Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

Tiredness is overwhelming,
The distress is stringing,
Thoughts expressionless,
Though my writings are endless.

~A.d | 16 Dec 2014

I see you, monster...
In your sockets bore dead, dark eyes
They hold the blackest of stares
Nebulous swirling pits of demise

Thin lips would spout the most sibilant of hisses
Every so often would curl into a snarl
Dry and chapped, almost unworthy of kisses

Large, rough snout, jutting out like a crag
You sniff around tirelessly for easy targets
Preying on the unsuspecting minds of those under your flag

Tapering chin, sprouting strands of coarse hair
Unkempt and gritty from your last meal
Decaying teeth, crooked due to little to no care

Your face is cratered; tales of trying adolescent years
Wearing a face only a mother could love
Expressionless but it screams out your fears

Ugly jointed limbs that grew out of sync
Disproportionate, misshapen, grotesque
Little noggin with sparse hair, packed within, a brain that thinks


I hear you, monster...
As you stalk your sleepless nights
Nocturnal ambience be your playground
Lurking in the dark; places with no light

Bulky, heavy feet but deft and silent
Can barely notice when you're up and about
As if cloaked yourself stealthy, with steps ever transient

Respire you do, exhaling breaths so gnarly
Ingesting good air, converting into fervid, loathsome notions
With which you paint a portrait so ghastly


I feel you monster...
Deep within the recesses of my heart
Destroying and distorting all that was pure
Testing my will till I should fall apart

You're but the twisted manifestation of conscience
Feeding on my trials and nurturing them into vile abominations
I despise that of you but I seem to have developed dependence


I see you, monster...**
You're horrid and beastly, an embodiment of absolute horror
I await the day that you would finally dissolve
For I am weary of seeing you staring back in the mirror

I never thought I'd have to see her like this so soon. So young. So cold.
I should have listened to her. I should have talked to her more. Seen her more. She always asked me why I seemed so distant from her, I always got frustrated and denied it.

Now she's the distant one.

We would argue often. About communication. Our feelings. Her feelings. She had a very hard life. A violent alcoholic father. She grew up untainted by her surroundings, but scarred. Chronic Anxiety and Depression. She would cry often, and get mad and angry for sometimes no reason. She said she didn't know why it happened; it just did, and that I couldn't understand. That made me angry. Even though she was right; I really couldn't.

I haven't had an easy life in the past few years, but it doesn't compare to hers. I didn't know what is was like to be as depressed as she was. To be as anxious as she was. She would always check up on me, because she always worried about me. I myself, just took it and never did it for her.

What a mistake.

I remember my 17th birthday. She was more excited than I was, and couldn't wait for me to finally see what she had done for me. She was adorable when she talked about it. I spent the day with her and she made me a homemade card themed my favorite video game, and a Key Lime pie from scratch. I love Key Lime pie.
How I wish we could make it together, one last time.

A couple days after my birthday, a package she ordered came and she was ecstatic for me to finally have it. They were custom made genuine dog tags. They had my information on one tag, and a personalized message from her on the other. Her message read, "KNOWING YOU HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE, AND LOVING YOU HAS MADE MY WORLD." I wear them everywhere, even to today.

But when her birthday came around, I didn't get her anything. Not even a card. She was really upset, and I felt guilty when she mentioned it, so I never did get her anything; I felt it was too late.

Whenever she was happy, she shined brighter than the sun. She smiled and laughed and was goofy. She would make up little songs about how much she loved me, and she would do anything for me. Now, I can only imagine how she felt when I left for the night, not doing anything for her.
I knew she had problems even before she met me. I knew she was chronically sad. I knew she had always been a rock, but had slowly started to erode and needed someone.

Why was I so selfish!?

I notice her mother is crying. Hysterically. They were so close. Her mom was so nice, always inviting me over and cooking for me even when they didn't have much food. Now, she looks like an empty husk of what she used to be. Crumpled on the floor, covered in her own tears, mourning the loss of her world.

My world.

Her younger brother sits with their dad, hugging and crying on each other, as well as the rest of her family. You can almost smell the saltiness in the air from all of the tears.

I've cried as much as I can. When I heard the news, I was in shock. I didn't want to believe she was gone. But eventually I screamed, bawled and raged at my loss. She was the only thing that mattered to me.

Now I stand here, silent and empty. My mind is numb, and all I can do is stare at her. Eyes closed, chest still, but still so beautiful. I had to battle with myself to even come and deal with seeing her like this. I finally move my stiff hand towards her curly hair and stroke it, and slowly move my hand to her shoulder. I imagine her opening her eyes and smiling at me with one of her beaming smiles. But I know it won't happen, and that's when the tears come.

I'll never see her smile, feel her lips against mine, hug her small body again. I can never hear her sweet voice again, telling me, "I love you" with a glow in her eyes.

Why didn't I show her how much she meant to me? Why couldn't I swallow my pride and be a little more caring and thoughtful for her the way she never failed to be for me? Why? I'm sobbing now. I collapse to my knees and rest my hand over hers. She's freezing. I rub her hands instinctively as if it will warm them up, but it doesn't.
I just want her to wake up. I feel as if it's my fault she's in eternal silence now. Apart of the world beyond, when I want her so desperately to be back here with me. I don't want her to leave me. I feel as if I can't live without her, she was the only one I'd ever truly loved, but in the end I failed her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, I should have shown her more instead of using only my words!

