I want someone
Who can read my eyes
And communicate with them
So that we can share jokes
From across the room
Or alert each other
During emergencies.

I want someone
Who can differentiate my smiles.
Real ones, fake ones
So that even when everyone else
Is fooled,
You won't be.

I need someone
Who can understand
That I'm a complicated,
Contradictory person.
That I may blow hot and cold
But in the end
I'll still love you.

she liked the color yellow because it calmed her
its brightness soothed her soul
and the sight of a yellow flower
always brought her joy
it illuminated her dark days
and stormy weather
it always seemed to try so hard
to be happy
A quality she could relate to

but one day, she met a boy who liked orange
a color she always said she hated
its hue too close to yellow
but too different to be enjoyed
she never wore the color orange
felt as if it drew attention to her
when she was content enough
to be invisible
in the corner of the room

her favorite color was yellow
and his was orange
but she never liked that color
with its harshness and severity
it reminded her
of traffic cones
and reflector vests
of emergencies
and warning signs

But one day, she realized
he reminded her of the color yellow
he soothed her soul
illuminated her dark days
and calmed her storms
he never seemed to try too hard
but always managed to make her smile

she realized yellow and orange
weren't that different after all
and when the two hues came together
her, perpetually the color yellow
him, forever orange
she felt like the only girl in the room

the colors yellow and orange
started to bleed together
and orange came to remind her
of fallen leaves
and clear sunsets
of butterflies
and sprinkled zest

and in time
as she grew to love him
the color orange started to become
just as beautiful as yellow

Valor Gates poured her younger siblings cereal, they sat at their broken kitchen table.  The cereal was stale and she wasnt sure if the milk was spoiled.  Her anxiety was through the roof, her mother hadn't come home last night.  It wasnt anything new, her mom was a drug addict, she would go out to the club and not come home, sometimes not even for days.  She wouldnt call, or text to let Valor know she was okay, or where she was.  She couldn't even call the police the times she went missing for days, because she knew they would call child services, and they would take the twins from her.  Angela Gates was the typical ****** mom, got pregnant at sixteen, she had no way to support a child except through her now ex boyfriend Charles,who she had cheated on, hence Valor.  Charles had sacrificed his teen years to try and raise Valor, he'd been a father to her, and she loved him for it.  He left six years ago, a little bit before the twins were born, they also weren't his.  Valor at ten years old had taken on the mother roll when the twins were born. She'd even named them, Andrew and Abigail.  She thought of them as her own.  She taught them how to read, she'd taught herself to read.  She taught them how to tie their ripped hand down shoes, she hadn't learned tell she was eight.  She taught them how to ride a bike, she didn't know how.  She taught them how to swim, she'd never been to a lake or a pool before that.  Valor went to school part time, then skipped the rest of the day to go to her job at the hardware store.  She got payed minimum wage, her paycheck went to the bills, and the small portion left went to the groceries.  She got the twins clothes from the shelter, or from neighbors whose kids had grown out of them.  She hadn't gotten any new clothes, or new anything since two years ago when Charles bought her some clothes and a cheap ipod for her birthday.  Those gifts had meant everything to her.  Valor sat down in the broken stool by her little brother and patted his little blonde head.  The twins were beautiful Andrew was tall for a six year old with short blonde hair and giant blue eyes.  Abigail was just as gorgeous, she already had thick hair to her tiny waist in tumbles of blonde satin, her eyes though were very different.  One was as blue as Andrews and the other was the same mossy green as Valor's.  Valor wasnt a blonde with blue eyes, she saw her self plain with thick long brown hair, and shining mossy green eyes.  She worked out to stay fit, and she didnt get to eat much in fear that the twins wouldnt get enough food.  She dug out a small cheap phone that Charles had boughten for emergencies , the small screen was blank.  Her mother hadn't stumbled into the house and to her room like always.  Valors heartbeat picked up two notches and sh could hear the blood rushing in her ears.  She had a anxeity disorder that also gave her a bit of OCD.  Her OCD was extreme cleaning.  Everything had to be neat, she thought it was because her life was in such disaray that the one mess she did have control of had to be perfectly in place.  
She debated weather she should call Charles and ask if he'd seen her.

Zero.
One.
Two.
Three.
Fast asleep on my porch
in the middle of the day, dreaming my worries away.
Like how my doll broke and I’m still mourning the loss.
In my sandbox that doesn't have sand,
replaced with my most beloved stuffed animals,
I lay there not knowing what’s happening outside my world.
My mom shakes me awake with worry covering her face.
She screams at my father, how could he forget me here?
Four.
More fights.
Five.  
Dad’s never home.
Never has time for me.
Doesn't talk to mom much.
Red flags, brighter than a firetruck, I didn't see at this young age.
Six.
Dad’s moved out.
I have a new sister.
But at least I get a new puppy,
and whatever food and toys I want.
Plus more presents.
Seven.
Another sister.
This one has a different mom.
The fake mom is mean.
She thinks she's my mom but she's not.
“YOU’RE NOT MY MOM!”
I scream and cry until my dad comes back from the store,
wondering what happened while he was away.
He takes my side of course.
I’ve always been daddy's girl and always will be.
Eight.  
Things are changing a lot.
I don’t like it.
Nine.  
Dad got a house with her,
2 new dogs with her.
Of course my puppy gets neglected.
Favorites are picked and now I'm last.
This fake mom’s gone at work all day
while I look after my real sister and my fake one.
I grab my phone that I use only for emergencies,
and call my mom, my real mom.
“Dad’s sleeping…Fake mom’s at work…My sister’s are crying.”
I stubble over my words, not able to get them out due to panic.
“I'm coming. I promise.”
The fake mom hears it and grabs my phone.
“You can't call your mom while she’s at work. And where did you get this?”
‘Hurry mom.’ ‘My real mom.’
I run away, grab my bag,
make sure my real sister is good, and grab her hand.
It's only real if she has the same mom I thought.
My mom gets here thank god.
Ten.
Fights with fake mom,
fights with mom,
fights with me.
I hate dad's house.
I was first, now I’m last.
I feel out of place.
Eleven.
Twelve.
July 6th, 2019.
Less than a month after my birthday,
he left.
Left to live with this woman states away.
A woman that probably doesn't care about him.  
Thirteen.
I don't talk to my dad,
I guess it works out that way.  
Fourteen.
I wanna help, really I do.
(TW)
P!lls, dr!nk!ng, p@rty!ng.
No job, no phone, no contact.
I just sit and listen to my mom trash talk him.
I know he’s awful, but he’s still my dad.
I try to tune her out, keywords hit my eardrums.  
“Lazy.” “Selfish.” Worthless.”
‘But he's still my dad.’
Now.
I wonder what happened to daddy's little girl.
The one that would make him dress up,
or color while sitting on the balcony.
I wonder how it would have been if he stayed.
I have lots of questions to ask but I can’t.
Fear covers my body every time I  try to text or call.
No happy birthday this year because I was too scared to answer.
Christmas coming up and scared to ask for a simple thing:
To be daddy's little girl again.

