cruelly,love
walk the autumn long;
the last flower in whose hair,
they lips are cold with songs

for which is
first to wither,to pass?
shallowness of sunlight
falls,and cruelly,
across the grass
Comes the
moon

love,walk the
autumn
love,for the last
flower in the hair withers;
thy hair is acold with
dreams,
love thou art frail

—walk the longness of autumn
smile dustily to the people,
for winter
who crookedly care.

Growling and hissing, a storm formed along the road, portending the merging of the chaos that had been gripping our minds for months.  This day, this type of day, we could have dreamed up in the novel of our love affair.  The conversation along our drive into the country was as full and ***** as all other tête-à-têtes shared in our two months together.  We were never at a loss for words and his conversation had been more educated than the older men I had dated since the divorce.  I was forever astonished at him and with him.  

The first time I met him, I was sitting behind my desk and planning for another monotonous day of office politics and all the drama connected.  Lost in thought, I sipped coffee and read emails until, there was - him.  He opened my office door with such fervor and drama, I knew someone had just entered into my life that would leave me forever changed, and I welcomed it.  A mess of auburn hair, neither combed nor styled and yet quite fitting, haloed around his head and gave the visage of an angel.  He had a freckled nose and cheeks with blue eyes staring from behind all that wildness and they were the only calming feature about him.  I turned my head and grimaced a bit, “how dare someone charge into my office as if to own it”.  “How can I help you?” made its way from my lips with a bit of a sigh.  And he smiled, that smile which would make his face even younger and more deceptively angelic.  

“Hello” danced off his lips and in two syllables was able to sound singsong and my anger soon turned to anticipation.  He introduced himself as Parker and explained his new position as Junior Editor.  He went on to say someone instructed him to introduce himself to me since I was Senior Project Manager for the organization.  His fervent entrance into my office had sent a gush of wind that disheveled my tidy desk and his wide blue eyes looked around at the chaos he had rendered.  He seemed unable to offer apologies, and I soon learned this was his way.  His confident facade prevented admission of mistakes and the word “sorry” could not escape the tightness of his will to be correct.  This was my lover’s way and it was the structure built that only wrecking ***** could destroy.

As is expected of me, I extended my hand to welcome him, overmuch aware of my grip and strength in presenting my hand, I felt the need to dominate the grip.  I was a woman in a senior position inside the male dominated echelon of upper management.  I took his hand and with rehearsed quickness attempted to demonstrate my dominance, my superiority.   It was then, the first time I saw a devil behind his angelic face and I remember my expression churned up my secret thoughts.  He saw my eyes searching those thoughts and delight shone from his blue eyes like cold fire and I was burned.   Our hands soon contorted into a dance of dominance with fingers twisting as if in a finger shadow play.  No time for games or plays for control, I simply took the shake he offered and turned towards my coffee, my drama, my emails and without looking at him welcomed him again and gave a wave of dismissal.  He greeted my brush-off with a laugh and made his way to the chair in front of my desk.  He was tall and the light from behind silhouetted his broad shoulders and upright posture.  He was confident and sure.  His clothes were expensive, well-tailored and not at all the measure for his age.  He had a style about him and I believe it came as naturally to him as did the confidence in which he clothed himself.

I wanted to be angry at his overconfidence, his interruption, his disregard.  I was, instead, amused but annoyed.  He sensed he was beginning to irritate me and it seemed to delight him.  He would speak without taking a breath, eager to finish his thoughts, aware perhaps that time could steal the moment away and he would forever wonder.  He spoke with an accent I did not fully recognize and attempted to invite me to lunch or even coffee.  My lover was bold.  

I was succeeding in this corporate world, my world.  I was not ready to lose my focus for a moment alone with the delightful creature staring back at me, awaiting the “yes” he expected would be my answer.  He was a man who did not accept the “no’s”.    He would get what he wanted and would wait in predator mode until his prey was wounded, weak, ready.  He was not a predator in the malevolent sense, more in the need for survival mentality.  He would lift the wounded and weak above the limits of their afflictions and a “yes” would flow from their lips in fond gratitude.  Today I was not a “yes” and it did not feel like a final answer.  Somehow, I knew one day I would be naked with this man, my lover.  I knew I would take him inside me, and he would show me how to love in ways I had never known.  The “no’ and the explanations of the “no” exuded from my lips, and I could see him grow even more eager to know me.  He would learn the stories of my life from rumors and talk.  He would learn of my divorce, of the men I dated with expensive homes and cars.  He would hear about the occasional woman who would occupy my bed.   I had wished all of it to be true but only the divorce was correct.  I was not exceptional or exciting.  I was driven and focused.  

He stood there hearing my “no” with the sun behind him igniting the fire in his hair with his shoulders pinned back exposing his sculpted chest.  He stood there and allowed the silence after my rejection to hover the room, and there it was.  We locked eyes, and neither could emancipate from the other.  I wondered who he was and what he looked like naked in the morning with his disheveled hair, and we stared, locked in our gaze until my phone rang signaling the end of round one.  

Wrapped in my shawl, I moved between sipping coffee, as was my usual, and typing on my laptop.  He was behind me in the cabin.  I felt him approaching and knew he would quickly whisk me away from the overwhelming din of office emails and calls.  His presence behind me now was no longer disquieting but natural.  

The cabin had been his grandfathers and he had a noticeable pride about it when showing me through the door and gateway to his childhood memories.  He had a smile on his face I had never seen.  I delighted in how young it made his face appear, almost as if the childhood memories possessed him and he became the blithe youth here with his grandfather.  


It was fall at the cabin and the smell of musk and rotting leaves and ozone from the storm, filled the cabin and each deep breath was taking in a memory from my youth.   I was happy to be here with him and yet afraid.  Two months we flirted and touched over our shared lunches, eager to get inside each other physically, mentally.  The office was replete with stories of the happenings between the older woman executive and the younger up and coming man, how he must be using her to advance his career and how she was using him to heal the wounds of her recent divorce.  We heard these stories and watched them grow to the point we ended our touching, our flirting.  Soon the denial of our feelings and time apart turned to foreplay.  Soon there were stares across conference rooms, perceptive smiles as we crossed paths.  The total of it led us to this moment, to time alone together for the first time, this time.  

Fall in the country was the vangaurd to a glorious death.  The earth would explode with color announcing its final breath and moment upon the stage and we had arrived during the final bow and curtain call.  Trees draped in gold - and red - and orange heralded the fire to come and we too were ready to pour forth in glorious blaze and inferno.  During the entire ride into the country an ironical mist of dew and rain dotted the windshield as if nature attempted to douse the desires clawing to escape in each other’s arms.  There was a devil sitting next to me and I had to smile as his auburn hair blended so naturally with the landscape.  I was obviously lost in thought and he looked at me and asked if I was okay.  Him next to me, him crookedly smiling at me.  

“It’s nothing.  It’s just nice to see you in your element.”  My replay was short but my heart was beating so hard I was almost afraid he could see it bouncing behind my blouse, so I began to cover up but was met with his hand before I even reached the edge of my coat.  

“No.  I want to see you.”  His voice was soft but demanding and strong.  Often there were hints of a struggle for power between us.  His youth and position within the company prevented me from accepting his seriousness and his face would ***** into a grimace.  I never gave it much thought other than a bit of a nuisance.  His hand led mine to my lap, and I expected him to hold it, but he let go with a smile.  I enjoyed his show of power but refused to reveal a glint of it for fear I would lose the respect and control necessary over a subordinate.

Soon the cabin filled with the sounds of rain and thunder and as I stared out the window jealous of the drops of rain and their randomness, he touched my shoulder and looked down at me with his eyes bluer than wild lupine.  I smiled a painful smile and he knew I was overthinking the moment.  Taking my hand, he brought me to his chest and into his arms, arms that would embrace all of me and at times felt as if they could wrap around me twice.  I placed my head on his chest and began to reach for his belt.  The *** I had known was always routine.  This was expected, that was not allowed.  I fell into that routine naturally and was happy to oblige his needs in order to meet mine.  He kissed my forehead and still holding one hand, led me to the door of the cabin.  “What are we do…”  He stopped me with a single “shhh” from his lips.  I followed him and felt myself shiver.  I was not sure if I was shivering in fear or from the nip of fall air.  

“Don’t be afraid.  You have nothing to fear from me.  There’s no need to shiver my little poppet.”  He stepped back from me and stared as if I were a tiny bird in need of nestling back into its home.  “I’ve never seen you afraid.”  He touched my cheek and I felt so small and helpless, lost from home, and he was the only way back.  With a smile he took my hand and led me outside to the rain, lifting his face and savoring the drops bouncing off his cheeks.  

“W..w..what are you doing?”  I was trembling now and wondered if I had misjudged this man and he was in fact a lunatic ready to strangle me to my death.  My silk blouse, now drenched, clung to my ******* exposing an imprint of lace from my bra.  He reached for my shawl and pulled it off my shoulders.  He was looking at me so lovingly my body and mind calmed and I was once again in the moment.  Our moment.  This moment.  

His face, stern now, official, his mouth opening with such deliberateness that I was sure he had been in this situation before.  Once again my mind wanted to race to thoughts of not being good enough or that I was too old or too plain.  His voice pierced my thoughts and brought me to attention.  “There will be no talking unless I tell you to.  Nod if you understand”

My mind wanted to slap him with reminders of my superiority to him at work, how he was MY subordinate and how dare he.  My mouth would not open and my head began to nod in understanding.  My body and mind were bending to his will and acting upon his orders.  Shivering gave way to shaking now and I wanted to run to the warmth of the cabin and watch the fire burn the logs to a black crisp and wake up in his arms naked and giggling.  

