Mythical.
The artist is an old one,
Un-earthly and infinite,
Vast as heaven and the void,
The limitations of good and evil,
I am immune, yet soul crushingly bound to its power,
I am a toothpick,
Yet I am useful for now,
As I plan my escape,
Writing an endless map in memo pads and text files,
I tell myself it will someday be worth the while.
The artist is like you, reader,
The artist is ugly, disgustingly so.
The artist is beautiful, and puts me to shame.
The artist could burn the world with a thought,
But couldn’t break its teeth with a diamond,
No matter how hard it tried.
The artist is fictional,
Contextual,
Known only to I,
Especially as the artist.
I bet its laughing at me this second,
My feeble attempts to escape a napkin,
A tool to further other means.
I don’t mind it,
In fact, it’s rewarding in a way,
The artist lacks definition,
But moves with a sway,
It is hard to defend.
[(Impossible to define)]
My role is that of a journal of skin,
A memory bank to which it is akin,
But my limit is reached,
Something has come to a head,
I can feel the artist defined…
It has taken form,
And now,
Unfortunately,
Dead.
Sunburst
I wanted to ask it what it was thinking,
But I think I know now;
Bad things.

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines

I’m crushingly sentimental, you might not know, I don’t let it show, but it’s true. I’m walking in the moonshine and moonshine is how I feel - I’m intoxicated - by you.

Some nights when I can’t settle - I walk - and find myself outside your dorm. Your light’s on tonight, everything’s right, when you're a few feet away safe and warm.

I’ll wait a while, in the windy cold, the crunchy snow, deep in the sharp blue moonshadow. When people pass by, I look down at my phone - oh, don’t look at me, there’s nothing to see or do.

A walking girl, a stalking girl? Lingering, at 2am, drunk with desire, yearning somewhere inside for the ephemeral closeness of you.

A wise man once said:
“Wrong life cannot
Be lived rightly” [1]
Many become aware of
This fact, but rather than
Taking action, they instead
Resign themselves, to
Hopelessness and despair,
As doubt rears its ugly head,
Asking: “what can one person do?”
All the while, neglecting the fact
That this world overflows with
People who are just like they are,
Each of them “just” one, and
Each alone bearing the same burden,
Indeed, on the back of “just” one,
This burden is crushingly heavy, but
On the backs of many, it becomes
Lighter than a fallen leaf
Adrift in the autumn breeze.

Still a child; fragile, undefined -
trembling, timid and shy -
a body curling inwards
- petals and moonlight -
we're magnetised:
this shared desperation and
fumbling adolescent shame.

A throbbing, suffocated silence -
lost hands and strangled hysteria.
Achingly tiny,
shattered-glass bones flutter,
colliding and entangling;
causing the skin to lift
and contort. To ebb -
a fluid - a pulse.

His shoulder-blades
(the crushingly delicate shiver
of butterfly wings)
cast splintered, mosaic shadows
(sharp and electric
to trace) along
the gasping, groaning spine...

Pharate, we're demolishing ourselves
in a gorgeous, stumbling,
careless collapse -
colliding in cold frenzy, desperate
to hide - burrow - entomb --
to bury ourselves - his mesmerising flesh.

Rasping out - teeth and lip
and tongue - ravenous,
animalistic despair.
With timid breath - to rip, devour, engulf --
to hiss and **** delicious venom.
An ache - a yearning - for absorption,
for skin, for blood -
to be consumed and to consume -
to feel every pain of it -
to be wrecked - to become
the same debris.

I spill out into his shadows,
his indents, his cuts and curves -
their fervent whimpers, electrified palpitations -
and he to mine:
It's as though we're eclosing,
these golden deodorant nymphas - we're quaking through;
tearing apart every sad smother of silk - and now
desolate; forever nothing
but drifting, lambent dust.

