on your first moment of being alive
you’ll wonder why god’s in the sky
and how the ***** of your soul
can’t grab hold of the air
to steer you to die
and on your last day you’ll attest
that the plane in your chest
can take the air from your crumpling house
and fly you to god’s bed in the clouds
the clouds will spray and dazzle
with lightning purely designed to unravel
all the twine lashed around your heart
that keeps it form flying out into the dark
of some columbonimbus forest
where the pine trees are black
and you’re only a tourist
through the trillions of droplets of static
don’t panic
you won’t become static
if your being is healthy and your course erratic
through the eclectic college of higher thought
and liar’s losses where
what you said you’d ever do
is who you are and it is you
flowing through your floating soul
far away from your crumpling home
and what you said you’d never do
is who you are and it is you
and it’s flowing through your dying blood
tainted brown with air and mud
and who you are is how you fly with
wings of soul and ***** of lung
piloted by how you die
with tar and drink and merrier things
than you’ve ever known in a crumpling home
because flight is happy and death is euphoric
and falling is a trap sprung by calling for nothing
but concern and disdain will slash at your face
like raindrops cushioning a pilotless plane

There is something magical
in the whirring
of a midday laundromat.
A cessation of pride,
maybe.
People all dressed in sweatpants
the air full of detergent smell
and the sound of coins clicking
against great tumblers
as they go round
and round
and round
and round...

The people smile back,
no use pretending superiority here.
Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles.
The children are well behaved,
their hands full of potato chips
given by their parents as a pittance for their patience.
The patient patrons
ponder on,
their empty hands crumpling receipts.
This, with the crunching of chips
and the distant whistle
over the percussion of clicking
coins clattering
in a dryer
compose an unintentional opera,

an ode to humility.

Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris.

Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows,
Where the hot air wreaks its violence
and men make their ways

in spite.

There is no need to dwell on the exterior cliche of an injured soldier, the propaganda is superficial. Civilians have only plastic green men, heavy dusty movie set costumes, and Army-of-One heroes to populate stereotypes. Keep your images larger than life, no use touching up a paint-by-number. Mine was banal, foolish, and 19; enough said.

One fence is the fraternity itself, the next is brain injury. No other way to understand but be there. A Solid-American-Made-Dashboard cracked my forehead at 45mph.
Crumpling into the footwell,
unaware that the flatbed's rear bumper
was smashing thru the passenger windshield above me
the frame stopped just shy of decapitating my luckily unoccupied seat.
Our vehicle's monstrous hood had attempted to murderously bury us under,
but the axle stopped momentum's fate and ended the carnage under dark iron.
Shards of my identity joined the slow, pulverized, airborn chaos.
Back, Deep, Gone.

Unconsciousness is the brain's frantic attempt to re-wire neurons, jury rig broken connections, the doctor's desperate attempt to re-attach, stand back and say, good enough. Essential systems limply functioned, but unessential ones were ditched. Years later a military doctor diagnosed an eventual triage: Hypothalimus disconnected from the Pituitary Gland, Executive Function damaged, long pathways for emotional regulation interrupted.

I woke up still kinda bleeding, crusty blood in my hair, a line of frankenstein stitches wandering across my forehead.   My sense of self had literally dissolved into morning dust floating in a sterile hospital sunbeam.  My name was down the hall, words and the desire to speak were on a different floor.  Life became me and also a separate me under constant renovation, a wrecking ball on one half, scaffolding and raw 2x4's the other.

Waking up in the hospital, I realized I needed help to get the blood cleaned up.   A nurse came in, largely glared at me in disregard, and quickly left… for an hour.   She returned and brusquely dropped a useless ace comb and gauze on the blanket over my feet and abandoned me again.  This was my introduction to the shame of a VA hospital.  I minced my way to the bathroom, objectively examined my face in the mirror with shocking stitches above one swollen eye.  Gingerly rinsing my hair, the water ran pink in white porcelain.  I remembered the sound in my skull between my ears when a doctor scraped a metal tool across my skull, cleaning debris before stitching.  I recalled that in the ER I was asking Is he ok, repeating it like a broken record, knowing I should stop but I couldn’t.  There was also perhaps a joke about an Excedrin headache.

It was morning, and since there was no such thing as time or purpose or feelings anymore, I wandered to the hall with my only companion, the IV pole. One side was a wall of windows, and I was, what, 10 or 12 stories up from the streets of a much larger city than where I crashed.  The hall was warm and sunny.  I wheeled my companion to a blocky square vinyl chair to sit next to a pay phone.  I didn’t have any thoughts at all, or care about it.   After about an hour my first name floated up from the void, then with some effort my last name.  It took the rest of the morning to remember I had a brother.  After lunch we resumed our post, and I spent the afternoon in concentration piecing together his phone number.  God had pushed the reset button.

Thirty years ago the doctors didn't understand head injuries; they only recognized the physical symptoms. At first there was good reason to be permanently admitted to the hospital.  My blood pressure was unstable, sometimes so low that drawing blood for tests caused my veins to collapse even with baby needles.  My thyroid had shut down completely, only jump-started again with six months of Synthroid.  I had to learn to live with crashing blood sugar and fluctuating appetite.  For years afterwards, any stress would cause arrhythmias, my heart filling and skipping out of sync, blood pressure popping my skull.  Will the clock stop this time?  

There is always at least one momentous event in every person’s life that becomes punctuation, before and after.  The other side of Before the accident truly was a different me.  I have a vague recollection of who that person may have been, and occasionally get reminders.   Before, I was getting recruiting letters from Ivy League colleges and MIT, a high school senior at sixteen.  After, I couldn’t balance a checkbook or even care about a savings account in the first place.  Before, I had aced the military entrance exam only missing one question, even including the speed math section.  They told me I could chose any rating I wanted, so I chose Air Traffic Control.  Twenty years later, I thumbed through old high school yearbooks at a reunion.   I saw a picture of me in the Shakespeare Club, not recalling what that could have been about.   On finding a picture of me in the Ski Club I thought, Wow, I guess I know how to ski.   A yellowed small-town newspaper article noted I was one of two National Merit Scholars; and in another there’s a mention of a part in the High School Musical.  

This side of After, I kept mixing right with left, was dyslexic with numbers, and occasionally stuttered with word soup.  Focus became separated from willpower, concentration was like herding cats.  The world had become intense.

