right now there are eleven empty containers of alcohol in my bedroom,
but it's fine, i'm fine.
i've been telling myself for more than a year
that i wasn't going to write anymore sad ****** poems about you,
but here we are.
most days i'm sure i don't miss you,
but then i listen to the wrong song,
and before i know it -
i'm screaming along to band of horses in the dark,
stalking your twitter favorites,
and somehow,
i've managed to get snot on my forehead.
yeah, nostalgia is an *******
but not all the memories sting.
there was that one time we went to the movies
and i slipped on some ice and fell flat on my ***.
i just sat there while you took a picture.
but i'm glad we could laugh about it.
i'm glad we were comfortable.
in my head, we still are.
in my head, we're oversized-goodwill-sweater comfortable.
we aren't as comfortable in real life
but i'm glad we still laugh.
this is the part where i don't bring up the time you told me
my laughter could cure your sadness,
because i'm pretty sure i already put that in another poem,
and it makes me really ******* sad.
did i ever tell you i used to play guitar and piano?
i loved them, but i never tried very hard.
i wanted to be good without having to practice.
i wanted to be good without having to practice.
i wanna meet the girl you write about
so i can ask her how she manages not to love you back.
because i've tried everything & i am so tired.
i forgot this wasn't supposed to be a sad poem.
i'm not good at happy anyway,
i never have been.
but in your absence i've learned a lot about softness.
so if i ever find myself back in your passenger seat,
i won't correct you when you sing the wrong lyrics,
i won't ask why when you take the long way home.
i won't ask you why you don't have your seatbelt on,
i'll just say a silent prayer
and watch for signs that you might be about to swerve.
right now there are eleven empty containers of alcohol in my bedroom,
and i didn't find you at the bottom of a single one.

- m.f.

Vulnerable is what I am
When I let the real me outside
It's not safe, sometimes, to be so carefree
Should I risk hurt, or play safe and hide?

But people who love me keep asking me
To open my heart up to them
I don't know why that's so uncomfortable
I guess vulnerable is not what I am

The few times I've worn my heart on my sleeve
My words never came out right
So I've practiced being less vulnerable
And kept my real thoughts out of sight

People keep saying to use more words
But I fear I'll be misunderstood
Maybe I won't express myself right
Or I'll say way more than I should

Words, I've found, are containers for thoughts
I don't know why I sit here and hoard them
When I store them unspoken, my thoughts sit unused
Unshared—a container unopened

It's a little like having a pantry of food
And keeping it all to myself
Food's meant to be shared, and if it is not
It helps no one—just rots on the shelf

And that's how it is with my words kept inside
If love doesn't share them some way
My thoughts stored inside these containers called words
Can spoil and turn bitter someday

I used to complain that people didn't understand me
And for that I would silently resent them
But the silence, I now see, is of my own making—
If they don't know me, it's because I haven't let them

They say, in the wheel of life, you'll spend half your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the bottom. I guess they got it all wrong. I believe life is a crooked tire that can never roll up and down. Pretty sure, it is nailed to the ground where weeds could grow to entangle it forever. Until now, what they keep trying to say remains a puzzle to me. Perhaps I can never understand what they mean. Or maybe I just won’t. Why? Because from the moment our eyes opened for the world, we’re already stuck down below and I’m afraid we’re trapped here in this limbo for all eternity.

We’re just simple people living an ordinary life. Like every family who seeks refuge from the storm, we do have a place we call home although it’s not much of an architectural delight. However, for some reasons, I find our roof appealing like a real work of art. Patches of cardboard embellish the underside while a combination of tarpaulin and ad posters works in harmony to provide an extended shelter. On bright mornings, we’ll wake from the sunbeams piercing through its many gaps. On rainy days, however, the sound of raindrops falling from the gaps down to our water containers serves as our wake up call.

To jumpstart ourselves for another day’s challenge, we could either eat breakfast (if there were any), or just sing our skipping meals away and spend the rest of the day with sacks of scraps and rubbishes on our back hoping to make a good deal with Mr. Gomez, the junk shop proprietor. He reminded me so much of my father but without the alcohol problem and violence, though. During nighttime, we bring with us our drum to sing carols on the lonely streets. If our feet become too weary to walk, that’s the time we head home. We rush all together, eager to count the coins we’ve collected that night. We make sure to put a plastic cap underneath two of our table’s feet so that it won’t lean uncontrollably and spill the tiers of ten, five and one peso coins we’ve dedicatedly piled over. Then the next part does the trick. A portion of our collection for the night goes straight down a big jar and joins in the many others which fill more than half of the container. The remaining part is used to buy supper to save our hungry tummies from
shrinking again. However, during slack nights when drivers and busy people decided to become miserly, we’re fortunate enough to have a pack of noodles for supper. But if we ran out of luck, we just set our untidy beds ready and drown our raging stomachs to sleep. I know there’s not pretty much but this is where our lives revolve. And as they say, life must go on no matter what.

Together with the three most important persons of my life, I continue the journey for a better living. Along the way, we try to search for the good things out of life’s bitter truths. We never let misery **** our hopes and dreams. Instead, we work harder and tougher. Take Islay, for example. She’s cheerful,
clever, aggressive, talented, a model of hard work. She’s got most of everything. Well, except for height, probably. I wanted to be a doctor so I could help the needy. Islay dreams of becoming an elementary teacher. She said she really likes kids and teaching them would surely be a more exciting thing to do.

Then there’s Nova. Her looks may require you a little more time to think and consider, but she has a good heart. However, she gets a little, uhhm, what term do we use for an unsociable person? That’s it! She’s a bit of a Killjoy!

Islay and Nova caroled a store swarmed with drunkards. It was always Islay who’ll find every creative idea and propose it convincingly to Nova, who in turn hesitates and rejects it but then ultimately respects it in the end. Islay always has the winning edge. Maybe that’s one of her abilities. Her convincing power deserves a credit to the list.

The two didn’t mind the ***** that welcomed them. Inside her mind, Nova asked herself how many people could waste their money on a doze of liquid or spirit that can poison their mind and bring them to imminent danger. If only they have given it to the poor and needy, they could have saved a lot of lives instead of ruining their own.

But Aling Nena, the wicked storeowner, unleashed her witchy wrath to the two. She looked at them with eyes of contempt, of prejudice and disgust. She accused the two as jinxes and blamed them for the
store’s unprofitable end. If only she could look at herself and discover a chest of shimmering blame, she might shrink into shame. Islay and Nova ran off not because they were afraid of Aling Nena or the drunken men but because of what Aling Nena said to them. They cannot defend themselves from such
an attack. How could they when they were surrounded with eyes of ridicule?

And of course, there’s my dearest sister, Juaning. We’ve only got each other since our mother’s death. It has been months already. Juaning was still 15 when mama left us. She’s 16 now. It’s been quite a while and I know she misses mama a lot like I do.

