i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)

those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.

my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress

unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her

but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.

we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking

i broke her heart anyway.

nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.

Pizza is my life
I started out as dough with doughy eyes
Mother picks me up
Mother molds me
After no time at all I'm sent down the line
Toppings...
Things other people want but I get
By the end the toppings are as important as the dough
Sometimes I wonder if there was any dough to begin with
Because the foundation is changed so much by the fires of the oven
The chaos makes me steam, bubble, and boil
Once I simmer down I'm recognizable as what I should be but not what I once was
Now that I'm developed it's time to be delivered into the world
And find my own home
But what will I find when I get there?
Will it be love?
Or will I be ate up and shat out?
Or is there a difference?

The **** blooms weren’t even that pretty
and the nicest thing on the ground was dead.
Gas trucks and red cars turned up the earth;
we should get out of here.

It was orange zest in the middle of doughy flour,
a risk that not many chefs take.
It was leaves from autumn, twisted
and forgotten under shoes of  hikers.
It was the sunset sand art that dropped, soundly
to the ground, left for brooms and vacuums.

Outlined like the eyes of an Indian princess,
the wings left its powder matter, a footprint,
by the shoreline and asphalt.
But the Earth didn’t care;
and the **** blooms, the chefs, the hikers, the brooms,
they didn’t care. What a treacherous thing,
to take a risk when you think people care.

Dream of the Melbourne Cup by Banjo Paterson
Bring me a quart of colonial beer
And some doughy damper to make good cheer,

I am just this girl sitting recovering after walking in a store where I had to use my passport and looked like a teenage ******* with my sunglasses and father's coat. my eyes were red because of allergies and I cried a little on the walk up and, well, I was high; "shook like a ****** at a wienie roast" as my dad always said. I was standing there and forgot what brand of cigarettes I wanted when I had to repeat myself (I stutter when I'm nervous); I thought I could get away with it if I said 'I just started a new medication' and get the assurance from a cashier whose face I recognized. just someone to give me a boost.

then I went outside to a bench on the side of the building. the traffic and parking lot were in the way, but the clouds and birds around everywhere were brilliant against the bright sky, the trees were magnificent and striking, the sunshine was on my face; I can do this. I am a Tree, reaching lower then growing higher: and I am Magnificent.

The walk before was nauseatic cuz the meds make me dizzy and vomity and of course, I was high. I wear sunglasses to distance me from the people I'm about to see, from all these people that I'm scared of. the wind is bitter and cold, I'm nervous and shaky. I haven't been able to stop playing scenarios out in my head that panic me, a reaction to my active travelling anxiety and the stress of keeping up a conversation with a soft as oatmeal woman who asks me personal questions and is very pleasant to talk to, though kind of doughy.

--my dad came into my room one night. I was having a minor meltdown coming down from the Night of Hate the previous night where I pulled all my eyelashes out and I pulled my hair and I chewed my cheeks apparently, grit my teeth apparently, hit myself hard and hateful. My dad came in to talk to me and I asked him when I knew I should go to a hospital. I cried and I'm honest that I still don't want to be Here, that life is still unbearably grating. I'm just letting it happen I do what I feel like doing to keep me up. I don't tell him that I choked myself with sweater strings a week ago on the living room couch while my spirit mother was in the other room and all the precious ones down the hall asleep. dad sits down on the bed and admits he's "never dealt with this side of things" and rubbed my back while I sobbed. when I calmed down and I was finally wiping the tears away, cleaned up and I was mostly able to breathe again, he got an idea that comes from the most loving heart and his quirky way of cheering me up. when I was a Trouble Child, my dad would take me out and do something with me. just talked to me, paid attention, joked, laughed: he always says when he's like this he always says "I know I can make you laugh" and usually does. so he looked at me that night and said "I know of something to make you smile; a pill that makes you smile Instantly!" I choked, sunshine smile burst and still wiping tears, 'exstacy?' and received my favorite dad laugh, the one when he really finds something perfect. The one I got when E stepped on the coffee I'd accidentally spilled in the hallway, and she said with a voice so full of disgust that I bent over, tears rolling, hands on knees, laughed til it hurt "I stepped on ****". he recovers from the e-joke says "That was quick!" in a voice that loved it. The opinion that deeply approves (when most times he is disappointed, interrupts me, tells me I'm wrong, more like mum than he'll ever see) lifts me up a little: gratification soul--

I sit on the bench and smoke with shaky hands and sunglasses giving me space, people looking at me (iknowthey'relookingatmeiknowitiknowit); I eat two sandwiches. the prescription makes me tremble shake queasy nauseous, now dizzy. I didn't sleep last night because I was too nervous.

