all I have. So this morning I sat at my desk, and I opened my mind to all the things I could have said to you, but never thought to.

Do you remember the first day we met? It was in the café on Franklin Blvd. You were wearing your grey Fedora, a Hurley shirt, and those burnt sienna penny loafers we’d make so much fun of later.

I was at the table by the window, and I couldn’t help but notice you. Three of your fingernails were painted yellow, and you wore a bunch of beaded hemp bracelets on your right wrist. They looked Bohemian to me, but one day you explained the difference in that and Jamaican. You were singing a little tune while waiting in line. Later, you’d call it your “little ditty,” and you’d sing it all the time. You always said things like that, & I always fell in love with you more.

You ordered a vanilla cappuccino and a plain English muffin. I looked down at the same half-eaten muffin and cold cappuccino in front of me. I wondered why it seemed that I knew you already.

You sat down at a table a few feet away from me. You took off your penny loafers and took a handheld game of Yahtzee out of your pocket to accompany your breakfast. I was perplexed that you hadn’t noticed me staring yet.

Ah, there it was. You looked over at me. You must have sensed me by then. Immediately you smiled that half-smile you would always do, a mix between a condescending smirk and a boyishly cute pride. It was altogether endearing. You raised your eyebrows and nodded, as if we’d known each other for years. I admired your charmingly playful introduction. I would soon call you sweet pea.

………………

It was eight months ago today that you told me you were leaving. Your large brown eyes were full of promise and sorrow. I dropped my half-full coffee mug, and it spilled all over the carpet. The cat ran to lick it up, and was disappointed when the taste was utterly bitter. In other circumstances, I would have laughed and pointed it out to you, and we’d admire the cat’s zealous naïveté.

However, the cat had but a split-second of my stolid attention before my eyes met yours again, and I felt paralyzed. I asked what you meant, and you repeated yourself.

You told me of Jacob and all he meant to you. I cried when you told me how God and all his goodness took a sixteen year-old boy and his giant heart away from this world, away from his brother. You also told me how you’d avoided him for over three years before his death.

I was in disbelief that you’d never told me of him. You just looked down and said you’d had no room in your selfish green world for his coal-black sickness. Then you told me of his letter before he passed, asking one thing from each person he cared about. To help the world in a way they never would have done before, to somehow leave a legacy in his name.

My stomach felt sick. My baked-apple oatmeal felt at the tip of my tongue. How could this be happening to you? I instantaneously let go of any would-be grudge against you for being kept from the cruelly and sickeningly beautiful reality attacking your heart.

For I could see in your eyes that you were tearing your soul to shreds. You explained how in your peaceful aura had been a mask, a denial of the sickness slowly claiming your brother, waiting it out. For he couldn’t die. He would simply be better one day, and you were waiting for that. But, he did die. And you already knew what your mission would be.

You were leaving in two weeks from that day. You were flying to Africa with the church your brother had been devoted to since the diagnosis four years before this day. You’d spend eight months with the church members in Africa, working with children in a third-world country. Anything you donated would be in the name of Jacob Meyers.

You had talked about this with your family, and they agreed it would please Jacob and the legacy he had asked for. I at once stated that I was going too. My belittled heart broke cleanly in two when you told me how you had to go alone, that Jacob wanted a noble mission.

He had explained that he wanted someone to do selfless work in his name. How in order to give truly, you must give all. I knew you felt that you had to give the largest part, for you’d been the most selfish to avoid him. I let you keep your dignity and, broken, I accepted what you were doing. If anything, I loved you so much more for it.

Sorrowfully and dutifully we packed bags to attend his funeral. I never told you this, but I read four novels on sibling death. I wanted to take your hand in mine and feel what you were going to feel when you saw him laying there.

………………

In two weeks I will see you again. I will travel to the airport and pick you up and time will move once again. I often wonder how spectacularly, or marginally, you will have changed.

I have your loafers, your fedora, and your faded Hurley shirt ready to wear to the café where we met when you come back.




To my faux Jamaican sweet pea,
I miss you.

His home is an orphanage
in downtown Belize.
Triple-decker bunk beds
topped with ***** stained mattresses
fill each room.
An abandoned 10 year old
lies paralyzed on the floor;
"Don't touch him. Nobody ever touches him."
A small child covered in sores
sleeps in a puddle of his own *****.

I offer a container of pink Play-dough to a boy
who proceeds to sculpt me
changing the pink to brown
with his ***** hands.
When he is done,
it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
"What is your name?"
"I'm Allen"
He tells me about his dreams of leaving Belize
and becoming a U.S. soldier.
He tells me of how his mother,
a **** addict,
dropped him off at the doorstep when he was 8 years old
and how he remembers
the look of fear and disappointment in her eyes
every time she looked at him
and saw his father.
His favorite color is blue.
Together, we make bracelets with colorful beads,
and as I stand to leave
he hands me a pinkish-brown heart
warm and sweaty
from his ***** hands.
And in return
I hand Allen,
and every child like him,
my own heart
red and ******,
dedicated and passionate,
foolishly and hopefully attempting
to change the world.