Having seen my compliant nod, he began to speak.  “Undress.”  One word.  One word in response to the shaking mess of a woman standing in the rain, cold and afraid.  My hands were barely able to form the necessary movements to reach for the top button of my blouse.  I did not want to fail him or appear as if I were unfamiliar with tales of ***** men overpowering and having their way with a willing lover.  My fingers moved quickly now, wanting to end the scene and move on to the *******.  He stared.  He did not blink.  He did not nod or move.  He was enjoying every subtlety of me.  He was pleased.   I was a willing participant in his fantasy.  Nothing made me happier than to please him.  I began to feel hot and something inside me broke.  Was it my will, my pride, my fears?  I was not sure, but I felt alive.  Every thirsty pore of my skin opened up and lapped at the rain so very eager to feel it on my skin and the randomness of the drops was no longer something I envied but something in which I participated.  

My hands began to tug my blouse free from my skirt and the wet silk now draped over my hips like curtains, revealing the curves I was so painfully aware of hiding to keep anyone from noticing my *** and concentrate upon my words and actions.  I knew now I had one button remaining before I would, for the first time, display myself to him.  He did not flinch, rather, he maintained his stare and for a second I pleaded to him with my eyes not to expect me to do this.  He was resolute.  I spread open the soft, wet cloth and began to drape it off my shoulders.  I let it slide from my wrists, then fingertips, then to the ground blissfully unconcerned that my Hermes blouse was now draped over wet grass and mud.  

I looked down at my skin dripping and alive with goosebumps.  I had bought this bra in anticipation of this moment, in fear of this moment.  White lace bra and perfectly matched ******* were demonstrative of my control over even the small details.  My skirt was loose and heavy with the rain.  It was low on my waist and lay just below the navel leaving me the most exposed I had ever been with him.  I reached to touch the button on the back of my skirt.  Undone, I slipped my fingers along with the zipper feeling each click of the tiny teeth holding together the disguise of a powerful woman.  My hands traced the banded edge of the skirt pushing it over my hips allowing it to fall to the ground.  

His face looked stern but pleased, stoic and fixed.  I was in my bra, ******* and stilettos now.  I began to reach for the hinged part of my bra when he stopped me.  “No.  Stop.” He walked over to me.  He was close now and I was so cold I could feel heat from his body.  I wanted to kiss his lips, his full lips, but I did not move.  I knew now the rules and I would do only what was asked of me.  I stood rigid with no flinching.  I waited for any words that would pass from lips to ear.  He did not speak but leaned into me and reached over my right shoulder undoing the chignon in my hair.  He draped my shoulders with strands of liquid filament.  He took his time there, placing each strand in the exact order in which he was pleased.  With two steps back, he looked at my wet hair with the deliberate strands, as if he had created a masterpiece and for a moment I was unsure if the artwork he saw was me or his work.  

“Now be still.  Allow me to touch you, to admire you, my beautiful Moira.”  When he said my name even after these two months, he had the ability of saying it as if he were speaking it in serenade and for the first time.  He moved his hands to my back and unlinked my bra, one hook at a time with such dexterity I knew he must be a professional at *******.  He, who was to be my first professional lover.  He slid both straps off my shoulders, then taking my hands towards my abdomen, he slid the straps forward on my arms.  Lifting my hands, he demanded I keep them out and straight.  Me, the student to the professional, complied without question.  He bound my wrists with the lace bra, the bra I had bought just to please him, then lifted my arms above my head.  “You will keep your hands up until I tell you to move.”

I had become his toy.  I knew in this moment, I no longer existed for me, I was his, completely and entirely, and I abandoned myself to the rain, to the cold, to his gaze, realizing that surrendering to his urges strengthened me.  He turned and walked away.  He took a seat in an Adirondack chair and even it looked small in his presence.  “On your elbows and knees,” he spoke matter-of-factly.  Just five minutes ago, the struggle inside me to have the appearance of strength, would have denied me this happiness, this happiness to be free in his command.  “Now crawl to me, please.  Slowly.”

I did not care to be in the mud.  I wanted it.  I wanted to please him.  First to my knees, leaving an indention in the clay, then awkwardly at first, onto my elbows with my hands still tied at the wrist.  Crawling on my elbows, my back was arched with my waist higher than my head, giving him a view of the thong I had chosen only for this moment, my succeeding moment.  My position felt ungainly.  I looked to his face for approval.  “No.  You cannot look at me”, he commanded.  For a moment I felt I had lost his approval and self-doubt harried my brain.  My will to please was resolute.  I faced the ground, once again aware of the randomness of nature, the power of nature, how things in nature will do as they are told.  The reed is told to bend.  It does.  It does not question why but responds in its way.  Rivers do not question why they are shaped.  They just continue with powerful current.  I was the reed.  I was the river.  I did not question.

Face towards the ground, I could see the mud forming on my body, molding to my shape then rinsing with the rain.  It repeated.  Mud.  Rain.  Mud.  Rain.  This was the cadence to my crawl.  I arrived at his knees and waited there, a dog eager for a command from its master.  I was content to watch the rain beat ripples around his feet, splashing and shining his shoes with glossy drops.  “I cannot love you”, I thought to myself, “this is forbidden”.  “Being here in this moment, is forbidden.” We would have this moment.  Yes.  We could create this memory and think back on it in fondness and with both heaviness and happiness.  I would remember my young lover, my professional lover.  He would remember the obedient executive on her knees.  I would not regret our moment.  I would some day write it all down in my journal and press the pen deep into the paper.  It had to be etched, those words, my words, this memory.

His hand below my chin, lifted my gaze to his and he smiled, that smile, his smile, the smile that was like nature to my body, and I did not ask why.  I was a river being formed.  “You are so beautiful.  All of you.  Your skin so soft and pale.  Your eyes moving from fear to acceptance.  I see now you want to please me and I want you to know that I want to make you happy.  I want to be your lover.  I want to taste your lips kissed with rain and feel your shivering body pulled against me.  You are safe.  I will not hurt you.  Poppet.  I love you.  I have for awhile now, and I think you know it.  You, my wise, wise Moira.”  He lifted me up and for a moment pulled my body towards him burying his face in my abdomen.  He lingered there.  I felt how soft his red tufts of hair were and how soft his words were against my ears.  I loved him too.  Genuinely.  Profoundly.  I was afraid.

He inhaled deeply, there against my stomach, as if he were breathing in my essence.  I felt his breath turn from warm to cold against me as it mixed with rain.  He stretched his arms and moved my body backwards as he extended until I was a foot away from him.  “I would very much like to undress you, poppet.  I’ve been imagining it, aching for it.  I want to see all of you, naked and on display.”  He touched my abdomen with the tips of his fingers, as if afraid the pale china of my skin would disintegrate into a misty dream.  I relished it, the touch of him against parts of me he had not known.  I was always able to keep him at a distance, physically.  His hands traced the edge of my *******.  He moved slowly, and I knew he was wanting to etch this memory into his journal.  Nothing less than ink pressed hard to paper would release this memory to time.  His placed his hands on my hips and spun me around, my thong lining up with his gaze.  “Bend over.”  His voice from sweet to demanding again.

My hands were still bound, and I stumbled at first.  He seemed not to notice or to care, so I arched my back and pushed myself outward and into his view.  I felt his hands move from my thighs to my hips as gentle as summer winds that in their seductiveness turn our faces towards the impact.  I was in my forties and unsure how I would compare to the twenty-year-old’s he was known to date.  The gossip left nothing to imagination and everything to speculation.  My mind had conjured images of him, this professional lover, inside the firm thighs of a youthful companion.  Thoughts transformed to pleasure as the nature that was his hands took dominance over the thin lace that hid the only piece of me left unseen.  I became art in his hands, marble statue, exquisite with textures and curves wanting to be touched.  

The lace scraped my skin as he slid the *******, wet and splashed with earth, over the expanse of my hips and down to the ground at my ankles.  “Step out of them.”  He helped free my ankles, and I saw the delicate lace become one with the earth as the rain beat it into the mud.  This was freedom.  This was me with nature, me with my lover.  I was the reed and he was the wind.  

I was keenly aware of his eyes fixated on the valley of my mound, how my cheeks spread just enough to give hints of the pinkest of my flesh, now swollen and ripe.  “Turn around.”  I heard his voice and could tell the bombardment of rain was making it difficult to speak.  

I turned and began to ***** my body when I felt his hand on my back.  “No, poppet.  You must stay this way until I say stand.”  My body ached to be touched by him, by more than fingers and hands, but this, the anticipation, the wanting of it all, this was the skill of a professional lover.  I saw the earth drowned with a thick layer of rain now, and my shoes made splatters and ripples as I turned towards him.  I was cold now, too cold, unaware cold, numb in my cold.  I was happy to feel it.  I had for too long hid from rain, this glorious rain.  Now, I was one with the rain.  I was the river coursing its path as commanded by nature.  

He took my hands and untied them.  I watched the entire progression of it and I felt his presence now even more.  My hands were free, and I stared at my shoes and his shoes.  I was so small in his presence.  “Stand for me, poppet.”  His voice diffused through the rain and seemed softer now.  I stood there in my nakedness and he delighted in it.  My lover was not afraid and moved his head along with his eyes.  It was easy to know where upon my body his gaze had landed.  He seemed to linger the most on my face, and I thought how odd it was as most men concentrated on my ******* or mound.  My lover was different.  My lover was professional.

“Poppet, I want you to remove my shirt, but you will not toss it to the ground.  You will place it on the chair.  Nod if you understand me.”  He knew I understood but was confirming I was still in the moment and willing.  I obliged him with a nod and without looking at his face, began to unbutton each dot from its hole until he was shirtless before me.  His chest was firm and hairless and dotted with unobtrusive freckles as random as the rain.  I was delighted.  He was beautiful.  My lover was beautiful.