I smoke another cigarette and cry a little, less than ten scared tears slide down my cheeks. Another girl slips in and I calm immediately. There is a guy hovering near me with his own cigarette. It feels like he's loitering in my awful day: I don't trust new people. I've noticed he thinks I'm attractive. he finally leaves and I finally drink my coffee that has finally cooled; I can finally leave in a few minutes. I did it. I failed a month ago and my heart broke...This is the first time I've seen so many people since...I did it. I walk home and sob. all I want is you, Handsome.

If the construction worker who was scraping away at the pillar bottom not ten feet away from me, through the entire bench scenario, had come up to me and asked what was wrong, I would have told him "I tried to die a month ago and failed. This is the first time I've been out in public since, and it's really hard."

But I did it.

October 1968

Strange day away from a war,
in a bubble

with the liar who was my friend
who wore a shirt with
a combat aviation badge
a dead man had earned,
first stolen glory
I ever saw.

We are awol, but nobody knows,
then a doughy white guy with a camera,
asks the liar why we are
in Saigon,
at the zoo, in the middle of a war.

A Stars and Stripes reporter,
gathering
the opinion of warriors ( right, in Saigon) re
Jackie Kennedy marrying the Greek

He took our picture, asked our names,
we were awol,
but what the hell, how many losers
ever see their picture
in the Stars and Stripes?

Lesson

send a boy to fight a war,
never tell him who wins, if he lives.

As an old man,
like that tiger, in a cage,
not San Diego Zoo Eco-accurate Habitat,
a cage, concrete floor, old-time
cowboy movie jail barred
cage,

waiting,
like that tiger in the Saigon zoo, 1968.

I'm on the road, but not
Actually on. A. Road.
Per se.
I avoid roads like cliches
Avoid plagues.

Fields are much better
Travel companions. As
If a lined-paper stretch of
hoed land could thought to be
Friendly to your feet, and knees,
And mind
Not that you traipse across it.
Specially
Corn. Inside corn fields is always
Maze-Y.
The Wind loves singing through
Discordant notes of thistle and
Thatsle; whatsle you'll hear
Musically is really up
To you.
But at night, the stars shining
Through the feathery filters of what is
More than knee-high by 7/4/whatever
Is a forget that's hard to memory.

Sleep in cornfields and you'll
Wake to the pleasant murmurings
(And nocturnal rustlings)
Of mice using your clothes
Body boots shaggy unkempt hair
For warmth. Sore neck, sore back,
Worth it, comically ship-jumping-so:
The little furry squeakers realizing the
Empty soft boat wasn't empty at all
And the critters abandoning you
With the flicker of tails, gone. A
Maze-ing.

Forests. Hmm...Temperate
Temperament. More
Crazies in the woods than amongst
Iowa's cash crop: 1 must B careful.
They generally want to be left A
Lone; I specifically avoid them, or
Will travel act like their long
Lost crazy cousin.
Just to fit
Out.

Small fires in copses of woods,
Huddled near flames, ears
Prickled for the sound of
Angels dancing on the pins of
Heads.

Occasionally, I tire of the peace of fields of
Green tassels and tall deciduous
Trees, and I hear cars, and imagine
I hear the conversations held within.
So I take my bottled strangeness out
Of seclusion and rejoin the race
Humana.
More often than not, I meet up with
The Angry.
They congregate in coffee houses.
Huddle in hostels.
Mob motels.
You get the jpeg.
The Angry desire to
Do what I do by second nature, and
By nature, first. I've thrown off my
Self-imposed chains, and walk free.
They see this - in me - or see the magic
Dust my boots tracked all the way across
Their own barren linoleum flo.
They are trapped in their mind-traps.
The Angry would imprison me and
Masquerade as me simply for spite.
(If they could CATCH me, bwaa-haa!)