Skin like porcelain -
cold and wrong to touch -
yet stomachs hot,
hurtling hot.
Flesh winces - ripples - under
premature pain.
("I'm sorry. I")
He crumbles, cuts
my thighs
and leaves us both with
scars that we, as scars, forever treasure;
and with veins seeping Hemolymph;
to heal, to beat, to grow.

you used to make me feel like i was in flight;
above the clouds, with the breeze in my hair,
and no one around so i could actually be myself for once
nowadays, when i see you,
it make me feel like i’ve fallen down a flight of stairs;
all tangled up inside
and broken in all the wrong places

sometimes, i wish i could forget you
but then i remember i’ve avoided a lot of train wrecks
because of our atom bomb

we were the first of mine, you know,
the first to make me commit as big a mistake
as the ******* manhattan project

you ******* me up more than you can imagine
i lay waste for months, with no sign of human life,
or, life of my own, at least

i threw myself into the care of plants and cats
and writing love songs with terrible lyrics
telling tales of people who weren’t us;
of people who never fought.
of people would never leave the stove on
because something more exciting
was going on in life outside

i used to feel like i was always close to you,
to the world, to a bigger idea,
but now, when i think of you, i feel like
the bigger things are ominously closing in on me
closer, closer, too close, crushingly,
and you were always so physical

“I am tired,”
I say

You ask if I was up late
Last night

And instead of telling you about
My hypocretin levels I nod
And laugh and say
“Something like that.”

“What, are you tired?”
My coach asks

He thinks he is
Trying to motivate me
But he does not know
That my very existence is
Bone crushingly exhausting
And yes,
I am tired
But I wouldn’t expect him
To understand
So I say nothing

When I say I have narcolepsy
And you say
“Must be nice, being able
To fall asleep anywhere,”
I have never related
To Ted Bundy more in
My entire life

You suggest I stop
Drinking coffee

I suggest you stop breathing

Teachers talk about the
Impact of sleep on
Mental health and
I think
Maybe that’s why
I’m always depressed

My doctor suggests I stop
Drinking coffee too
I am a little worried now

I google
“Caffeine related heart attacks
In teens”

My findings are not enough to
Convince me and besides,
A hospital visit
Is just an opportune moment
For a nap

The chair gripped like a bear
mauled into place
tongue tied, throat silenced
roaring....

ferociously .....
the door raged between us
locked loudly
cries , crawled their grimy patch

hung momentarily, felt the stale air
quietly gathering, pooling damply
cheek soddened in pain
giant force propelled, the floor

hard and unrelenting shocked my bones
breath forced itself outward....
black and rigid
the open window of before.... forced shut

palms spread across the floor
interrupted, reinforced toes stamped
crushingly, the sound resonating
without movement now

thank you to my bestfriend
the one whos always there for me
the one who i can always rely on
      for a shoulder to cry on
the one who i share every happy moment with
the one who i share every soul crushingly sad moment with
the one who i look forward to seeing when i wake up
the one who gives me the motivation to do anything
the one who is keeping me alive
thank you
i dont know what id do without you

This is what I know of crushingly reckless beauty in
that which overpowers us like a wild storm at sea
or the impossible mountain;

The Devil is in the detail but God is in the whole picture.

It is important to add just enough
of the lemon skin:
Too little and the cake is crushingly sugary sweet;
without the sharp texture that tickles the back of my throat
and brings on the threat of a sneeze.

Too much and the tiny yellow pieces-
like gold, like garnets, like tiny crystallized pieces of the sun,
like summer  -my youth-
can overwhelm all else with the sharpness of tears, sour and bitter.

Smell is the sense
Most closely related to our memories
It should be sight -
I can teach my eyes to see anything.

I grind the lemon carefully against the grater
releasing summer in a rush of yellow
too heady for me.
and stare out the window through the pane.

If I focus hard enough, I can pretend I see
your suitcase was only a briefcase
as you hurried down the path,
and the giant lemon tree in the front yard
was budding soft white stars of scent.
But the smell of golden pith springing from the grater
prompts the memory of pendulous fruit dropping to the ground instead –
the wanton tree already ******* for spring’s touch.

The grater grinds against my knuckles
a drop of blood falls into the batter.