He placed one hand on my head, the other on my shoulder.  “On your knees for me, poppet.”  My knees once again bent for him, and I knelt in the rain, the thick rain and saw my knees again molded in the mud and earth.  I was unsure now.  Years had passed since I had taken a man inside my mouth.  I felt panic, like the river, run a course through me and I started to turn away.  But I was resolute.  “I will make him happy in all things this day” rang in my ears like a mantra.  I watched as he undid his belt and felt it as he wrapped it around my neck two times and pulled the loose end until it was taut but not constricted against my skin.  I was his.  I was the pet and he was the master.  It was official to me now in this symbol.  I was leashed and about to be tamed.  My lover was going to teach me his skill.  I was delighted.

I watched him free the one button on his pants and move to the patterned teeth of the zipper.  He rested his pants on his hips and pulled free the thing, that thing, the thing I was craving.  The thing I would take inside me, deep inside wherever my master wanted it.  I was the river.  

He was not large, not small, but thick, surprisingly thick, he was swollen and vascular.  I studied the curve of it.  The tip, the head.  I watched his hand grip it and move it towards my lips.  I opened my mouth and took him inside me.  He moved his hands to the sides of my head and began to direct me in the movement he needed from me.  I studied the thrusts and followed.  I moved my tongue, my eager tongue, in unison with the rain and percussion of the drops.  I slid him deep inside me devouring and savoring the taste of him.  The taste of my lover was satisfying, and I wanted to bring him to completion there in that moment.

We stayed in the rhythm, with the rain, both lost to the moment.  He stopped his ****** and lifted my chin.  “Moira.  My poppet.”  He led me to my feet and gave his crooked smile to me.  He gave me his smile in that moment, in that second, his smile was mine.  

“I love you”, I whispered, unsure he heard me.  He lifted me like a child and carried my nakedness to the bed.  He placed me there, like a doll.  He contemplated my skin in the light of the fire.  My lover the wind.  My lover the water.  

He was soon naked and drops of rain lit up on his body like little mirrors and I could see images of the room and myself reflected in them.  He removed the belt from my neck.  “We won’t need this.  In this moment, you know you are mine.  You know I am yours.”  We both wrapped our arms around the other, and I felt his skin on mine.  His body was hard and moved in perfect form with each muscle flinching the way it should, each squeeze and release in harmony with the other.  My pale, soft skin was beautiful contrast to his and was yin and yang.  He felt hard and long inside me, so engorged each vein touched the inside of me in a different fashion.  We each sealed our mouth on the other unable to drink as deeply as we wanted.  We were in our moment, this moment.  Alive in the seconds that passed to hours.  We were ready to etch ink on the pages telling of how I was the reed and he was the wind and on this day, I did not ask why, I only did as was I was told.

I did not hesitate when I boarded the train,
caught between the salt and German time;
with fingernails yellowed with cigarette grime,
to come to Paris for it's tepid, sweet rain.
Nor I did tremble with with fear and strain,
flexing my pride in Prague with the prime
that only is granted to the young, at nighttime.
I left nothing back by or in home, but I feign--
for crookedly placed by the cold Danube,
I felt a finger of hurt despite my endeavors;
for as water pooled in those iron shoes,
I felt everything that I didn't wish to remember.

I felt her presence,
hovering over my grave like a mothers last prayers
Like a fathers burning sorrows after thirty years drunk
Alone she stood, framed against the soft blowing trees,
and the dancing wildflowers that were placed as an ode to the dead
She held orange petals to herself,
close to her chest, as if to let them hear a heartbeat,
but the ear of a flower only picks up meaningful noises,
not the slow tempo of a withered muscle,
overworked from exhaustion

She wore black, knee high leather boots,
and a matching jacket
Her hair was wild, and she looked *****
She smelled of ***** and no showers,
cigarettes and sweat and blood
She looked of regret,
and her eyes sang tunes of pessimism
Anxiously she removed the bright flowers from her *****
Poppies, by the look of it
She presented them to the face of my headstone,
cracked and eroded with age, my name barely recognizable
Left with nothing, her fingers went to her short blonde hair,
matted and encrusted with dirt
She ran her hands nervously throughout, eyes constantly distracted

Suddenly, she focused ******* the headstone
A tear fell from her eye, and I watched it soak into the concrete
Her lips moved in familiar shapes, but words were lost to me
Every word
But one
A name

Abigail

And she turned away, walking crookedly into the wind and rain
And though I know she was talking to me,
I could feel the name on her lips, see it in her eyes
She scratched the insides of her arms as she disappeared from sight,
and I felt a longing in my own

"I walked away from myself that day. I gave it all up for hope. I guess this just goes to show what it's worth. Maybe I'll understand it one day, but for now, I am dead to everyone including myself."

Abigail Hollow
Jan 1992 - Aug 2008
A loving daughter, sister and poet.

Daydreamer waiting for her surprise
She's always sitting on the bench outside
Watching through the golden glasses
She sees through her eyes a world that unties
Beautiful creatures and where love prevails
She always wonder why her beauty does not impales
As she holds so many wonders
A sweetness in her bright almond eyes, behind the glasses that sat crookedly on her nose
She focused her eyes on a flat prairie
Where the unaccustomed eye sees only ordinary
In hers, the dale was a beautiful swathe of shiny green grasses
Trees are clothed in delicious cream and pink blossom
Jasmines dancing to the winds, choreographing autumn breeze
The sun casting its last golden rays
Changing its yellow into hues of tangerine and fire red
Her perfect world, she whispers
She is a daydreamer
With eyes so full of love that will make you melt
She is beauty and love
Looking at her shadow slowly shrinking down her feet
Only her can see the magic
You will find her outside
Waiting for the man to share the same picturesque landscape
Seeing her reflection on him just like a mirror
Sharing a moment, a smile, a touch, a gaze
Closing their eyes to a slow and soft kiss
Alas; she is still waiting on this
Waiting to meet him flesh and bones
Dreaming about it everyday
This love she's never met,
Yet she seems to glimpse him in every corner
And because of it, her heart craves for blossoming flower
Her heart is bound to a fictional imagery of him
Creating imaginary moments and opportunities
Clinging to a false sign that precipitates desires
The desire to lay her eyes on him and feel his lips on hers
The desire to feel her body shivers with his skin on hers
The desire to feel his heart beating to her caress
the rush in her veins, with just his look
She will be an eternal daydreamer
Until she finds him sitting on the bench outside for her
For an eternity of love

"...A STRAIGHT LINE DRAWN CROOKEDLY INSIDE ME..."
( for David Olof Carney )

"Six months, if that...eh?"
inside the cancer
eating him cell by cell

life now
a death sentence
he couldn't live with it

"If it be now..."
Hamlet's solliquoy
comes to mind

in the car crash
his last laugh: "Thank you God!
You're a good sport!"

I look at the curves of your body
And start crookedly plotting
If you think that's so naughty
Then give me the straight answer
To cure my curious cancer

I want you to be forward with me
Instead of slowly torturing me
With lines that aren't crossed
And a fair amount of frost
While I await your zero degree angle
To match the direction my tears dangle

In some ways
Those who are gay
Have reached the month of May
In terms of being able to see the light of day
But nothing guarantees fulfillment
Not all the laws Capitol Hill sent
Or enough money to pay rent
I'm still stuck in the basement

I chase after a singular simple chance
But then you see the parabola in my pants
And flee in a serpentine motion of avoidance
To fill my crystalline ocean of annoyance

Maybe I shouldn't be so particular
Or maybe our lives are perpendicular
Because you're a vulture
That stands on what it's eating
So I live inside a culture
Where **** falls from the ceiling

There is straight answer coolant
Dripping from your curved bullet
That travels to me in a straight line
In order to perpetrate a great crime
Of stealing my innocence
Making me act in defense
Until I realize I'm not the best
And solemnly settle for less

At night I am crisscrossed
By dreams of a hip toss
That came from my blind spot
When a straight line made knots

I bought you a crown,
nothing special, it's cardboard,
decorated with construction paper and smeary markers;
it looks like an elementary art project, but you look like a King with it placed crookedly upon your head.

You told them to step aside,
the corners of your lips curled up,
slightly gaped teeth shone beneath your top lip,
you say "the Queen is coming through," and our hands brush as I walk by.

You are powerful, strong, confident —
the King of Sass,
the King of Humor,
the King of Charm,
the King of my heart.

I am frail, self-conscious, jealous —
the Queen of Uncertainty,
the Queen of Rosy Cheeks,
the Queen of Midnight Tears,
the Queen of Imagination...
After all, you only see me as a commoner.