(chapter 1 continues in memoir)

Surround me now, LOVE, like linkage
From beauty to the belly-button of the beast.
Umbelli me here my dear, let me feast
My eyes on your whole from the inside out.
Your flesh and bone, tan-toned complexion
Is f-ucking with my pheromones.
I crave your privacy; forbidden zones
Between ticklish toes and feather pillows
We'll mingle moments and non-moments of
Equal                 weightless                      ness.
A shared glass of milkwith your lips lingering
A lazy-fond sofa-based simmering.
A clinging a crumpling of breath accidental
Harmony undressed by a simple - YES

Candle flicker

Keeps mosquitos away

The wind is picking up

No sound to be heard but paper crumpling rustle of aspens

A **** seagull squaks; only here 

This is desert living

Desert loving

We have a porch

It kind of feels like heaven

Just the moon and lamplights

And pajamas with no undergarments 
Citronella smell

Dry breeze

Skin no longer chapped

Weathered from my initiation 

During the apex of summer when I read outside at midnight

See the Rabbi.  See him tormented by choice.  See his people.  See them wracked by hate.  See the others.  See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.

On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice.  And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth.  Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight.  More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.

See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word.  As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water.  See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism.  See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.

See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.

See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush.  See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust.   See it caught, too, and see it see.  It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns.  It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood.  It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference.  See it sit in silence.

See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others.  And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still.  It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale.  They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention.  So it remains.

See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided.  They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals.  It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation.  See the Rabbi draw to a close.  His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead.  What is left but Death.

See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy.  See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light.  See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank.  See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.

The daisy stands still.

it's a compulsion
everything inside
is crumpling
    falling apart
         caving in
            for
                g
              e
           tt
         i
       n
    g
what it felt like
to continue.
it's a trigger
where it can't be
fixed or fought,
it just has to happen
and then you
cope
and
try
to push past it
and pretend like
at any moment
you won't  
collapse
in the hurricane
of emotions that
hurl through your body
and pulse through
your veins.

I’ve come to realise
That I find Lake Klinwel boring;
Ignoring the skies,
The flight of birds
And their curving dives.
This lake, drowned by eyes,
Instead choosing to reflect static towers
That are monuments to Machiavelli,
Where the financially ambitious
And their crisp paper voices spend
Their days, evenings.
Money in the bank for tomorrow
Plan ahead, plan ahead,
That what the lake said
When I visited.

What freedom
Such a wonder of nature
Has to manipulate and
Reinterpret the harshness
In lines that ascend until they
Scrape the sky,
That tears, simple as tissue.

And all the while,
Cigarette butts,
In an abstract delinquency,
Revise community buildings and council offices
Where surely they dream of hole punch
And green lights and confirmation and deadline for appeal
Whilst bureaucrats administer more paper cuts to the teal-blooded sky and Risk Assessments have given a score to death—
Awarding it a number five.

The lake can surely stay awake
Just long enough to show me ripples
And normality when I drop in a stone,
Just a sound that
Confirms this mind is still my own,
That the waking world is known to me,
Dreams are dreams alone,
They are the ripples reaching the sea
From my daring stone.
To be beside a lake, lyrically alone,
Brings a pain that is most obvious and physical
And so I ask once more for the
Most minute of tides for my sore, tired eyes—
Just a ripple of two to the other side
Where I see a figure,
Where I see blue eyes,
Where I see extravagant dress and
Hair so shapely they say and yet
I couldn't care less.
It could be a wig
But the wind tells me it is not,
And her nose sits among a gang of features,
Knowing surely it turns heads—
Growing heavier with each turned.

The lake spat on my shoe and continued
To reflect the tall commercial towers
Whilst this green space is vast,
Boasting bowers where I sit with a pencil
And I see the birds of paradise
Impressively dancing and dancing impressively.
Sublime in fact!
But I think they are trespassers
We should kindly send them back
Their hearts are excessively small
And no longer in paradise,
Not close to it at all.

I’m done with you, lake!
Lake Klinwell, lazy deceptive mirror!
Are you depressed?
Disenchanted?
Do I notice how you are growing ever thinner?

I heard news that our
Town is crumpling in certain corners,
It’s folding in two like a map closing.
People are dreaming with recurring themes
And the flowers bow their heads
Just in case.

Oh, you are a soft, sensitive lake,
Let me dip my feet.
Do not fear for the town we share,
Do not quake, dear lake,
And enjoy your daylit hours
In the company of the trees and flowers.

I beg you though:
One day,
When I need it most,
Reflect for me a memory:

Diana and I on the corrugated coast,
Careless on the rocks,
I failed to enjoy it at the time through fear
but she leapt, crossed a gap to get to me.
She landed with a kiss.

And if you could add a sunset,
The weather was terrible.

Synchronicity -
It means all of the events
flying, WHIZZING!, d-r-i-f-t-ing by us
as we ourselves float through the world
are related, connected, entangled,
and emerge from some kind of
divine symphony.

The sounds of laughter, tears dripping,
hearts BREAKING, SMASHING, SHATTERING,
the scraping knees crawling through the rubble,
hands SLAPPING TOGETHER as heads turn
towards heaven in prayer-

The warm embraces, -sighs- of comfort, lips smacking,
bodies pressing together in the hopes of being
reunified for a few moments, the glances,
the poems, the letters, the rings exchanged
and matching cemetery plots-

The triumphs, WOO-HOOS, celebrations,
toasts, clinking wine glasses, bottles, mugs
bumping fists, patting hands drumming
confidence into chests-

They are all supposed to be
one godly plan.
Like high notes, tragic sonatas
and joyous fingers plucking
heavens strings into
gracious cords and
silent pauses between tracks
are all one concert that we're conducting.

But doesn't it all feel so fragile?
One broken instrument, one
distracted player, one missing page in
your play book, a hand swished too hard,
eyes-too-penetrating or overly
aggressive dismissal of your
prized pianist
and the whole orchestra
falls into chaos.

What's it mean? What was that lyric?
What key is it in? What is the right tempo?
Do I emphasize the earthy drums that provide stability?
Do I drag you along on a magical carpet ride of echoing
falsettos, throats tugged like the handle-strings
drawing across my violin eyes on an exciting journey?

Or do I sink into the minor keys of my pain-
Songs that I don't share, playing on headphones
now I want to blast them, sob them out, sing them in whispers
at first, let them grow in me like my apathy, swell into tumors of
fear, and hurt and eat me from the inside out!

I want to shout songs of suffering. Have my piano keys
spin you into my anxiety, guitars raising the key like water rising
one floor at a time in the Titanic that is my beating heart.

I want to watch the drummers sweat as they beat out the rage
of having my most precious friends, objects and opportunities
snatched away - over and over - despite the progressive movements.