"I got them old bones man"*
There shakin’
And there rattlin’
These demons
I’m battlin’
Time
Is unraveled in
Sin, desperation, disbelief
Misconduct and mischief

Stretching
Feels like a prison camp
For old men
Where all those old men do
Is stretch
My body is a concern as my mind
wanders,
And ponders,
And potentially acts, on
large acts of
greatness
and I bear witness
to future bewilderment
that has already past
but lingers,
and fingers,
the ******* blame
on my ***.

I wanna live a life of positive affirmations
That’s what I feel is happenin’ you know what im’ sayin
And I keep playin
Games I love and things that I believe
Goals not yet not accomplished
And new one’s I wanna achieve

And a New year brings new things
Don’t break your dreams
Don’t undervalue and don’t leave
Places you don’t want to be
Don’t be a double negative
Take advantages of openings and opportunities
Don’t be a hypocrite and you will completely agree

All those good things
Your gonna do more of in a new year

No matter how niave, egocentric  or misadvised…

… in someone else’s eyes  

Have no fear
share your gifts
and create your gifts
don’t buy them,
and if you buy them
don’t buy them at walmart
or in malls or in big cities

Everything I ever wish to write
Is an anthem to change the world
And the revolution starts
As soon as I change
As soon as I arrange my priorities

**** the majority

Start a brother/sister sorority,
And I will put down this beer,
Quit a job that doesn’t matter
And put my energy
Into passions and emergencies
And change the world
By meditating
Saying some kind words about myself
With my eyes closed
While deeply breathing
And exploring galaxies with ease
The entire universe…

… I think I Am going back to university

The tangerine stained race track
spread across our **** carpet, a turn
by the wooden bed frame, a loop
near the five piece drum set.
My brother’s fingertips gripped a Hot Wheel
by its rear end, its rubber wheels
greeting the track, propelling it forward,
launching it into another plastic vehicle,
and Crash.

I nursed the toy cars through emergencies,
playing doctor to replace cracked windshields
and torn plastic bumpers, victims
of one too many collisions. It alarmed me
how easily the 1976 Mustang could lose its wheel,
sending it spinning like a dreidel while my brother grinned
with splintered teeth, feeling nothing.
The car survived the impact, but people
don’t always walk away from accidents. They can’t be raised
on jack stands and tinkered with. The operation table,
home to drivers with fluttering heartbeats,
can hum to the deafening beat of a flat-line monitor.

You don't see me coming yet,
but I have already cleared a drawer for you in my heart.

Our first argument will be about how I hog all the covers in my sleep,
or maybe about how I can never shake away the feeling that I am left
with after a bad dream.

I want you to know that I am other worldly.
Which of course means that I am not from this Earth.
My mind travels to and from other universes and galaxies,
other realms of thought.
But I will try to leave a note reminding you I will return.

For future emergencies-
I keep a bottle of Zoloft in my ***** drawer
and a bottle of wine under the sink.
I am not allowed to take them together.
I hope my episodes won't make you think less of me.

I hope you won't forget the way gravity shifted when we first met.
Tape that memory to the forefront of your mind.
So when I am sobbing uncontrollably about the ending of a movie,
or the last line of a haiku
you will remember why you love me.
And I will do the same for you.

You see, I am not that great at endings.
I am not a person with promising follow through .
I get caught up in the beginning of things,
the middle of things,
the twist and turn
thrashing momentum
of things.

I just can't bare to see it all end.

So when or if it does end,
I ask that you lay me gently down and make your exit swift.
Do not linger by the door frame,
because when you tell me it's over,
that is it.

You don't see me coming yet,
but I want you to know I have had day dreams about our first kiss.
I imagine it like an orchestra inside your chest
and angels begin to sing when you part your lips.
The symphony hits its crescendo when we finally get to the kiss.

You don't see me coming yet,
but soon we will be in love.

I rode the crested waves
that graced the coptic sea
And crashed into the shores
of North Africa

The water was as warm
The blood hotter still
No one went on living
unless they had the will

You never made a friend
nor aquaintence by the hill
Life was sweet and short
Too easy to be killed

Your best friend was a bottle
A cigarette would do
And in emergencies
a colt 45 was too

We smuggled guns and roses
across the white hot sands and dunes
We bartered in broken languages
while whistling a softer tune

With a third eye looking back
where bullets would fall as rain
On our way to Gibraltar
One dip salute , rev the engine of the plane

There is no water to quench you
To wash away the sins
The waves of guilt run over you
They bring the sharks with fins

I saw a program on the telly once
it was about a little girl
my age, I think
or less
she had lost her mum
and right when she was about to find her
the power had shut off
and the telly went dark

I went to find my own mum
I wanted to tell her
about the ******* the telly
but her and daddy were having another row
so I left them alone

I sat in my room instead
with the candle mum had given me
"for emergencies" she said
it was the third time I used it this week

the house was cold
it got like that a lot
when the telly goes dark
and it gets colder when the door swings open
and bangs shut again on it's way closed

she's sitting in bed
my mum is
and she's crying
she says daddy left
like the power on the telly

we moved to an apartment yesterday
mum said it was an adventure
but I have to sleep in the same bed as her
I don't like it much

we sold the telly today
I guess I'll never know
what happened to that little girl
and her lost mum

Mom and dad never around like that **** was planned out.
Still you never caught me asking for hand outs you would've thought I took the main route by the way I stayed out, always told I wasn't being lady like but where I'm from, being a lady rarely gets you liked.
And the prettier you are the more likely you gotta fight. So I was more focused on getting my hands right than preparing to be a mans wife and that's just real life.
Mom never taught me curtesy dad was never there for emergencies, so I was my only care like urgency.
Now it's about what ya know and if you've heard of me
Heard you can get far if you act accordingly
So now people asking if they can record with me
Before they said poetry? You'll get bored with me. But I figure it's worth a shot then to take the easy way out like the majority. You know what that means I can get rich off a ***** that's on scheme or "modeling" on a pole I'm tryna be your fav rappers next song dream.
Ain't knocking nobody I just got more in store for me. @fvckalexia

Well I was five minutes late, mum
Chucked me out the door,

"I have a letter from school mum,

"Been in trouble again, no change there,

I waited for the bus but never turned up

"Great she'll think I missed it on purpose,

I jumped on my bike, ill show her, no phone
Call saying I never turned up. I pedalled like
My lungs were going to burst, The school yard
Was empty  "Crap, "Crap, I ran in thinking
I was Late the doors lock at a certain time only
Opening in case of serious emergencies.

"Sorry I'm late Miss Hoper,
"The Bus never turned u.......,

The class was empty, I heard a noise from the store
Cupboard? I listened and heard moaning

"No way Miss Hoper is getting it on,

Was I early? had the clocks gone back and mum
Forgot? I giggled at the thought of catching her
With her silks around her ankles. Camera at the
Ready, 1, 2, 3.... OK don't be a chicken.
What can they say or do, 1, 2, 3.. I opened
The door clicking away 12mp clear as day.

"Miss Hoper surprise,

Dam Miss you look  "Fugly, not looking
Your best this morning.