Peter built a paper boat
To set afloat upon the sea
And visit spots of hidden coast
Where not a ghost of man would be
He painted letters on her bow
Which soon would plough and skip and trot
Between the waves which rose and fell
The letters spelled ‘Forget Me Not’

He bid his love a fond goodbye
The tide was high when he embarked
And drifted from his lonely cove
While weather drove and seagulls larked
His course was set, horizon bound
For solid ground and ****** shore
When darkness fell he made a bed
'Goodnight' he said and nothing more

His fast was broken elegantly
Delicately poached, his eggs
His freshly laundered morning clothes
Were hung in rows on paper pegs
He cut a furrow, straight and true
Across the blue, towards the sun
But in the distance, lightning spat
As thunder rattled, eddies spun

The tempest threw a wall of ice
Like careless dice, they clattered down
The sails dropped amid the squall
The hatches all were battened down
A curse was uttered through the storm
Its evil born on salty spray
With gusting arms of icy wet
It threw Forget Me Not away

He coughed awake, all caked in sand
Upon a strand of desert beach
Forget Me Not had run a-ground
But safely found the water's reach
He walked ashore and found a glade
Within it, made a paper home
And origami wings, he built
To never wilt and ever roam

He felled the tree and smote the ground
A frame, he wound of paper string
His garden flourished all around
Each sight and sound of ever-spring
The flowers jostled in their beds
And turned their heads to follow him
He kept his distance from the blue
In case the view should swallow him

An evil creature stalked the trees
It dined on bees and butterflies
On owls and cats, it liked to sup
To gobble up and gluttonize
With paper sword, he killed the beast
And cooked a feast to celebrate
A rain cloud sought to disagree
But quick was he to remonstrate

He flew his island, shore to shore
And kept a score of fire flies
They hung imprisoned in a glass
The light they cast could hypnotise
With nothing left to see or do
He flew up to the highest spot
And carved into a single tree
Remember me, forget me not

His boat remade and set a-sail
The heavens pale with early dawn
Upon his bed, he sat inert
With paper curtains neatly drawn
His charts uncharted, compass blunt
A currant bun, to satiate
A world of peril out to sea
To skillfully negotiate

Some time to contemplate the past
And backward cast the here and now
The Merfolk sang a siren song
And leapt along beside his bough
They guided him to foreign ports
Where shady sorts in cider soak
The tales they told were sizeable
And risible, the words they spoke

He folded down his paper boat
Into a coat of paper lace
And set the ocean to his back
The open track, he turned to face
The way he took was through a copse
The swaying tops of mighty pines
Leant form and rhythm to his pace
Upon his face were thoughtful lines

To either side, the shadows grew
No more, the blue shone through the boughs
And branch and bracken, driven wide
Were cast aside as careless vows
He chanced upon a quiet nook
A winding brook, it scurried by
It seemed a place where time would bide
While either side it hurried by

So dining sparse on only bread
He laid his head upon the ground
A lullaby the branches sighed
Was far and wide, the only sound
He deftly pitched a paper tent
And in it, spent a weary night
A whisper echoed in his ear
It lingered near, beyond his sight

So many weeks of rambling
Through bramble and through briar patch
And pausing for an hour at best
With feet to rest and breath to catch
The summer season on the wane
With autumn rain, attention pinned
To pounce on unsuspecting shoulder
Ever colder rose the wind

Above the adolescent fruit
Fed by the roots of ancient trees
Gave promise of a juicy crop
But yet to drop, they simply tease
Upon a morning laced with dew
A shadow grew and fell across
The spongy ground rose underfoot
And boulders jutted through the moss

The space between the trunks expanded
Saplings stranded on the scree
And whispers carried on the air
From places where they couldn't be
A sheer cliff now blocked the way
A ***** gray and smothering
Against, there thrived a mess of vines
With jagged spines their covering

He found a cave and ventured in
A desperate grin upon his lips
His chattering of nervous teeth
Was lost beneath the endless drips
Reverberating ceaselessly
Increasing with each fall of foot
A passageway and crooked path
By wrath of ancient water, cut

The arid air was felt to shift
And Peter sniffed a musky trace
The passage opened wide and tall
It sprawled into a massive space
The walls were smooth as beetle hide
But all inside was bathed in black
The flies were putting up a fight
But solid night was biting back

A tower carved from stalactite
In spite of probability
Was looming from the cavern top
And from it dropped futility
A spring of purest liquid gloom
Within, there bloomed an evil thirst
For those who drank a thimble worth
Would tread the earth, forever cursed

The cavern floor was laced with dust
A powdered crust of rotted skin
As Peter neared the central spire
The fire flies grew weak and thin
But all across the distant dark
There lit a spark and sprang a flame
That burst from ancient blackened lamp
To banish damp and shadow shame

A scrabbling amid the murk
As forward, lurked a breaking wave
Of decomposing denizens
The citizens of Evergrave
With sinew bared through rotted hide
The flesh inside was yellowing
From every throat that still remained
There shot a baneful bellowing

They forced him to the tower's tip
From which the drip of night was thrown
Gruesome stairs he climbed in haste
Of interlaced and knotted bone
A dire tunnel led within
The light was thin and shadow thick
A deathly door he tumbled through
And fell into a bloodied slick

Within was rank and heavy air
Like foxes lair where hunters slept
The walls, from living flesh, were stitched
The carpet twitched as Peter stepped
The Zombie Queen sat on her throne
Of flesh and bone of Underlands
She rested on its gory arms
Which raised their palms and held her hands

The creature laughed and cocked her head
A single thread of drool there hung
Between her lips and fear crowned
The single sound which echoes sung
The living walls, they tensed and strained
As terror reigned and ichor dripped
And when the monarch of the dead
Inclined her head, the stitches ripped

She spoke in harsh and bitter tones
As withered crones do curses bloom
The fate of Peter turned to dread
His soul, the dead would soon entomb
A single card he had to play
On such a day, in such a spot
He grinned and bid the rotting queen
‘Your time has been, forget me not’

His folded coat he casted wide
And from inside, a paper storm
Within the flurry, shapes were made
As wings were splayed and talons formed
A paper dragon rustled forth
And in his jaws, the queen he caught
He turned on the assembled dead
Within his head, a single thought

Peter climbed between the wings
Where paper rings he’d fastened there
Gave safety for the coming fight
And all the night, he nestled there
Until the dragon fell asleep
Upon a heap of smitten foes
And Peter robbed the deathly hoard
Each room explored on stealthy toes

He shunned the dark and met the day
And made away for higher ground
Along a path of narrow ledges
Razor edges, upwards wound
A trail, he scaled around the peak
Of Raven’s Beak the mighty mount
Up slopes which claimed so many lives
And widowed wives beyond his count

He stood atop the pinnacle
Where clinical, the ****** snow
Reflecting in the autumn light
Lent all a white and eerie glow
The frost had chilled his fleshy core
His eyes absorbed the scenery
A distant shoreline tugged his soul
A long unfolding memory

Of home and of his fireside
His future bride would tarry there
The tiny church upon the sand
He’d always planned to marry there
He took his dagger from his sock
Into the rock at just that spot
He carved upon the highest stone
I turn to home, forget me not

The knotted land that lay between
Had never been abode to man
The name it took was infamous
And ominous: The Neverspan
Its valleys tinkered with the eye
A fractured sky shone crookedly
Above a wood of vacant trees
That clawed the breezes hookedly

The setting sun would lead the way
Through lands which lay in wait for him
To bare him forth, a paper horse
To keep a course and gait for him
The blackness trickled from the bark
The  tangled dark enshrouded him
And songs in long forgotten tongues
About him hung and clouded him

He journeyed through the Ebonmire
Though fire failed to kindle there
His breath before him writhed in blight
And turned to fight the rancid air
Through many months of loneliness
And bitterness of solitude
He conquered the abandoned wood
And silent stood in gratitude

He forayed through the hill and plain
As on the wane the winters hold
The grass had shaken off the snow
Its Icy glow had turned to gold
A paper hat he now prepared
For as he fared, the rain endured
His horse was crumpled in the wet
No living vet would see it cured

The seasons tumbled mindlessly
And rivalry removed his haste
A sallow band of Neverbeast
By shadow greased and interlaced
With paper sword, he lay in wait
To penetrate each haggard hide
And when their blood was deftly spilled
A phial he filled for sake of pride

The sun became his only guide
His face belied his weariness
With little left to raise his soul
Above the cold and dreariness
Until the second summer passed
And sunset cast a silhouette
The outline of a tiny church
Was perched beside a maisonette

A flutter leapt about his heart
And wide apart, his eyes were flung
As Peter ran with tired limbs
The heavens dimmed and crickets sung
He reached his open garden gate
His face elated, turned to woe
As through the window he could see
His bride to be would not be so

A gentleman stood at her side
His bride adorned in happiness
And though it burned in Peter’s chest
His wrath would rest in idleness
So with a final fleeting peek
He turned to seek a worthy cause
Before he left he knelt before
His former door and seemed to pause

He fled upon his paper wings
As many things he’d yet to see
A myriad of foreign faces
Distant places he should be
He sailed the sky and sought the sand
His native land he soon forgot
Behind, he left a single note
And on it wrote: Forget me not

plied playful pied piper oh puppeteer dream writer of a wonder and future so bright,
oh tell pray chance the grand wonders in morrows to come a stored store for the wondering fools of this world tonight.

casting, the irons so hot, malleable, tender in the hearts delights, here in this awkwardly worded flight, of fearless tendency, oh ****, necromancy?
****, yeah, that, that can stay far from sight. now, lets lead with the fixxen to wack the mole of ridiculous vixxen and fiction so true, so true the crookedly made house, rousted clout, for he is an ego far too large this alley mouse, pretending to be a cat without a house, oh wait that's me, scratch that last part, before someone figures out i was only a silly little roustabout, and hoping to rooster, and goose the calling of mine own loud *** mouth out. crap. this *****, but we are far from done, oh almost forgot you standing there, will you do us all a solid and tell us the way out? or at least what horse to bet on in the triple crown and the powered ***** all hanging out? your a Daisey if ya do.
SuperStar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1EreTOvelQ

Sometimes you might find me,
in a back alley, throwing up my guts,
in explosions, of green and orange.

Sometimes you might find me,
in a rundown apartment, with a ceiling fan
that arcs crookedly, hitting the ceiling in
explosions of drywall and poverty

Sometimes you might find me,
in a sunny park, scribbling lines in a
worn, tattered notebook,
in explosions, of ink and passion

Sometimes you might find me,
outlined in chalk, battered, bruised, ******
in explosions of red and abuse.