I want to draw you back into my finale with my fear. It will have to be so disturbing that each note raises hairs on your neck. When I drop my baton, leaves you with my night terrors - so foreign from the concert I'm playing that I'll need

electric guitars, wild wind instruments, theramin and a chorus of sirens and banshees to scare you back into your seat. Songs inspired by fear, pain and sadness, anxiety and misery are all you'll find at this concert. Songs that make bowing an act of submission and never respect or adoration. My forums lack fan clubs. Covers of my songs don't exist.

Please - leave your hearts at the door. Chances are that fate,
the ultimate conductor, will rip me out of this black-and-white
universe that traps me like a suit made from
straightjacket fibers, anyhow. Because life, no matter how unified they tell you it is, LIFE doesn't get remastered. There is no deluxe version, b-side, or re-recording.

No one can auto-tune my words. The dangerous, raging guitar solos of insults and fury that have wrecked
all of the men who really cared at one point.
The friends who survived the mounting anxiety of watching me
skip like a CD in the broken walkmen we had as kids. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I meant to! Mean-! Mea! Meant, Meant, Meant, Meant <silence>, SLAM "Meant to call you,"

Or maybe ([SARCASM] IF YOU'RE LUCKY!) you'll hear track 4. I'll sing, "I need your help!", "Wow, *****, just come over!", "This *****!", "I didn't mean it", "Don't get like this again!". Against the anxious, building, manic tones, my panick blares while "I'm not good enough", "Can't do that", "my disease makes that hard", "Do you like me?", "**** this!!!" blares like an infernal choir pressing you to madness.

See, human symphonies aren't coherent - music theory isn't a predictive corpus. Experience shows that you can't make it come together. Too often, we don't get any rehearsal time. The death dirges that have stolen away my family, one at a time, creeping up from a silent, whispering stocatto'd-doom drown out any of the romantic, epic harpsichord solos that I still only dream of.

The angry, head-banging, 'where's that mosh-pit for grown-up children with kneepads?' beats don't motivate me anymore. They break down the walls to the studios where I was writing expert concertos. The earthquake-like blasts of my self-loathing fear have already torn down too much sound-proofing and the record studio collapsed because noone had the credentials to get in. My only dance consists of turning off the lights and yanking up the covers. Being a one-hint wonder isn't happening. Then again, can you blame me for not stopping? I don't pass this after I hit it.

In the end, the musicians don't always show up. It's like, - We've all been to that concert. Ya know, where everyone feels the awkward energy of a 4th grade Christmas Carol musical? Where, the costumes weren't convincing. Of course neither were the conductor's falsehoods, lies, omissions, or the promise that you'd enjoy this show. Cover art, like my critic's ratings, just don't do me justice . "Smart, engaging, relatable" the new listener's proclamation that "I'm falling in love! I can't get enough!" are marketing gimicks that just don't last.

Synchronicity, like destiny, has revealed itself to me as a fantasy. Reality's crumpling threads don't always find their way into skilled weaver's hands.  These strings have all snapped. In the end, I'm left smashing drums with trombones, crying over the rusted saxophones that can't croon for other hearts anymore. Just wait, my closing number is a Celine-Dion covered effort to stay afloat in the monsoon that I've been summoning for over a decade. When everyone leaves my audience, the program is either left behind or taken only by the weirdos who resonate with this kind of tortuous tune

I end each night walking the aisles of my darkened auditorium-soul now. I like to follow the echo and chase "coulda!" "woulda!" shadows across walls. I find your ticket stubs and nostalgia pulls me away from the dimming lights. In the end though, I can't counter the reviews that my show has no point. The tragedy isn't teaching any lesson and the cacophonies I birth don't generate fans. Plus, requests for autographs have become suicide invitations for an artist who can't release a polished track.

Synchronicity:A word invented and popularized by psychologist Dr. Carl Jung in the 1950s.  We all no better now that this is not a word that exists. Yet, the potential leads us all to chase after seasont tickets.

Synchronicity, defined as the false hope that it all means something. Synchronicity, the hope that you'll get to be the big strand in something special. Synchronicity - the promise of a heavenly choir, or divine symphony; of course we've already fallen from grace too often to question our unfulfillment. Sync-ro-nic-it-eeeee, like an old worn-out cassette tape, rarely comes with the equipment and support needed to hear it. Synchronicity - The jagged, little red pill that I can't take. Synronicity: the seemingly fate-driven world that we all stop believing in when the silence sets in.

Synchronicity: a series of seemingly random events that promise you a long night of unsurpassed concert sound. At least it's not alcohol I'm left lacking

Synchronicity, the artists that't leaves us entangled in distractions. Like scratched soundtracks. Synchronicity: the band I quit that has since left me wishing for buttons:

Pause. Stop. Repeat. Shuffle. Fast-Forward? Rewind!.....
..... Skip.

...................Eject.

The flowers bloom
on empty grass
The decaying tree
continues to bud
The bird
falls from the nest
But lands on the soft cushion
of forgiveness
Not the concrete slab
of reality.

A second chance
   Is what we all need
A second chance
   Is what we seldom get

The shock parades
Up
  Down
    Across
      Around
    As I fall
  Missing forgiveness
And crumpling into reality.

i had finally reach the top of the mountain
i was enjoying my view
the sun shine & the world peaceful at last
but suddenly
the mountain started to crumple
crumpling, crumpling, crumpling
i was falling with it
i wasn't tumbling quickly, it felt like slow motion
i didn't know when i was going to hit rock bottom & start all over again
i didn't know if i was was ever going to be ok ever again
not after this fall from the top


*(mer)

The winter comes; I walk alone,
       I want no bird to sing;
To those who keep their hearts their own
       The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please—no bees to hum—
       The coming spring’s already come.

I never want the Christmas rose
       To come before its time;
The seasons, each as God bestows,
       Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm hing;
       ’Tis but the winter garb of spring.

I never want the grass to bloom:
       The snowstorm’s best in white.
I love to see the tempest come
       And love its piercing light.
The dazzled eyes that love to cling
       O’er snow-white meadows sees the spring.

I love the snow, the crumpling snow
       That hangs on everything,
It covers everything below
       Like white dove’s brooding wing,
A landscape to the aching sight,
       A vast expanse of dazzling light.

It is the foliage of the woods
       That winters bring—the dress,
White Easter of the year in bud,
       That makes the winter Spring.
The frost and snow his posies bring,
       Nature’s white spurts of the spring.

I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.

I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.

I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.

I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.

I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.

I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.

I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.

I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.

I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.

I come every year.

And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.

I first cried

here.
I first cried here.