"I'd say she was a six as far as teachers go,

Her hair was like a drunk had shaven in the dark,
"What big nails you have,
"What  sharp teeth you have,
"What the hell? how ***** you are this morning,

What was I doing I sounded like I was reading the
Three little pigs. Miss Hoper was the wolf.
I had a voice repeating in my head, but I looked
Beside her and saw the reason for the closed door.
**** Peterson was lying their, reaching out as
If he knew how this was playing out to the end.

She licked her tooth, her lacerated tongue bleed,
No pain more pleasure was on her face as she
Drank upon herself. I stepped back as I knew
That I was within her sights. Her fingers gestured
Across Micks throat and his hand slumped silently
On the ***** cupboard floor, his eyes emptily void.

That voice once again echoed out now screaming
Into my subconscious. This time I listened.

"Run, run, run....,

As she launched upon the area I once was, heading
For the door I glanced her movement. A step behind
As I slammed the door, the walls vibrated upon the
Lockers, as I saw the luck of the keys left in the door.
The teacher launched through the panels as glass, solid
Wood was the only deterrent from her tasting my throat.

I ran through the halls each class room locked, children
Tied to the desks gnawing on themselves in an effort to
Be free. Mr Freedman was hanging their, but fate his time
Continued as he with metal cord he hung and lower parts
Torn asunder he hung their only half a man.

"HELLO, HELLO, ANYONE
"Dam I'm just telling everyone lunch is here,

I instead whisper, their is thought in my madness.

"hello, hello,
"If your not a monster,

I wondered the halls, hearing moan I'd edge towards
I could hear them sniffing as if a scent was lingering
In the air. "Could they smell me? "I'd showered though,
I pressed my cheek against the wall, looking in to
My history class, well they were history all right.
Smouldering remains of god knows what.

"Hello.....,
"Is anyone not crazy,
"What am I thinking of course they'll say no,

Looking for my prom date, is their even going
To be one at this rate? I looked in the girls locker
Room.
"What don't give me that look,
Shelly you in there is whispered, then I sneezed

"O' crap O' crap these halls echo like a church steeple,
"Just ignore that ok,

I see a foot then the faces of cheerleaders, but these
Weren't the girls I knew twisted forms tails protruding
And hair, like they have digressed to a early form,

"No not shelly,
"She was 9 now a 2.0,

She sees me, head tilts then the call, her fingers point.
That voice didn't have to scream, I was gone.
I could hear them, I wasn't looking where I was going
And clothes lined someone.

"What the hell dude,
"You ran in to me,

Your normal,
But your, I saw you dead?

"What you mean dead?
"Down that hall, eyes gouged out,

And with that a shiver like someone had
Just mosh pitted on my grave, I heard them
I went to run, down the hall, but heeded his
Story *"dude hurry up run,

"I cant my ankles all buckled,

A second later I was in the lockers, lucky I'm
Skinny, they were upon him in moments.
Their tales swinging around in the air as though
They were playing with him. Then tails wrapped
Upon him legs, arms, neck they purred and
Claws dug in as if to get a running start.....

Blood, so much blood, I bit on my jacket to cover
My scream, I  was lucky his body tore up in
Such noise that I was unseen. they took of parts
Kept for trophies or munchies who knew?
I ran down the hall, I turned and tripped over
Something? I looked down it was me...

"What the..., what the....,
"How could this be,

Then flashes in my mind, I was here when it
Started, "I turned first, I opened my mouth
And expelled it, I watched others consumed.
I locked the rooms and through a key hole
I gestured it in. watched the madness mutate
Them in to me, "I watched..

But how did I end up here?

"Think, think,

I ran down this hall, and I ran in to me,
What the hell is going on I look, into the
Trophy case, I see something not me?
I look at myself eyes void only darkness
A shell, I enter two digits in. "Empty,
I look back as I see me, but others also.

I realize I'm an echo like these halls, I fade
Into the darkness as I realize it wasn't me.

"Just memories of other mixed in with me.

"I should have played hookie today,

But now I'm empty and its roaming the halls
looking for its next feed...

Good morning gorgeous!

You asked me why I broke up with her.
I've been thinking about what to say without sounding
like a disrespectful ****.
Like you I've discovered it's easier to figure it out
if you write it down.
You're seeking and respect honesty so here goes.
I could not get you out of my head yesterday
and went to bed thinking about you last night.
I watched Tyson peck at the wood branch in his cage.
He bit me like the one he's named after bit Holyfield.
He loses interest in toys I buy him in minutes.  
Reminds me of my ex she was the same way.
She never listened when I spoke and it was like I never did.
I lost patience with her due to her always being late.
Last time I took her out she was an hour late
with no good reason but couldn't decide what to wear.
She was adult but felt like I was involved with a immature kid.
Plus she's impulsive in a bad way.
She used the cards I let her use for emergencies
to gamble online, bought online and hid what she didn't need
and took her friends who were immature like her
out on the town at my expense.
Drove me nuts because she had difficulty paying attention.
Sometimes love isn't enough to over come her kind
of deafness or her thinking it fun to put aluminum
foil in microwaves.
She was the queen of drama and procrastination.
Her place was always disorderly and she swore to me
when we met she was a neat freak.
I don't mind a little daily life messes it happens.
Her chronic lateness made it a last straw.
On the night I was to introduce to my folks
she was late and they left my home without meeting her.
It's been over two years since I ended the misery
of her in my life but she's still bitter.
Unlike you she's stuck in hate mode and will
be there until someone else buys her
lies and manipulations.
Could say more but I believe you will
see the full picture.

I wrote this for you Betty Ponder.
I know you know it's about you. : )

The Riddle

One of you has seen my face.
One of you knows where I live.
Stuff. Important stuff,
like the locale of
my hidey-holes.

My email and my
cell disclosed
soon to be
on sale on eBay
for a trifling sum.

So now I must
disburse to parts
more remote,
reappear in a
nouveau identity.

Just a necessary precaution.

Moreover, methinks
you have grown
tired of my waning voice,
waxing ineloquently,
opining too frequently.

feel like a
thick wooly straw
welcome mat,
edges unravelling,
grown raggedy,
roundabout the edges,
or like a
paperback book,
tho well thumbed,
nonetheless,
consigned to the
bye-bye
discard box.

riddle me,
me be the riddle,
when I scribe
under a new
Nom de Plume.

will you recognize,
my signature
hid amidst the
restless words that
still need a home?

are my poems
worthy of a
second glance,
do you predispose
your attentions on
your favorites only,
the newbies squeaking
ignored and unattended,
whose ranks I have
now rejoined?

did you ever meet
a poem
you did not like?
did you ever greet
a poet
with palms
outwardly raised,
saying, no mas,
had enough,
no time for you
and your
clouded clarifications?

need you.
need you to judge me,
without the saddlebags of
predisposition and imposition.

if you need me
just give me a
loud holler
in my sleepy hollow.

tho sadly my
country road,
has listening posts
on the telephone wires,
I will know, when.
you call,
your voice,
I will come,
if you ask,
always.

I'll be riddling
in plain sight,
if you have the taste
for and of me,
you will find me
soon enough.