I slowly stand up still covered in my tears, and stare at her sleeping body. I watch as one drips down onto her expressionless face. I use my thumb to gently wipe my tear away, just as I used to wipe hers. Now all I can do is think about what could have been, what I could have done, and what will never be.

"I'll miss you." I whisper through my sore choked throat, and kiss her cold forehead.

"I love you."

words without warmth
are like the dry wind
that has lost its water
over the high cliffs of life

they cannot water a wilting soul
but  will only take away
the little life left
and leave it collapsed

"thank you"s are tired
over worked, over used
only an ASCII  string, no more
"i’m sorry"s stare in the face
of the expectant mind
expressionless

bring words back from the wastelands
give them the life they’ve lost
make them carry between their bits
the warm care of a human for another

It was starting to snow as I entered Pere Lachaise cemetery. The few that had ventured in, were streaming out, as daylight faded, fast giving way to twilight, on this 1st of February night. I had 30 minutes of daylight left, to take the shots that I’d planned for all year.

I knew where I was going, having visited the cemetery in the summer, to scout locations for this moment. I walked up l’Avenue Principale towards Le Monument aux Morts and took the first right on l’Avenue des Puits. My pace quickened, not wanting to waste a single second, of the dying light.

I crossed path with the the last stragglers, most likely having paid homage to Chopin or Morrison. I was entering the oldest and most forested area of the cemetery. It sent a chill up my spine, not because of the cold February air, but because of the surreality of what was in front of me, a cobble stone path, lined with old trees, surrounded by an ocean of tombs, fading into the white and gray of a snowy afternoon.

I arrived at my location, the tomb of Heloise and Abelard. I set down my tripod and camera bag. I stopped to take it in. It was eerily beautiful, the snow slowly falling, lightly covering the tomb, the flowers, the love letters, laying around the plinth.

I was surprised at the number of single roses and love letters that were strewn in the yard, between the wrought iron fence, and the tomb. Even during the dead of winter, young women pilgrimaged to the tomb, leaving letters and prayers, hoping their love will last forever, in life and in death. Sadness overwhelmed me, as I felt the longing and pain of their and my,  unrequited loves.

I pulled out my camera, turned it on, double checking the battery indicator and exposure. I put the viewfinder to my eye, slowly pressed the shutter till I heard a beep, as the auto focus sharpened the view and my world became crystal clear. I zoomed in and out, composing my shot. I was too close for my lens. I picked up my tripod, turned around, and surveyed my work area.

I moved up the path, three tombs over, next to an old wide trunked chestnut tree, set my tripod and bag down, and recomposed my shot. The snowfall had intensified, to a heavy flurry. The snowflakes were thicker, fluffier, slowly drifting down like dandelion seeds. I was swimming in an ocean of white magical specks. Everything around me was dusted in ******, pure white powder.

I unfolded my tripod, mounted the camera to the head, and verified it was securely attached. I zoomed in and out till I composed my shot, stepping down the aperture and up the speed, till I achieved the dark, moody, feel I wanted. I pressed the shutter and captured the shot.

I was looking through the viewfinder when a woman stepped into my shot. For a split second, I was angry, then confused, then intrigued. I looked up, stepped back from my camera, to see and understand what was unfolding before me.

She was wearing a full-length white Lynx fur coat and cap, black leather gloves and boots. She was stunning, breathtaking. Was I hallucinating? Was she real? She hadn’t seen me, as I was behind her, catty corner, partially hidden by the chestnut tree.


She was holding something. I couldn’t quite see. I looked through the viewfinder, zoomed in on her. She held a single long stemmed blue rose in her left hand.  Instinctively, I pressed the shutter, captured the shot, the photo, the image, of this unworldly scene.

It was late, almost dark. What was she doing here? Was she praying, why, to whom, Heloise, Abelard, or both? She moved up to and placed her right hand on the protective wrought iron fence. I took a shot, then another. Then with her left hand, she gently threw the blue rose, time slowed, I pressed the shutter, never letting go, as the flower arched in the air and landed perfectly, on the plinth, at Heloise's side.

I released the shutter, still looking through the viewfinder. She placed her left hand on the wrought iron fence, bowed her head, just stood there, in the darkness, in the snowfall.

She pulled her right hand away from the wrought iron fence and wiped her eyes. Was she crying?

She slowly turned around. I pressed the shutter, held it down, for a continuous shot. I saw her face, her raven black hair, her incandescent blue eyes. Like a cannonball hitting me in the chest, I realized and recognized who she was. It was her, the woman from the metro.

She looked up, turned her head, and looked directly at me. I zoomed in, framed her face, continuously pressing the shutter. Her face expressionless, her eyes aglow. Had she seen me? I don’t know. She took a step, turned her head, and walked back up the cobble stone path, and faded into the night, into the falling snow.

Washingtonians, this Wednesday afternoon, come to the Starbucks on 1600 K Street to become acquainted with some young, interesting, average income level Asian American guys and gals. Instead of meeting Asian American doctors, lawyers, and consultants, you’ll meet Dr. Dre copycats, alcoholic paralegals, and T-Mobile wireless salespeople.