I kneeled on the polished wood floor, panting and sweating. My body was writhing in pain, having been mercilessly beaten two masked men; I knew not who they were or why they had come for me. Nor did I know where I was now. I didn’t know anything anymore; everything was drowned in a rising sea of confusion. There was nothing but my battered body, slowly letting forth blood and the wooden floor, gluttonously sapping the heat from my hands and legs and hoarding it within its cold, polished surface.
My ears perked as I heard a noise outside of my elegant prison. As I strained my ears to their fullest extent, I almost grasped what the sound was. Soon, there were several noises and they were louder than the original one. After an unknown period of time, I recognized the sounds as speech even though I could not understand it. Fear swelled within my heart. I feared that the goons who had battered me and sealed me in this room were among those who conversed in the hallway and what horrific things they would do to me if they returned. I prayed for the voices to stop, for them to leave. I waited for the worst, but prayed for the best. I silently and fervently prayed to a God that I only halfway believed in.
Silence. My prayers had been answered. I let out a sigh of relief. It was the first unrestricted breath I had taken since my troubles began. I savored this breath; I inhaled solace and exhaled fear. I rose to my knees and straightened my weary back, feeling the bones crack several times. How wonderful it felt to be upright again!
The doorknob clicked. My eyes darted toward the door. Almost immediately, five men entered, all of them splendidly dressed. They walked with elegance, like kings. Two of them stood at the back of the small room, their eyes watching me like those of a bird of prey pondering ******* a rat. A large man approached me, slowly but menacingly with his great girth shifting with every step. I felt my body tense as I waited for him to strike me. Even with this, I noticed the other two men standing in the corner, continuing their conversation. I tried desperately to listen in. Perhaps they would mention why I was here? But no understanding was to be gained as I could not understand a single word. I recognized the language, however, was Mandarin. Without a moment’s notice, I felt a shove and my chest and face came into an abrupt and painful contact with the floor. It took me a moment to realize that the fat man had kicked me. He shouted at me, in an unintelligible anger. I rose back to my knees and hands and looked into the face of my assaulter.
He was massive. His body was that of a great pig in an elegant, well-tailored suit. His skin was a very tanned yellow and his hair was combed back. He had an upturned nose and small, accusatory eyes glistening with ire as he looked down upon me. He stood before me with a sinister smile as my eyes wandered to his hands. I watched as he ran a fat, jeweled hand over a gorgeous cane. As he continued to stroke the cane, I wondered how he would abuse me next. He circled me once and stopped at my side, his patent leather shoes shining brightly. I could see nothing else of him but his shoes. At that moment, he shouted something at me, and beat me with the cane.
I could not understand his question. Had he asked me about drugs, embezzling, money? I knew nothing of such matters, for I was a simple person. The second I replied “I don’t know”, he struck me again and again, over and over. He soon began to kick me simultaneously, until I collapsed back onto the floor. My stomach and legs had had about all they could take. I was already bruised and I could feel my bones aching. I began to cry. I thought of my husband and my daughter and wondered if I would ever be able to return home. Surely they would wonder why I had not returned home by now and would worry. I somehow believed that I would not ever see them again. It was a terrifying thought.
The pig man began to giggle hideously, his voice gurgling and unpleasant, sounding simple-minded and unrefined. He then began to **** my shoulder with his magnificent cane as he began to tease me, like a demented child. I thought him to be a savage, uncivilized and impolite. For some reason though, I could not completely fear him; I could only hate him. One of the two men in the corner addressed me, and scuffled to my front. His plain face addressed me with a cool and aloof manner, showing neither disgust nor compassion. His spoke to me with a tone that was calculating and observatory and it made me long to know what he was saying even more. But somehow, I welcomed his presence. He was so much less offensive, not striking me or adding to my confusion. He turned away and addressed his companion, who was now seated at the beautiful mahogany desk at the front of the room. His gestured to me rigidly and spoke smoothly to the man.
I could not see the other man particularly well, as the room was dim and most of his form was hidden from me by shadows. How I wished they could have hidden the pig man as effectively. The cold man then knelt to my level and my eyes rose to meet his. I was afraid of what someone so stoic would do to me. I knew not what he was thinking. His slender lips parted.
“Do not fake ignorance. We know it was you.” he said slowly, the words slipping from his lips like water. I was relieved to discover that one of them spoke English. Perhaps he could help me understand why I was brought here.
“What was me? I have not done anything! I promise you!” I had no earthly idea what he believed I had done. I was completely ignorant. I wracked my mind, hoping to think of any obscure reason as to why they had apprehended me and what I might have done to anger them so. His eyes never left mine. He slowly blinked and reopened his eyes. They were cold and unforgiving, shining brightly like black, polished beads. I felt shivers travel down my spine and into my legs. His blank stare somehow felt like a death sentence. He rose and continued to speak to the man at the desk, who was shuffling through papers, and rummaging through what I believed to be a cash box.
With a quiet emission of speech from the man behind the desk, the room grew silent. He rose from the desk and floated over to my limp body. His feet glided gracefully, always stepping perfectly. With only a short phrase, the cold-eyed man walked away. I panicked. He was the only one who could understand what I was saying. I scrambled after him, grabbing onto his leg, begging him to allow me to accompany him to anywhere but this frightening room. Without so much as a glance at me, he shook his ankle free and departed. I felt my only chance at freedom leave with him. A chill passed through my body as I submitted to silent desperation. I lowered my head and cried.
The man gestured me back to him, calling to me in his exotic language as he switched on the desk lamp, allowing me to see him. I was nervous from having seen the two goons at the back of the room. His appearance alone was a relief. As I crawled toward him, I felt that I was meeting a god.
He wore a red silk jacket, embroidered intricately and elegantly with gold flowers and calligraphy that I wished I could read. His hand bore a simple ring, silver with a round stone in the middle, obviously jade. His face was no less impressive. He had smooth pale yellow skin and pleasing brown eyes, large and misty. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail. His smooth lips were wrapped around a long and slender pipe. I watched him inhale and exhale a dancing little cloud of smoke, admiring how gorgeously his chest rose and fell. He looked somehow lukewarm, neither kind nor cruel, not gracious or threatening. He spoke briefly to the two men standing steadfastly at the back. I immediately knew that the graceful one was the leader of this group.
One of the two men grabbed me by my arms, shocking me while the other proceeded to unbutton my ripped and sullied shirt. Why were they removing my clothing? Were they planning to **** me and dispose of me afterward? I feared the worst as they removed my shirt and bra, revealing my upper torso and proceeded to roughly remove my pants as I struggled to free myself. Once I was completely naked, they released me and I crouched upon the ground and cried. Soon, they would have their way with me. One of the lesser men picked up my clothing and inspected the pockets as if he was searching for something. Whatever he was expecting to find was beyond me. I looked back up at the beautiful man, wondering what horrors he had in store for me. His eyes met mine and we both stared for a long time; our gazes were only interrupted once we heard the crumpling of paper.
The both lesser men were inspecting a sheet of paper that they had found in my pocket. One of them waved it about triumphantly and handed it over to the boss. He too examined the paper as an expression of mild confusion overcame his round face, like a moon as it waxes and wanes. Once he grew frustrated with the paper, he handed it to me speaking in his foreign tongue. I did not need a translation, he wished for me to decipher the paper somehow. I inspected the paper with weary eyes and gasped. It was a shopping list! I tried to explain to the boss that the contents of the paper were merely what I planned to purchase for tonight’s dinner. I could tell that he did not completely believe me. His eyes grew suspicious and uncertain. I felt that somehow, this man’s displeasure would be enough for him to end my earthly life.
He took the paper from me and twirled his pipe in the fingers of his opposite hand. He picked up a piece of paper from his desk, comparing the two papers as he delicately balanced his pipe between his teeth. The look of confusion vanished from his face, looking as if he deciphered my language. Perhaps he would set me free? Surely, he could not draw a valid conclusion from a shopping list. He spoke to his subordinates with resolve and confidence, seeming somehow certain of something. He spoke like he uncovered a key detail that unlocked a great mystery. I knew not what he was speaking of, but I knew that he had decided what to do with me. I was somehow more afraid than ever, thinking that he would somehow ****** me, despite my innocence. He kneeled to my level and took my face into his hand and plunged his hand into one of his pockets. I feared that he would pull out a gun or a knife. I snapped my eyes shut, and was afraid to open them again. He spoke a benign and gentle-sounding word and immediately, I felt something graze my face.
Against my better judgment, I opened my tearful eyes, and saw that he was wiping my face with a handkerchief. He wiped my tears away from face. After my face was clean and dry, he swept my hair from my face. I tried to decipher his eyes, looking for a twinkle of kindness of a glint of malicious intent. He gave no such signal. Instead, he placed the handkerchief into my hand. He rose, looking mighty and fearsome and rose his pipe to his lips, but not taking a puff. Even though he looked non-threatening, his lack of emotion baffled me and I was somehow more afraid than ever, despite his fleeting moment of kindness. He rose an elegant and slender hand and waved dismissively toward me. He gestured to the two men and pointed toward the door. He was completely silent. I was about to be taken away.
The two subordinates grabbed me by the underarms, one on each side of me and stood me up clumsily. I watched as the gorgeous boss began to inhale slowly, savoring the flavor of his tobacco. I somehow felt that his breath was connected with my life, that I was doomed to die the moment that little puff had been expelled. The men began to drag me away with my bare heels dragging along the ground. I watched the boss desperately, praying that he would say something that could save me as the goons dragged me over the threshold of the door. One of them placed a bag over my head just as I saw the boss emit a thick smoke which masked his face, the way that clouds hide the elusive moon. I was blinded, but knowing that I was about to be killed. I did not need any clues to be sure of it. The boss had exhaled and I knew that by the time the smoke had cleared, I had vanished from his view.