I am reminded again that
only the best fruit will hang too close to the thorns,
only the theft that is given makes us bleed.

there’s a streetlamp on an avenue,

it throws out tiny galaxies of light.

they falter as they reach the outer layers of the cobblestone highway.

the light dances in a soft ballet with the shadows -

a plié that picks the innocence out of allies,

a pirouette that smiles at your doorway.

you might be slumped behind it

pretending the rugged wood is everyone it isn’t.

i hope you are.

if you are slumped behind that doorway,

with the light and dark dancing to a thousand phonographs,

i might be able to imagine you as someone who didn’t need a door.

someone who could take a door and see it as a door;

not a mother,

or a dog,

or a soundtrack,

or a piece of set.

i could imagine that you haven’t become a dramaturge,

that instead you see every movement and static implication

as crushingly real.

i would be able to watch reality wring your chest,

grind at your ribcage,

and that would hurt less -

watching you be torn apart and ground to dust

at the same time

by a reality that hates us both.

it would be the tiniest bit better,

because i can help you fight anything.

i can sand beside you and at least allow my remains to become dust as yours will

and we can blow down the streets together

and be stuck in the cracks together

but i won’t help you fight yourself.

if you hate yourself, i have to let you do it alone

Have you ever heard a song
So sweet that lyrics would corrupt it?
So pure that you hold your breath
Afraid you'll shatter it just by sighing?
It's a torn feeling, an unnameable feeling, the description of which can only lead you in circles
Hopelessly tangled in the desire to express it.
It is something so excruciatingly, frustratingly ineffable that you can't even move, frozen in awe, locked in a complex, pressurised longing.
Something
So achingly lovely that just the thought of it 
Pulls tears from you in diamond threads
And makes you, briefly, a shimmering echo of it,
Lit
From inside.

I say this
Even though I know that trying to describe that feeling
Is like trying to grasp at mist
I say this
I say it because
I felt like that in your arms.

I looked at you
In the half-light
And just for a second I saw you fully, in a new way.
The light loved you.
It slid along your skin like it came from the stars
And not from a bedside lamp propped against the wall.
You were so smooth, so soft, tendrils of hair escaping their pinnings and following the long lines of your neck.
Your eyes gleamed through your smile,
And all the sweetness and wit and beauty behind them,
All of that that I could touch, all that art looking at me in that moment, like having a symphony play for just you,
That soul under that skin, a whole galaxy of loves and hates and dreams and insecurities coursing through you...
And me
An inch away
Less
Pressed up against you like a parallel universe, so near and so sacred and so shockingly tangible-
The heat of you, so solid but so pliable next to me, so much a part of me that nothing about me could feel empty.

I couldn't breathe for joy, suddenly.

You could have been the moon, just then,
Or a goddess, like one of those smooth, white, subtly glowing statues in the museum halls,
Women I always imagined came alive at night and basked in the starlight,
Absorbing it to throw it back upon the world when day broke.
Your fingertips on me traced patterns
And I wanted them to touch me deeper
Wished my body was more my soul than flesh can be
So that I could feel yours in your hands.
It was too much!
It was
Not enough.
And I laughed, hid my face in your neck, felt your pulse there and how fragile your collarbones were.
I wanted to seep into your skin like rain.
I tried to shrug past it
But the feeling grabbed me by the shoulders and shook the words out of me,
And suddenly I was cheek to cheek with you,
Confessing...

After that the way I touched you changed.
I don't know if you felt it,
But I did.
It had been coming, sneaking up on me, all that day.
In my arms, beneath my palms, I held something so unutterably precious
Whenever I held you
And I knew it fully then, unable to unfeel it.
It made me tender in a way that pierced my heart
In a way that scared me
Because it felt like why I'm here.

If someday I get to tell you I love you
I will tell you that it was that moment when I knew for sure I would.
That moment when it all became so crushingly, beautifully real to me-
When gravity shifted, and you began to pull me instead.

Sail away with me; come sail away with me; fight with, for, or against me with honor;

'Till Valhalla!