These guys and gals are looking to meet new friends that include: white, black, Hispanic, or any other race of people, just as long as you aren’t a F.O.B. Because after all, they don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype that Asians only hang out with other Asians. Just kidding, we love our F.O.B brothers and sisters! But **** stereotypes.

If you are a Washingtonian who likes drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, stop by and make a new Asian American friend who will provide mixers and match you on a blunt. Please, do not ask these guys and gals for college study notes for Math or Bio, because all of them have dropped out of college to pursue their artistic passions, like: writing a novel about having a white group of friends and being the token who reads Tolkien and likes Toking; playing electric guitar in a grunge, punk, post-emo garage band with your black buddies who like Fugazi and bad brains but ******* hate Green day for selling out; and drawing sketches and painting portraits of the half-Asian girl you’re dating on a wide canvass, but really you’re secretly into selfies and taking photos of breakfast on Instagram.

We don’t discriminate against the kind of alcohol you drink, whether it be wine, beer, or liquor—within reason please don’t bring Franzia or Rolling rock, this isn’t college anymore. Yes, we get it, you’re highly considering attending this group because you’re a huge Haruki Murakami fan and you’re wondering two questions: are our Japanese American patrons also huge fans of the author, and do our patrons behave in a similar fashion to Murakami’s characters like Toru Watanabe and Toru Okada?

First, our Japanese American patrons are huge fans of Murakami and they own books like Sputnik Sweetheart and The Windup Bird Chronicle, but they also think the author often is obsessed with Western culture, in a way that possibly, and seriously possibly transforms him into a Brett Easton Ellis derivative based on Ellis’s American ****** and Glamorama.

Second, no these particular patrons do not behave like Murakami’s characters, because they’re real, living, breathing human beings, and not some fantasy figure or made-up person! But enough of the rant, please come though and let’s have conversations about jazz and talking cats.

While we respect Asian American actors like Ken Jeong and Randall Park, we really aren’t interested in having a lengthy dialogue about The Hangover’s Asian **** scene, or how Park was kinda offensively funny in The Interview. Although Park is awesome in Fresh Off The boat! All we really want is to just drink jack and cokes and smoke Marlboro lights and have conversations about the latest trends in indie rock and Hip Hop culture, and whether Citizen Kane was better than Casablanca, or vice versa.

At the meeting, we will have our guest speaker Jeremy Lin’s college roommate George Park answer questions about Lin, as well as a special appearance by Steve Yuen’s ex-girlfriend Marcy Abernathy who will give us an inside scoop to Yuen’s fetishes as well as his quirky habits. We will also be providing free snacks like LSD Pho noodle soup and Marijuana Mochi ice-cream. On a serious note, we’ll be giving out guilt-free Twinkies.

Before you arrive at the Starbucks, you’ll be getting a name tag and a free A.A.A T-shirt that wasn’t made by little children from China; instead, the shirts are made by Ronald Mai, our aspiring fashion designer whose twitter handle is @thatsmyshirtwhiteman! If you’re interested in coming out to the group our first meeting is this Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Leave your apprehension at the door and walk in with a warm smile, as you’re greeted by an expressionless face. And phoreal if your car is messed up and you require a ride, please call A.A.A’s number at (202) 576-2AAA (we know we’re phunny). Hope to see you there, and if you don’t come, you’re a ******* racist! But seriously come out and meet some cool *** people.

I never cared, mouthed the lips
Like liquid concrete, cold and hard
No warmth or crinkles of care

Eyes like glass, an empty one
Harsh judgment, all soft gaze expired
Compassion extinct. Nothing there.

You are not welcome here
Says the silence, loud and clear
Do I vanish? Into thin air?

This face that lit every nerve and cell
Is expressionless and will not tell
Of a time when it did really care

An immense circle of thoughts was clouding
my brain in this room of reconfigured dimensions,
the spinning ceiling fan whirling into a windmill,
the ******* floors breaking into a wave of sharpened
metaphors, the expressionless curtains filled with fear
and crashing scenery, a dark hollow surface converging
in a rhythm of insane beats, imprisoned noted drumming,
disentangled sentences, shattering subjects, compressed
conjunctions and compounds accelerating into an eternity
of uncolored existences, as I stare at the isolated sky,
swollen stars diverging in a broken pattern of faded worlds,
the breathless moon sunken in a domain of interchangeable
languages, meaningless mazes, chopped consonants,
crumbling dreams, everything shifting in a sea of diminishing
whirlpools, while I drifted into a realm of uncaged thoughts,
a crushing cycle of unbalanced worlds, dizzy and senseless
paragraphs bleeding into timeless realities.  My eyes are
plummeting and shackled in drumbeating rhetoric, lost logos,
swallowed pathos, enveloped ethos, rainless cheeks, cloaked chests,
handcuffed arms, square root hips disassembling into deferred
depictions, distilled dreams, shadowed feet hardly more than a
poetic sound, a sore scrawled letter stretched in ragged angles,
stinging, helpless horizons.  I gazed at the shattered glass on
the kitchen floor, how its cracking vibration rumbled inside
my veins, how its impossible syllables blazed my soul,
the burning air around my inner being suffocating in Saturn,
vanishing in Venus, exploding on Earth, every ****** debris
splitting in horrid labyrinths, a screaming depth hidden in
disguise.  I glanced around at the broken wall where
my drunken dad fists where imprinted, the mangled wood
hanging in drugged vowels, the rotten symmetry disappearing
in chalky chambers, roughly lined hues declining without a trace,
as I reflected on the series of events that transpired, the way I
could hear the slamming door raging inside my vessel,
enflamed flaming verbs hovering in high rhymes,
hardened adjectives, destroyed derivatives, disintegrating
equations, the way his bladed feet dragged across the floor,
every reverberating step drowning the sunken space between us,
unwritten surroundings trapped in the atmosphere, confined in a
cloud of inconsolable galaxies, the raging fire stained ***** bottle
wedged between his grubby hands, as I could smell the reeking
breath sifting out of his mouth onto my monotonous flesh,
the same ruthless flow traveling in stuttering nouns, drowning
my heart in Neptune, while I listened to his blazing bloodshot
words, You are nothing without me!  You are worthless!  
You are just a filthy *****!  I wish you would die!  The rising
diction clenched every part of my frame, the way I could breathe
in the asphalt in his tasteless lips, a dying aroma that made me feel
like I was a featureless street seeping into underground dungeons, undone, a destroyed beauty shotgunned.