I walk quickly, lope along I80.
I hate to do this. It's Russian Roulette
With 6 bullets in 6 chambers.
But to get to the back roads, you some
Times have to travel the fore roads.
Troopers of State do NOT like
Peds on the road. But many of
Them, after stern sternly Drill-
Sergeanting you with their Smokey-
Bear hats, will drop you off to
Your destination. "Keep safe,
Sir." They intone with such
Seriousness that I'm always
Biting the insides of my
Mouth. They could use a
Few dewy misty nights
Slumbering in an Iowa
City cornfield, waking with
A brood of mice nestled in
your knapsack.

Food. There's an issue there,
For some. Not me - not then, not
Now. The future is only the future
When it's tomorrow. Candy bar
Smashed by a bike tire in the
Gutter? What, some puke-eating
Dog should have that? Gross.
Gross is grossly
Defined by how long you'd
Not eat when your food ran
Away. Since I have almost
Nothing except a small green
Canvas satchel and a larger
Knapsack of essentials
(A few tools, a fire-starter,
Water purifiers, and my pen and
Notebook) and my good...

...Boots and thick socks and 1-
Piece Union Suit and many
Layers I'm glad to have at
Night but make me sweat
Heavily in the sultry
Iowa summers, I eat on the
Fly. Sometimes I chase away
The Fly to munch on what
It munched. Gross.
It's a living, because moving
Is work, blessedly peaceful, yes,
But have you ever seen a fat
Walker? They either get skinnier
Or they expire. So I eat
Whenever and whatever and how
Ever.

Dumpsters. Garbage cans.
The backs of grocery stores.
I trade sudsy soapy pruned hands
For burnt pizzas and more bread
Sticks sticking to my stomach
Like doughy glue. People out
There - people alone in crowded
Rooms - will trade kindness and
Conversation for food they may
Have taken home with them, or
May have just thrown away.

Lowered
Expectations, skinny middle,
Sore feet, leg muscles wanting
To stay up and watch late-night
TV, swollen ankles eventually
Going to sleep with the rest of
The body as I'm huddled in a
Little snow cave in Iowa, or
Waiting a rain beneath an old
Wagon, or bunking with my
Mice-buddies in an old barn.
There's a lot of life out there,
A skinny man with long, blonde,
And usually ***** hair, sweaty,
Smiling, eyes bright, nostrils flaring
At the scent of humanity: a
Peaceful Mind wandering
Around the belly-button of
America.

I pressed my left heel down to get it into the strap of my sparkled sandal--bought from the cheap version of the rich girl store; I got them more than half off.
I'm a fraud.

Sliding my foot into the shoe,
the way I've done so many times before,
I lose my balance.

And there goes the first one.
I knew the nails were coming off;
I'm not all that wealthy.

I have to wait until the last minute to cough up fifteen bucks to get these things re-done.
I thought it just popped the nail straight off,
but it throbs and is begging for me to pay it some attention.

I peer down at where the once perfectly manicured nail (baby blue tips and all) had sat upon my index finger.
It has left a ****** mess--jagged and imperfect.

I can see my real nail drawn up next to my cuticle like a smile.
Placed on top is a half moon of hardened acrylic until it breaks off near the soft doughy point of my freshly exposed fingertip.
Edgy.
Almost.

The blood lines the rim and trickles it's way down
curving its way around the smile;
highlighting the crescent of my own fingernail.
It throbs.

“****.”
I say wanting someone to hear me.
“****.”
a little louder.

I just want to complain lately.
I want a little attention for the suffering I put my own self through.
As I wait it throbs more.

I wipe the blood away just to watch it refill.
I walk down the stairs,
and they take care of me.
They give me my oohs and ahhs and owes,
put some ointment on a paper towel because we don't have bandaids,
wrap it with tape,
and I'm off to sew my dress back together for dinner.

My sister's dress;
my sister's dress that she got from a nearby neighbor
who stuffed it in a trash bag and left it there for us to take.