Rocking violently encased in metal on heavy seas, still safe, peacefully so; like some kind of Zen Buddhist ****... (peaceful frustration). The journey might **** us. Though We still get to go. That's what it means to fight, 'till Valhalla!

Our pilot may doubt us but not in our endings; there is no room for doubt come our last day. Come Valhalla!

Crushingly optimistic he's our steam roller baby. He pilots because he has to, because we are finite, Because the premise of our story is that it Begins and Ends no matter who's doing the writing or The Dying or finding or lying or even The Killing. Our course is set;

'Till Valhalla!

Forget the word mistaken at your own peril on the open waters. Mistaken, this is a world full of Peril. Still, it matters for naught at The end, not for us princely warriors. There is a place where all geodesics Collide, where you and I can finally embrace without Malice. For where we would have arrived is Valhalla!  Great hall of the dead, where wars leaves its warriors to dine among gods and forget they were men.

My mom asks me what I'm studying,
And I say The heart.
Her interests peaks,
Because she's always seen
The body as a work of art.
She wants to know more,
So I give her the brief about pumps,
What makes it faster or slower,
But I don't want to talk about this,
In truth, I haven't told my parents much since I started to go here.

We've studied anatomy,
And how bleeding works,
Biochemistry,
And why swollen red skin
Seems to always hurt.
But the more I've taken in,
The less I've given out.
As if being an expert for only you
Is what becoming a doctor is all about.

I tell my friends my grades are good,
Though I definitely study less than I could.
And after saying school is fine,
I skip to some other line
Of thought,
Like I suddenly don't have the time
To include my friends in this new life
Of mine.
It's not that they wouldn't understand,
Because these pals are smart as hell
And it's not that they wouldn't want
More details than "I'm doing well."
And it's not that to learn,
You have to forget,
About the people who matter,
Who got you where you needed to get.

It's that this world is skull-crushingly,
Mind-numbingly full
And at the end of the day,
Escape seems the goal.
But creating two worlds
Makes it easy to leave one behind.
And I wouldn't want to lose the rhythm
Of my values
Just to learn more medical rhymes.

So I need to work harder
To tell my mom about the heart.
To make these two lives
A little less apart.
How there're really two pumps,
No, really there're four,
And in some people's hearts,
You can hear a dull roar
Of a valve slamming shut
Or opening at the wrong time.
And if you've got pulses in your feet,
You're doing just fine.
To tell my friends the truth,
Instead of sloughing it off,
That asthma and emphysema
May have a similar cough.
Or that there are really two systems
That your body uses to clot.
And platelets aren't the only
Thing that you got.

To become a good doctor,
I have to become a good man.
And I thought until now
That was a simple enough plan.
But it might not just be about
Good bedside manner and empathy.
It might be more about how I treat
Those important to me.
If I can give everyone Zach
Without a dodge or excuse,
I'll become a doctor in training,
AND a doctor in truth.

from another side of a window,
a shadow permanently cast:
disinterest licks lips. like i ain't
care to know. as if time were
our great merchant, as if wares
bought ashore were something
more than summarisable.

doubt, crushingly, descends.
the shore-lined, i, sent moral
and virtue on pieces of 'hear',
& a little less say. words
falter; left to hang, unimaginatively,
like candles under the thatched
ceilings of humanity. oh,
how we were led to the water.
taught to breathe. how were we
ever pure? some animal below,
some eternity at fingertrim.

can't believe this freedom,
of sailing above standing
waves. set-out regularities.
wrought up a smile with
alligator teeth. dust's song.

yet another 2:01am.

One man alone...emerges
seeking to claim His own

Barely, yes
but still breathing

Desolations disgrace
is what has been shown

Clawing up from where
crushingly abandoned

Sure to escape
the horror the man
He has known

Describe Him
despicable rejected
Quite altogether forlorn
Surely far lower
than hopeless

Still advancing steadily on

There is not one
that He can call out to
Neither friend
nor family or home

Ignoring
the laughter of cynics
Oblivious
to the jeering of scorn

The continuous
critical whispers
only lengthen
the sojourn
He is upon

But still through
the music
of His conscious
His soul cries
a sad quiet groan
The total
incalculable sorrow
of all the man
He has borne

Finding
yet always pursuing
Searching for all
His destiny has sworn

One man alone......emerges
Seeking....... and sure
to reclaim His Own.