HOWEVER,
in emergencies
all you need dial,
my digital signature,
911 and
ask for the
Poetry Hotline.

Who am I without the trappings of romance?
Shockingly, I am still a poet. Although my love inspires me, it doesn't drive me. In fact, when I am happy my poetry all but stops, except for the occasional ode to the beauty of whoever I adore. But beneath all of that, my love is for the WORLD. For the earth. For every person who has ever let an emotion of any depth flit across their face briefly and revealed their exquisite soul to the sky, just for a second. It's for everything old and broken and deliciously stripped of its pretenses. It's for the sound a paintbrush makes on velvet, and the lush panorama of a city street slicked gold with rain, and the way a chord hit by a choir resonates in your chest and bones and fingertips, and the way the air smells when you're gardening in the summer and you've really got the dirt under your fingernails. Something in me craves the world. I am still a poet without love. Without love, I am still a passionately inspired person, full of giddiness for everything that I adore. Shows, moments, sunlight, music, books. The way two words can sound together in my head can bring me to the verge of an awed laugh, the way two notes sound when struck together can push me to the edge of tears, the way the scene of a film is shot can make me hold my breath, the lights hitting a stage like folds of satin can make me sigh with longing to be nearly so pure and beautiful. This isn't an act. This is me, stripped down to the electricity. Touch me and you could be seared awake. Somebody called me a live wire of emotion, once, and the term stuck with me. Exposed, raw, like a nerve, crackling and passionate, vulnerable as hell and practically humming with awe, that is who I am. I feel as if I never make it clear that with or without somebody to channel it towards, I am still this way. All this force running through me anchors me to the ground. Every moment I spend (for better or worse, I suppose) doing anything at all, even the mundane things, is fraught with some kind of tension or wonder. It does get tiring, but I live in a world that's just... drenched in beauty. In color and sound and love and humanity and brutal beauty and soft cruelty. The whole of my experience here on earth has been so intense I can barely stand it, each second. When I feel joy I feel it so that I could die of it, when I feel pain I feel it as if I already have died of it. When I laugh I laugh with my liver and the little bones in my feet, and when I cry I cry like a river overflowing its banks. The only reason, I promise, that I would ever put myself through the hell that is losing all of my loves to this consuming intensity is that it is ALL I have. It is, for some stupid reason that I will never fully understand unless I lose it, worth every moment of searing agony, to feel every moment of agonizing joy.
This is who I am. With or without another person to give credit for it. To send it to and devote it to and build it around and channel it towards. Somehow I cannot be cynical. I've tried. Hard. I've tired of my constant emergencies, my little stupid things that clench their fingers round my heart and drag me up or down without my consent. But the thing is, something in me shouts always, that this is what I'm supposed to be. That I need to be brave enough to lose everything to stay who I am, because comfortable love is a dime a dozen, but my love, inside, the way it grows, is the sun, and once it's out...
It's out for good.

This poem took three weeks to write.

Actually, this poem took three weeks to begin. Three weeks of picking up my pen and waiting, thoughts swirling, for something to become ink on the anxious page in front of me.

And when it finally did begin, it didn't grow like a seedling, reaching wide-eyed towards the sun, vibrant and lush and increasingly more green.

No.

It sat like a rock in my gut, a ball of words wound so tightly together that for weeks no amount of elbow grease or bribery would loosen it.

Its gestation was like that of a real child, complete with the accompanying symptoms of discomfort, dizziness, and a perpetually churning stomach. So many times bitter uncertainty would rise up into my mouth, ***** fingers scrabbling at the inside of my throat, only to be swallowed down again and again as I blinked back tears. This is a feat easily accomplished when in the privacy of one’s own room, in the corner where all the pillows have been shoved and you’ve stashed a box of tissues for emergencies like this. But under the fluorescent light of high school halls, the task is considerably more difficult. There people notice when you’ve tilted your head to let your hair hide your face, when your eyes are glassy and red, ringed by damp lashes.

But then you remember you can do something with this baby bundle of words that you cannot with a real child; you can pretend it isn’t there.

So I did, though maybe not entirely conscious of the choice. All the same, who wouldn’t choose to look through the lens that makes the world seem, well, okay, over the one whose warped glass leaves you forever nauseous from the disturbing view before you. The swelling around your eyes will subside, the bitter taste of unease will recede from your mouth, and the knot in your gut will shrink until it is barely noticeable. You’ll suit up for battle in your transparent armor, made especially for convincing the world that nothing is wrong.

At least for a while.

Because eventually, your white kid gloves won’t be able to hide the blood on your hands anymore. And when it begins to seep through the soft fabric, you remember that everyone already knew it was there.

I’d been branded the villain on that Sunday months ago, with red hot iron so it would never be missed. Beneath it are “selfish,” “heartless,” and “thoughtless,” burned into my skin.

As though it had been easy.

As though I enjoyed doling out hurt and pain like chocolate pudding.

As though I was proud of the Lego house I’d crushed.

I’ve always been one for excuses. I don’t like when my words leave  my mouth one way, but arrive on a listener’s tongue dipped in a foreign sauce and spiced to change their flavor. But even I know when not to be defensive. Because after all this, now that seemingly everyone knows of the crimes I’ve committed, I understand.

Go ahead, look at me.

Judge me for what I've done. Whisper amongst yourselves about my fall from whatever grace I had been clinging to. Snarl at my carelessness. Glare at me, isolate me, condemn me.

It’s okay.

I have to live with me.

If there is one person who can truly understand the depth of the wound, of the pain, it’s the person wielding the knife.

I don’t need to be reminded that I made a mistake. But I also don’t need to continually be explaining why it wasn't all a mistake. It has been cathartic enough to unwind the strand of words that wrote this poem, digging out the marrow of my sorrow and analyzing it as truth or fiction.

I don’t need anyone else to comb me through with iron spikes of guilt. I sleep on them every night. Until you've slept beside me, until you've heard the voice I hear ringing in my ears as I try to steal away into my dreams, do not try to tell me you “know how I feel.”

That voice screams things too horrid, too terrifying to be uttered aloud.

I've learned a lot of things. I've learned that there’s no going to hell and back, no, once you’re there, you’re staying there.

So yes, I suppose if you like you can tell your friends I've moved in with Hades for good, if that is how you see it. But with his lengthy experience with the human race, he knows that pretending nothing is wrong does not equate not caring.