Maybe I will get a discount.

the doughy round of your nose
nuzzle-burrowing as it does
my bewhiskered neck
I miss it so
sleeping
alone

the cottony caress of your yawn broken breath
blowing as it does, midsummer breezy
my threadbare open chest
It is not easy, you know
having to sleep
alone

the butterfly blare of your blinking
beating as it does
my back rubbed
I miss it so
sleeping
alone

Reposted for a friend.

My Prayer

Oh, dear Lord,
Please give to me
The graciousness
Of an apple tree.
It shares its fruit
With all in need,
Regardless of their
Race or creed,
And spreads a
Dappled shade of gray
For weary travelers
On their way.

The courage of a badger,
O doughy soul!
You'd see a *BEAR
Running from his hole!
He has a faith
I do not know...
Without a Bible
To tell him so.

The conscience of
A growing pearl,
The greatest gift
In all the world.
It gets yet larger
With each day...
Although it has
No mouth to pray.

The gentle acceptance
Of deep grass,
Which bends to allow
Your winds to pass,
Then stands again
With stately grace
To look once more
In Your sun's face.

The freedom of
A flock of birds,
For they have surely
Heard Your words.

The cheerfulness
Of a laughing brook,
Which will pass a
Boulder without a look!

The industry of
A little bee...
The good of his fellows
Is all he sees.

The patience of
Eroding wind,
It'll carve out beauty
In the end.

The humility of
A daisy flower,
It knows it's beauty
Will last but hours.

The love within
A mother bear.
To the end
She'll always care.

The resounding strength
Of a mountain range.
To these the centuries
Are not strange.

The wisdom of
An ocean deep,
Which will, forever,
Its secrets keep.

All these things,
I do believe,
My spirit will,
In time, receive.

It is Your will
I must accept,
As I do the kingdom

*YOU HAVE KEPT.

.why would anyone think that women belong in the kitchen?! hell... they can bake... keeping that "thing" in the oven for 9 months... but kitchens doors should read signs like: NO WOMEN ALLOWED... or WOMEN AT YOUR PERIL.. or some other bogus crap... women should be kept out of the kitchen, de facto... so... what's left? looking pretty, like a geisha porcelain doll, sitting before the modern fireplace of the t.v., pretending to look bored... men cook in the army, don't they? all the pre-Communism collapse conscripts in the Polish army, fondly remember the split pea soup, cooked by men, for men... unless she's a country girl, like my distant cousin auntie, who made me chase a chicken, while she stood, arching with an axe... decapitated the fluttering bird... took out all the feathers and made a decent chicken broth for seconds, and a chicken soup for starters... did you know that chickens are covert cannibals? once the head was separated from the body, looking semi-alive... the other chickens jumped onto the chopping block of a stump of oak, and started to drink up the blood... while pecking at the decapitated head of their former, "comrade"... these old country women... who... had the heart and nerve to **** an animal, and prepare dinner... now? little ms. geisha with her porcelain hands... sits pretty before the fireplace... a place that says: i don't want her in the kitchen to begin with... little ms. oven, little ms. oven loaf of doughy life... why... my dear... hasn't feminism robbed women of a certain allowance of feminine pride? now that i can cook for myself, clean for myself... do you know how many marriages i've seen break down over overcooked pasta and undercooked potatoes... while the men decided to go take-away? 2, on two different instances... and that's 1 too many on two separate instances... but once upon a time... once upon a time in terms of Cinderella... women were the cuisine specialists... now the men take to the cooking... the feminists were right all along... organic chemistry lessons paid off... the feminists were right all along... women do not belong in the kitchen... and i hope they never will.

more like, life's a ****,
you get ****** over,
and then you hope to die...

or...
life... **** happens...
   who would have thought
that the playlist i posted
could have put a smile
on my face...

     two dream jobs that are
on the decline...
      working the music shop...
dead...
             bartender...
which means i'm left with
the third, worst, option...
claiming to be a "poet"...
without actually encompassing
classical, scholastic
approaches to poetry...
namely rhyming...

          god, i hate rhyming...
rhyming to me is like a dry
cough, or an irritating
itch.