-R.

(06)
TX

I remember through the haze of Hong Thong and Thai Stick
Our sterile love
In that shabby hotel
In Chiang Mai
Our stubble
Like Velcro
And I don't remember much else
Wasting away
Here
It's funny how you forget things
It's also crushingly sad

victimized by happenstance
the moral majority leans
crumbling faded pages
fall disjointed
the bible has slipped to light bathroom reading
and those betrothed to Jesus
cry themselves to sleep –
wringing clasped hands
and looking skyward for answers
they watch in helpless dismay
as true equality and individual freedoms
crushingly stomp values
based on 2000 year old desert stories
the dried tears
turn into salty anger
and systemic hate
based in fear –
gays proudly wed in churches
once maligned for witch burning
taking turns carrying each other
over middle-class thresholds
adopting impoverished babies
and the unwanted immigrant children
only to be blasted on mass media
for their ****** and unholy lifestyle
it seems to me
American Christians
have lost sight of the work
Jesus actually did –
Avidly reading and researching
the world’s religions
seeking eternally for the reasons
some semblance of an answer
as to why gods of love
would instill so much hate and fear
in their constituency…
their flocks ……..
those blind to reality
and subject to irrationality
because someone once told them
this book is the only way
and without it
salvation and peace
are bad jokes –

The Zombie came to Corrie.
First call Ken's place for a bit of brainy tea.
Later fancied a taste of something more mature.
Emily for supper.
Rita tasted mighty classy.
Tracy fought back.
Tony was a great big lummocks.
Thought he'd join Tracy in her zombie crushingly battle.
Kylie and Eva out on the lash.
Befuddled and pickled as Zombie teeth flash.
Dev fought independently in his corner shop.
Liz and Eileen mighty meaty.
Steve shook in defence of his mother dear.
Audrey,the dresser of hair got stuck in his teeth.
Gail, put up a fight with her tongue, David copped it in the ear, mother dear.
She'd noticed her new bedroom floor erupted.
World's end outside the bistro,
Callum's hanging out,
Looking for Sarah.
She's gone.
He wanted to share her with the others.
A really tasty morsel.
Callum's back.
(c)LIVVI

Rain falls like silence
            Crushingly gentle and then
So suffocating

One man alone...emerges
seeking to claim His own

Barely, yes
but still breathing

Desolations disgrace
is what has been shown

Clawing up from where
crushingly abandoned

Sure to escape
the horror the man
He has known

Describe Him
despicable rejected
Quite altogether forlorn
Surely far lower
than hopeless

Still advancing steadily on

There is not one
that He can call out to
Neither friend
nor family or home

Ignoring
the laughter of cynics
Oblivious
to the jeering of scorn

The continuous
critical whispers
only lengthen the sojourn He is upon

But still through
the music of His conscious
His soul cries
a sad quiet groan
The total
incalculable sorrow
of all the man He has borne

Finding
yet always pursuing
Searching for all
His destiny has sworn

One man alone......emerges
Seeking....... and sure
to reclaim His Own.

-R.

(06)
TX

The oak doors that caught the light,
as natural as the fizzy drink raised to my lips-
shone in the midsummer evening.
Yet they swung back,
into a room not unlike a painting
where the artwork is but the frame.
                                      Spoken word.
but why was the room crushingly quiet?
Five there was, i think.
As is my norm, their names were not handed to me
but assigned by me.
Little miss Smiley- staring into her own sky.
Mr gentle Giant- filling out his seat, but oh so fast to greet.
Blue dude- all suede and swagger.
Minnie mousey- eyes as sharp as diamonds, touch as gentle as velvet.
Then Luna- because he glowed, but not burned.

Because my mouth thinks for me,
soon i was enveloped by these souls, these strangers.
But then the time ticked,
pens and notepads out, all aglow.
Revealing their dice game "A Word A Throw".