Avert your eyes
from looking directly
at the monster.

Look only through
that reflective shield,
that glowing rectangle

that parades a
distorted vision of
the objective self,

that which in
dark moments may
suddenly shut off,

revealing one’s face:
inverted, expressionless, petrified—
like when the

mirror of Perseus
at last revealed
Medusa’s horrifying visage.

Looking at hundreds of women
I come across you
No pleasure shown in your face
No moaning from your lips
No enthusiasm in your motion
You are not here to pay for college
Or to cover the bills
You have no choice
No choice at all
And here we are
In our cushy chairs
Spending our spare time
Getting off on you
I regret any pleasure I had
That came at your cost
Please forgive me
If you can find the will
In what's left of your heart
A sickness lives within us
If we carry this on

Rebuffed
by expressionless faces
you'll never meet.

An image
can't be identified
through a distorted lens.

Weary words
defrost
as egotistical dreams.

Points of view
compete with self-esteem
and dysfunctional genes.

I listened to the soft sounding consonants
rise above my foster home, swirling against
exuberant trees and iridescent leaves falling
in twisting rhythms on the scratchy gray pavement,
an indication of distant metaphors flickering with
no sound, a slow spiraling square root evaporating
into thin dust, as I gazed at the overlooking sun, how
its shining depiction cried for validation, scorching
light, harsh vowels twirling around galloping clouds
trying to discover perfection.  There was the crumbling
landscape lost in the background, shifting in smaller
silences and flaming depths, filled with complex thoughts
and stumbling languages.  As I sat on the silent steps
watching the various figures fade into each other, streetlights
and skyscrapers, scurrying pedestrians and corner stores,
my stained blue eyes crammed and slammed, drowned
and pounding, dying every second when I realize the essence
of reality, the way it burns bright throughout the night sunken
its own intensifying flames, endless shapes disguised in anger
and pain, like a raging moon vanishing away never to be seen
again, like a vicious galaxy burning everything in its past to
a satisfying defeat.  My heart is cracking and splitting in
expressionless puzzles, a puddle of solo soapsuds, a scraped
brick building resembling shattered walls, scrawny hands hung
in smeared surfaces, stuck in a blob of yellow paint scrubbing
away its flawless scenery, leaking subjects and predicates scattered
in misaligned pages, wet alleyways branching into quivering caves,
while I reminisce on memories of my mother, the way she used to
hold me in her arms, every touch of her thin fingers pressed
against my waist, its magical rhythm traveling around
my beautiful body, rushing down my angled spine.  I could
feel her smooth skin sinking into my ochre-tanned flesh,
how she embodied every glorious kingdom, a crowned queen
draped in extravagance, how the bright hues in her frame
made me feel all the serenity within the world, so magnificent,
igniting every imagination inside my being.  She was my hero,
a glorious gem that gleamed like an array of galaxies surrounding
earth and Saturn, a melanin masterpiece purifying the atmosphere,
a wheeling instrument strumming its enchanting melody across the horizon.  She worked hard all the time, trying to make my dreams come true.  Most nights she would grab a second job to make sure the bills were paid.  She never complained or grew tired.  She was determined that I would be somebody and make a difference in the world.  She was the inspiring teacher sitting on the floor beside the living room chair, demonstrating how to solve an equation, how to disentangle the numbers and simplify it into its equalizing state., the way she would educate my mind and unwind the questions in my brain, the way she showed me the value of an honest living, letting it seep inside my soul until I could breathe in the definition of a true man.  Now I can see how the warm days drift away into restless nights, how the hummingbirds that soar past my sight remind me that she is never coming back, the way the sinking flowers stand in confusion, crying rosebuds, trembling petals, stripped stems roaming in loneliness.

as clear as ice, in night or day
reflecting faintly, a soulful reverie
reminding its presence subtly
dewdrops dripping rhythmically

standing in the way, an invisible wall
trying to reach the distant horizon
of which, birds appear and disappear
like speckles of black in orange canvas

eyes—blank and expressionless
mournfully staring in quietude
of the distant mountains and hills
and clouds floating idly

in monotone silence,
a hand reaches out only to be impeded by a cold caress

She loves the way the silence sways.
All alone with an expressionless face.
She doesn't know if she should cry.
Or be happy shes still alive.
Asks herself everyday, if theres a reason she has to stay.
The reson never comes to her head.
As soon as she wakesup she wants to go back to bed.
She knows reality will never come close to her dreams.
When you look at a person.
They aren't always as they seem

I bent down to her ear and said
Thank you for all you’ve done
Not just for
NY
But for the World
She looked at me expressionless from her chair
I don’t think that she understood nor cared
Then I handed her a little
Bag
Containing two lipsticks
And two pencils
I think she threw the pencils on the floor and
Wondered aloud
Why was everyone giving her pencils?