~to be continued~

Hanging by the post box red front door
Since 71
A long trench coat, shade of green
With flat cap on top, peak smudged
From fingers that had gripped
Pulled it from a head,
Both, an umbra of post war world gloom
To the boy, now the man who looks at it
Memories contained within its pockets and creases
Of boiled sweets handed to his bairns
Of neatly folded plastic bags,
For the necessary emergencies
He was so convinced he’d meet
Of hands that belonged to the coat,
Strong, firm that tousled this man’s hair,
Yet gentle and playful, full of fun
Of the head that wore the cap, the grin,
The mischievous glint, when his Peg wasn’t looking
As he slipped some coins into this boy’s tiny hand
Stories told, of times before the war,
Of stopping trams, driving pigs through N’castle
As a butcher’s Boy, on slaughter day
Of the day he met his Meg, down by the coast
Of showing off, and coming a cropper
And oh, how his Meg laughed
A coat holding so much of the past,
Of shipbuilding by the dark, ***** Tyne,
Boats that loomed over the houses
Taking this boy to see them launch
Dreaming of exotic, oriental places
He would never visit
Of betting slips, crumpled in pockets
From long gone nags, who caught his eye
Torn envelopes with Megs writing,
Bread - brown, tin of carnation milk (small)
Rich tea, sultanas, flour – plain
A use for his plastic bags,

I have this
theory about
irony, tyranny
and irrational
national emergencies
you see, when
the foul wind
blowing south out
of Washington DC
fails the smell test
but compares well
with, say, *******
cat ****, radioactive
batshit contaminants
but, hey, try any
old way, you still can’t
iron any wrinkles out
of the fact that what
lies in the murky bottom
of the Potomac
our leader drinks in
also flow through
the faucets to sink, then
down the *******
of our so-called democracy
and into the lagoon
down on the links
of Mara-a-Lago.

i need this listerine for my bad
breath he said, but i knew better
than to give him a quarter.
he begged me with blue eyes
and every puff we exhaled into
the back bay that grey morning.

i’m here to help
i answered him
and i’ve been there-
at McLean in ART, where the girls
didn’t like me cause my music
was a trigger. but
i pulled through, sometimes
on my own, with help
from a court appointed drug group
(even though i carpooled
every wednesday in a baked
out mini van).

i’m here because day after day
i dragged my spinning
body to the toilet, sun dawning,
to spew bright yellow fluid
into the waiting water.
and i’ve hit the ocean floor:
i used to sniff the bowl to make
the ***** come up faster.
i’d say if i get up again in less than ten
minutes, it’s gonna be a rough day
(but yesterday started this way
and i ended it with a beer
in my hand anyway).

i’m here because when
officer spirito dragged my racing
body through the hallways handcuffed,
because of the purses
missing from the locker room,
i still spent the night on the
closet floor rocking back and
forth, knees to pounding
chest, a hollow
voice on the phone saying i’ll be fine
(but i know that ****’s cut
with ether and i’m gonna
need a hospital).

i told my sponsor
i wanna get clean cause
dope is taking my friends one by
one like bowling pins, and i’m lonely
cause all my ex boyfriends
are still locked up
upstate. she just told me
to pray to god
(but everybody knows
that prayer only works
in emergencies).

i’m here because that relapse
my first year of college got me
pretty close to death. i didn’t know
i could puke that far and
the emts didn’t know
a heart could beat that fast.
but **** the past
and **** the future. i can’t
say much about the rest
of my life, but i can
make sure i’m sober the rest
of this night. you can get through
centuries one hour at a time, so
since i know what you want it for
why would i give you that quarter?

no response except a drop
of spit hung from his silver beard
like a pendulum, and the smell
of the chicken i left to cook
too long inside that soup kitchen.
if i didn’t laugh, i would have
cried the whole
time that he said to me
i need this
listerine, baby,
i need listerine
i need this
listerine for my bad
breath.

His :

i make my travel
reseeding you
                my dear heart
                      into a compact unit of storage

i relieve from our nesting comfort
dismiss our established downey base of cooperation
                                   cleave from our snared compromise

instead to bed and thieve an unshared atmosphere
guilty joy followed by joyful normality
no stale thing

unravelling light
  lifted
(secure
  that I've a capsule world
  when i turn
  toward our lap again)

goodbye of you i am mended
made completely free
                    on the first turn of a corner


& Hers :

you leave me
      on your travels (you-were-my-travels)
you leave me susceptible
my heart alters to become
       a weak permeable tissue of easy tamper
       membership structure is dissolved
         returned to the vital spill
           welcome fluent contamination
               villainess and godless vibration
                  of the goddess confession

dress hooked up past my waist
i'll power-**** away my morality on day one
each day following shall be made easy
  ushered along in brutalities slip steam
                        and the prom of eddies

back in time i've been working on something..
       i'll call it The ****** List
criminal joys and tasks of double self daring
committed
     (not folded over
       or veloped in the knicker drawer)
           it operates as a basking lurk
                               tucked discreetly
                                 correct behind the eye
                      a charm feature of the unconscious
when released
   it's something melkish and larking with energy
   tacking harm to my activated mischief
      kinetic value and uncontrollable spur

in your absence
     i am permissionless
abyssless
i account for nothing

nooks of the apartment
the memory of us quickly forms a ***** coral
i've stopped washing to suit this mode
my body, a journal of stains and earned bruises
i holla and bay at mementoes of our brace
and then stop at the near point of the neighbours tolerance

time has crushed in on its own thesis
become gummy and tenseless
skipping about in haphazard spasms
  backstep, bow and reversal
     now
          observably organic in motion
           and proud of its many personalities

Oh, You're Back Again !
    no, it is your ghost
is it a spy ? ... i doubt you knew you even had it
it threads in and out of my company
seeming baffled and far from its comfort zone
did i put you there ?
i don't call you
the physical you
because you said 'no phones'
              and 'only in emergencies' (is-this-urgent ?)
Is This Urgent ?!
i restrict where i live in here
     keep the windows widowed and veiled
it makes for an unreal canvas
i'm weeding for a correction
sensual precarious highs
violate
in a spate
with this time alone
i'll make our home a vile space
a defication
and i can make no sense assessment of it any
i fight against digestion within these premises
i stay still long enough i am softened and palped
            by a dense atmosphere and salivations of contact
and outside..

the streets are exhausted
and i've quite the nasty reputation
violence, baiting and thievery
inebriation and toxic language
i shall soon be policed
no doubt i've lost my job
for now our place is a dare for vandals
             when i am an insensible heap
                 and perspiring over you in delirium
                    they devalue the exterior

unearthing
i'll find my creative sprite
that is good
i had missed it
now this is urgent (this-is-mine-was-always)
i take up a notebook and puke it full
i take sticks in my mitt and scrawl my charcoal visions
the blood visions
   the primal mud
  on all our walls

can i piece back our home by your return ?
can I sufficiently correct the blurring history I've smutted ?
do i care to ?
no more fading into 'partner'
lease is up
you'll not find me here destroyed
or waiting
    naked but an apron with my hands cupped and mouth open
i'll have ravelled myself up tight
- having stoked my inhuman malady -
     i'll mate my own travels

                                                        ­             - aborted

This conversation can’t come fast enough, This past I’m needing for, can’t come, can’t know how to please me, my needs for you hurt me badly. The truth is I can’t live without you, and I keep going forward. My drawers are full, our ages come fast, chasing down the dreams we’ve both had. I am mad and about you. Won’t you trust this love I’ve shown you. I watch your feet walk up the dashboard. My nellypot goddess of highway photographs. Summers’ time and heated romance, you can cool off with the drinks I’ve been keeping in my knapsack.