Sometimes you might find me,
standing beside you, walking with
and guiding you in explosions of
anger
and
I told you so's.

blurred through the mumbling atomic cafe
i thought i heard you say
i am become deaf
destroyer of words
but you were breath
become butterfly effect
spiraling within the stereophonic white-noise drone
of a static radio station
tuned to the music of the silent colossal rotation
of the planets, stars, sun and moon
behind the drawn curtain of a vanished polaroid

still these beating hearts to a murmur
slow these breathing lungs to a whisper
and attach the cello strings of your bloodstream
to that glittering confetti cloud of satellites
strobing, circling the sphere of our atmosphere
strung out on geo-synchronicity
the turning tunnel of the tides
the aeon-spanning volcanic swirl of magma
subsonically writhing
beneath the magnetic pull of the ocean floor
and just...listen...

can you hear the flaming  crackle
of the fire burning in our bellies?
if we slit our stomachs open
the flames that spill from our hari-kiri'd entrails
will fill the darkness in the corner of our closet
and burn it to ashes

in a dream
i saw us laughing together many years from now

when the blast-furnace of our blood, sweat, tears and acid dreams gapes wide
we will laugh in it's face
at the absurdities
of death and taxes

and as the years push through
we will laugh
as we go blind in our old age
growing brighter than the glow
from within the dollhouse home we assembled
from sticks n stones

and we will grow gray together
and fill the soles in our shoes
the holes in our soles
with the dirt, rust, ash, concrete and angel dust
of these city streets

and we will laugh like pyromaniacs
as we **** on burial plots
soil our own graves
and erase our fingerprint smudges
from the blueprints
of our jailbreak escape plan

flames will erupt from the holes in our heads
consume us
spread in a tectonic shock-wave
and lick the pale toes of angels and dreaming junkies
hovering on ghost clouds of ***** soot
just above the foot of our bed

the outlines of our bodies will liquify, disintegrate
and reform as the jagged teeth of a cityscape skyline
crowned crookedly upon the head of a crippled pigeon
ascending in a stuttering climb
towards a heaven
that does not exist
for us

shaking ash and bone-dust from twisted feather
our flames will spread further
devour prehistoric forests
**** roots and tree trunks to bare bone
and march in a coronation parade
upon the city gates
behind a revolutionary brigade
of angry red army ants

finally, those flames
will surround a broken boombox
lost behind a landfill-mound
of moth-chewed cardboard moving boxes
containing the soft stains of dream and memory
tagged, painted, and graffitied
in white out, in sharpie
duct tape peeling from perforated speakers
the flashlight-sized battery compartment
an empty coffin

i didn't cry the day you died. i'm sorry. the reality that you had passed away at barely twenty-five didn't really hit me, even at your eulogy and that still haunts me. they say that denial is the first stage of addiction but I assumed that you knew that death was a possible side-effect of your prescription. about two weeks after your wake, it hit me like a train. i was riding the n judah to the end of the line at ocean beach when I passed a throw-up piece that you had painted a few years before in the train tunnel near haight and cole. it was a big letter "a" in lowercase with an exclamation point next to it. i once asked you what it meant. you shrugged and said, "i just like the shape of it," and something clicked. it was then that i realized (that)

the flames of our light, love and laughter
move faster than the speed of life
and those flames pass us by in the blink of an eye
if we're not quick enough to catch 'em
and return the letters like stars
we borrowed, typed, stole, scribbled and scrawled across the pages of the sky
back to the sprawling library of the night
where they belong    
where we belong

I look out the window
Into the yard
I see a fluffy Junco
Sitting comfortably on the fence

I see him look around
Then fly over to the feeders
I watch as he gets some seeds
Then goes back to the fence
He puffs back up
And then out of nowhere
A baby Junco
Crookedly and excited
Flies in
Sits next to his dad
And his dad feeds him
And then his dad is off again
To get more food
For his baby

Over the weeks
I watch the Goldfinches,
The Grosbeaks, the Finches,
The Doves, and
The Sparrows.
All gathering on the fence
With their families
To eat
And I am reminded
Of my family
Gathering around the dinner table
Everynight
Chattering, coming and going
But then I think
That those birds must have it far easier
Than we do
All they worry about is surviving
While we have discussions on
Politics, school, wars
Gossip, rumors, things of unimportance

That's when I think back
To my childhood dream
“I want to be a bird when I grow up”
Because they are worry free
Unlike me

I'm perfectly imperfect
That's what they always say
I'm crookedly straight
But I'm far from gay
I forever speak my mind
Always and all day
My heart is on my sleeve
But guarded all the same
I'm devilishly innocent
My mind is not so tame
I'm dishonestly truthful
But never take the blame
I'm completely backwards
We can never be the same

To me upwards is downwards
The sky's my only ground
Your life I can still ruin
It is with in my bounds
I'm depressingly happy
There is no middle ground
My version of earth is flat...
Why should it be round?
My earth is a work of art
With colours everywhere
Your world I broke and ripped apart
Just to prove I don't fit there
I tore it up in little bits
I left the pieces without a care
I'm completely backwards
I'm such a major scare


I'm nationally local
You can see me all the time
I can disappear into thin air
Leaving you without a rhyme
For I'm melodically harmonious
No brighter than the dullest shine
I'm incomprehensibly real
And yet so hard to find
Pure white to me is simple black
Race is gone and can't come back
I can prove all that I am
A thing to which you surely lack
I'm disrespectfully respectful
My words are always fact
I'm completely backwards
I'll drive you past insane
Then I'll never bring you back

I'm illegally legal
Like a drug that you can't sell
I'm contrastingly bendable
In this world of my own hell
I'm resistingly irresistible
My secrets you will never tell
I'm obscenely lovable
In this world in which I fell
I landed in this twisted place
A world of expectations
This world I created on my own
For I'm an undertone of exaggeration
Here I've found my only home
In a backwards world of my creation
And all in all I'm here to say
"I'm completely backwards
In every single way"

I realized I'd never really visited a hospital bed.
I'd been once for the birth of my sister,
but all I remember are the boxes of krispy kreme doughnuts
and my aunt, who'd not yet had a child of her own,
scolding and snapping at my brother and I
just four and five
to stop playing with my mother's adjustable bed.
And I remember the face of my grandmother,
joyous, though not quite smiling;
but perhaps I remember her that way
because I was always a little bit afraid of her,
and still was when she died six years later.
But it was sudden, and she didn't even make it to the hospital.
I don't even remember my sister herself,
or my mother,
just her bed and trying to climb into it.

But now here I was,
filing past the numbered blue doors
in the halls that didn't smell like sickness
or loneliness or anything poetic at all--
just cafeteria food, close and a bit *****.

In the room, there are two women
lying on their beds, each watching a TV.
They are watching the same show,
but they are each wearing a set of headphones
and watching separate screens.
It looks a bit lonely
and I wonder if maybe they'd like to watch it together.

I kiss her hello
and her eyes are watery, her voice broken;
but I am assured this is not her normal state.
but it's the only way I've ever seen her,
so it's hard to imagine her otherwise.
There's a kiwi and an empty yogurt cup on the table
and I start to zone out,
probably wondering whether they're from her lunch
or already her dinner.

But I let my mind wander
and soon I'm picturing everyone I know in turn
lying in a hospital bed.
One is missing all her hair,
another has an IV,
and I ask myself which ones I would visit.

The woman in the bed is smiling crookedly;
I've been told the tube in her arm is morphine,
and she's speaking about the dinner she had at our house
while my french sister assures her that we'll do it again
when her four days of rest are up.

And I go back to my game.
It's a bit cruel, maybe,
but life, I think,
is all a story of sickness
and who would visit you,
brave the stale air of your hospital room
and tell you stories of the future.

Cruel Blackness




I want to do the unpopular possibly the scary I want to face the darkness but keep from getting
Lost that is the trick a guide lost is worthless my heart is heavy and it bears the condition of

Despair but not a cheap act or idea that would suit a magic show but to dispel darkness bring
Light out of nothing let it gradually form its unquestionable life sustaining power in the secret

Place prisons that are uncanny and profound easy to enter inextricable impossible to escape
Defeat fate's death chilling breath feeds on your soul until the outer man is no more here is where

Doubt is size less who can measure or plumb its depth the shroud tolls with silent bells if there
Be walls who can tell most would give into panic the sure music of pleasure to the heart of

Darkness within the darkest robe phobia’s all manner of emotional chains are stored quietly as a
Many legged spider they approach the tolling of somber is known it works masterful deigns

That reach thoughts that turn only with ease in a demon’s mind the feign is unreal but as the
Heart is desperately wicked who shall Know it enslaves it own without number you need the

One and only component that knows no fear its price and availability and its origin a mystery it
Is not in League with and on Terms with The tremulous waster that shakes and breaks

Foundations that seemingly have no beginning or end that runs crookedly to the unknown and
Its name is Disaster but it has a master it lives in void fueled world of incomprehension but a

Child can harness its attributes innocent’s forms It out of the nothingness we need it grows
Precipitously formable you start by denouncing your own mind the end of self and you have few

Weighted steps to the door there is no terror as terrifying as dependence on an outcome that you
Have no control over to come and blunder past warning signs that are insoluble is to annihilate

Such a foolish intruder thus the darkness in the first place when your heart is filled with darkness
How do you suppose to find light or life you have chosen death and not even God can wrest it

From your hand only by coming as an Innocent child believing and by having faith all darkness
Vanishes light is contrastive giving congruence to worlds of different languages that without

Faith all is meaningless there is no Intellectual connection possible and the dead remain dead
Because only the spirit can know spiritual things love stands in the offing forever out of reach of

Those who will not put self to death that only lives for earthy while the spirit heavenly the dead
Will be removed to darkness without remedy the living spirit will flash across infinity and will

Truly be the only ones that can pass through that terrifying door and instantly be at home in
Heaven

i'm becoming cynical, jaded, and edgy
my words
rap-tap out of my mouth
sharper
and harsher than i mean them.
i worry that i'm becoming
the people i despise.
i worry that i'm a poser
and a fraud
and i worry that i've forgotten my own kindness.

hearts are strange things,
and they do tell lies
but this is the truth of mine:
it pulses, it breaks, and it heals;
crookedly,
but it does heal.
it is susceptible to almost anything
and hardened against nothing.

isn't there hope, after all?
my quick angry words betray
a deep tenderness that i fight for,
that i protect,
and i believe.
i believe in the instrinsic power of human beings.
i believe in magic,
that music is the most powerful thing in the world,
and that words can change
minds
can color
hearts.

i believe in the power of dreams,
and i believe that things are temporary,
that they are fragile,
that we must become oblivious to nothing.
i believe that people are becoming ignorant
and i believe that we are coming back from ignorance.
i believe that i am a remarkable
and i believe that i am painfully
insignificant.
i believe that at least 50% of poems
(maybe even this one)
say nothing at all,
and i believe that the other 50%
say the things we need most
to say.

