Don't listen to me; my heart's been broken.
I don't see anything objectively.

I know myself; I've learned to hear like a psychiatrist.
When I speak passionately,
That's when I'm least to be trusted.

It's very sad, really: all my life I've been praised
For my intelligence, my powers of language, of insight-
In the end they're wasted-

I never see myself.
Standing on the front steps. Holding my sisters hand.
That's why I can't account
For the bruises on her arm where the sleeve ends ...

In my own mind, I'm invisible: that's why I'm dangerous.
People like me, who seem selfless.
We're the cripples, the liars:
We're the ones who should be factored out
In the interest of truth.

When I'm quiet, that's when the truth emerges.
A clear sky, the clouds like white fibers.
Underneath, a little gray house. The azaleas
Red and bright pink.

If you want the truth, you have to close yourself
To the older sister, block her out:
When I living thing is hurt like that
In its deepest workings,
All function is altered.

That's why I'm not to be trusted.
Because a wound to the heart
Is also a wound to the mind.

I am stuck up
Late again
Sleep evading me
And my thoughts
Surrounding you
I feel you drifting
Farther from me
The distance pulling
Your fibers of Love
From me

But I, like the fool,
Am still stuck up
On a wish
On you
Every moment
Every thought
All on you

Notes on your window
So subtly appear
As though they came from thin air

No rhyme, but reason
A familiar flick of the e's in everything
Glimpse of hope

A handwriting technique you know well
Smeared ink against the fibers
Calling out for one last message

They seem to procreate every few weeks
A simple one
Minimalistic hopes of something

Nothing more to lose
Just a note on your window
Signed by a smeared "O"

My momma always said
"it's not how big the suitcase is, it's how much you're willing to carry",
and I carried your bag, with its patches
knowing inside was your ***** laundry, that you slowly aired over time.

Even your broken bits, and holed jeans became sacred to me-
the smell of you left after on my skin,
but, you never let me unpack the whole bag,
always kept a side compartment up your sleeve.

And my arm slowly became numb,
when I realized that I still held mine,
even though the clasp was broken-
bits of me strewn about, laid bare for you to see

Though you did help fold  nicely,
you handed my pieces promptly back to me-
I wonder if some fibers stuck, some little bits of me,
like your neighbors dog's hair on your shirt

does my smell come back to you in a rush,
the feeling of our fingers brushing as I handed back your bag?
We are parting at the fork, both taking our separate things,
but are you giving up, or is this a temporary farewell,

before you fly through my door,
throw off your shoes,
set down your things,
and proclaim "sweetheart, have my bag, I'm here to stay!"

Attention class:
There's been a shift in our syllabus
There are some questions on my mind that warrant a new lessonplan: Does true love exist?
I will admit lately I've hypothesized that it's merely just a myth
Some wishful thinking from romantic half-wit heretics
So I'm assigning a soul mate science test
A pop quiz prophecy that could bind two of us together forever
Proving true love is suited for scientific vindication
If you respond to each question honestly
One trusty staple is capable of uniting this loose leaf love
Depending on your lead-based expressions
And their smudge-marked impressions
So please put your notebooks down
And pick your pencils up
Let's begin:

1. Is the beauty you possess easily represented in the thoughts you express?
Provide an ample sample size of your logic to suggest your loveliness works wonders.
2. Given that the fastest manned aircraft reached 4500 mph
If you spiraled down from the heavens at 9.8 m/s²
How long would it take for you to shatter record speed
And recognize that my arms are open to being your landing pad?
3. If your failures colored red and successes tinted blue
Became marbles piled high in mason jars
Would you let me embrace your entirety in the most worthy shade of purple?
4. Skin, rarely remembered, is the human body's largest *****.
Without caution, show me that your brain and heart
Are eager to become the king and queen of your anatomy.
That your organic vastness can infiltrate others' flesh majestically.
5. Think carefully. Who was the last man you kissed?
Are his lips worth enough for you to dismiss
A potential chance at creating unending bliss?
6. True or False: You would lie to me to spare a hurtful truth.
Provide evidence that you are comfortable revealing the undisputed details of your personal journal
Unraveling the spools of your most mysterious fibers.
7. Disprove Heartbreak Theory.
Show your work with mild-mannered mannerisms and sentimental illustrations.
Use crayons or colored pencils to emphasize your best intentions.
8. Chemistry is the study of the properties of matter.  
Using the periodic table of elementary emotions
Describe what matters most to you.
Remember to cite your sources of inspiration.
The inner workings of your engine that fuel your fondest explorations.
9. Fill in the blank spaces between my fingertips with your tenderness.
Is it a perfect fit?
If not, describe the characteristics possibly prohibiting this grip.
10. Cells are the smallest units of life.
Draw a diagram dissecting the little pieces of you
That belong in my possession at all times.
Include both strengths and vices.
Exhibit a sense of self-awareness that I can mimic
When I'm stuck inside my quicksand mind.