Just tell me where you are
Just tell me girl where you’ve been going
I can feel the Earth as it’s pulled apart,
I can hear each strike at the world,
While the waves crash over me.
No one brave enough to do their part,
Come walk with me
Let us go to the park.
There’s this gift for your lips to heal,
Taking words to the books that could’ve brought you to feel, just a pinch will reveal your road, philanthropic donations requested from that ghost on the phone
But as much as I **** you in,
I cannot **** your ships back to me again
Watch as I start to swim
Watch while the tides throw me out to sea again
I’ve swallowed the oceans and
I drowned on the land
Could it be that I’m falling
Faster than I can stand
Could it be that the facts don’t fly
But I’m listening to the words that you’ve shared. I listen with the focus knowing you’ve listened to the same words we have. Such as the balm that goes on your lips, I’ve used it myself on our lips, well, are we now closer than five degrees of separation. Will it be? Will you swim with me?

If you put the blocks on the chains and the chains on your legs, I would box up myself and jump over the edge. If you took yourself to the hellhounds den, I’d bite the paw of the black dog that fed me and then do it again.

The truth is, I can’t believe my life’s needs are greedy. The truth is you know my fingers are living, say it’s so. Why won’t you collect your headaches and hangovers, then call your bluff and reach me by phone. I admit my passwords. I admit my wrongs but I know that doesn’t make me right. I give you my stories and dreams, my secrets, but the more I see you look away the more it makes me want to greet you and see your face in the light. The mourning that claimed both of us, pushes both of us to see ourselves tonight. I can be the story that borrows from tomorrow, but only if you let yourself be the goal between the both of us- until tomorrow we make haste, trying harder every moment, if only, in order to be together past the morning in order to lick each other’s dreams, and hemorrhage every demon that we used to fight.

It was wishing. I was longing. For tomorrow, forward arcing, you come to me in darkness. You came to be the heartache, of a love I’m trying to hold. Everybody knows that knowing love doesn’t mean it can be owned.

To break of sin I will swim through darkest nights. Two abreast we’ll feign our plights, and break our bodies on the streams, in vain attempts to love freely.

And the girl sits in the corner, staring into nothingness, remembering the signals she misread. She thinks she was a fool to believe that he liked her. She was so full of the Love crap that she closed her eyes to the possibility that maybe the guy was just fooling around. Because of too much expecting, look what happened to her now? She now has this permanent faraway look that suggests that her soul is not in her body. She is so passive that you may think she is a rag doll. She has changed. The once magnet of all things bright and cheerful has turned into the queen of loneliness. Days and weeks pass and still, she remains the same. Her shattered heart remains broken. The guy that’s supposed to fix her left her to fix herself. Her world crumbles as if Atlas is finally giving up because of the weight of all her problems. Her knight in shining armour is no more than a fake pardoner tricking people.

Friends try to reverse the process but to no avail. She is different now. The happening opened her eyes and brought her to a whole new level of experience. For weeks she has been impassive but now, she awakes to find herself looking through the world with a new pair of eyes, she has learned to take that mistake and turn it into a weapon to be used for future emergencies. It gives her strength. It gives her knowledge. It gives her a sense of freedom. To be free from her old naive self and to feel the authority that resides within her. The thirst to redeem herself, her dignity. As she tries to recall everything, an explosion erupts inside of her. And as the old self burns away, a new one, a fierce one is formed from the ashes. The fire that burns inside her turned into a fierce, blue flame; dangerous yet beautiful.

This is actually copy pasted from a suicide forum, but it's true.

Self Harm: Before you self harm, Read this
....before you make that first cut remember:
You will enjoy this.
You will find the blood and pain release addictive.
Even though you think you can make a few tiny cuts that aren't deep,
And will heal easily ...
They will get deeper.
They will scar.
They will sometimes take months to heal.
And years for the scars to fade.
If you think you can limit the cutting to one area of your body,
Think again...
It will spread when you run out of skin.
Be prepared to withdraw from others and live in a constant state of shame.
Even if you are the most honest person ever to live ....
You will find yourself lying to the people you love.
You will **** back from your friends when they touch you as if their hands were dipped in poison.
You will be terrified that they will feel something under the cloth
of your shirt, or because it just plain hurts so much to be touched.
Be prepared to get so out of control you fear your next cut because you don't know how bad it will be.
Just wait for 10 cuts to turn into 100....Be prepared for your
entire life to revolve around thinking about cutting ..cutting and
covering up cutting.
And just wait till that first time you cut "too deep."
And you freak out because the blood won't stop...
And you are gasping....
And you feel yourself shaking all over.
You are having a panic attack and you are terrified but you can't
tell anyone.
So you sit there alone...
Praying it will be ok swearing you'll never let it go this far
again...
But you will, and further.
Don't worry, you will learn how to take care of your cuts so that
you can go deeper and deeper and avoid the ER.
And the better you get at treating your cuts the deeper they get.
You will lie to yourself and justify it when you find youself
spending 20, 30 or 50 dollars every time you go the pharmacy.
You will feel the flutter of your heartbeat everytime you go to the
counter to ring up your order.
Butterfly strips...
3 or four different kinds of dressings...
Betadine....
Antibiotic cream..
Medical tape..
Scar reducers.....
You will tap your foot impatiently hoping the line will just move
and no one will stare at you or wonder why you need all these things.
And at the same time secretly hope someone will notice...
Someone who is standing in line with an armful of the same
supplies...
Someone who understands but of course that never happens.
Medical supplies won't be the only thing you spend all your money on.
Be prepared to buy a new wardrobe...
Longsleeve shirts in summer colors, bracelets, wristbands, boots... gloves.. the list goes on and on.
You will start looking at everyone in a different way...
Scanning their bodies for any signs of SI...
Just hoping that you might meet someone like you so you don't feel so terribly alone.
You wont even think about it ..
As your eyes scan their wrists + arms...
Hoping just hoping they will be like you....
But they are not.
You will see their clean arms and feel terribly ashamed and alone.
You will start doing a lot of things alone.
You will always have to wash your laundry in private so know one sees the blood stains on your clothes and towels.
You will always be cleaning up the blood..
Scrubbing your bathroom floor...
Wiping the blood of your keyboard...
You won't be able to make it through a day without cutting....
Next thing you know you are in a public bathroom somewhere breaking open a scab with a sewing needle that you keep in your wallet for emergencies.
When you get really desperate anything will be a cutting
tool ...scissors...a car key...a needle ... a paperclip..even a pen.
Doesn't matter what it is if you need to cut bad enough you will
find something.
Say goodbye to things you took for granted.
Like wearing shorts or sandals...pedicures...sleeveless tops. A
normal summer day at the beach or in a swimming pool will become a far off memory for you.
Get ready to itch.
Because you will itch and itch ..."so much you will look like you
have fleas or a skin disease."
You will become an expert on your body as you destroy it carefully..
You will dream about cutting...
you will dream about being exposed.
It will haunt you day and night and take over your life. You will
wish you never made that first cut because while you absolutely hate cutting...
At the same time, you love it and can't live with out it...
Note: I'm hypocritical to send this, but it still needs to be sent. It actually got really far for me before I told someone and was told to stop and I finally did.