On strange days
like these
baking cookies
is an arcane art.
For it is winter outside
how we transform
the inside
into mystic summer.

For i know the golden ratio.
i have surrounded
myself with graduated cylinders
that recall the lore
of  cups and ounces.

Retorts of  pots and pans
where i can observe
the powers of this world
returning and combining
into simmer.

Such smells
waft from the oven
as ginger swirls
and cinnamon sworls
like molten mountains jumble.

As the elements combine
eggs and butter
await their transformation.
Some believe that
transmuting baser  metals
into gold somehow proves their worth
but they have never
crafted cookies.

At my round
small wooden  table
my imaginary children enjoy
the coming holiday of doughy
spell-making.

They beam at me
with their gumdrop eyes
and jelly bean smiles
and write Latin script
with licorice and raisins
on their raiment.

As the homunculus
i have constructed
out of hen’s teeth
and oatmeal.
with a retro fish tank.
skips like calendar with
an extra leap year.
hiccupping time.
Mice in the wainscot
squeak as Saturn
rises auspicious
in their whiskers.

As my roller
impresses and passes
i fill the silver trays
the cuckoo clock strikes thirteen.

While i  in a black forest script  
write of spells
of life and  death
and of the perfect
distillation of a sugar cookie
in baker notation
Sprinkles on the flour
that has spilled upon my table
from the shifter….

I wish to understand these fragments of myself as beautiful.

This patch of back hair could be a
silky kitty on a window sill.

This doughy belly might as well be a
delicious pizza in the making

These hairy legs seem like
open fields of hay to roam freely.

Culture says, "You're ugly but if you do this ..... you will be desired."
The rebellious say, "You're beautiful in every single way."
But I say, "Everyone is beautiful and ugly in their own."
what's ugly is our inability to see each intricate part of
ourselves
each other
as a miracle.

Handful of doughy breast,
perfect caramel skin,
a mind messed,
memorizing a mesmerizing pin.
Sticking
Pricking
Licking
My heart sweet and tender.
What good is rejection from each
gender?
Only as good as a moldy peach.
Screech
Breach
Bleach
all I seem good enough for.
Around when it's convenient
never more.
Been there. Seen it.
Screen it
Clean it
Please, just mean it.

Like me in the morning
Holdin’ on to the phone
while the message’s recording  
Just so I don’t feel so alone

It’s you silent and fuming
about a fight I lost last week
Late night questioning, assuming
nothing I want to say I can speak

I want more of you
but I tell you I need to be apart.
I hold you to another view
but never let you see the art.

So I’m drunk on a Sunday night
in a shroud of darkness, color hidden
Trying not to start another fight
Sometimes I wish we didn’t

But I wake up in bed
to that freckle on your lip
and rise like a doughy bread
only to fall back into love’s trip

walking the concrete pave
i started to feel a bulging softness in my liver,
just the sheer balloonness of it,
not attached to any bone,
it was too much for me,
i had to walk into the greenbelt darkness
to feel the soft pouches of earth
beneath the feet and banish
all livery sentiments of the silken doughy thought,
and in there i said:
with the abolishment of asylums
psychiatry has become evermore bothersome,
imagine if the churches were closed
and priests freely roamed,
not since henry the eight such travesty,
with it, ******-synthesis and very
little psychoanalysis:
because who the hell would diagnose a
child of two with some symptoms accumulative
as a.d.h.d.? where's the: climb a tree
break a leg then tango on with crutches?

on a scale of one to one-hundred,
no, one to one-thousand,
your lips tasted like cinnamon
Brought heavy feelings below my waist
til I thought I just might explode
Call orange the new numerals
and red the better alphabet
say A B C then 1 2 3
sickly sticky and sweet
Doughy flesh that melts in summer heat
How many moments does it take
to burn pasta on the stove ?
Enough for me to get up and watch you go
Run

i've a plundering urge
to whom it is absurd,
                     the black teeth
                     the blood scribes
                     the woe, the whither,
                                               the word
i felt seen   from afar
telescoped warmth  cups my right shoulder
and i expand from shrivel   in your forgiving light
are you my soilmate ?