And so they fought life’s bitter realities. They begged and implored to the unconcerned passers-by, almost falling to their weak knees for one very important thing - to live. But even if the three of them were sitting, lying, and rolling down the cold pavement, these people with more graces just pass by without even sparing a glance of concern. Wouldn’t it be happier if they shared their God-given blessings? But as the day continues, they have to endure the hunger, the contempt. Because other than filling their
hungry stomach, they have a sibling, a friend to support.

That’s my part of the story. It has been months now since I caught a serious illness which bound me
to this bed, flat on one’s back, weak, inutile, and useless. Every time they come home, I wish I was with them to taste the sweet and feel the pain, not just a good listener to their stories of survival and moments of friendship. Someday, I’ll become strong again, and this curse of a disease shall be gone.

I woke up to the longing for water. I’ve never been this thirsty before. I called out their names but my voice just echoed deep in the four dark walls of our crooked house. With no one to help me, I summoned my strength and decided to get a glass of water by myself. But my legs aren’t as strong as my will. And as I attempted to stand, they betrayed me. I collapsed and plodded down the floor. Luckily Islay came and helped me get back to bed. She scolded me for being careless. I cried. I can’t help it. I pitied myself all
over again.

The cold evening wasn’t a problem for Islay. Seeing me cry like that crushes her heart. I know, as a friend and a part of our family, she wishes the best for me. And that’s why she’s still out there in the middle of the night, working late to earn more for our better future. She ignored the chills and the exasperation. She knows she has to work harder and she’s more than determined for it.

But something happened to me while she’s away from home. I cannot move my body, not even my mouth. Tears just fell from my weary eyes. And before it’s too late, Juaning caught me unresponsive and paralyzed. My sister cried for help. Nova sprinted to get the jar. Juaning told her what to do. And wasting no time, Nova rushed to the nearby pharmacy to get me some medicine, and most probably to save my life.

But Nova’s effort was in vain. Prescription drugs cannot be bought that easily. The pharmacist closed down the only lining of hope for me. The security guard felt pity on Nova and he suggested her an alternative decision that will change our lives forever.

Islay was still busy serenading the busy streets with her chants of joy and sweet hums. But the clouds become unwelcoming. And by the sound of the thunder, big droplets of rain started pouring down the highway. She ran as fast as she could and sat on a corner where she thought of something deeply. She hugged the drum that she was carrying for five hours or so and tried to remain calm in the presence of the bad weather.

After half an hour, Nova came back with a pouch of medicine on her shaking hand. She handed it carefully to Juaning whose faith and hope were hanging to the tiny bottle of miracle.

Days gone by and my condition wasn’t going any better. It turned out that my medicine was consumed to the last drop. Still I remained immobile and my hands are going number by the days. Slowly I was losing hope. I wish they weren’t mad at me. I’m trying my best to live on. That’s why I’m still here. But Nova shared something worth listening to. She revealed how and where she got the medicine.

It was from a quack doctor on a stall put up on the corner of Rizal Avenue. She said he was well versed and very convincing. And that she spent all of our savings for a bottle of deception. But we can do nothing about it. We did not have formal education. We were fortunate enough to meet kind children on
the streets who would try to teach us something they have learned from school. We would attempt to read newspapers and the description in the carton boxes we spread beneath the Badelles overpass.

Nova cried in guilt and shame. Islay was still angry at her, and it can be understood. My sister, Juaning, comforted Nova with a promise that everything will get better in time.

December 27. It was my birthday. And more than anything else, what I wish is for the four of us to be happy. Nothing in this life is more important than seeing everyone you love smile with absolute
happiness. Juaning never forgot her job and that’s to buy me a cake. Every year, they will try to surprise me with every creative possible way. But that’s how their surprises become predictable with my age.

They sang me a birthday song. But this time, they were the ones waiting for a surprise. As my sister was about to hand me the cake waiting for me to blow the candle, she noticed something she was least expecting for. My lips are pale and my eyes are shut from the light of the world. I caught my last breath and before I gave it away, I left a smile on my face that can never be changed forever. That is how I want them to remember me. Not that heck of a frown clown whose audiences are stricken with sadness.

They say, in the wheel of life, sometimes, you'll spend half of your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the
bottom. Maybe they were right. It was then that I’ve come to understand what they were trying to say.

Our life’s wheel revolves around things way beyond just money, food, and shelter. It is about the moments you spend with your loved ones, friends and family that will be forever carved in your heart. We can never know when our life here on earth will be over. So let us cherish every bit of it. And for me, even if we skip breakfasts and eat only noodles for supper, I have realized in these last fleeting moments that my life has always
been on the top of the wheel after all.

Those who were marginalized by the braids and serpentine lights, devotions were made in San Juan allowing electromagnetic discharges from the imperceptible space-time of Vernarth's parapsychological quantum; alluding to clarities that achieved everything by having Patmia in the material and incorporeal from the start of the stained glass windows and archetypes by Transfer Quantum that burned the chins of hominids who believed to be immortal as if they were looking in this position for the direction between the eyebrows and the chin , for the Euclidean incidence crossing all the pools that are between quantum means of transfer of ions and cations. The oscillations of the sparkling field of consciousness of the containers were of ethical variables that became perpendicular to the space of draft or levitation of the designations that originated with accelerated electric charges on Patmos, developing albiceleste skylights over the harmonic equations as they elongated in proportions of quanta that They argued greater than those that circulated elliptically from Grikos to Skalá, and then to Profitis with assiduous progenitors of long-wave quanta. The magnificence of the halo became rectilinear up to the high altar that was atomized from the unskillful penumbra to reabsorb the inclinations of physical life in the Macedonians and the Achaemenides when they were trapped by the loss on the propagation of the Lux, which was imposed in hemicycles where they were they reclined to relax in the lux of rest of the path of the reasoning that made pederasty in the links with the minuscule obtuse lights, reeling from the clothing and its finite speed of what measures the ability to be undetermined in the margins of error of the antagonists when originating flow rates, greater in his dermis to regenerate towards any other that could be clothing of greater speed.