She did not notice that of the two that I gave her
one was stamped in gold
With the one word
Hustler
And on the other, two
Strictly
Business
I made no suggestions nor references
I didn’t smirk
I must have appeared a bit sweet
A treacly aberration

It doesn’t matter
I had selected two perfect reds in LA
One a bit more blue
and one
a classic vampish carmine
Blood red can be a challenge even against
pale
pale
Skin.

Standing in the lift
Fully attuned
she caught me
not merely looking into her eyes
But seeing what I saw
A death’s head?
I hate when I’m caught doing that

Under the fluorescent light
She was dog rough
Pasty with sad sunken eyes
I was thrown, but by what exactly
Her magpie distress?
Her etheric calamity?
Her puffy, aging face?

We sat and spoke for a while later that night
She did not recognize me at all and apologized
maybe it was the next day
that the three of us had lunch
Everyone in good spirits
The mandrake’s screams
Forgotten with smiles and a wink
Memory bamboozled and
Make-up duly applied
She took out the lipstick
And redrew the lines
She liked the shining black case
with the little black ribbon for a pull

She told our companion sitting on a stoop
smoking cigarettes
I like your friend and
I wondered does she realize
that we already know one another?

Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.

A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.

Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.

White as winter skin,
expressionless faces z i p on by,
looking straight ahead

Timepieces remembered,
drudgery over leisure time
All in cadence, same beat, same drummer

Putting on Mona Lisa smiles
and handing out business cards
Numbers dominate words,
words mesh with numbers

Fast food, fast digestive systems
join Popeye's Whimpey ranks
Plop Plop, fizz fizz
Companies, corporations, amalgamations
merge then COLLIDE!!!

Expressionless
she didn't feel the need
to greet me
or to look in my direction
just let the high pitched
beeping of the scanner
fill the emptiness and
motivate her mechanic movements
packing the produce into
red plastic bags
unflinching

impatience
was evident and yet
she remained expressionless
as I foolishly pressed the wrong
button
under the weight
of her gaze on my stiff fingers
until she printed the receipt

Just then
in the clear plastic bag
one jalapeño
the special - pound for two dollars
just then
she catches it
and under my watchful gaze
I hear that beep again
but
now

a quiet chuckle fills the gap
as the machine reads 0.01$


So I laugh too
fumble for a cent
and put it carefully
in her palm

At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.

I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.

You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.

The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.

You are expressionless.
Your usual gestures ground to salt.

How do you explain yourself
to people that do not know you?
How do you explain to them,
this is me; that is not me.

However many words you choose
in whatever context with
whichever adjectives you use
could not compare.

Even you describing you
would not be you.
Not totally.

Your hands are folded
together, resting in your lap.
I study those hands until
every groove becomes familiar.

Like a favorite hat,
you wear your silence
comfortably.

I sometimes can not help
but wonder what we will
talk about if we ever
run out of things to say.

You are the curve
I burrow into. The strength
I borrow. You are the red sun
rising over the mountain.
You are the mountain.

The sun rises tentatively through the forest heights behind the palace. In the pre-dawn light Jia Li has secured water and fuel for her visitors and despite the attentions of the pack horse men, who have returned from an evening at her village the worse for drink, she settles to feed her infant child. Meng Ning enters to seek her counsel. She already guesses his intentions and answers his brief questions with confidence. She knows the route to the Red Slate Path, perhaps four li distant. The path is clear, though little used. It is not a place those of her village visit, though she has learnt that the path itself defies nature’s attempts to cover its existence.
    Zuo Fen is standing on the terrace as Meng Ning returns to the Emperor’s Hall. She has slept deeply, is refreshed after a period of meditation and, despite the cold, has been washed and massaged by her maid. She appears dressed for walking, her boots, fur cloak and hat in purposeful combination. As she surveys the lake flocks of wild geese and duck chatter and squabble as they float on the surface. There are some experimental flights, pairs of duck taking off to fly in wide arcs only to return to the same stretch of water from where they rose in tandem. Soon the geese will leave to fly across the forests and moorland for distant harvested fields where they will spend the day foraging. Meng Ning points to a distant peninsula jutting out from the northern shore of the lake. Behind it, he says, lies the cove of the Red Slate Path. Perhaps there they will be able to understand more keenly the why of this mystery.

‘At such a distance,’ says Zuo Fen, ‘the detail of a boat would be quite lost. I imagine the peninsula acting like a pointing finger to its floating form. There is already fashioning within me a possible story that might explain this mystery.’