The end of our journey
on the horizon's center;
the last stop to this asylum
in the midst of winter.

Darlings of destitution painting
****** distractions on the latex;
the essence of ambition covered
within the toxic keepsakes.

Cold doors keeping out
the warmth of affections;
our bodies wrapped tightly
within the canvas of preconceptions.

The thumping of our minds
beneath the crumpling distress;
ideas illuminating our perilous
potential.  ****** beads of sweat falling
into the darkness.

Crazy notions spewing
all over the floor; the
filthy piles of wasted
time is growing.

Insanity within this circle
of trust; our dreams mislead us.
No windows to expose the sun as
we recline towards amnesia.

Lately I've been getting
really bad headaches
and I can't seem to figure out why
because this has never before been
a problem.
I try to go about my day and be happy,
but the second i do,
migraine.
They're bad, too.
My head literally feels like it's going to
implode,
leaving me to be a headless ghost
falling to my knees
and crumpling to the ground
in a pathetic heap,
never even knowing what happened.
I don't know whats going on,
but I feel like these headaches
might just mean something.
Maybe its too much stress
or too much pressure.
Maybe I just cant deal with
the weight of the world
for too long.
Maybe thats the problem.
I simply can't handle life.
These migraines are warning signs
that my breaking point is near
and I need to just break myself away
from society,
for at least a couple moments
just to take a breather
and massage my temples
and calm down
and possibly even cry
because crying really does help sometimes
and tell myself that its going to be alright
and that I can handle this
and I can handle life.

These migraines really will be the death of me.


*~kns

Silhouetted against a blank
Wall, lips curving
Dangerously;
Be still, my tender
Heart, your rapid palpitations will no
Longer be rewarded. In
Dreams your
Existence thrives within my own,
Five fingers wrapped
Around
Five fingers.
Slowly we were twisting, devoid of
Grace.

Once you were in full bloom.

A thousand repressed seeds,
Little
Whisps of hope sauntered effortlessly
From your lips,
released;
I was the warm summer wind, tugging each
Delightful murmur free,
Languishing in
The wealth, the weight of those promises, the scent
Of a new beginning..
How soon it became Autumn,
Your leaves tinged
With brown
Crumpling up, one
By one.

Those sweet seeds
Quickly made a home within the belly
Of a love ravenous
Fool, dissolving as
Steadfast as acid corrodes
bone.

Away, away....
You drifted purposely,
Without purpose.
Languidly, you attempted to brush away
The words, the very sentiments
That have stuck
To my ribs,
Like oatmeal.

What lives within the
Contoured ridges of your soul must be one hell
Of a mess.

My mind is forever playing
sensuous-tricks on me,
constantly,
I am engulfed
by your moist-tenderness,
crumpling my silken sheets,
hugging
& kissing my
empty pillow
& still lying here
alone.

“Willis, I didn’t want you here to-day:
The lawyer’s coming for the company.
I’m going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet.
Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know.”

“With you the feet have nearly been the soul;
And if you’re going to sell them to the devil,
I want to see you do it. When’s he coming?”

“I half suspect you knew, and came on purpose
To try to help me drive a better bargain.”

“Well, if it’s true! Yours are no common feet.
The lawyer don’t know what it is he’s buying:
So many miles you might have walked you won’t walk.
You haven’t run your forty orchids down.
What does he think?—How are the blessed feet?
The doctor’s sure you’re going to walk again?”