Cause i was new, first i had to go.
Once upon a midnight dreary- i would of prayed for "Alone"

                                       I don't believe it's fate when it landed on "Home".

i am early onset gum disease,
mouthfuls of pink spit lining the ceramic sink.
i am enough to warrant concern but not enough
to change.

i am skin stretched tight as a drum
with a living thing trapped inside,
stretching scars into its elastic prison.

i am ***** evaporating on suburban pavement
and the halo of litter around a garbage bin.

i am the stickiness of salt water drying on skin,
dribbling down and down and down.

i am the sensation of growing too old too quickly, of a rip in the seam of a shirt you once loved, loved, loved.

i am a nobody that is everybody.
i am so crushingly common and so
******* singular and i am the terror you feel
when you think of this.

i am lowercase i and capital I and grammar tables and the volumes of modernist poetry.

i am the twinge you feel when they speak his name
and hers and the ones who are just faces living in the corners of your mind.

i am touched and taken and drowning in liquids turned amber and sweet. i am gluttony and those six other sins which have never seemed so deadly.

i am speaking for myself, and i wonder if others speak for me.

i am nurture given living form. a product, a creature, a many-limbed thing.

i am all repulsion and vile intrigue. i am the
hall of mirrors and body cut in two. i am gemini sighs and red skin flaking free.

i am a half of a whole of a half that is
tired of completion and its worship.

i am a pilot, a lookout on the highest point. i am cracked lenses and falsely tripped alarms. i am the things that frighten then grow dim.

i am twenty and i am nowhere. and i am a living time capsule of things not worth remembering.

I find you reflected on the surface
The weather is warm bright and sweet
But sunk in the depths of the abyss
My heart's in a maelstrom beneath

And the water is crushingly cold
And dancing light mocks from the sky
But here in the shadows vice hold
I search but you're nowhere nearby.

I need you to step off the waves
To where no living thing can survive
Prove to me you can still save
I'll hold my breath til' you dive

Anguish hid within sinister orthodox crosshairs
   wherein target to wreak psychic havoc without means to escape the crushingly feted incisors as if mauled by an unseen yak
this emotional state impaled between the maws of pincers –

   no exit except being squeezed to the maximum point
   of non-existence into the black
whence once corporeal complex
   fleshy edifice becomes slurry akin to shellac
or railroaded outcome no better nor worse

than being tied as a fast approaching train on track
a most offal emotional state,
   where the nursery rhyme of jilted jack
Childs’ play when inevitable doom and
    gloom one cannot hack

free – and options to secure safe
   and Soundgarden place to live doth lack
plenitude duet to penury,
   and subsidized housing a pipe dream
   asper surviving time of warfare

   between Iran and Iraq
but the lo…a crack
of hopefulness dawn most unexpectedly
   when this day-tripper hove ah slacker found salvation
   just in the nick of time
   when renting lease about ran out – back
twas cause to ******* alas and alack…
----------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------
when tandem forces nearly coaxed self-destruction
   from coke kin conspirator ******
   ready to ambush and take aim
ensconced clattering red bull pawing the earth

   with a fury of a madman playing the Glockenspiel
   opportune moment to unleash fury n laid claim
thwarting salvation from psyche teetering
   on the brink of abysmal hopelessness to exclaim,

where suicidal ideations on par with Russian roulette
   ransoming life sans permanently deadly game
hellacious tongues of the underworld
   hungering to inflame

kept at bay from divine intervention vis a vis a cool
   out of the blue downy
   faux heavenly transgender angel Jame
me Dutton, appeared as thee bottled Genii,

   with limbs temporarily lame
being hermetically sealed gingerly
   placed upon tarp of lam may,
   a lifelike emoji emoticon meme
bur of a secret society of LGBTQ
   brotherly sorority sisters,

   which angel joined the coterie
   of Good Samaritan name
   outwitting any stealthy fleet of foot Equus
casually, earnestly and modestly suited
   to boost civic, and emphatic and
   graphic curses of doom to tame.