She smiles warmly at Meng Ning who bows his head rather than stare into her jade green eyes. She moves closer to his standing posture, taking his left hand secure but tense against the balustrade of the veranda. Lowering one leg before the other she slowly kneels, removing her hat, loosening her fur cloak that now spreads itself of its own accord beside and behind her. With both hands behind her neck she lifts her long hair found to parted and tied in simple peasant fashion. Raising her hands to full-stretch her sleeping hair warm from the bare skin of her back slowly cascades forward and across each of her ******* to curl like two cats in the bowl of her robe.

‘Mei Lim is with Jia Li’, Zuo Fen says curiously and with a voice Meng Ning has not encountered before. ‘I fell to sleep dreaming of your kind presence and the joy of being touched and kissed.’ He cannot see her face as she speaks, only the quivering fall of her hair across her kneeling body. ‘I awoke feeling your breath on my cheek and so brought your limbs to entwine with my own.’ He now senses the delicate unguents of her body; they compass him about, his hand falls from the balustrade to touch her hair.

Finding her right ear his fingers describe its shape, its sculptured relief of folded forms and crevices. He is becoming faint with something outside passion that requires him to go beyond her ear and flow of hair about his fingers. He unties his cloak, letting it drop behind him. He removes his boots and outer garments. She follows his example. He moves to her side, adopts the position of the swallow resting on the wind. They face one another.  To the accompaniment of their breathing, her hands begin a dance in the space between their lower limbs as though they are birds turning and falling in flight. Unlike the courtesans he sees at court her nails are short, her fingers long. Then, it is as though her hand holds a brush forming characters and she begins to write on his body with short deft movements this way that way describing her flight of passion. Some intuition tells him to allow this, and not to seek repricocity, as it seems from her breathing that these very actions give her the greatest delight, bring her to the edge of the first coitus. Eyes closed, he moves his nose into a glancing embrace with her own, feeling there a semblance of perspiration, that tell-tale sign of a woman’s readiness for the deeper embrace. She responds to this with sighs and swift movements of rapture that envelope him, and now, as she quickly brings her limbs into a right conjunction, he places one hand beneath her, the other to recline her body gently to the floor, her cloak becoming a pillow for her head.
    He now looks directly at her, her face expressionless as though all thought and feeling has entered her body in preparation to receive his own. She does not blink. There is a moment of great stillness, a great wave of calm breaks, moves forward and pulls back – and again, again. In an instant he will enter her Jade Gate to caress and kiss and move where only his Lord has visited. He knows that once there he will seal his own fate . . .
     It is the talk of poets that women are often at their most sensitive to love’s attention in the morning hours, and that this was, for so many reasons, the most impractical of times for men. Zuo Fen herself had written fu poems that took the reader to the most intimate moments of a concubine’s experience in the morning hours, those times when alone the body gathers to itself its essential nature, and is often caressed with the woman’s own hand and thoughts. To understand such circumstance, to hold its sweetness as an abiding taste during the formalities of the day, only to release its flavour in the pleasure hours of the night, was a manly attribute, said to be treasured, indeed honoured by women.
      When Meng Ning withdrew Zuo Fen lay for some while letting the unaccustomed circumstance and its location only gradually allow a return to conscious and present thoughts. She pictured now her journey to the Red Slate Path, Jia Li, her baby on her back, striding beside Meng Ning, then herself and finally Mei Lim - who would have entreated her mistress to be allowed to accompany her. There was the glade, a small bowl in the hillside where it was just possible to see a small cave from which, glistening, the broken patterns of the slate path fell after half a li into the lake. She would investigate the cave. She would walk to the water’s edge, where the trees stepped into and reached over the lake to lay a carpet of fallen leaves. Then to see the path gradually, gradually disappear into the depths.
    Whilst Zuo Fen, with her eyes closed, projected her thoughts forward in time, with accustomed tact Mei Lim left those accouterments a woman needs after the attentions of a lover. She feared for the young man, though she knew her Lord prized too much his Lady of The Purple Chamber to effect jealousy or display anger.
    As the sun cleared away the thin cloud and approached its zenith the company broached the crest of the hill above the glade. It was, Zuo Fen had to admit, just as she had imagined lying prone and in disarray in the Emperor’s hall. In silence, and in the company of her imagination, she now paced from cave to path to water, and standing at the very edge of the lake’s bank focused her mind to envisage the events of twenty years past.
     It was as though a rhapsody was already formed. She found herself recounting the tale in her world of characters where there is only present time. She felt her hand describe them with the flow of her brush, heard the sound of its movement across the thick parchment. She was slow to notice that Meng Ning had disrobed and was entering the water. Without a word she watched him move through the carpet of floating leaves, some sticking to his nakedness, and onwards, slowly, following the submerged path until his torso then only his shoulders were visible. She then knew what he hoped to find, even after the passage of so many years.

She saw it all, suddenly. The sorcerer Yang Mo and the Emperor’s second wife descending the Red Slate Path as a cavalcade of fire and smoke, loud flashes of light, noises of brass and clashing metal enveloped the glade and the boat itself. The watching company witnessed for a moment the couple disappear under the waters only for their collective sight to be shrouded in a climaxed confusion of the sorcerer’s devices and effects.

When, finally the smoke cleared, the boat and the lovers had vanished.