Thus was the scenario of dimensional magnitude between the powers that did not have contact, but their dimensionless energies on a surface that reached absorbent to the one that rectifies the concretive of the error that partially abused them. Their legacies would pass to a supplementary electromagnetic plane, separating their masses and retaking orientation from where they returned, where if the ideal of the final rational was refracted where everything would be vivid darkness. The obstacles classified them in the closure of the average height and the average surface, to then redirect to the maximum height and maximum surface propagating in irregularities of the Ego "Believing that they were never overcome in the diffuse perception of the metal mirror." The incident rays of the Lux would go to meet the multi-incident plane of the Mashiach, the wave angles were refracted throughout the sinuous law as radiosity passed over the greater mass that was normalized from the tangent that was projected 180 meters above the eyebrow. and Vernarth's chin, along with the recharged electromagnetic strengths of Alexander the Great's reactivation bezels, which at times seemed to levitate over the Lux's high frequencies and vary independently with its crowded functionalities, among scattered restraints that it presented to both weightless behind. from the decayed marble sawdust, separating from its phosphorescence that bounced between the rigging of solid surfaces and semi-solid ones, when realizing that the sea and the silica were confessed to the Pronoia of Delphi. Inducing Vernarth for the first time into a Pronoia versology on the Athena of Delphi, prompting them to separate from the world and it's holistic to divide into three portions of the dissociation of consciousness from the end of the Lux of Parapsychology, which had hosted them for centuries and centuries. . The Pronoia conspiracy systematized the reaction that would reunite them after this oracular parapsychology, making the adversaries believe that they were discrepancies of clinical parapsychology, equating warlike causes in the containment of Delphic neuroscience. From this quantification, the predominance of Vernarth's Lux de Pronoia was announced, linking peculiar segmentation of submit logical historicity in this work as a starting thesis, which speculates the same for those who have to make an analysis of historical dogmatic imperialism as a justification for mythological normality. The Lux thesis aimed to show that the dimensions of the mythology and the submitology, when exposed in physical quanta, made a tendency of irresolution in the abode of spiritual Tractatus reasoning and not in the instinctual one, which watches over recitals where history and its collective memory indicate outbursts of moderation. The role of the submithology  is to pretend that this normality is made close to the instruction after yours temporary for causes of your deep patrimonial, that makes them captives from the social complexity, with the disambiguation of certain criteria by maximizing the hidden truth of the ascending opposition forces that they have generated great conflagrations, intuition being the unreflective pseudo-reality with historical formalities that stumble into the terrified directionality of the myth that was to be reality. The tiny spaces of the verve left by the silent mechanics of the Persians became defensive when they saw their emissaries incoherently in the verticality of Allah when they saw that the confusing world with anxiety exaggerated predictions and failures invulnerability of a lineage that always had. been condemned to the desert.

Everything conspired with a Pronoia of siege, before the exegesis that sought purification and that was how they headed and misdirected their mistakes in the active train of the recess of their abstracted retreat, in a universe that also abandoned them after the subsequent train of Aurion waking them in their illusions with swords, and stealthy spears in dreams that specified safe rest. The ferocities of the proto-souls of assault carried away the translucent bodies of the Persians, and the Hellenes in acts of honor made such congenital paths of the understandable vocabulary that he did not speak. The prism was located in the cautious measure of its contractile dispersion with white separations of mantles, earth, and water scalded by dynamics that formed colorful activations with their withdrawal phenomena in the immaculate albino Lux that dissolved all of the facet optics that it made. Lux's great brain in the instant that the Thuellai airs transfigured the nuances of the Atros monastery, with objects that refused to be absorbed by the black hue, generating mechanical waves of equivalence in their identical interference that caused two opposing forces to distill the coherent differential that had to be overexposed in the category of historical Submitology. The two inverted waves separated, the Hellenes moaned and hiccupped for having to become identical when separating from their immaterial bodies, doing wonders that would house additional souls that would complement a transitory becoming towards the garden of the angels that provided them with identical beams of light, interfering in what animated the lights of pageantry, with the antithesis of interference where they resided in constancy knowing that they felt possessed of benefits of the eternal length of existence, but with pressures of mutable in some involuntary constancy and amplitude of having parallel directions with Saint John the Apostle and the Siblis. The phenomenon of polarization of both empires was denatured in a transverse way in all the electric fields after this feat, inciting unique fields of the pure and selective ascending ecosystem, which generated polaroid substances at the angle of ninety degrees above the browbones and chin of Vernarth, to approach the Pronoia of concatenation with Alexander the Great refracting unscathed hyper-vital and transcendent faces of infinity. Like any other phenomenon, the Lux crossed both bodies like two Xiphos swords that processed the electromagnetic valve, by iridium that converted with all the coarse Lux that crossed the succumbed immateriality and stopped the shaft and the nail that hang in the typology of electromagnetic radiation from the Hellenic world between them, making an ominous redemptive fire that was regimented to leave them both in the middle of a farm where there were farmyard animals, stockpiled pastures and a house that absorbed them as parents who would love them as beings of Lux. Thus, this primary parapsychological quantum network penetrated the level of the archangels that made them be together in planes of manumission, and that does not admit bi-quantum personality or bi-parapsychology that can cancel out the portent of the helmets and the lineage that does not dazzle if they are not made of iron.

The life of the other world began to be encompassed in all the Subtraigus beings that would correspond to the astral plane that was confirmed after the Kalidona Romantics deduced the Unicorn Uilef or Uilef Monókeros after Pronoia. Kalidona being an uninhabited island and the Uilef sleeps in between copulating with Spinalonga and Kolokythas along with other smaller islets, plus two hundred that will make up six islands of the twenty-six tetragram of Alef. Here Drestnia went with her consort of Etréstles from the Koumeterium of Messolonghi to find fateful encounters of Pantheism based on the majestic copulation of beauty, among twenty-six numbers that prevailed in virtuosos who took refuge in Kalydon or Kalidona, preparing for their rampage with grafted grotesque derived bodies of the Falangist Hellenes who were arranged of their musculature, so that they directed the finesse of the civility of Hesiod, Terpando, Archiloco, Baquílides, tragic like Etréstles, Aeschylus Sophocles, Euripides and comedian like Aristophanes.

Slivers of crimson sun pierce through
clouds that try but can't
hold back a single ray with the
illusionary shields of
themselves.

some bounce off the oil rainbow
puddles by the containers.
rust forcing its way through
flakes of green paint that

surrenders its grip on the metal
with every clank, thud, scrape and
unloving move by machine
operators and passers by with
tool belts and shouldered
sharpness.

beaten. broken. filled to the rim
with worthlessness.
I'm glad I'm not a container.

anymore.