And one final reminder:
Remember to print your name legibly on the front page.
Failure to do so will result in catastrophe.
An unidentified masterpiece resulting in agony for you and I.
Practically reversing the critical proofs that your pen just described.
So let my eyes scan your signature with methodical joy.
And the curves of your cursive ink lines can become my mind's strongest ally.
Let me know you're willing to be known.
Because I need to know you're alive.

Motet: an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; originated in the 13th century.  Suggestion: look up on YouTube, the Hilliard Ensemble.*  Jewish tradition says that there are 36 righteous souls on Earth, whom for their sake, God preserves the planet and its inhabitants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet II

August 2013

Last night,
I lay with God,
Again.

We made love inimitable,
As if it were the first time.
The music of purity, voices ensemble,
The only commonality.

Afterwards, heaving, sweaty, in bed,
He reminded me that I had already
Written of the motet, long ago,
But permission granted to
Love it, write of it, once more,
As I He, and He, me...

Because after-all, the motet prayers belong to Him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motet

Nov. 2010

Ce soir, I am prepared, My Love,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen.

The motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

These voices doth
wrack my fibers,
seethe and contract,
my internal power plant
implodes, heart attack.

Glorious generations of singers,
O woven voices that harmonize,
your motet is
umbilical to my lyrical,  
calming chemical reaction,
I am servant and
you are my server,
uplift, calm and provoke me.

Sing out loud God's
ephemeral, unpronounceable name,
cover me with the fame
of His naturity,
love me with divine kisses,
release unto and within me
the essential oils,
oils by which we breathe,
ancestorally transfused,
oils once called the
blood of the soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my past harmonies of poesy,
you shared, lost or just deleted,
tribute unto tribulations human:

I recorded, ven diagrammed,
sorrowed tales of souls waylaid,
debts foreclosed, dues unpaid,
tales of non-fictional agonistes,
suffering a tutti frutti of sarcastic
Earthly  Delights.

Wrote writs re some poor souls,
Prado preserved,
by threading and dying,
on a cloistered tapestry
woven by Adonai worshipers.

With those selfsame oils,
they painted anticipated memories of
Heaven and Hell,
the ones of which I write,
far too oft.

But this night,
In my customary hour
when inspiration is my only tongue,
in the lean hours after midnight,
afore dawn's orangerie of
morning skyed break fast,
I am risen, nourished and
uplifted by the motet's synthesis,
by what I hope to see,
by what I wish to hear.

For I watch,
porched and perched on rooftop,
in the company of
urban spelunkers and debunkers,
all of us desperados,
differing reasons for despair,
yet together,
a human minion-minyan of ten,
we search Jerusalem,
from the Battery to the Cloisters
for glimpses, hints of human angels,
the thirty six^
ministering to the
homeless and dreamless,
to us all.*

Ce soir, I am prepared,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen,
the motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.

Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

Reveal, reveal to me the identity
of your ministering angels!

As the thirty six preserve me,
motet me on eagle's wings, and
return us to you Lord,
that we may be returned.

Renew our days,
as they were before,
when the motet
was bright, organic,
in each of us.






----------------------------------------
^www.neveh.org­/winston/wonder36/36-08.html

One broke her,
Into thin fibers of glass disarranging a once whole vase
A beautiful vase, multifaceted and covered in ornate beauty
Intricate, delicate, carefully carved
A whole vase, filled to the brim with life and love
But what does love look like? She knows not anymore.