*and i hope that i don't believe
for nothing.

I sing along to drown out the voices
My sad playlist and I sit
listless
and I stubbornly ignore myself
If you can't say anything nice
then take your fingernails
and curl off my skin
starting at the genitals
effectively preparing me for taxidermy
Off I search
Alone is notsafe
Alone is smiling crookedly
from empty bones and a few yellow teeth
My naked pieces scattered carnage
on the dank floor of my cell
covered in hotel carpet
So ******
it almost gets me off
Reminds me of venereal hookers
and air freshener
which always results in tainted pleasure
So I put on my dark circles and bags under my eyes
to fit in
and I leave the thousand unlit cells
some empty
some containing rancid bits of pancreas
and I keep climbing blindly
I lost an eye in 14D
I humorlessly squished the other as I bent to pick it up

I don't know where we stand
But still you hold my hand
What are we, really?
Why can't you say it freely?
I'm stuck up in my head with my thoughts
Words forming knots
For there's nothing like us
I don't want to make a fuss
But I've never felt this way
My heart is starting to betray
These rules I've cast upon my walls
With just a look from you it sprawls
Should I stop?
Should I bear these teardrops?
Or would you let me stay?
Even if your friend's looks could slay
Tell me what you feel
I'll let you heal
I'll be your fortress
Don't let me go on wordless
I don't want to lose you
Or gray would be the only hue
On this upside down world
Where people's smiles are crookedly curled
I'm scared and so are you
But I'll be selfish cause I don't want to lose the view
Of that **** beauty
So I'll make you smile daily like its my duty
I want answers
But I should mind my manners
I respect what you say
But why leave it that way?
You got broken
Now accept my token
It's my love and I'm sorry
For I cannot carry
This name undefined
But I know our hearts are combined
Even without words said
The thing is I don't know if its all in *my head

Stale yellow teeth spaced between crookedly straight gaps,
constantly inspected with your little finger for forgotten bits of your last meal.
Thinning grey-brown hair combed every morning with dignity,
and a permanent scowl,
which twists into a grin at the most unexpected moments.
The Bulldog is what they used to call you,
though I never found out why.
Old age took your strength and unassuming dignity with which young men relieve themselves
free of painful swollen prostates.
Beneath your sun-blotched skin and flesh-colored hearing aids,
You're the same.
Ready to introduce anyone who gives your family the wrong look
to the glory of Heaven, or the fire of Hades
With your ******* fists.
"A gem" is what grandma always called you.
As though you were the most precious object in her life.
I look at you and see your hunch-backed figure
twisted with time and arthritis.
So un-gemlike.
Yet a gem, just like she said.

"Abscission of Eschewal”

If I am still, I can hear the voices.

Chimes of advices, softly spoken, coronate in neon in my peripherals. Messages, abscissas from the x-axis of words and sounds, just parallel, float their fog of transmission to me.

“Touch that wall,” a voice’s suggestion nudges as I crookedly gain my balance by clutching the flat surface of this white wall, one fourth of the surfaces confining the contents of a tight enclosure. Just under the ventilation shaft, the wall is vibrating. The voices are louder near vibrations.

The enclosure, with every surface bleach white, is a bathroom, a corner taken at the edge of the convenience store off the four lane highway by the high school.

Its sink compacts spotless metal into its design, and the crafting lines visibly run parallel upon in its surface, reflecting generously to the bags under my eyes. The soap dispenser’s cubic structure cut into a visitor's vision like the blade of a pencil sharpener, showing every pixel and every angle of my face inside it.

Feint grooves dig into the wall in the shape of a triangle and a pair of scissors. Opposite that wall, a door with no handle stands; in the place of the handle rests only a circular lock. Behind the door, I hear a sigh, a winded slurp, the kind joggers give after high speed exertion on a morning run.

I hear the air rush, hitting the nostrils.

I hear a whimper.

I push the door open, slowly, and the hinge pops in intervals as it wedges open.

In front of me, a stool sets with a touch screen phone running on top of it, and a limp woman curls in a ball upon the floor, facing the bathroom. Her eyelids are missing.

A video plays of her on the touch screen phone on the stool. In a Skype window, she, a brunette girl with duct tape wrapped around her mouth, flickers in the thick black mire of what appeared to be another lavatory with a single fluorescent light with faulty wiring blinking a white glow upon her matted, unwashed hair. A black frame and darkness outlines her figure, filling the rest of the room. Her eyelids are missing in the video, just as her eyelids are missing in person, but she grasps to consciousness in the video, and she turns her eyes frequently with nervous twitches, wheezing and whimpering in the Skype window on the phone.

“Incoming call, 785-135-1581,” a white screen with green buttons interrupts.

I touch “Accept” and pick up the phone.

When my ear touches to the phone, I hear heavy breathing.

“No breeding, Jonas.” a male voice whispers.

“How do you know me?” I ask.

“Mating. They want to keep you from it,” the man continues.

“I won’t let that happen,” I assert.

“This was in protest, the first. Eyes open, so they can see,” the man says on the phone.

The male voice I heard on the phone, The Heavy Breather, inhales and exhales.

“Are there anymore?” I ask.

“I didn’t need anymore. Find out about her. See for yourself.”

I check her wallet.

I see credit cards, visas, and a 5x7 with her standing behind a podium in a lodge in a small town with a banner behind it, and a picture of a man racing on foot, crossing a finishing line with an arm outstretched in front of another racer to prevent him from finishing.
On the banner, a slogan reads, “Keep unborn and unflowered: cleanse the youth.”
Seated before her in the lodge are several lawyers, doctors, and town leaders conversing, smiling, and greeting.

“Look what they’ve done, colluding together, excluding us.  Leaving us alone. Partying while we suffer. Those in The Colluded of the Equinox kiss their wives and girlfriends and children in public they hoard and tell it all to us, flaunting their miscreant deeds. They hide in shadows and do every wrong thing, but they only rarely do wrong in public, and they are never together at the same time. They keep hidden company. They rejoice in their evils, oppression. We live not more than a few miles from them, wherever we live at anytime. We live with them. One sin from an unlucky man is worse than a thousand sins from a lucky man. Is that it? Is an unlucky Christian worse than a lucky atheist? They spew their mantra: 'It’s so much worse than you think.' They tell you you’re not what you think, that everything you know is wrong. 'Submit,' they say. You know what I did? I did what I wanted. This woman on the ground before you is what I wanted.”

“All this to stop from reproduction? This society…” I ask.

“I hate it, also. Be it willing or unwilling conspiracy, it is still conspiracy, high crimes, ” The Heavy Breather responds.

“Crimes before whom?” I question.

“I don’t know,” The Heavy Breather admits.

“I know some. First, they stare. Peeping in your windows, following. Then, records, whole security camera videos, receipts in stores, gone…written in ink that disappears. Records of existence...gone.Wherever you were, you were never there. That’s what they want for you, to delete every backed up conversation, memory, and recollection, so they can instill new things. I shopped in stores, and the devices were amnesiacs,” he recounts.

The woman on the floor moans and stirs, but she settles again feebly.

"They can't get rid of all that at once," I interject.

“No, but they keep scraping the little details of life away, proof of life, covering them up. They have cleaners, cleaning up our little spills of progress and success. Witnesses, like the devices they own, are amnesiacs." The Heavy Breather asserts.

"Even if the electronics are wiped clean, they must have seen us at stores or parking lots, somewhere. They can think for themselves and put it together, right?" I ask.

“Those that remember us have no incentive to continue those memories. The Colluded of the Equinox brainwash. Married people are telling the ***** not to get married. They force celibate priests, figures in white hoods.
The Colluded of the Equinox force people like quivering lures, closing doors until the only ones left are of seclusion and chastity. They are in all religions, hierarchies, in every ruling body, replacing reproduction with work, with ‘purpose,’“ he continues.

The body on the floor twitches as I hear the Heavy Breather grunt on the phone.

“These are their protocols. These are the Colluded’s motives. The Colluded condemns displays of affection, physical acts of love, reproduction. The Colluded controls the population. The Colluded tells the women to focus on each other and obey advertisements’ models of how they should behave and look…conformed and emotionless. The Colluded are survivalists, locking the reproductive organs of selected citizens to save money and keep control. The Colluded use the magnetism of credit cards to lock your urethra…the tingle you feel when you sit down on your credit cards in your wallet…it lowers your ***** count,” he growls.

“The answer came to me. 'Write your message on her insides,' said the sentence that was scrawled within my closed eyes in neon. It should read: ‘She threw us a stone instead of bread, the way corrupt people do.' You can go, now. I have work to do,” he suggests.

I heard a motor crank on the phone.

“Should I expect the authorities here?” he asks as the sound rumbles in the background.

“Carry on. I didn’t see anything,” I reply.