I just feel so limited
It's 11 pm and I want to go for a drive
But my parents just won't take me
I want to go for a drive at 11pm
In my france france france sweatshirt, hair loose and all
and I want to stick my head out of the window
And I want to feel the cold air pass me by and go through my bones
And I want my hair to fly in the **** wind
and I want to listen to mainstream music and some feel good music
And I want the sky to be pitch black, with stars
And I want to pass trees and solely trees and smell the leaves and the pine cones
and I want to see the city from down below, as the street lights light up the town in golden arrays
And pass a restaurant with some music
Maybe even some random people loitering in a corner of a smoke shop with purple lights and cigarette smoke crowding everywhere
And I want to just look at them
And think about them
And what they did to get there
And I want to see a couple holding their hands and walking down the street
Even though its 11 pm
And I hope they're just happy
And I want to hold my dads big warm hand while I do all of these things
Because I got shotgun
And I want my brother to sit quietly in the back, and my dad to hum some Indian song
While I do all of these things
And I want to go to an aquarium and stare at jellyfish
Lavender jellyfish
and bright electric blue jellyfish
And pink and orange jellyfish
And I want to smell the AIR
And I want more of me to grow than the part in my brain that controls calculus and SAT
I want to grow physically and mentally and spiritually
There's a whole world out there
A whole WORLD!
And I'm in my room
My mother is in the kitchen thinking I'm doing SAT, and my dad is working and stressing over his job, and my brother is in his room writing his first interactive program
and I'm in my room, knowing i'm supposed to be doing SAT, but all I can think about is
how there's a whole messy majestic gigantic WORLD out there
And I am sitting here doing calculus and SAT
And it seems like its all for nothing
For only myself
And I know I'm not necessarily supposed to be this altruistic human being
I'm supposed to want things for myself
I'm supposed to be selfish in how I study and where I put my time but thats just not enough for me
I want to spend all day planting poppies and sunflowers
And in the night I just want to stare into infinity at the sky
And I want to cut my hair shoulder length, dye the bottom blue, get another piercing, decorate my hands with  henna, and walk around in vintage crop tops and flowy pants and matte black michael kors sandals
And I want to stop watching TV and going on facebook and having superficial banter and disgusting small talk
And I want to do yoga for the right reasons
Because yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self, and I don’t want to do it solely because I want nice arms or a bendy back or a nice **** I mean even though its okay to want those things but I just want more
I want everything to be just raw and I want people to expose themselves and I want to expose myself and I want
my parents to just LISTEN to what I want
And recognize the fact that this is the third night in the row that their daughter has outwardly displayed to them that
there's chaos in her mind because she just can't handle
doing and being absolutely nothing
anymore
And I want to read about human rights and global warming and how
when a chef is cooking for a ton of people, he uses utensils to remind himself what to do next
and I want to read about forensics and how mass spectrography and chromatography help detect if someone is poisoned or not
And I really don't want to do SAT
Not because its hard or boring, or even because it seems useless but because
it just seems so *******
useless and irrelevant
And I want to stop living the life I want to live on a **** website
Because its opened my mind so much but I want to SEE sunflowers instead of
looking at pictures of them and I want to SEE
elephants and kittens instead of just
looking at them and I want to
feel a connection with a human being rather than just imagining what it would be like and I don't mean romantic relationships, no
But I just want to stop being so ignorant
And I want to know everything
And really all I want to go is forget that
I have to study tomorrow
I just want to go on a car ride
And stick my head out of the window, like a dog
Because I am happy, like a dog
Just why am I LIMITING myself?
For what???
I want to talk to people
I want them to teach me something
Because people are nature Tamille
Some people are delicate flowers
Some people are raging thunderstorms
Some people are disarrayed forests
Some will leave me breathless, some will knock me down
And some will be gardens and some will be SUNSETS and
I want them all to teach me something
And I want to speak my mind and look HIM whoever he may be
In the eye and and I want to stop being so small
And I may be insignificant but I'm an infinity
Because all galaxies are infinite
I read that there are as many atoms in a single molecule of DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy
each of us are our own UNIVERSE
And thats why we burn too brightly sometimes and thats why we
collide sometimes and thats why we
collapse inwards sometimes and thats why we explode sometimes and start anew
And I want my soul to project outwards
I want whatever of me that is trapped in my bones to just
spill out
And I want someone to feel all the love and happiness I have in me from
across the room
And I want to stop being so closed up and insecure and timid
I think you're a towering mountain Tamille
Or thunder
I wouldn't say you're lightning
But I'd say my mom is a delicate flower and my dad is a powerful river and my brother is a colorful sky and I want to be
a forest
I just want to stick my head out of a car window, like a happy dog
Because I am happy
I don't want to be young and scared even though I know its okay to be scared
But I want to stop swallowing my words and stop being so paralyzed
Because I can do whatever I want
I must set fire to my old self
I must start anew.
Why am I so scared for WHAT
For what
Okay so what do I do now
I think saying all that was a good start
Here's whats not going to happen
I'm not going to wake up late tomorrow
or not too late
And I'll go for a walk
To the pecks
And I'll play with the chickens
And I'll read with the chickens
I'm just burning right now
And now it seems silly to sleep
Tamille, when I come to LA for winter break
We will go out on drives at 11pm, even 2 am
For the sake of living
And we will walk alongside the beach at preposterous hours of the day
Simply for the sake of living
And we won't be phonies
Because thats silly
And we must try not to be phonies
Just for the sake of living
But of course I can't just be this spontaneous extemporaneous person online
I need to be like that Offline
more than anything because I just
need to talk to people more
And I need to see the jellyfish and I watch them with their tentacles floating upwards and downwards and just there in what is to them, an abyss
Maybe we're like
jellyfish in an abyss
Like how humans just watch jellyfish in containers
Maybe we're the jellyfish
I need to be a good memory to people
Because we remember more than we think we do
So I must try my best to be a positive remembrance
I can teach  someone something
I can teach a random stranger something
I can teach my mom something
I can teach my 85 year old neighbor something
I can teach you something
It feels wrong to say all that and then go to bed
So I think I'll just walk outside and stare into infinity once more
And then ask my dad if we can go on a car ride one more time
And then I'll come back in my room and read about global warming
Or maybe I'll read about global warming outside
Because a child educated only at school, is an uneducated child
And I hope you read all this because out of everyone I chose you to tell it to you
And i hope your response isn't just "go do all that then"
I hope you read all the many messages
And now I will log off of facebook
I hope you also wake up in the morning and make it a great day
Not "hope you have a good day"
But rather
Make it a great day

The thing about something being empty,
is that it more often than sometimes it can be used again.
That even when what it was once meant for goes away,
It is given a new purpose

I learned this from opening countless, I can’t believe it’s not butter containers,
Only to actually to say,
**** I can’t believe it’s not butter
in this container, it’s last nights casserole,

Oh, and who could forget those cookie tins,
That I swear to god I have never seen an actual cookie in,
Only sewing needles and thread,

And so from this,
In my mind I concluded,
nothing could ever truly be empty.
There was always something that could fill these empty containers,
and give it a purpose once again
Nothing could ever be empty,
At least not forever.

But,
I never realized that those were somethings and you were someone,
And that when a soul leaves a body, its never coming back,
And nothing is coming to replace it,
It will remain empty,
Forever.

And I suppose that’s why when I saw your empty body laying there,
I could not understand,
How something could be so full,
And then be so empty so quickly,
Where did it all go?