for you i prepare scents   beading from my most sweaty regions
       a moist sporing    emits in nifty allium spritzes
i stammer to a standing position
                          and exercise my full height

sporting,
           i swing and tap an annihilated aluminum bat
              sounding out my specific code of fidelations
                   resonation through the ground
                     and suddenly you are near
                    receiving the humming
                  up the souls of your doughy bare feet
                         you shiver

i prance wildly and perfect kilter in my hips
i offer to preen you
i present you with a pyramid of spittle balloons
i **** myself a little
i sink my teeth into your side    (it's not 'your jam'
    but we recover the mood)
i give chase to you for you to be chased
and it's a wild kind of keen fun
         and you are a madcap display of laughter and wide smiles
and   within     i feel a gordian nest  
         of some lust manoeuvre 
(maybe we can copulate face-to-face ?)

pondering scars     wounds that were much deserved
the white meat    the bright stars    delivered

who is rude to the rule       of what is ours ?  
i knew you
magnesium burn    and unwholesomely dauntless
  bold   your portfolio always within an easy reach
your passionate simmering might    you branded my eye
and now we're similar    mites in a feather
simian partners surveying territory needs

and then you’re gone again
        vanished

       and we are distant minds that strike the hour together
                                like before
between our signals I am met with cross chatter
my hemispheres bicker
and retorting memories barrage
        refunding the past
    and taking you away from me

i am a mating dunce once more
             i shrivel

The young gnaw at doughy mornings as a zombie of night; no longer.
Pulling the dusty blinds' cord that isn't a string to the moon today.
Come back.

Organic eyes blast open from a free fall that is(was) dream.
No fireworks get to happen, and the rusting coffee isn't quite morning brown.
Alarm clocks remain the loneliest chunks of Earth.

I was seven when my dad taught me how to tie my shoes.
I was twenty when I called to remind him I tied them for the day.
Go.

I tried music
Squeezing my head dry of emotion
I tried drawing
Scratching out an imperfect form through the window
I tried to read, but
There were no pages I could turn.

So, I sat back,
And crossed my legs,
Leant my head back on
My hoodie-pillow
The sleepy sunlight fell and
Tumbled through the dust pane
A smile on its face.

All faces forward
And all mouths shut
The meditative silence
Propped up by the hum

And for a moment
If only for two
We might all sit back and
Live in two times of space between
The fretful embark and the doughy step-off

The bus.

I beat eggs like a mixer,
because I have no idea how to use one.
So my hands be all doughy
cuz I just told you how that's done.

I shouldn't be swallowing the sweet sizzling pop beverage,
Why am I biting into a sweet glazed donut goodness?
I must not smack and crunch on the chips that ruffle in the bag,
Just couldn’t resist the creamy, sugary, ice cream that was left in the bowl.
I shouldn’t be dipping my food into the hot cheesiness,
I need to stop whipping the cream on everything I eat.
Why do I chew voraciously with meaty greasy devil burgers?
I can’t stop digging my fork into the rich flaky cake.
The days go by and I keep pulling out potato salt thin fries out the container,
Every day I grab a strip or two of thin, crunchy, meaty flavored bacon illness.
I need to reject the bad double cookies that fill my mouth,
Stop reaching for those greasy hard-shell tortilla tacos.
Need to resist the temptation of powder crisp doughy funnel cakes,
Stop licking my lips every time I savor a chewy sweet caramel chocolate bar.
Why can’t I stop grabbing handfuls of tiny fruity demon skittles?
I must back away from the calories, the gluten, the salt, the fat.

I need to stop eating junk.

“The news told me,” she said, like we were close, “the news said nearsightedness isn’t just genetics, isn’t just luck of the draw.” I’d never been a gambler. My interests were absorbed in my spoon’s inverted picture.
“What I mean, is clarity is in the hands of the person.” Or in the eyes. “You look at things too close when you’re young, and you lose focus forever.”
Her arms crossed over her uniform, a seafoam apron. She looked through her bifocals at her thoughts. Four kids in seven years. Her body was tense and doughy from the push and pull of life.
“Now imagine that,” her roadrash voice rumbled. “If I had just looked at the horizon more I wouldn’t need these **** lenses. My whole life could’ve been different.”
I pushed my empty coffee cup in her direction so she had a better reach, and gave her a half smile. “Yes. Imagine that,” I said.