I grab the cell phone from the stool, press the 'End' button, put it in my pocket, and walk out of the bathroom, pushing the woman on the floor with my foot on my way out far enough from the door to close and seal it in front of her, nodding to the convenience store clerk as I push the glass door open and walk out into the street, cranking up my car and leaving to the open road.

the sun shines crookedly
into the cracks that beat the light
into my head
and i blink away the weather, but only for a moment
as i am temporary
and it is forever
and i feel like forever too when i'm walking down this road
but if i look behind
my footsteps disappear into the melting snow
and i know that i will fade

but how? i feel like concrete
man-made and unmoving
while the leaves crushed into my surface
by rain
are the transient ones

i will remain long after i am gone, if only in spirit
since my mind and my body
have not been friends for a long time
when the time comes, i will cast
that shadow from my skull
and my thoughts will be the weather

if i beat you to it
(i don't dare think that thought, just this one time)
will you hear me on the wind?
will you smile back at the sun?

you know that you're the reason
i can say those silent words
and yeah, it's a burden
but it will be you who makes the sun shine

and now i'm done with that morbid thought

words, make me eternal
let each scrap of paper ***** with my letters
speak the truth, and nothing but
the stupid truth
but is it so stupid?
the truth, to me
is becoming less of a fear
and more of a blessing

and sure, it's still a fear
since the blessing scares me
but the sun has become less of a shadow
and more of a light
and i'm pretty sure that's a sign

i'm pretty sure you're a sign
that i should wake up and go outside

She rises out of bed at midnight
She's got long black hair with some touches of white

She has long fingernails
With some black nail polish made from snails

She starts to dress putting on a long black dress
******* boots with a black scarf to top it off she's expecting a guest

She lives in the forest
Where no one has ever been unless their summoned or needing a spell word has it she's very experienced

She goes into her den
Grabbing a bucket and a net like she has done time and time again

Grabbing her torch setting the end on fire Ready to go explore and get what was required

She opens her crookedly door
Into the darkness she goes with her black cat in tow

She's hunting for her supplies
She's got her list two frogs,crow's feet, one rat heart, a lizard tail and one monkey  ******* which was a surprise

She gathers her findings
Stuffs them in her bag filled with linings

Heading home she uses her broom
She has an appointment tonight so she heads to the darkroom

She gets home and begins her brew
I slowly and unsure I knock on her door this seems so taboo

Come on in little beauty
Do you have it she snarls  I'm just so wary

I do I replied a lock of my hair
Including a small jar of my bright red blood with one tear

She took the items from me
Come sit down so we can get started so you can be free

I watched in silence
As she mixed everything in a ******* *** I was in reliance

She grabs my hand and puts the other on my forehead
You have a lot in there I can't promise we'll get them all it's so dredging

She started chanting as she stirred the potion
Let these demons out, let these demons out I feel like there's gonna be an execution

I was frightened
But they had to go to the island

Now drink this, I did as told
Now repeat after me she was in control

Release these demons from me
Take them away to burn in hell take all the debris and leave me the master key

Never to come back release my soul
For you have lived with me by entering through the keyhole

I started screaming,shaking,my eyes rolled up into my head
I was starting to seize up my body felt like fire I could feel the undead

I felt the demons inside me fighting for their survival
They started to rival

Release these demons at once she yelled
All of a sudden I could feel the demons obeying her commands the demons started to dispel

Finally it was over I don't remember it at all
But the witch said we didn't get them all due to the big brawl

You have very strong demons still inside you
This is all I can do you may have to give the devil his due

The witch just made this god awful  eeeheheehe
I knew at that point I was ******* do you disagree

I ran as fast as I could to get out of the forest
Glad she got rid of some of the demons but the rest still daunting me forever and are the strongest

The Pigs
symbolize for me now
the hell
that was the year that just fell away
a year now spent and in ruins
dropped off like a golden husk
dead cobra flesh
summer sugared flakes of skin,
torn with teeth from a wintered mouth

The Pigs were an omen on that day
last January
day of first blizzard and weather churn,
sleet and howling,
first day of white knuckles and prickling thighs,
first day of numb chins and jowls,
thick and gummy feeling against hands

dead and uncovered in the back
of a grisly pickup truck
The Pigs came into existence,
piled ten feet high and fifteen long,
bodies jutting stiff and macabre
reaching for the sky, blank and indifferent.

I remember being disturbed by their enormous heads
and the way the ice formed a crust over their bodies
binding them one to another-snout to useless ***, milky underbelly
to back
creating not a pile
but a mass.
Somewhat
globular.

I watched
mesmerized by them in their sorrowful death bed,
gliding over black ice down that empty leg of highway,
black beautiful forests woven into color hungry sky
and chalky fields on all sides
devouring sound
I felt numb and small on the back of that prairie stretch
In my blacks and my wools,
gut colored scarf around my throat
Stuffed into my panting mouth
Breath freezing to the yarn and to my lips
Cold wet song escaping me
-my protest against the freeze that held me
Music about wolves against my ears-the haunting lyrics
Stumbled upon by a man with ancient desires, the need for
Animal blood, stone dwellings and strong women

This collage woven by the senses
Became me in that moment
For me a holy moment-every piece of me engaged and
Acute
Body clenched, mind awhirl, ears ringing, eyes filled with white

And then The Pigs whipped past me-in their resting place of crusted steel and chipping
Paint, their eyes clenched like hundreds of tiny fists,
Their mouths open and crookedly petrified
around the last breath of their lifesong
Their flesh as pink as the day they were born
Their minds and organs preserved by the patient
hands of Manitoba winter
The smell of death was imagined then-I was
Stricken by the harsh, wet scent of flesh
Against the back of my throat it lingered for only a moment

In that moment I was complete

I blinked and The Pigs were beyond me-one hundred miles an hour
to nowhere beautiful
And I was left with a sense of awe and a thousand questions
Death riding my thoughts
Hand against my padded heart

I moved forward in time-caught my ride
Which followed the tracks gouged by
The ***** pick-up for a little while
Something small and true stirring within me
Protected beneath all of my meticulous layers
A new awareness of something
dark and curious in the world.

"...A STRAIGHT LINE DRAWN CROOKEDLY INSIDE ME..."
( for David Olof Carney )

"Six months, if that...eh?"
inside the cancer
eating him cell by cell

life now
a death sentence
he couldn't live with it

"If it be now..."
Hamlet's solliquoy
comes to mind

in the car crash
his last laugh: "Thank you God!
You're a good sport!"

*

The title is taken from Alvaro De Campos aka Fernando Pessoa's  MARITIME ODE.

"But the song is a straight line drawn crookedly inside me.."

Curiously enough my friend Jan survived both the crash and the cancer. He thought he was dead on both accounts but would have preferred the car crash as a way to go.

But he pulled through at the last moment which as it happened wasn't his ...last moment. He fought bravely against his cancer and life still has its grip on him ten years down the road.

He's beginning to think he will never die. Don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing! But yes Jan lives on....long live Jan!

How many windmills did you tilt at today
how often did you say that there's no
time left to play,
and what did the child that you are
think of that?

When the last of your life flashes in
the lens of your eyes and there really is no time left,
it'll be a surprise when you run through the images and see what you missed as you dashed off to work on the importance of you,
and you'll realise that it's not only in dreams that the windmills come true.

Being old's like being young
you have to listen to others and the fun in you's smothered by that motherly type of concern.

I fought with the wind and the mills in between and in the miles of the oceans I sunk in the green of the sea grass that grew when I was young and new and knew nothing in the every all of who that I was.

I tilt because that's who I am the boy that was trapped in the passing of man and the man that is passing some time 'til the next time and then, to tilt again
a joy
and the boy
smiles
crookedly.

"I like my fire white hot
and my skin ice cold."
She talked at me crookedly
as she red-marked the rim
of the scotch glass.
The smokey haze almost masked
what she didn't want hidden.
"I like extremes, polarities, you know...
moving towards them,
pushing too far in a direction
to remove the possibility of return."
Clink-to-coaster.
*** oozed out in crescent-circles,
"I like you."

Her eyes were bloodshot brown,
all that caramel whiskey sweetness.
She had it in her:
all that passion, that lust,
that cruelty to never call again.
Her marked stiletto against my thigh
under that lonely spilled table
spoke volumes more
than her sideways looks.

Although I said nothing,
I had it in me too.
We'd connected.
I liked that
she lived
like that.

I hovered in your hallway
Glancing at those portraits
Crookedly hung upon the wall
I stopped when I saw
The one of you
Five years old maybe
Holding a baseball glove
And smiling

Smiling
Not because you were
High or drunk
Smiling
Not because you just
Shot up some dope
Smiling
Not because you had
******* some *****

Smiling
Because you were
Genuinely happy
At that exact moment
In time

Smiling because
You were still young
And innocent

Smiling because
You hadn't even
Met me yet

I glided down your hallway
And into your room
You were on the bed
Sighing again
You looked right through me
And then stared back down
At the cracks in your hands

You started to talk to yourself
The way a crazy man would
In your situation
"Sarah," you whispered to the shadows,
"I miss you girl, more than you know.
How will I ever get over you?"

And that's when
I leaned over your mourning body
And kissed your lips
So gently
For the first time

You thought it was just
A weird breeze
But in your heart
I think you knew
That it was me

Kissing you goodbye
From the grave

The moonlight was shining serenely over still water
Reflecting like a mirror,
Glistening golden stars hover above like flickering Fireflies.

Crickets singing a melody to one another
Tucked away in the uncut grass.
The branches on the old oak tree gently nestle their leaves.

sitting on wooden planks crookedly aligned to perfection
Gazing out in awe, listening to the orchestra
Saturating Mother Earth as she sleeps.

A moment of purity and innocence
Drowns out tomorrows chaotic company.

© 2013 Rachel Fairbanks

Broken lines dangle between
Vital voices at Waterloo.

Slick Rick on one end,
Skips and laughs-
Parading his mangled heart
On his crookedly stolen stick-

Draws circles with it
Around a blinking fire
That has risen,
Around some bush.

Olive sits firmly,
Scissors in hand,
Eyes shut, palms to the skies,
Though,
She skips and laughs sneakily,
Crying out, please, oh Popeye,
Save me!
Having slipped out of the bind,
Rick put her in.