Fear too is an epidemic, it stretches out like
An incubation period for a kind of doom
Population control, whispered a silent elite
Who engineer our wallets, our GMO food, our futures

Ebola was a convenient way, of making us fear
Who we once were again, black as a Nigerian
We died alone in deathbeds, isolated plastic containers
For who we once were, our organs giving out

Infection was a spider hand, MSM gave us
False positives, but could the main-stream-media
Be trusted any longer? Wasn’t this just a matter
Of time, an algorithm set loose upon the billions?

Fear is that place, where people go in adversity
It’s hypnotic like an audience at a concert
It’s contagious how the will for self-preservation can spread
Fight of flee, but where to run, out of the cities?

The new normal is a kind of paranoia
While we watch the situation very closely
Every hour there is underground news about
Another case in another country, Ebola isn’t

Your grandmother that only likes good climates
She’s an engineered hypothesis of how mobility
Causes any true pandemic to become a flamboyant outbreak
The comet that signals black plagues has been seen

Fear too is a weapon, when you can’t stop the world
Because it’s too costly to do so, and you can’t
Tell the world not to fly because we’re too free
We left Africa a long time ago, but who among us
Would stand 20 meters from their open graves?

I don't understand why I am so caught up
In wanting go be pretty
You can BUY pretty
It comes in pretty bottles
Scented cream-form
Sealable powder containers
And tube mixed with glitter
A beautiful soul
Cannot be bought
But a kind-of-ish guy friend
Told me I was pretty today
I think he was just being kind though
And I wouldn't be interested anyway
Then earlier today
Some random grade 2 kids
Yelled at me
As I was walking out the door:
You're hot
Great so five seven year old boys
Think I'm hot
I don't think that counts
In fact it probably means im extra ugly
'Cause you can't trust a grade 2's taste
But that's not my problem
My problem is
Beauty is aways
What girls are complimented on
When it is so common
It has a price tag.
What has our society descended to
When "pretty" is the goal

You stand before me like a wall
Awaiting the character of graffiti
You see me as some frozen myth
Within the solid ice of past
You see no movement
Such short and shallow vision
I am already you and more
Listen to my years
Read the maps of my scars
Why insist on fresh blood of your own?

You are not me
Nor am I less
And you don't know anymore
It's different now
You're out of touch

Have new emotions been discovered?
New hungers?
New desires?
New hatreds?
New loves?

Different containers
Same emotions

                      By Phil Roberts

You stand before me like a wall
Awaiting the character of graffiti
You see me as some frozen myth
Within the solid ice of past
You see no movement
Such short and shallow vision
I am already you and more
Listen to my years
Read the maps of my scars
Why insist on fresh blood of your own?

You are not me
Nor am I less
And you don't know anymore
It's different now
You're out of touch

Have new emotions been discovered?
New hungers?
New desires?
New hatreds?
New loves?

Different containers
Same emotions

                      By Phil Roberts

Bromley pale marmalade
on rye bread
in tupperware containers,
flasks of milky tea too.
Pens and paper at the ready to review places:
Anglesley Abbey and Borde Hill
visited on alternating months.
Gardens so awe inspiring
their visual consolation  
so uplifting,
manna for the mind
and deadlines for the
horticultural society review.

Not eating chocolate covered cherries and strawberries and lychees and onions and chillies and grapes and marshmallows and turtle meat and cake and shark bones and oysters and camel and beef and beef with dog food and rabbit fur and smarties and skittles and twine and rope and yak and buses and buffalo and authors and novels and chipping containers and bicylces and emus and penguins and polar bear slippers and darned socks and stewed lobster and Darwin Deez and get well cards and ibuprofen tablets is fine with me.

You stand before me like a wall
Awaiting the character of graffiti
You see me as some frozen myth
Within the solid ice of past
You see no movement
Such short and shallow vision
I am already you and more
Listen to my years
Read the maps of my scars
Why insist on fresh blood of your own?

You are not me
Nor am I less
And you don't know anymore
It's different now
You're out of touch

Have new emotions been discovered?
New hungers?
New desires?
New hatreds?
New loves?

Different containers
Same emotions

                      By Phil Roberts

Those of like mind
Stepping down corridors
Toward blurring red signs
Each extrusion an exit
Hapless movement
Containers transported
Memories and anguish
Containers transported
Into meadows of ease
Between trees minus leaves
Nothing but a reflection
Degenerated façade
Ashes vaporized with
Consciousness, my boiling
Water

Sitting in labyrinths of cobblestone intestines
I’m learning to eat the entrails of sacrifice
only domestic, never hunted.
pick up spoon. put down
put down. put-down.
pick up. um . spoon.
um… putdown.
there are motions for eating and I do them.

soothsayer, look down
pay attention to positions, shapes
knife. butter. um…
bread. no. breadth.
better. no. butter-better.  focus.
knife. better. bread.
knife, knife of haruspex. knife breadth.
okay… deep breath.

I have divided the livers
and the watchers of victims.
I have written on
the anomalies in my bronze living,
what I should look for,
what they should allow for.
my protruding viscera,
my ancient autopsy of starving.

Starving made me easier to tie.
easier to lift. made me feel
gutted out like finished
ice-cream containers
but, starving made me
full of household gods.
made me divine. made sheeps fly.
made days disappear and made cold cold cold seem like
simmering. made staying out of sight a piece of cake.
cake. starving made me rich when I found little
boys betting quarters for eating bowels of
goats. made me small enough to fit through
playground gates so I could swing
swing in earthquakes, and portents.

now, I listen to Memor, a man
who knows nothing of starving
talk about how starving I am.
tomorrow I have to advise
tomorrow I have to weigh
tomorrow I have to swallow
tomorrow I have to
tomorrow I have
tomorrow I am half

and starving made me whole.

Pay extra
to ensure your
precious, needed, ethical
Organic Whole Foods
and then don't even bother
to recycle the paper containers.

And you're the one to get indignant?

Nice.

I guess the metal is
bound leaf like.
I'm like the bubbles
of the rift; quickly formed
and quickly done. The
air inside happens only so long
I can escape to the
chromium metal and tease
the snakes. Let's see how
they like it.
Pollution is aprtheid.
Apartheid is man-made,
like the lake, the rubbermaid
containers. The earth
is a big etch a sketch.  This
will give geologists something to
figure out in a few thousand years.

with my very own eyes, i see the rotten flesh of mine die

deader than dead

upon gazing on a walking mirror — a material-less self

i wish i did not speak nor spoke in a different way

lest not think this day

when people are horrible — horribly

just like me

just like me

lately, i have been illiterate.