****** and Energetic
Entagled and Entrapped
Eexplosive and Emergencies  
Extremes and Erased

From itself in a sea

I want brass knuckles
to sport between back allies and gleam in the street light
a neon sign that says all boogie monsters beware
I want weapons to flash in the sight of men
while they try to peek up my skirt.
Let all boys know I'll shoot a pistol
before letting them near my ***** line.
Do all the things action movies told me to
in order to stay alive.
But my first abuser wasn't a shadow in the alley,
or a bruised and sweating testosterone filled brute.

She was a tiny, silly bird
that lit up a room with the colour of her feathers,
And a bubbling laughter like morning song.
She was a little girl
a damsel in distress
you'd want to cup your fingers around
to shield and protect.

But one night,
her songs spilled over her lips,
distorted through ***** filled breath.
Her thin limbs became persistent and demanding
in the face of an electrified buzz.
She was presented to me like a flower.

But when the truth came to her the next day
And it was forced into her mind
The petals didn't unfurl
The curled inward and shut
any intimate details snapped between the teeth
of the Venus flytrap.

Her guilt dissolved
Somehow putting me at fault
How dare I frame the gentle martyr.
What a mistake, that I made,
trying to force the blame
on a little girl, certainly not capable of ****** assault.

Why would anyone believe that
this pretty queer activist would try to **** this boy.
Not listen to the 'no',
in between insistence of her enthusiastic noise.

Why listen to petty rumors of her past
When she's offering you wide blue eyes,
freckles spread across her skin like stars in the sky,
and a giggle inviting you in between pink glossed lips?
Why bother paying attention to how touchy
she gets with alcohol
When shes telling you
you're the fairest of them all.
After all, she is not what the big bad wolf looks like.

She truly believes in her innocence,
She may even bring it up between drinks and activism.
Ignore the people she has pushed the boundaries of,
Ignore more than six people she's pushed under the rug,
The victims at parties who's mouths she's sewn shut.

All the ignorant she has under her thumb,
with all the people in the camp of:
"We like Moira, so she would never -
even though we weren't there,
and you're not the first to come forward."

I learned the hard way
that rapists aren't just sleezy men at bars.
They're girls with sweet smiles
that slip into your friend circle.

But they're also that guy
in the corner of a room at a dorm party.
Inviting you back to his room for a blunt
and doesn't expect you to leave til morning.

People who have respected my pronouns have ****** me over.
People I sleep in beds with.
People who assure their friends they'd never push for consent.
I still see the mutual friends we have on facebook.
Unapologetically smiling back at me from the computer screen.

They don't ask for details
as to keep their conscious clean.
They shy from those assaulter's shame
Because bliss is ignorance.
And because rapists can be hard to hate.

I know that it's tempting to ignore
an invasive touch for a pretty face.
But it feels like a kick to the stomach
hearing my best friend will be
sleeping at her boyfriends place
With my ****** abuser the next room over.

I don't know why people
don't see my story as legitimate
It was that boy's shoulder I first cried on
and now they're soon to be roommates.

Do people wish that badly to believe in fairy tales?
That the bad guys are always obvious and ugly
and easy to despise.
The heroes are always the beautiful ones
who never dare lie?
No, they're the people who make their way
into your lives.
The people you like
The people who get close.
Who hear you cry.

I want to defend myself from those villains
but I don't have the benefit of x-ray vision.
I can't see through their trust-worthy mask.
I don't need knives and guns and broken glass,
Just friends who have my back.

Take no ****.
And be there for me,
Listen and believe
when people speak up
about *** crimes in emergencies.
**** is not a joke.

It isn't a mistake made by accident.
It's a conscious choice to ignore someones voice,
And decide your ****** desires,
are more important than someone's ****** autonomy.

Twice now I've been violated
By supposed friends trying to take my off my clothes,
and not listening to my 'no's.
Twice now I've seen people stand by them
and try to silence the truth,
Cover up all the abuse,
but make no excuse:

There's a wolf amongst your flock
A thorny rose in your garden.
And uprooting me for dealing with that *****
Instead of nipping that problem in the bud
Is not going to keep you safe from harm.
It may put your mind at ease
But only temporarily.
It does no good just to silence the alarm.

We don't drive nowhere without the radio on,
We are too naive to know better,
We are too crass to care,
We have been graves waiting for bodies to fill them, we have been half inscribed tombstones itching for an expiration date, but those days are in the rear view mirror, still just barely visible over the sticker that reads "What Fresh Hell", but we are lucky enough to have forgotten the way back, we have bled out every drop of retreat and we are going to drive all **** night regardless of whether or not we actually get anywhere, we are urgent, we are emergencies that cannot stop at red lights, we are a 911 call away, we are the angry heart of the river illuminated in burning flags and cigarettes and grand halos stretching the distance between bridges, we are Born to Run turned up loud enough to drown out alarm clocks, we are the ****** cataclysm that explodes into a new dawn, we are taking this one hour at a time, we are living like this until it's all ashes floating downstream, hit it again, one more time, in the dead of night, call me an ambulance, I'm not slowing down for anything

When the rain is cold and pelting
When the windstorm shreds the trees
Do you find your courage wanting?
Is there weakness in the knees?
Have you faced the dark intruder?
Have you stared that challenge down?
Have you summoned forth the fortitude,
To keep humiliation gowned?
Camouflaged the leaden spinelessness,
That dreaded empty space,
Where once there was a warrior
Who wore courage on his face.


Felt the thrashing of the current
As the waves come pounding in,
Inexorably it lacerates
And tears the fair white skin.
The brutality of bedrock,
The blackness of the night,
And the fear that runs like mercury
Through the torment and the fright.
The uselessness of effort,
The lassitude of limb,
It’s the cramping ague of gutlessness
That is consuming him.


Dissipating storm clouds
The skies begin to clear
And with it go emergencies
And with it goes the fear.
Residually it lingers
As a gnawing hollow blend
Of anxious blue inadequacies,
Of unsubstantiated end
To performance under duress,
Compared to that which is the norm,
It’s just a blinding lack of courage
Whilst in the torment of the storm.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
24 November 2008

:
..
....
........
...........

As often as a human's breath,
deadlines and restrictions pop up
simultaneous with emergencies
chores, and necessities...all in a fast
pace, many things are prioritized
...though, most are unnecessary and
occupy precious space in our lives...

everyday, we struggle...silent battles
and tribulations stir the soul...
for some reason, some things cannot
be changed...some people play deaf
and stay the same.....neither could
thoughts towards them, be altered...
sometimes, our ties with useless stuff,
and useless people...need to be severed.
moments come when, we've had enough
..............of rules and regulations.
...................we just get fed up...

life is precious and short.....a part of me
....awaits a break......a cold phase,
.........when all my discontent would freeze
..............when all queasy feelings
...................this fidgeting within,
........................would turn to ice
..............................permanently.....
.................­......
...................
.............
.........
......
....
..­
.