Aut
12/09/21

She dresses
colors for the autumn
her hair naturally so
metallic in ginger
she wants to summon in the season early
ring it to her heel
to match her charge

            

27/09/21

welling purple and grey sky
a steady cold rain
the automatic sprinklers
douse the neighbour's lawn

             *

for mid October it's not cold
people dress up out of habit

             **

aged couple occupy a park bench
Old Cold White & Doughy
Partnered
Hand in Hand
     sloped into each other like children
          
i never figured out how to make a public bench mine

I like your hands because your ******* is the prettiest
I like your eyes because there's a ring of forest green smoke around a pool of olive oil
I like the way your skin smells—
I can't even describe it—
it smells warm and it smells of you
I like your hair because it's layered like down feathers, it dances when you move
I like your feet because you can spread your toes out like a duck's webbed feet
I like your milky skin because you can see the tendrils of blue veins map across your neck and inner wrists
I like the shape of your face
I like your hair because I can't stop touching it
I like those birthmarks on either of your hands that can be connected together
I like how your cheek is soft and doughy
I like the shape of your eyes, the size of your palms
I love your voice, the distinguishable sound, the perfect tambour of your tone I could listen to you speak all night, all day
I like your strong hands and your lean muscular body
I like the way you toss back your head when you laugh sometimes
I like the lull of your heartbeat when my sleepy head is on your chest
You have five fingers on each hand just like me

The glistening snow sweats off the arms of the woods,
The sun's warmth challenges the breeze,
But the breeze knows how to get under my skin,
The sun can only touch gently on the surface.

And another thing: my mind is at ease,
But it must be arousing to knead an angel in the doughy snow,
Rather than ******* my boots, pack up my book bag,
And to tune out the rest, put on my headphones,
Playing songs to keep me stuck inside my head.

Rather than grinding equations,
Taking notes,
Inspecting writing,
Instead of analyzing one of these,
I'd like to read glowing literature for my heart's sake.

The best days begin and end like this.
These days tranquilize me,
Sequester cortisol from my brain,
And quell thoughts of then,
thoughts of tomorrow, thoughts of today,
thoughts of when, thoughts of who,
thoughts of why, thoughts of how,
thoughts of you.

So since you aren't here to feed my soul,
And I can't read in this city's wretched cold,
I'll tuck myself inside my bed,
And burn my eyes on my phone screen instead.

Would you banish me if I confessed
a secret thrill the instant
shrill sirens intrude,
rudely breaking in
to shove aside my trailed-off whispers
with a wail from which no earwax,
no matter how doughy thick,
could keep a modern Ulysses safe.

Maybe it’s this time
they’ll stop for me.

Maybe it’s this time
and there won’t come a knock.

Maybe it’s this time
the stale crust of hardening past
explodes to scorch a put-upon earth
or crack her open so we can,
you and I, slip through,
up among the slewfoot roamers.
Their heavy heads are down,
always down, down,
pointed down and they’re unaware
there are germs here.
There are puffs of dainty fluff floating
close above them here and hoping
to ride our slipstream,
to skip over those dreams
too drained of ambition for ever
to germinate.

Ignore, am I
the kind to ignore? I am
ignoring them right now,
and the dimpled facts
they’d dare be
if beggary wasn’t better served
than derring-do. Don’t
tell me you don’t see them too.

I’ve witnessed the self-interest
and I’m still abiding, dude,
but when, dear God, when
will enlightenment finally arrive?

abducted by aliens
cried & cried
missed you all here

they poked & prodded
this doughy ***
tickeled it
making it laugh

laughing till crying
crying till laughing

so so tired
missed you all
they dropped me
back down on
my head

just last night
screaming with glee
screaming with pain

******* ole Martians
leave me the **** alone
& don't you be takin'
any of my friends

jes leave us the **** alone...

or we be kickin'
your skinny green martain
*****......