hasty is this mouth that has beheld bad composures upon being looked upon at all

for i am not a flower to gaze at, nor a star to wonder

i do not see myself at all

since all i am is all that worries this precious soul

and i blind myself with me

here it is again, the same old topic, the same old story, the same old rant

about a word i will not mention for it is already too bland

on the tip of my tongue — i wish it would be gone

its meaning sure is, i wish it never did

loneliness is key

to be filled with pertinent happiness, at least only to fill

we are containers

containers with holes

containers with moles

i hate this obliterating gaze

that kills the curiosity in others

if only i could take it off like shades,

maybe then i could make a good mother

nobody has ever regarded me as the person i would like to be

young and sweet and graceful in all sides

maybe this is why

if it is within my circle of salt,

i guess i will stay

but to look out the window

to see what it’s like outside

that in which — all together, is another story

take away this garbage bag of a heart

take away these knives to the throat

i am not an angel nor a dove

i would want the best from above

but not from me

moving inland far away from
the coast temptation doth bring
deeper in land the head seems consumed by everything

nearing the coast it's the heart that sings

though inland, my love, you will find me

away from the bogs or the shoals o' herring

holding you at bay with *****

keeping me next to me

wanting tomorrow to be the better day

my mind, an island for tromping shores
different from desert sands
when the tide of your concern reprimands

on this island the shells
are smaller and there are no dollars,  
the sea, a shrunken plastic expanse of
syringes and lip balm containers,
soft fluid-filled bodies turned into
sopping brown-bag skeletons,

revenges
of modern life.

there is a rivulet further up shore

do you feel it?

follow the inlet wind

near a candescent pond

there is a house

open the door

if you fall in

a home can be found.

Keep the windows open, in case it wants to fly away
maybe it is bored of playing hide and seek,
resting in between the empty spaces where even clock does not like to visit.
Keep the lids of sugar containers a little lose,
chances are, it will come back to the ones with whom it closely shares its nature,
How else did you think, there was sweetness in your life.
And do keep the inkpots full, because once it is back,
it might like to take a dip
and scamper its complaints on your skin
like tattoos, permanent tattoos.
It is love after all, and love will find a way.

But what if it does not come back?
Will you go out and look for it,
May be it is disguised in the red of the maple sitting in your garden and you thought it’s the nature,
May be these are its cold feelings soothing your sweaty temples on a hot summer afternoon – yet you moved on cursing the weather,
May be it is the warmth rising in fumes of the bonfire – but you heart is too chilled to feel it,
May be it is resting in your favorite banana walnut cake or folded in the layers of your favorite cheddar cheese risotto – but this only had to be your diet week.

Yes! You were looking, only if you knew where to look.

This time, look inside your heart.
turn off the lights….
hear your heart pounding louder, as if murmuring the prayers secretly,
feel the expanse of your lungs inside your rib-cage, airing the wings of otherwise rested butterflies,
wear its memories like a halo
and know when your feet sweep off the earth
it will arrive.
When the tears trickle from the corner of your eyes
and shine like medals of love under the moon lit sky,
when you will listen to the whispers of a quiet night,
know that it will arrive.
When you sit by the window
fingers scattered precisely to weave into its size,
lips waiting to seal the promise, no ink pots, no quills this time,
know that it will arrive.
When you are sure you don’t have to rely on the sugar containers to keep it by your side,
know that it will arrive.

And hold on this time because you must,
who knows what happens next time.

You stand before me like a wall
Awaiting the character of graffiti
You see me as some frozen myth
Within the solid ice of past
You see no movement
Such short and shallow vision
I am already you and more
Listen to my years
Read the maps of my scars
Why insist on fresh blood of your own?

You are not me
Nor am I less
And you don't know anymore
It's different now
You're out of touch

Have new emotions been discovered?
New hungers?
New desires?
New hatreds?
New loves?

Different containers
Same emotions

                      By Phil Roberts

There are places I have found. There are places that I have gone. People give strange looks with laughter in their eyes when a child walks off on her own into where the ground is not covered with cigarette butts and nothing is paved. Because of them, I go more often and I laugh louder. I have many of these places that are just for my brain and me to inhabit for a while. When I find a less temporary escape from the sickening truths of my own humanity, probably in an UFO, I hope to find others like me tagging along with the aliens that comes to destroy us. And we will all be laughing our ***** off; we saw this coming and packed our thoughts in airtight containers. For now, my thoughts are packed in a backpack with music, a hammock, and some seltzer water. I am walking to get out of here. I find myself getting lost in cornfields and peeing in the woods. It’s rejuvenating. Fresh air and headaches are a perfect match.
                    I am sitting, swinging, hanging from the dancing trees of the crack ******* forests. I think about how every time I chase a squirrel it attacks me. They are fluffy and cute but they want to get inside my house; they want to pry away at my poorly assembled pieces. I’m so unused to that attention and curious affection. I think about my subtly strange mannerisms and my lack of cautious paranoia. These things have had a tendency to intimidate, to make people leave the crowbars in the basement and eliminate any sort of prying. My attributes are intimidating to all but the squirrels. They only seem to see them as weakness. I am still swinging, but my hammock is slipping from the branches now, clinging onto them, a child to its mother. The instructions told me it could hold up to four hundred pounds but even I can hardly hold the weight in between my shoulders. Heavy thoughts are pulling me down. Ropes are slipping more and I can already feel my *** getting sore from this drop. But I do not get off. I keep swinging. My brain is telling my legs to move, my heart is screaming “Save me,” but my legs are not replying. I stay on this hammock, praying that my legs will pull me off before I fall to the ground. I am afraid of being even near to this littered ground. I want the heights. I call for help but only a sigh leaves my mouth. There is no one around to save me anyways. I chose a place in the woods; I chose a place that could grant me the illusion of seclusion…an escape from the trivialities taken too seriously. I cannot wait for someone because this slipping will not even wait for me. I will crash if I do not save myself. I try to coast and the swings get shorter and shorter until they have stopped and I am stationary. In moments I will have more broken parts than I can count.
                     I lie there silent, unmoving, not thinking any longer. Only waiting...finally, I hear snaps of the branches falling and breaking. The ground came up fast. It punched me. It crowded me. It abused me like a misguided lover. I do not wish to be in its arms any longer. But the ground is holding on to my bones, pulling me in. I hit it hard. The drop was farther than I expected. I have no feelings anymore. My nerves have shut off. I am scared. Someone take me some place safe, some place sound…no, take me some place wild. Lying on my back, numb and careless, my eyes are glued to the blueness of the sky above me. I am so relaxed. I hear screaming. I see blood, but I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I keep my eyes staring straight up at the view. I ignore everything but the wind-shaped clouds. My mind is gone, lost like all the rest of time. It wore away because I remembered too many times how my father’s hands smelled of sawdust and how they felt like the sandpaper he that used to make it. I try to avoid addressing the situation at hand, things are turning redder. My eyes are filling with blood and it is hard to see. I think about life and the lack of it. All it is really is just memories, without those the only thing that exists is right now. Which doesn’t exist anymore, it’s a different second, and now another. Life is nothing but the time we are losing. Maybe this view of the tree tops framing the sky will be the last thing I see, or maybe I will lay below them again tomorrow. I am glad that everyone must die. It is more beautiful that way.
                          I gulp, a gust of air fills my stomach and it feels like floating. I am still lying down. The smells of illegality, fire, and cut grass fill my ears just like music. Everything mixing together, all into one entity. I am the only thing alone, still lying on my back in the middle of some trees. The same trees I have been crowded by for all of these years, but dug up and replanted on the other side of the country. All of a sudden, I hear something pop. It is the elevation still stuck in my head, the headache I couldn’t defeat. The pain persists and all throughout my head the places and the people that I had made my home were telling me to stay. I am glad that I did not. There is no place or person who could carry my weight. I am my own constant. I am on the ground, just another fallen leaf,  and I am finding a place inside my brain in an attic of ideas where I can peruse the shelves and maintain my insanity. No matter if I am here or elsewhere, I must maintain. They will not make me sane, I won't have it.  Even the pain I feel now, sticks jabbing into my ribs and fear everywhere else, will not be enough to dull me.
                     I had dipped off the path to find myself away from what was familiar and now it pounds in my head, the lack of altitude. Without it my brain doesn’t know what to do. I am worried what I will become when I am alone here. I hear the chapel bells chime in, four rings and then they fade away. I still hear it ringing in my ear, though minutes have passed since it sounded…
                  Ringing…
        Ringing…
Ringing…