6 Silver bunnies,
With empty pockets,
Sit, twitching
On gold mine expenses,
Looking for those who will come
With precious carrots,
Once word spreads of their
Glinting furs.

escape with me, starry-eyed
a smoky shadowland
where sin is infinite
hell warmly embraced
and lust a syrupy *****.

desire is so crookedly pristine
when untouched by
the ugly delusion you call love

luring, seducing
the inky ebony of eve
coaxes us sweetly, chillingly
to join its empty prisoners --

passion aches
inject me with your raven smoke;
crave me,
consume me

come and dip with me in the night
where our veiled vices can find relief;
its venom will feed my impure nocturne
and your wicked clutches can snake into
the perverse piths of my phantasm and person.

Sometimes I wonder if you really think of me. You spend so much time in your own head I wonder if there is any room up there for some one like me, with all my insecurities. I’d spend all day inside your brain if you would let me.


Sometimes I wonder what you’re thinking when you laugh right out of nowhere - no relation to the present situation - and it’s usually a joke you have between you and yourself and no one else quite understands but I am trying.


     Sometimes I wonder who we are. Sometimes I wonder just how far you want to take me down  
     this path that we are making. And sometimes I wonder about not a thing at all; and other times I
     find myself trying my hardest to recall.


Sometimes I wonder if we’d be friends if we met when we were kids, both aging much more rapidly than all our friends. And by the time we grew up, crookedly, would you be sick and tired of me? We’d see the time each other started dying.


Sometimes I wonder what you dream when you’re asleep or if you have a fantasy world like I do but that’s my secret. And I wonder if someday you’ll store all your secrets inside me and I’ll hide them from this dark, depressing, dream ingesting world.


     Sometimes I wonder what we are. Right now I wonder if my car will make it to your house when
     it and I am shaking. Sometimes I wonder if someday I’ll be driving to our house; finally a place
     where we can maybe try to get some sleep.


Sometimes I wonder if you worry ‘bout things you say ‘round me. Do you feel stupid, do you feel crazy, do you think that you might scare me? Do I steal your breath away with each kiss like you do to me? Or am I mystifying, romanticizing this time?


Sometimes I wonder what you do when I’m not there or you’re not here, because you’re interesting, and I worry because I care. Sometimes I wonder ‘bout the spaces in-between your fingers where your soul begins and this world ends and I know my lips have been.


     Sometimes I wonder if we are. Sometimes I’m really ******* far away and I can’t say the
     meanings I am thinking. And sometimes you need your space and sometimes I need my space,
     too. We like alone but alone’s better when I’m with you.


     Sometimes I’m scared half to death. Just want to rest my spinning head upon your chest and
     listen softly to the rhythm and I hope you know I’m hopeful that things will be okay someday I
     hope you know that I mean every word I say.

my ears rang for hours like phone lines leading to diamond mines. my breath stayed trapped in my lungs as stars flickered into view above our heads, lightyears above our heads. our veins flooded with spirits, our skulls clouded with smoke; we made lopsided eye contact and smile crookedly. my hands rested on your knees, itching to drift north. there was not space enough for words between our thoughts that linked with the brushing of our lips and it was known at once that our hearts nearly exploded concurrently, our hands were still, locked together like a riddle with no vowels, with no punctuation, we stayed, together, like that, until the air around us stilled and our ****** beats were so loud, the weeds were bewildered. and then we stood, the riddle of our palms still unsolved, and our legs took over, propelling us through a parking lot so dimly lit our pupils resembled dinner plates, and we got into the car to sit, to revel in our veins that seemed to connect at a point not visible to human eyes. our smiles askew and our brains charming each other amongst the crackling, we left.

2:50 a.m. and the words just flow
crookedly, but at least they're there
and i bow down to the darkness
for giving me some semblance
of light
in the form of letters, perhaps
but still, something shines
at this time of the night
or the morning, the power
of being there when the numbers change
it feels like control
2:52 a.m. and the words just dance
and i am a puppeteer

Describe it to me; that perfect moment, when the sun peeked out of the horizon and you were standing there, up on the hill, waiting for her to emmerge.

Describe it to me; that dazzling day, when you held on to the very end of your sanity, rocking it in to the burial ground you had been digging for years.

Describe it to me; that cold winter day when the river was full and the tide strong, and you decide it was a good day for a swim.

Describe it to me; that quite evening, right after the sun set you sat through, you saw a cluster of fireflies and they glowed like the world was a good place.

Describe it to me; that fatal day when you went out to your garden and the flowers didn’t look pretty anymore so you took the gasoline and a match, and watched the inferno swallow your lives work.

Describe it to me; that hectic weekend when you fell in love twice in two days and you couldn’t believe your heart was big enough to accommodate such strong emotions. You felt dizzy and nauseated but also suspended far away from gravity like a rollercoaster ride on the moon.

Describe it to me; that never ending month where your only companies were the blanket you loved and the music that stacked your phone. You felt lost as if all roads were interminable maize’s that you were tired of going in circles in.

Describe it to me; that quite night, you first tasted the lips of a cigarette and you held it between your own squeezing ever so gently. You sighed sensing the choice in your hands, whether or not you decided to die from this magnificent sin were yours and yours alone and you smiled crookedly as the match found its peak.

Describe it to me; that well played afternoon where you were only twelve and you were with her, your first love even before you were acquainted with the very concept of love and she told you to close your eyes. You felt it, that first pressure against your lips and you never remembered why your eyes stayed close but you assume it was to preserve that instant for eternity.

Describe it to me; that wet morning as you stood away from the moderately assembled crowed and you watched as they slowly descended your heart in a casket with her still holding it and you could never forgot the deafening silence that followed the crash of sand atop her as if it was the instant you went deaf to the world. Tears never left your eyes because there was nothing left to cry for.


Describe it all to me as if I was never there to witness it.

It is as if I am alone in a sand desert
In my chair, of course,
(See the poor photo, the head inadvertent)
Bay watching the sunset perform,
Except for the gusting 25 mph wind,
Easy-pretend it is July Fourth.

The sun sparkles my customized
Fireworks.
This time I have the desert deserted,
The bay is empty, the few pleasure boats
Obeying my cease and desist request.

Just me, the water sun sparklers,
The wind, and of course, you,
Besides me, as I have countless imagined.

Our crooked dock
Finger points back at me,
Sagely saying, enough poetry for one day.

But the dock is always crooked jealous,
Unless I include him in my sunset poems
So now he is smiling, albeit crookedly.

Some of you have,
Spent a few minuets of your day
Writing/riding along with me on my
Fire engine hose of words dousing.

Water welled up at 3:56 when I
Asked for a miracle of my own,
After waking and reading your poems for hours.

Here I am scratchin out one last at bat,
After being
Mesmerized by your goodworks,
Wondering why, again, I try.

So now let us write a breakup stanza.

I'm breaking up with you,
Until earlier-than-dawn tomorrow,
Though I was but one of many of your
Lovers took and taken,
Now discarded, I won't take no
For answer.

My shirt shivers, my forelock whips,
The clouds have banked my sun,
The wind is stiff, brooking no weakness,
I am total alone, how to make you believe,
That letting go, is difficult, almost impossible.

Until when, when we kiss again,
The back of your neck is my map,
My tongue the bridge between us.

Love is a dismal word. Its cold, and uncaring. Why should it care though, its so widely used these days that it bares no meaning. I’ve said it half a dozen times. And every time I swore to god I meant it. And every time they believed me. They took my word for it, hell, they all said it back too. And I just smiled crookedly and kept on doing what I was doing. I never had a shred of remorse. I never flinched. I could keep a straight face with a five high hand. I never even let on that I was lying.

You’re looking for a love story, maybe a chase in order to get the girl I’ve been striving and yearning after my whole life. But I can tell you now, that’s not what you’re getting yourself into. Instead I have strategically planned out a twisted tail in hopes that you’ll follow along and find something that you are familiar with. But even in the case that you don’t, that everything you read in my jambalaya of words is totally off base with everything that you’re looking for, I hope you have a good laugh, or a good cry.

I don’t want to get to off track though, lets go back to love. The word, in essence, is a metaphor for the human condition. It’s a total sham, a crook and a lie. At least that’s all I’ve ever seen. Between parents lying to each other, high school sweethearts, and the tails of misfortune that you read in magazines and the newspaper, I, like you, grew up in a word surrounded by a lie possessing what we wish love could be. It’s a terribly depressing thing, love is, that we all most feel like we’ve succumb to the social pressure of love.

We all want to feel needed, that’s something that I personally have been striving myself to avoid, strictly based upon the fact that I know what I become, who I become when I need to feel needed. We all get that urge sometimes, to do what ever you can to get someone to just say that they love, because you are in love with instant gratification. One simple word can dictate our feeling of remorse, and turn it upside down, and make it into something it simply isn’t.

It’s a terrible addiction that we’ve all acquired. You can disagree, you could just put this short few sheets of dead trees away, but inside, somewhere, sometime, you’ve agreed with me. I want you to dig down as deep as you can and realize that simple fact. Just please, listen, for a second. I want you to feel what I’m saying as if coming from your own mouth. I want you to know for a fact that the love that you feel for someone is simple a lie that you’ve built around guilt to shelter yourself from further damage.

I’m sure there is someone out there that has found the actual love, the true love as some might say. I don’t know the actually polls, the actual facts. But, in my book, all I ever see is a silhouette, a shadow if you will, of that love. Something bigger then it really is, something darker, colder. I want you to feel passionate is all. That is all.

She walked through the window
Stumbling and reeling
I called out to her hollow
Have a care for the ceiling!
She turned bleary eyes
Smiling crookedly at me
Her face one of several
At the same time three
Amber liquid in a crystal glass
Sloshing over the brim
The newly mopped floor
Whispered sternly and grim
We are only watchers here
Sitting silent and long
As rocks often do
Listening  to a  stream's running  song