The tension that had set like purple summer dusk over the horizon of the Mojave in an eternal tentative swell that she felt at any moment would birth flood of what was restrained.

And what a dizzying interchange,
         between evening into twilight,
that she would hungrily savor such a craving indefinitely
as though any moment were the moment.
Her lips parted in anticipation each time her eyes fell closed,        
          enraptured in ecstasy,
and she could not escape stuttering visions
  of being near enough to him to touch.
For the first time,
she understood crushingly
                               powerful
                                  arousal
            favoring certain areas over others.
Desire stirred in depths she hadn't known she'd possessed
            from a world away within her body's heaving stillness.
The sound of his voice, low and even,
            soothing and barbed
                  just enough to catch her skin and
                             raise the fine hairs down her arms,
                                                                                       on her neck;
            and a simple sound
    otherwise quiet or insignificant to any other perception
  now unfailingly elicited such sweet shivers.
                From the bases of her lungs, and through
                her body in throbbing shock-waves,
                through her ******* and exciting her *******,
                                                            and pooled within her
                                                womanhood where she drowned  
                                                                                 in the carnality
                                                                    of her ****** demands.
Like a flower insisting upon bloom somehow
                     in the darkness of this dusk
           and it was stunning to find it so compelling-
to bloom where the sun burns still a day away til dawn.

Oh Grief,

Why do you have to be so intimate?
You lean in, you whisper in my ear,
you hold my hand, you kiss my neck
(we're in public, have a bit of decency.)

Sometimes, you go too far
and then I'm choking
and I beg you to let go, but you don't
until I'm gagging on my spit, cheeks damp.

But don't worry, I don't talk about it.

At least never in full.
Only in hints
where the words don't cut to the bone
and the embraces I receive are gentle,
cradling my mind to sleep.

Tell me, do they see you?
Do they see the little blacks and blues you leave,
the print of your hand on my cheek,
the maps of hurt that you trace and follow like religion?

Or are you only recognizable in the small hours,
sitting by my bed, tucking me in,
kissing me good night, promising you'll return tomorrow
with your hand on my chest
so I don't forget the weight?

Oh, but how could I ever forget the weight?
Your body on top of mine,
almost crushingly,
smothering.

There is no need to worry,
I've already memorized the feeling.

The scenes of this Halloween.
Smashed glass, broken windows,
Punched holes in the ceilings.
What an antic, frantic shouting,
Some fellow in the corner arguing semantics.
But the last thing I expected that night to be was romantic.
She had auburn hair, this deep rich shade.
I almost stared. If it weren't for *** and coke
I'd have left it there.
But it'd been too long, my love life felt like
That of a crushingly hopeless song.
So I grew some *****, mustered the courage
To take that twenty foot walk. Once there
All I had to do was talk.

How quickly I fell. Was it her voice?
Her eyes?
The face she pulled when she laughed?
We fit like a dovetail joint, two peas in a pod.
It was as easy as this you pessimistic sod.
The whole night we spent,
Climbed on a shed, remarked at the couples
Claiming a bed.
The fury of the night didn't relent,
But her company kept me miles away
In an imaginary story of future smiles,
No more trials. Not for some time.

The problem is once the party did end,
I hadn't seen her since then.
Friends suggested I send her a message,
But sobriety stoppered perfect curiosity.
I couldn't want someone, having seen them
For half a quarter a day.
Still the horizon of delight taunted my night.
I might. All I had was the white light on my
Screen and the limits of my fascination.
Hypothetical interest became my
Preoccupation.

When I'd begun to let go of her absence
A friend told me he'd heard she'd liked me.
Nonsense, too good to be true. **** like that
Doesn't happen to a hope so new.
Heart stutters, skin flutters, stomach shutters,
These symptoms of giddy, felt silly.
I messaged her that day,
Three hours of conversation couldn't have been greater.
This stranger in my thoughts rendered other
Ones naught. I sought her out, easiest thing I've done.
Having tasted some, I wouldn't stop until she became the one.
The floodgates were opened and washed me away.
A simple "hey" goes a long way
To brighten up my once-grey days.