“H­ello?”
“Finally you pick up your phone, I’ve left three voicemails today…are you okay?”
“…”

She Sat with her bank statements and other bills
mass of paper and debt
too easy spending using credit cards realising
after several years of denial
pressure from debt recovery firms increased
just wanting to be realised!

Eviction from her home was almost certain
yet still had the urge to spend
from a young age she never went without
brought up n a material way
never knowing hardship so grew to expect
with money came respect!

But those days went when her father died
and mother had a breakdown
committed to an institution and remained
leaving a young woman
totally unprepared for a harsh actuality
she to struggling with sanity!

Never making friends and the only child
the family home a trap
yet containing many happy memories
deepening the melancholy
beside her containers of different pills
some laying on the bills!

The doctor did not seem to understand
said take the medication
for a few weeks and return just a phase
was his not so wise words
leaving with her a dilemma unanswered
her desperation not heard!

In a daze took the tablets lonely confused
going onto a deep sleep
the mobile rang loudly it seemed distant
as her worries began to fade
it became bright and there was her dad
to be with him again so glad!

Debt would not bother her any more!

The Foureyed Poet.

Spring is going to back
Silently dropping  the purple petals  
Bored noon,  
The melancholy flute's of Shepherd
Seeking the missing spring

Roll up,
Roll around the idle noon
Random impulsive air
Bunch of dark clouds at the sky
Pensive
Seem illusion of that known
Pied crested Cuckoo

Beyond the horizon,  
The eyes looking for
Sounds (Tip Tip) of the sudden drops of rain,
On the leaves of Quail,
Washing
Differentiation of mind

On the leaves of Arum,
Ever Keeps as the containers
Integrating
Concentrating 
Compiling of soul 

Weird one wrapped in mystery
Mind
Life
Seasons

Coming up the lyrics of rain
Fusion with thy mystic music
Afternoon has grown heavier  
How my mind moves!

Chased away birds returning home
The heart is rapidly expanded
Rain continues to move around
Nature demands a new ground

Looping, hearing of the same song
Shadows filling with the feelings
Perhaps this change of thy
Bound to sketch
A new face of impression

There are words that we say or hear in life; and once we say them, everything changes.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Will you marry me?”
“You got the job!”
“He didn’t make it…”
“I don’t love you.”
If we’re lucky, we only hear the good ones.
The ones that change our lives for the better.
But for most of us, it’s the tragic phrases that stay with us forever.
I’ve heard my fair share.
“I wish you had never been born.”
“We’re getting divorced.”
“We’re moving to Ohio.”
But it’s the words that I have had to say that have been the hardest.
These words are ones that I still trip over when I say them now, almost 30 years later. They’re words that make society as a whole take a step back and cringe.
They’re the words you never think you’ll say.
“I was sexually molested by my father.”
Even typing it feels wrong.
It still feels messy and forced.
I remember the first time I said it.
I did not want to say it.
When I said these words, I was dead inside.
Rotted from the inside out, like a tree that finally gives out after years of being gnawed on by bugs.
I also knew, however, that the second I said these words my entire life would change – even though I never could have prepared myself for the changes that would follow that day.
I remember being numb.
I think a part of me thought that because I said it, it was over.
I don’t know exactly what I was thinking in those moments.
But, those words made their way up my chest, into my throat, and finally out of my mouth.
And that meant that everything was different.
I remember explaining to the female police officer what my father had been doing to me.
I was angry that my mother had betrayed me by calling the police.
I knew that my life was over. I was exploding on the inside.
But I was also dead. On the inside, and seemingly on the outside.
I told her what had happened. Mostly because I wanted her to leave.
She nodded and took notes while I said those words that I never wanted to say.
And then she told me that I had to go to the hospital.
More words I could not understand.
I was not sure why – it had been happening for years. I tried to protest, but she insisted.
My words didn’t matter.
She asked me to get dressed, and said that she’d wait downstairs.
I don’t remember getting dressed.
The next thing I remember was walking downstairs and seeing my grandfather there.
He stood in the doorway, and I froze when I saw him.
I could see a police car in the driveway.
“Nita Girl, your father has been touching you?”
More words that I could not comprehend.
I could not believe that these words were coming out of his mouth.
I just nodded.
My mother drove me to the hospital. I don’t remember the words we said in the car. I can’t imagine what words we would have had to say to each other in those moments.
They put me in a triage room with just a curtain, in the middle of the E.R.
I remember thinking to myself that people were probably wondering why I was there, with two police officers.
And I didn’t even look sick.
They left us in that room for a long time.
Forever. Just my mom and I.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, a nurse came in. I don’t remember much, except being handed a cup and ushered into the bathroom to give a ***** sample.
They were going to check my ***** for STDs.
STDs.
I was only 10.
I had never even thought of STDs.
Words like “***”
What the hell were these words? How could they ever apply to me?
Then they took vials of blood. I remember watching when they stuck the needle inside my arm, and I felt nothing. My mother told me to look away. She offered her hand for me to hold. I just kept looking at my arm, watching someone else’s blood rush into the containers.
It couldn’t be my blood. It couldn’t be my body.
This couldn’t actually be happening. I was a zombie who was still breathing somehow.
I kept up that persona during the exam. It’s a blur.
I remember having to repeat the words to every nurse and doctor who came to examine me.
They weren’t even words anymore.
Just a monologue that I had become too familiar with.
The next thing I remember was finally crying.
It was after I had been examined, and every fluid my body produced had been taken for testing.
It was after we told the police officers that we would be at the station first thing in the morning for a formal statement.
We walked through the doors of the hospital, and my legs gave out from under me.
I remember thinking that my life was actually over.
And looking back on it, I guess it was.
That part of my life was over.
Things would never be the same.
They’re still not the same.
There were so many words after that.
Words that became routine.
Words that as a 10 year-old, I had never said in front of my mother. Or to an adult.
Words like “*****.”
And “*****.”
And “*******.”
Words like “*****.”
And “drunk.”
And “oral ***.”
I didn’t even know the words for some of the things that had happened.
But I learned them.
In interview rooms.
With police officers recording my words.
Writing down my words.
I remember the words my mother said when they finally charged him.
I remember what he finally got sentenced to.
“****** assault therapy.”
And I remember all the words I did not say.
I remember living in my bed for weeks.
I remember the fits of rage.
I remember my mother.
Who had been torn open from the inside out.
I remember words like “I want to die.”
And “What am I going to do now?”
Even now these words make my stomach turn.
These words that seem to belong to someone else.
Someone weaker. And more naïve.
Not me.
My words are different now.
Words like “Friends.”
And there are still words that I struggle with.
Words like “Love.”
“Past.”
“Forgiveness.”
Words like *“Survivor.”