Zuo Fen watched Meng Ning disappear from view. She imagined him, as the pearl fishers she had heard tell of, diving down to the depths, holding his breath to seek what might remain of the illusory boat. But time passed beyond the possibility of what she knew could be endured by human-kind. The surface of the water remained unbroken. The division of open water made by Meng Ning in breaking apart the carpet of floating leaves was already reforming itself.
   Removing her cloak and her boots, and unpinning her hair, Zuo Fen stepped into the water. A memory floated towards her of bathing in the lake near to her summer retreat. Water held no fear for her, only now the cold consumed her. Her loosed hair, and her elaborate untied robe settled on the water’s surface: to surround her like a lily pad, she the budding flower at its centre. She felt her feet still firmly on the Red Slate Path, her chin now resting on the water’s surface. Whatever had happened to Meng Ning she knew her action to be compliant. She had immersed herself with the very element that had brought him either death or, as she knew in her heart, a most honorable escape.

Perfection makes this day
Polite expressionless faces
Rich and luxurious, they pray
Rationally irritating, that passes.

Perfection is I, quoth he
Pretty pointless faces, I say
Reasonably intelligent friends, said he
Rather boring folk do they convey.

Perfection is *******, I utter
Probable mix-up, they record
Realize the beauty! I order
Render it proper on my own accord.

Wizards, witches, and warlocks

Charge nurses really,
Isn't that ionic
And yes I really do think

Much more intelligentsia than wet nurses

But everything has a time and place

Expressionless Gene

Wilder

And warlords destroy beauty and intelligentsia chasing a lost or stolen dream

Looking into my own eyes
knowing they don't hold the stars
emotionless, expressionless pits of darkness.
Unable to speak my own mind,
unable to speak my emotions
hoping my eyes could do the talking
but they have become as expressionless as their host.

Reaching down into the depths of my heart,
slowly turning as cold as ice
as the ability to speak my mind has slowly been erased.
Drowning in myself, from tears held inside
Drowning in the depths of my own turmoil
hoping someone could see the pain inside
but knowing no-one cares to look deep enough.

My inability to express my thoughts
holds me captive in a circle of never-ending heartache,
broken promises and disappearing friends.
A subject of disappointment in everyone's eyes
A subject of a worthless, failure of a girl.
Now there's nothing more to give of myself,
given all I can 'till it drained me completely.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Or at least that's what is said
But what if your vision is unclear
& your own image is not beauty in your eye
& your self-esteem declines as you get older
You're still ugly in your head
No matter what compliments you hear
& you don't know how to explain your reasons why

Society is to blame
Overly  advertising "skinny" pills or another new diet fad
magazine covers displaying frail & gauntly figures sharing their dieting habit
& there's an unofficial showdown on social media trying to one up your peers
It's become so stupid & lame
People going completely mad
Nothing is being achieved is what I don't get
Unfortunately this will continue on for years

Enhancing your appearance is become quite extreme
Botox filled needles, toxic injections say good-bye wrinkles as well as ****** expression
Button nose or a pointed one, maybe a bump rhinoplasty will quickly fix
Broken, distorted & barely holding on, slowly losing self-esteem
Whatever it takes, anything they can do to receive some positive attention
Showered with empty compliments, their beauty is deceiving & they're covered in lies
**** pumped full of silicone, hard to the touch
Some implanted *** cheeks, now it's massive & anacondas all want to bite
Reality is becoming surreal, dream like hard to decipher the real & fake
A crazed addiction that's just too much
A corrupting epidemic destroying what's right
We need to figure out how to protect the years to come with prevention
Killing this trending fascination of a stupid mistake

We continue to change it, hide it, deny it, maintain it, lie to it, cry at it & accuse it
Everyone has got one, no one is exempt
Year after year it's a bigger obsession
Criticizing & judging what they view is their daily routine
With no plans to quit
Changing their thoughts & mind is something dangerously risky to attempt
Unable to change what they view on their screen
Drifting farther out of any reality
Claiming they're unaware how negativity can quickly poison
In denial that it does any harming
Oblivious to the unraveling image
No longer obtaining any slight speck of your originality
& got caught up in the deadly alluring fascination
For results that were nonexistent
Ridiculously absurd & quite alarming
Side effects include blurred vision, forever tainted thoughts & more unfixable damage

Lost souls, a pointless quest to change what was never wrong
Leaving all those confused & badly broken & a mind almost rotten
A spirit was just no longer there
Emotions shut off & an expressionless face remains
Failing to reach society's idea of "perfection"
Another one gone, that didn't take very long
The light in people's eyes faded & their smiles joined the forgotten
Beyond the looking glass we lost our stare
& our spirit it claims
Nothing is left now but an invisible reflection

She was beautiful.



But not in a Cosmo Model, Megan Fox, or Tara kind of way, not how you would expect. It was strange, her beauty. The kind that has you peering through a crowded room to see what you were really looking at. Her eyes, her smile, the way she held herself; strange how just holding her head up a few vertebrae higher could catch such attention.  And the way she was around people, was a mystery. She would be all smiles, childish and comic at one moment; but the next she would lean quietly, her face relaxed with no thought of expression.



When she smiled, it took little effort to make her smile brighter, and the promise would make her giggle and laugh. Her laugh could make even the saddest man cry out for joy. And sometimes she would sing, and her voice was like the angels from heaven, to get her to sing was just as much a task as it was to make her smile. While, on the other hand, when she was relaxed, her expressionless face dominant,  the task to make her smile, to get her to laugh grew hard and tiresome.