Sally

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
(an old unposted poem from 2014)

I went to my last counseling appointment today
and when i stood up to leave
I felt as if I should shake her hand

but instead I walked out that door on tentative fawn legs
I stepped into the cold
and I felt like a stranger to myself

I bought coffee and a pack of cigarettes
and stood by the same ledge I always do
but it didn’t feel the same

I have her card in my front pocket for emergencies only
I feel as if I just stepped into harsh burning sunlight
I feel like there is winter air trapped in my lungs

I've come to the conclusion that
there’s nothing really wrong with me
but there’s nothing all that right either

Because in my day dreams
& in a heartbeat,
the Coke brothers
would be re-educated
digging deep wells
in Flint Michigan
till they found pure
clean water.

Kobe Bryant's wife
would have her
million dollar ring
expropriated & broken
down for drill bits
to use in the digging
of Flint wells by the
same Coke brothers.

All Kardashian holdings
everywhere & anyhow
would be seized by
the state & sold to the
foreign precious stone
market & the proceeds
used for funding
school book buys.

Trump Tower would be
occupied and stripped
of all its false veneer
while Barron's gold
baby carriage would
take pride of place
in The People's Museum
of The New Dawn &
groups of school children
would field trip to marvel
& learn.

Fox News executives
would be arrested along
with Limbaugh, Hannity
a multitude of talk-show
hosts as enemies-of-the-
people & re-educated
digging canals from the
high Rockies through to
San Luis Obispo to help
water the farms which
would now be unionized
& minimum waged & there'd
be taco trucks on every
corner for free workers
lunch & luxury campers
for naps from the burning
midday sun.

History lessons would
be for real this time,
buffalos would be
encouraged mightily
to breed and roam the
western lands where
Indian tribes would
return to pastures
of old & they'd house
themselves in teepees
hand-sewn by bankers
& hedge-fund managers
lodged in converted
L.A. mansions with armed
guards for the duration.

The NRA leadership
would be hog-tied &
immediately put to work
in foul prison conditions
producing ploughshares
from swords in blazing
merciless kilns & every
Sunday they'd be cuffed
& 'compassionate-leaved'
to the closest cemetery
where they'd visit the
graves of the fallen
children & granmas
taken by ricochets.

Prisons would use
psilocybin cure-alls,
golf-courses would turn
into adventure petting-
zoo play grounds,
Syrian children would
move into Hampton
mansions,

Detroit & West Virginia
would be declared
emergencies & the
entire overseas hidden
off-shore accounts of
the top 1% would fund
roads, bridges, schools,
doctors & nurses,
teachers, professors
& crossing guards.

Trump himself would
have to restore all the
gravestones in all the
Jewish cemeteries in
all the States,
& then,
& only then,
could he have
his lunch hour.

Because in a heartbeat
I could be far worse
than that & perhaps
in some ways it's a
good thing I'm not
the boss.

just a gold grenade passing through the hands
of famous names,
and airport emergencies,
and world war II tom foolery.

when a friend exchanges hate for love,
life makes since.

I crack soldiers inside crocodile batteries. I roll my shoulders. Everything squeaks.

I never meant to drop your hand like that. I'm a lot. it's time to claim the mute emergencies I've tucked into your days When you weren't looking. I'm the strain on your hip, I'm the hair in your sink. I'm always simmering, always smoky, always a little slow to  blink and I'm not enough salt.
I think God stuttered my name the first time he said it- I can never remember how the vowels go. If you think my tongue is too big in your mouth you should try it in mine.

have you ever written a letter and sent it to heaven? I used to do that every time it rained. crayon on paper, paper on asphalt, then you left it alone and it disappeared.

on the school bus in 2nd grade a girl was slouched down in her seat, crying. the driver stopped the bus and went to her. he was stiff denim, leather skin, cigarette fingers. 'what's wrong?' she didn't feel good. 'I don't know what to do about that.' the helplessness in his face made my ears ring. I never feel good. that's when I started thinking my bus driver was God. I kind of haven't stopped.

i’m lost without you, did i mention that?


i scrape my brain cells that hold the memory of you
the way you remove dead flesh from a heel
and i keep the skin cells in tiny glass jars like portable museums.


i carry them everywhere for emergencies
opening them up at dinner parties
while the normals are concentrating on the cooking method of a spatchcock.



i pull you out from my secret purse
hidden under socially self conscious tables
and i roll your flesh in my hands until you’re real again

while nodding in agreement that thyme and lemon jus is always a wise choice for a side.


it’s a stupid ritual really
one that serves only to widen the divide between me
and that big chance Buddha moment:

‘being ******* present’


such a noble pursuit
but always dull and motionless in your absence
all i notice is the loudness of our silence

like a train station in those quiet despair hours
between 11pm and tomorrow.



Btw, if you see a girl running that’s me
and i can assure you
it will be from this chance for godhood
and what all those new agers chant about.

* the now *

god i hate that cruel catch phrase
that ******* of platitudes

forcing its sobering focus
on the inescapable fact that all your critical choices

made on a whim
appearing now as regrettably dumb.


Like that flippant goodbye i threw around at you
as if i would ever feel that way again
about anyone

and no
I never did.


you see, my heart’s a cowboy
too foolhardy with the lasso
that hip gun too
always going off

especially each time you’re not in view.


Did i tell you you i’m lost without you?

bleak darkness and its measure:
squandering the light
no definitions
no spectral haze
no inhibitions
its onerous labor is one
    with me.

live life at the edge of the fall.
holding a hand
fallibly.
live alone, love alone —
  these things pulse with strength
      in singleness, even the glances
of prying neighbors are sequestered
   reduced to sealed shut, hermetic,
      no sight or hindsight.

i'll run to where the sunlight is
   and wish for the moon, slumber
like a dead log adrift in the current.
buying myself love and selling its pleasures to defunct markets.
   trying to repair what is beyond salvation,
   trying to amalgamate what is perpetually
        scarred, sundered.

clangorous *** of metal, herding jeep
    and riotous chariots; mad men fill
the lines waiting for encumbrance,
     bardic in the streets of Marilao
hungry for something:
   give me a blank piece of paper
and i will try to reinvent the world
     with impunity and lostness.
the world gives back such awry stare
    and all imperative darkness reigns
supreme, mine are all emergencies
   as shadows are succored not,
retained in their caliginous thrones.

living alone
    yet not so much alone.
the dog outside does not bark anymore.
  the well-placed gnome of stone outside
      stares stonily across the thick space.
the nosy neighbor does not meddle
  through the rusted ocher grills.
the old moon wanes outside
   as the lift of light sways to where
there are no disappearances.
somewhere in the metropolitan there
   is a derby of fools and all mirth;
i wish myself there and curse my presence
      right then.
work does not fill me anymore,
    money does me no good. my soul
bangs the walls and slams the doors
     it threatens to leave without auguries,
and demands a new sense of necessity.

tonight, i will go out, drink at a local pub
   and crawl towards the ajar door of
  my father's car. smoke will caterwaul
the pressing scenes of the vicinities
    crumbling at the tremor of clocks;
i will open my dresser and discover
   all books dissipated, some naked
  in relished pages, others abeyant.

the curtain can fall later,
and the night too, falter evenly
widely spread across the sky.
    — all is broken.