They say
You are what you eat
So I pick beautiful flowers
And devour them.

Don't be afraid
They take root in my brain
pinch my eyes closed
pry my heart open
Slip seeds into my bloodstream

I devour flowers
Because they are small beautiful things
And I want to be
Beautiful
In that same fragile and wilting way.

I take them from the ground
so that one day I can
wither in embraces
And die in glass containers
On your bedside table
In your living room
Still and stuck and slow

I put them in my mouth whole
Petals tickling my tongue
Sliding down my throat
Roots melding into flesh

And they taste like sunshine and dirt
And something distinct
that feels like
Breathing

I devour them
till I have a garden growing in my stomach
Breaking across my skin

And I will keep
Devouring
Till they take root in my heart
And I am made of fragile
Beautiful
Things
That you can devour.

Thinking of rain clouds that rose over the city
on the first day of the year

in the same month
I consider that I have lived daily and with

eyes open and ears to hear
these years across from St Vincent's Hospital
above whose roof those clouds rose

its bricks by day a French red under
cross facing south
blown-up neo-classic facades the tall
dark openings between columns at
the dawn of. history
exploded into many windows
in a mortised face

inside it the ambulances have unloaded
after sirens' howling nearer through traffic on
Seventh Avenue long
ago I learned not to hear them
even when the sirens stop

they turn to back in
few passers-by stay to look
and neither do I

at night two long blue
windows and one short one on the top floor
burn all night
many nights when most of the others are out
on what floor do they have
anything

I have seen the building drift moonlit through geraniums
late at night when trucks were few
moon just past the full
upper windows parts of the sky
as long as I looked
I watched it at Christmas and New Year
early in the morning I have seen the nurses ray out through
arterial streets
in the evening have noticed internes blocks away
on doorsteps one foot in the door

I have come upon the men in gloves taking out
the garbage at all hours
plastic bags white strata with green intermingled and
black
I have seen one pile
catch fire and studied the cloud
at the ends of the jets of the hoses
the fire engines as near as that
red beacons and
machine-throb heard by the whole body
I have noticed molded containers stacked outside
a delivery entrance on Twelfth Street
whether meals from a meal factory made up with those
mummified for long journeys by plane
or specimens for laboratory
examination sealed at the prescribed temperatures
either way closed delivery

and approached faces staring from above
crutches or tubular clamps
out for tentative walks
have paused for turtling wheel-chairs
heard visitors talking in wind on each corner
while the lights changed and
hot dogs were handed over at the curb
in the middle of afternoon
mustard ketchup onions and relish
and police smelling of ether and laundry
were going back

and I have known them all less than the papers of our days
smoke rises from the chimneys do they have an incinerator
what for
how warm do they believe they have to maintain the air
in there
several of the windows appear
to be made of tin
but it may be the light reflected

I have imagined bees coming and going
on those sills though I have never seen them

who was St Vincent

It’s strange to be
nostalgic about a
grocery store. But
there it is.

In the lobby were
quarter machines. In
exchange for coins I’d
dig from couch cushions
and mom from the bowels
of her purse,

I’d watch colorful gumballs
spiral down a slide and
tumble through the open hatch
into my awaiting palm,
and another with wax figures
which I collected.

Inside to the left
past the magic sliding
glass doors was a DVD
rental section. Rows and rows
of movies I’d peruse
looking for something to watch
on a school night.

Across from that were
the magazine and
candy aisles with
various furniture—tables and
couches and chairs and sofas—
spread out
in the middle. I would

read skateboard magazines
beating my short legs against
the static incline of a sofa
chair and
one time a lady watched me
placidly reading on a comfy chair
from the security cam
and thought I was reading
something pornographic
and told my mom at the
register.

At the register,
mom would let me get
Archie comics and
bubble gum—

One time when I was five
I stole a pack of Fruit Stripe
gum. In the mini-van I
revealed my sin to mom
and she had me (alone)
walk back into the store
and hand it back to the cashier,
apologizing for my grand
theft.

When my dad would
take me to the grocery store
he would like to play
games.

He once took an egg
out of the carton
and tossed it to me
down the aisle. Too
scared to catch, I let
it fall to my feet with
a wet crack spilling
egg all over the gleaming
porcelain.

He grabbed soda bottles
and junk food from the shelves
and consumed them
then and there, handing
the cashier the empty
containers.

There was a coffee shop
inside the grocery store
he would stop by every
morning. Some Saturdays
he would wrench me from my
cartoons and take me with him
and I would play the 25 cent
slot machines while he got his
venti mocha latte.

Once I had a
nightmare I walked
into the parking lot
and couldn’t find my
dad. I called and called
for him but couldn’t find
him anywhere. Suddenly
his voice boomed at me
from the clouds.

In a thunderous yet
soothing voice of one who
has passed on to nirvana,
he said I would be okay, and
to take care of my mother
and my little brother and
sister. I cried and cried
out to him, searching for
his earthly body in the
grocery store parking lot.

I woke up in my parents’ waterbed
choking on my tears;
dad ran out of the bathroom mid-
shave to his side of the bed where
I slept and I threw my arms around his
neck.

Years,
and a decade later,
I drove my fiancé through
the old town I was raised in
and told her stories of the
pawn shop,
gas station,
video rental,
Mexican restaurant,
and grocery store.

With the video rental
now a tire station,
and the mom and pops
in chains,
we drove by the old grocery store
standing tall and proud
still as colossal as I remembered.

As the memories flowed
from my heart to my lungs
babbling from the driver’s seat,
that old grocery store
I gave my time and quarters to
carried a greater weight
than I ever thought
grocery shopping on Saturday mornings
and Sunday afternoons
could ever have.