Such a strange beauty, like a well painted piece of art, was rare. She stuck out like a sore thumb in the cluster of thin no bodies. Each girl prim, thin, perky and down to the letter. Each girl barely had a mind of their own, barely had wit enough to keep them. But this girl…this girl could tame the whole room if she pleased. This girl could open her mouth wide and get the whole company into a dance. She had personality, she had spark, she had emotions, she was alive.



That’s why he liked her so much. He loved just looking into her auburn eyes, the almond shape of them as interesting as her topics of conversation. He could listen to her voice for hours, just as beautiful as her singing voice. And she could pull your heart like nothing else. That’s what he liked about her.

Those sleepless summer nights
Sweat pouring from every crack
In thinly layered sunburnt skins
It was all *******-on-the-floor
Blood-on-the-sheets
And *******
Living out highschool fantasies
Like the cool kids

Life before 22 was all a dream
Of midsummer swelter and
Salt water
In the mind of the dog
Chained up in the universe's yard
Tethered to the ether world
Racing rabbits through space
While I was turned into an ***
Staring at the mirror
And my expressionless face

This must be how cancer feels
Growing increasingly smaller
In a world where cabinets
And aspirations grow increasingly taller
She met the devil
For coffee on diagnosis day
But the deal they made didn't take
Her hair fell out
And her body atrophied anyway
She found herself
Floating far far away
Her blood coagulating like
A broken thermometer
Of mercury

Salvador Dali painted this fall
The house of salvatore
Minds gone to roost under warm eaves
Staring fireplaces
Hungry couches and singing windows
It's all ******* drooping like clocks
And derailing thoughts
The local biddies
Cluck their tongues
At the absurdity of infinity
And the girl in Ace Hardware
Buying shoepolish to hide her tan lines
Yawns, as her boyfriend feels her up

*Meanwhile I collapse
Like a house of cards with a flick of the wrist
Thinking about life's mathematical beauty

crushed
by the immense weight of
expectation; I’ve come too far
to turn back now.

or to stay stagnated, where I am.
this halfway house of
purgatory, grasping at mere
fibres of the future I so very wish to weave,
but my attempts are futile
I am unable to get a grip.
rope burn bites at my hands,
slip, bleed, slip.  

The options are so endless,
yet so limited by none other
than myself.
I preach,
believe in yourself. love yourself.
go for your dreams and don’t let them slip away.
but these are simply words I say.
I preach one thing and
I practise another.
hypocrisy, doubt’s dutiful brother

fan others flames yet ignore mine being smothered.
by my own hands, none other.

at least I have you,
the single being on this earth
that believes in me.
I don’t know why
I don’t know how it came to be.
that you are the one soul that truly pushes me towards my dreams.
you don’t let me give up
you don’t allow me to claim victim, be smothered by this monster surrounding me,

not mother or father
but me, it’s me.
the monster is me
don’t you see?
I’m the one who doesn’t believe.
I’m the one whose stopping me
I’m the one whose keeping me down and doubting myself and writing myself off before I even put pen to paper and make myself worse off.

You are like
a fallen angel
lifting me on
your broken wings

not to save me,
but to let me go
and catch me again
like a bird
teaching her
baby to fly.

you,
are trying to help me realize

that I have wings too,
if I’d just open my eyes.
that you can still fly
and be scared of heights.



3 am passes
another day approaches
pointless moments surrounded by
expressionless
wilting roses.

I’ll fight the urge to
give up, even if it feels like
I’m not winning
because


the clock will pass 4 am
and the world will keep spinning

Some days I feel expressionless
So
I lay on my couches
Sipping some teas
Thinking on nothing at all
No smiles, no frowns
I just sit here and be
an expressionless me.

I used to swim across the channel to rattlesnake island when I lived
in Florida . We all knew the sharks loved
the funneling action of the channel to the bay . And we were always aware that there were sharks near by . We saw them every day . Yet the allure of the island just a scant one hundred yards away was to much for a 10 year old to pass up . So I would swim across holding a rod and reel high so it would not soak in sea water . I admit there was apprehension evident in my strokes and kicks but I made it across . On the other side there were no rattlesnakes anywhere .
Just gorgeous unclaimed white beaches and aqua clear water . Needle fish scooted across the surface and schools of mullet jumping were all I could see . I did little or no fishing , just running and jumping into the surf . What an afternoon it was . But the sun slid down and we knew we had to leave soon as the big sharks move in at dusk to feed into the night . So we stepped into the swirling waters of the channel and then plunged in and swam . Sharks have all black eyes . Cold  black eyes and an expressionless grin that is all business sporting a mouth full of jagged dagger teeth . They are cautious up to a point but no one knows where that point is . Once that point is reached . . . well you don't want to see that point while your in the water . So about half way across the channel we see a dark shadow swim by in front of us between us and the beach . We know it's a shark , a big one . Perhaps more than fifteen feet long . We can't stay where we are at , but we fear to move on . So taking a deep breath we swim on slow and steady . Finely the beach is at hand , our feet touch sand and we run up on the beach and collapse . Then with heaving chests of fear we look back only to see the shark swim by . Needless to say that was my last visit to rattlesnake island .