“He thinks I’ll hobble. It’s both legs and feet.”

“They must be terrible—I mean to look at.”

“I haven’t dared to look at them uncovered.
Through the bed blankets I remind myself
Of a starfish laid out with rigid points.”

“The wonder is it hadn’t been your head.”

“It’s hard to tell you how I managed it.
When I saw the shaft had me by the coat,
I didn’t try too long to pull away,
Or fumble for my knife to cut away,
I just embraced the shaft and rode it out—
Till Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit.
That’s how I think I didn’t lose my head.
But my legs got their knocks against the ceiling.”

“Awful. Why didn’t they throw off the belt
Instead of going clear down in the wheel-pit?”

“They say some time was wasted on the belt—
Old streak of leather—doesn’t love me much
Because I make him spit fire at my knuckles,
The way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string.
That must be it. Some days he won’t stay on.
That day a woman couldn’t coax him off.
He’s on his rounds now with his tail in his mouth
Snatched right and left across the silver pulleys.
Everything goes the same without me there.
You can hear the small buzz saws whine, the big saw
Caterwaul to the hills around the village
As they both bite the wood. It’s all our music.
One ought as a good villager to like it.
No doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound,
And it’s our life.”

“Yes, when it’s not our death.”

“You make that sound as if it wasn’t so
With everything. What we live by we die by.
I wonder where my lawyer is. His train’s in.
I want this over with; I’m hot and tired.”

“You’re getting ready to do something foolish.”

“Watch for him, will you, Will? You let him in.
I’d rather Mrs. Corbin didn’t know;
I’ve boarded here so long, she thinks she owns me.
You’re bad enough to manage without her.”

“And I’m going to be worse instead of better.
You’ve got to tell me how far this is gone:
Have you agreed to any price?”

“Five hundred.
Five hundred—five—five! One, two, three, four, five.
You needn’t look at me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I told you, Willis, when you first came in.
Don’t you be ******* me. I have to take
What I can get. You see they have the feet,
Which gives them the advantage in the trade.
I can’t get back the feet in any case.”

“But your flowers, man, you’re selling out your flowers.”

“Yes, that’s one way to put it—all the flowers
Of every kind everywhere in this region
For the next forty summers—call it forty.
But I’m not selling those, I’m giving them,
They never earned me so much as one cent:
Money can’t pay me for the loss of them.
No, the five hundred was the sum they named
To pay the doctor’s bill and tide me over.
It’s that or fight, and I don’t want to fight—
I just want to get settled in my life,
Such as it’s going to be, and know the worst,
Or best—it may not be so bad. The firm
Promise me all the shooks I want to nail.”

“But what about your flora of the valley?”

“You have me there. But that—you didn’t think
That was worth money to me? Still I own
It goes against me not to finish it
For the friends it might bring me. By the way,
I had a letter from Burroughs—did I tell you?—
About my Cyprepedium reginæ;
He says it’s not reported so far north.
There! there’s the bell. He’s rung. But you go down
And bring him up, and don’t let Mrs. Corbin.—
Oh, well, we’ll soon be through with it. I’m tired.”

Willis brought up besides the Boston lawyer
A little barefoot girl who in the noise
Of heavy footsteps in the old frame house,
And baritone importance of the lawyer,
Stood for a while unnoticed with her hands
Shyly behind her.

“Well, and how is Mister——”
The lawyer was already in his satchel
As if for papers that might bear the name
He hadn’t at command. “You must excuse me,
I dropped in at the mill and was detained.”

“Looking round, I suppose,” said Willis.

“Yes,
Well, yes.”

“Hear anything that might prove useful?”

The Broken One saw Anne. “Why, here is Anne.
What do you want, dear? Come, stand by the bed;
Tell me what is it?” Anne just wagged her dress
With both hands held behind her. “Guess,” she said.

“Oh, guess which hand? My my! Once on a time
I knew a lovely way to tell for certain
By looking in the ears. But I forget it.
Er, let me see. I think I’ll take the right.
That’s sure to be right even if it’s wrong.
Come, hold it out. Don’t change.—A Ram’s Horn orchid!
A Ram’s Horn! What would I have got, I wonder,
If I had chosen left. Hold out the left.
Another Ram’s Horn! Where did you find those,
Under what beech tree, on what woodchuck’s knoll?”

Anne looked at the large lawyer at her side,
And thought she wouldn’t venture on so much.

“Were there no others?”

“There were four or five.
I knew you wouldn’t let me pick them all.”

“I wouldn’t—so I wouldn’t. You’re the girl!
You see Anne has her lesson learned by heart.”

“I wanted there should be some there next year.”

“Of course you did. You left the rest for seed,
And for the backwoods woodchuck. You’re the girl!
A Ram’s Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck
Sounds something like. Better than farmer’s beans
To a discriminating appetite,
Though the Ram’s Horn is seldom to be had
In bushel lots—doesn’t come on the market.
But, Anne, I’m troubled; have you told me all?
You’re hiding something. That’s as bad as lying.
You ask this lawyer man. And it’s not safe
With a lawyer at hand to find you out.
Nothing is hidden from some people, Anne.
You don’t tell me that where you found a Ram’s Horn
You didn’t find a Yellow Lady’s Slipper.
What did I tell you? What? I’d blush, I would.
Don’t you defend yourself. If it was there,
Where is it now, the Yellow Lady’s Slipper?”

“Well, wait—it’s common—it’s too common.”

“Common?
The Purple Lady’s Slipper’s commoner.”

“I didn’t bring a Purple Lady’s Slipper
To You—to you I mean—they’re both too common.”

The lawyer gave a laugh among his papers
As if with some idea that she had scored.

“I’ve broken Anne of gathering bouquets.
It’s not fair to the child. It can’t be helped though:
Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.
Somehow I’ll make it right with her—she’ll see.
She’s going to do my scouting in the field,
Over stone walls and all along a wood
And by a river bank for water flowers,
The floating Heart, with small leaf like a heart,
And at the sinus under water a fist
Of little fingers all kept down but one,
And that ****** up to blossom in the sun
As if to say, ‘You! You’re the Heart’s desire.’
Anne has a way with flowers to take the place
Of that she’s lost: she goes down on one knee
And lifts their faces by the chin to hers
And says their names, and leaves them where they are.”

The lawyer wore a watch the case of which
Was cunningly devised to make a noise
Like a small pistol when he snapped it shut
At such a time as this. He snapped it now.

“Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait.
The lawyer man is thinking of his train.
He wants to give me lots and lots of money
Before he goes, because I hurt myself,
And it may take him I don’t know how long.
But put our flowers in water first. Will, help her:
The pitcher’s too full for her. There’s no cup?
Just hook them on the inside of the pitcher.
Now run.—Get out your documents! You see
I have to keep on the good side of Anne.
I’m a great boy to think of number one.
And you can’t blame me in the place I’m in.
Who will take care of my necessities
Unless I do?”

“A pretty interlude,”
The lawyer said. “I’m sorry, but my train—
Luckily terms are all agreed upon.
You only have to sign your name. Right—there.”

“You, Will, stop making faces. Come round here
Where you can’t make them. What is it you want?
I’ll put you out with Anne. Be good or go.”

“You don’t mean you will sign that thing unread?”

“Make yourself useful then, and read it for me.
Isn’t it something I have seen before?”

“You’ll find it is. Let your friend look at it.”

“Yes, but all that takes time, and I’m as much
In haste to get it over with as you.
But read it, read it. That’s right, draw the curtain:
Half the time I don’t know what’s troubling me.—
What do you say, Will? Don’t you be a fool,
You! crumpling folkses legal documents.
Out with it if you’ve any real objection.”

“Five hundred dollars!”

“What would you think right?”

“A thousand wouldn’t be a cent too much;
You know it, Mr. Lawyer. The sin is
Accepting anything before he knows
Whether he’s ever going to walk again.
It smells to me like a dishonest trick.”

“I think—I think—from what I heard to-day—
And saw myself—he would be ill-advised——”

“What did you hear, for instance?” Willis said.

“Now the place where the accident occurred——”

The Broken One was twisted in his bed.
“This is between you two apparently.
Where I come in is what I want to know.
You stand up to it like a pair of *****.
Go outdoors if you want to fight. Spare me.
When you come back, I’ll have the papers signed.
Will pencil do? Then, please, your fountain pen.
One of you hold my head up from the pillow.”

Willis flung off the bed. “I wash my hands—
I’m no match—no, and don’t pretend to be——”

The lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen.
“You’re doing the wise thing: you won’t regret it.
We’re very sorry for you.”

Willis sneered:
“Who’s we?—some stockholders in Boston?
I’ll go outdoors, by gad, and won’t come back.”

“Willis, bring Anne back with you when you come.
Yes. Thanks for caring. Don’t mind Will: he’s savage.
He thinks you ought to pay me for my flowers.
You don’t know what I mean about the flowers.
Don’t stop to try to now. You’ll miss your train.
Good-bye.” He flung his arms around his face.

Sleepless sorrow,
Deafening agony,
Crippling brutality,
Grasp it's soul,
Pulling under the moistened pavement into the forgotten bumps and cracks,
Break thy hope.
Shatter the stare with malicious chatter,
Each droplet adds another bone to split,
Crumpling what is left,
Leaving but an emotionless corpse,
Forever gawking at imaginary friends.
Stuck in her own tomb,
In between worlds.
Failing to reach any higher magnitude.

They sing songs
Of desert gypsies
And chain smoking bulls,

Of mirages that kiss
Your throat
And linger quietly

Waiting,
While you quickly catch
Your crumpling breaths,

Drunken wisps
Of sandpaper snow
Flickering and coarse—

Palms warm to the touch.

My warm breath ricochets off the surface in front of me, back onto the skin of my jowls.  I see darkness, but within that darkness, an infinite amount of possibilities.  I'm on the road, the warm summer air is heating the cool frames of my sunglasses as I travel to somewhere far away.  Destination unknown, just traveling, always traveling.  Every time I take a different path with fluctuating experiences, utilizing varying transportation methods.  I begin to float, but I am not actually moving.  It is as if the ground beneath me is simply sinking away.  The wind picks up, the sun sets as the moon lapses into being, and suddenly, I am above a city.  The bright ambient lights are off-setting at first , but I grow used to them quickly. The cacophony of car horns, metallic scraping, pounding footsteps, and atrocities being committed complete the atmosphere. Sometimes I am that atrocity.  I soar down to the streets below and my ankles absorb the shock of the landing.  It's never as painful as one would anticipate. I wander through the dark alleys, dragging my hand across the damp, rigid, bricks.  I hear whispers from the walls telling me where to go next.  I have a calling, a civil duty to uphold.  The collective conscious of the city is screaming to me, asking me to do what they do not have the courage to do.  After the deed is done I melt back into the shadows from whence I came, and wait patiently for the next task.  With no warning and no control I transcend to another setting.  I move on to another life, with no recollection of the past world.
I am five years old.  I stare up at an amusement park, bewildered by all that is going on around me. The noisy gears of the machines grind and whir, drowned out only by the carnival medleys shrieking from the loud speakers implanted in the various coasters and carousels.  It is too much to take in at once and I begin to feel anxious, something does not seem right.  A sense of familiarity kicks in, but never has anything so familiar felt so uncanny.  Swarms of people flash by as though they are images imprinted on film reeling swiftly through a projector. Amongst the multitude of scurrying figures, one woman stands still, like a figurine mounted inside a snow globe surrounded by thousands of  free falling flakes. She turns to face me, and as I stare into the pale blue puddles of her eyes, I begin to weep. Electric impulses speed through my nervous system, my vision blurs, heart skips a beat. They're letting me know that somewhere, somewhere else, a bell is ringing.  I feel the breath again and there is a blinding light.  An orchestra of zippers, Velcro, and papers crumpling reverberates against the cold cement walls.  Not completely aware of what's going on, I follow the crowd and scuffle through the corridors, my footsteps acting as a sort of metronome against the linoleum floors. It is then that I am finally aware of where I am. I am back in the real world, back in the school, out of the comfort of my dreams.  My destination in this world is predicable, the journey  not so immense, nor as intriguing.  My legs begin to tingle as the blood rushes back into the tired muscles.  The woman from my dreams is now just a pale shadow in the banks of my memory.  
While the environments of my imagination tend to differ, there is  a catalogue of fairly constant variables.  There is usually the girl.  Not always the same girl in a  physical sense, but one that provokes the same types of feeling whether she's there or she's missing.  Except for this one.  This one always leaves an ominous, almost haunting, feeling.  She is not visually disconcerting.  It is not her sandy-blonde hair, porcelain skin, or even her murky blue eyes that frighten me, but rather the way she looks at me with them.  Her eyes cry for help that I can not provide, and it seems that she knows this, and for that she resents me.  I have no knowledge of who this woman is, or what she is meant to symbolize, but she makes my blood run cold.

like a star
the girl shines
plastic packaging removed
double-a batteries inserted
and with a flick of a switch

she lights up
beaming twinkling
amidst a galaxy of stars
that look just like her
that smile just like her
that behave just like her

she is held together by her own gravity
set forever to whirl and twirl and swirl
about her own little axis

dancing prancing
for the sentinels
for the solar systems
for the universe

like a star
the girl dies
inwards not out
crumbling crumpling
from the weight of empty mascara bottles lipstick tubes-face paint
to the weightlessness of her own self

I once said I was on cloud nine, but who's counting, anyways? I would, but, you see, I have too many things to tell you at once, more than I can count one one or two or six thousand hands - even still, the sun in your hair is doing a pretty good job of saying the words that they haven't made up for you yet. In my mind, the world would be happier it they'd stop looking for heaven in the sky because the universe that exists where my fingertips stop and your skin starts is not clothed in all white and there are no pearly gates but in this small fraction of a moment, nobody is dying. In some way, something taught us to tilt our heads back and stare at the starry expanse of the celestial universe above us as though we were looking for the answers to every thing we've ever been to afraid to ask but, in my peripheral vision, something about you glittered and my neck was tired from staring and calling out to whatever existed beyond our world and getting a divine busy tone, it was nice to see something beautiful in these human realms, for once. So if there is room to buid even the smallest shelter in the spaces between the small spaces in your teeth, I promise to construct one out of gentle words; if there was a scripture to make the veins under your skin sing praises a little louder, then I would write and rewrite the Bible until my hands bled. Just let me be the reason you are hungry but do not starve, let me show you the way that a body can unfold without crumpling first; I will trace a pattern onto your skin without so much as a single sound, but still, it could, perhaps, be something close to music.

liquid crystal display
glimmering salacious self-imagery at you,
your lips parted and breath
staccatoing along, flitting just
behind the beat, like your aunt's
first dance at the wedding reception (before
she's had enough to drink) or
her last (when she's had
too much)
she was in the passenger seat
on our drive homeward, leaning in
to the driver's seat conspiratorially,
oblivious to your beauty splayed out
exhausted in the backseat.
"she's my
baby niece, and you better not
**** with her
heart, you hear me missy?"
and I assured her I wouldn't as you
laughed and laughed, bell peals
in the backseat and church bells
echoing in my ear, past and possible
future, sodium vapor lights
slipping away along the highway as
your aunt slid back into the passenger seat.
"so"
"so"
"she's quite a
character," I say, bemused, and your
eyes crinkled at the corners like
newspaper redesigned during crumpling as
kindling for the fire, blue and blue and blue
in the backseat.
"that's true"
"just like you"
"just like me" you agree,
crossing your legs, legs that go on
for dynasties in thigh highs and
your dress riding up too high for my eyes
to focus on the taillights ahead of us when
paradise is in the rearview:
love is
cold lobster bisque
in a big bowl in bed in the morning,
two spoons and a carton of orange juice
arrayed on the covers atop our
entangled legs.

I didn't hold tendons between my fingers like
street boys on rain city rooftops,
crumpling their futures up to smash into shredded jeans,
shredded hearts,
some wrappers escaping, flying over this city
as our neglectful witnesses.

Their hands were broken bottles. The black top
made my guts look like escaping snakes,
my eyes hoping to be Medusa.
Fictionalizing gets me through most things.
Sometimes pain tastes like metal, sometimes like cherries.

I stare at the sideways sunset, a wrapper spit up
and drying out, a pipe dream promise;
reviewing my time strips as if they'd had a spelling change,
recounting every drop of blood word and smile.
Sometimes I forget that I'm real.
Sometimes I'm not.

He felt that he did not look in mirrors enough, so he looked now. This is what he did not see: that he was on his third wife and fifth mistress. Nor did he see that both were strong -- stronger than he had kept before -- but not so strong that they could last much longer. He saw a face crashing slowly into tomorrow, but the cause of its crumpling was another. The cause was his wife: shrewish and callous, constantly turning tears into anger and grinding their shrill shards of glass into his skin to cut wrinkles. He did not see his hypocrisy, the fact that he had lain on his mistress' lap and cried the same tears last night. All because of being misunderstood, neglected, and -- this one unstated -- unable to find a still-younger woman for a new affair. After picking something from his teeth he inspected his hairline. "Not so grey."

I don't have butterflies fluttering about my tummy.
It's more like
a large mass of dead butterflies
rolling around,
smacking and tearing my stomach walls.
The butterflies start out happy and well,
flitting about, jostling merrily,
wings glimmering, flying wondrously.
Then,
they lose their energy,
collapse and die,
Their fragile bodies crumpling
like bits of sticks
as each leg and antennae snaps off and falls
to the bottom.
They decay and collect
as more and more butterflies give up,
give in, and drop.

I am left with nothing but
this heaving mess of dead insects in my stomach.

I feel sick.

i dream of the end of the world
the only place i find solitude
time for myself is when
i am getting a tattoo
and bleeding myself dry
with ink in my veins
my life is cracking at the edges
and crumpling at the core
and i am not so sure who i am
while sit in solitude in my basement
and drink myself sober
while i put out a cigarette on my arm
because the smoke in my lungs
isnt killing me fast enough
while my friends do nothing
but make sure i go comfortably
to an early grave
while i remember the backrub you gave me
and how you laid in his arms
while i eat a bag of beef jerky
even though im a vegetarian
and the taste of blood in my mouth
makes me sick to my stomach
yet i keep eating because
something had to die
while i try to write this suicide note
with all the eloquence of a poem
and cry for help in the smallest voice
all the while knowing that
i will just ***** our in the end
and end up with one more scar
of many that are there or not
but they all ghost on my soul
shame
i dream of the end of the world

The world is quiet, up here by the sky. The wind lingers, filling my nostrils with the smell of the mountain. The clouds wrap around me caging me in a thick white box. The cold misty air brushes over my bare skin sending shivers through me. The trees wave me to come closer and shade me from the whipping air. But I don’t go. The sudden gusts lift me off my feet and sway me back and forth like a feather in the breeze. The grass dances, brushing against its self, humming, singing. The stream slithers through the soft rocks crumpling as it brushes the earth. The rain starts to play as it runs through the field.  Then the dark falls on the mountain, and the moon blazes in the night, lighting up the stars. And the world is quiet, up here by the sky.

my mouth hung open
like the door
a small draft entering
this empty room
like my small exhale
leaving the shell
of my body
it clung to the thought of you
like a locust to the tree
my vacant form
crumpling in the wind