Two found the vase in ruins,
picked up her pieces, mended her and held on to her afraid she would break once more
Carefully, protectively she now lived.
Given everything, someone who had mended her.
Yet she still felt a sense of a missing piece
A gap, a hole, a missing fragile piece, unfilled but by One who had broken her

Why does she love One who hurt her, who broke her who left her unfilled?
Two many times has he mended her back together
Yet One is still the missing piece, the gap, the hole, the Vase

I hadn’t spoken for so long
a tiny spider had moved in
at the corner of my mouth
eating my words

my tongue laying limp like a
slain dragon at the bottom of the cave
like a king who passed away right there
on his throne having given the last order

my arms almost as still as uncontested borders
only palms carry out maneuvers
and fingers patrol the manifestation of expressions
commanded by thought fibers
like puppet soldiers

and the lines in the sand are words
born of themselves
telltale heartstrings stalking now the realm
just outside the eye orbit

Corduroy
by far
is the sexiest fabric

Zipper wisp you thighs a bit faster
You cat-call of body language

I wanna hear you coming

You are not a denim ******
Not cotton soft

My hands are rough
Let me feel your texture
Of parallel lines that go all the way up

Let me lose your button

You can find it later
Keep your innocence like that bear
In that children’s book you might read
To your own kids someday

Corduroy is ugly
So are we

Has texture
So do we

Is made from finely twisted fibers
Like DNA

Corduroy makes me sweat
Literally

And figuratively
If
We were trapped under a blanket of it
And could not tell the difference between

Scar tissue and fabric
Hair and fabric
I will have to bite you to notice the difference

Unless you holler like corduroy
A sound you could beat me with

Then we would just be a transcendental blanket
Of
This should be burned later

So
When I tell you
I think you’re **** like corduroy

It’s a compliment

Vanity
Me?
Me?
Heightened sense of security
Me?
Me?
Vanity
Felt through everything
We’re the echoes through eternity
Me?
The fibers snap, snap conduct
Feverishly
Sending to benevolent web
Me?
I was there it was a ******* tragedy
You remember
That day?
Vanity
Me?
We’re more important than anything
This is the turn of the century
What we do
Echoes through eternity
Me?
Heightened sense of security
Big bro
He knows everything
Me?
We know everything
Anything we find
Quite conveniently
BLIND
Me?
A sarcophagus of time
This happened before in some other land
Before we knew of this
Time
BLIND
Me?
Vanity
Me?
Me?
Heighten sense of security
The fibers they snip snap tap
Feverishly
Conductivity
But we still don’t know ANYTHING
Me?
Vanity?
I was there it was a ******* tragedy!
Why’d they take the towers away
Did it really happen that day?
To
Me?
***** Monster
Narcissist Pharisee
Conscripted pet
Atrocity
I was there it was a ******* tragedy
Why’d they take the towers away?
Must have been vanity…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The conservation of energy in full effect,
Energy presses from inside, colliding to outside,
A reflection from inside a metal water fountain
Draws it into the swirling vortex; a clone of myself sitting on a bench,
Bench I'm sitting on, several secluded fibers banked upon a velvetine valentine between the ceiling and floor. (Couch)

The conservation of energy in full effect,
Behind a vent, nestled, relaxing under the speckled water fountain (Couch)

WA-ter FoUNtain,
I'm the grays and the bleak black bland,
In the conservation of energy in full effect.

Xitia:-- Sent you a -whimpering, sent you a-wishing.
I, myself: Into a victory, into admission.

The conservation of energy in full effect.

Xitia:--- Where do you sit in the waterfall of lessons?
I, myself: In the back, to mask the need for the front.

The conservation of energy in full effect.

on the night train to Vienna I dreamt
as the soft tangerine light bled into the windows,
tumbling down infinities of Italian countryside
absorbing into my retinas in summer shades
of dusk-colored haze


entranced I was--
a nervous girl of sixteen years,
uncharted valleys sprawling ceaselessly
at the beds of my fingers,
love languages my tongue could not yet
stretch its fibers around
freedom forming its hunched silhouette
just outside of thin glass windows
cooled by the night’s apprehensive breeze


endless, it seemed
the rumbling blur of possibilities--
my hands sedated for the first time in years.
quietly existing in the jolt of a moving cab,
the subtle ricochet through the faint lamppost glow
of fragile Austrian dreams.


home-- four thousand and forever miles away
and yet here was fine, just fine
a girl with stringy hair and a steaming cup
of midnight European tea
as her mother sighed to herself in the
peak of her American afternoon,
wondering whether her baby had found sleep
in someone else’s morning.

The rope I'm gripping tightly have
taut fibers twined around each other.
I wove them that way, meticulously.
One string after another, its form gathers,
and I'm proud of my craft.

I've used it to save myself and others,
pulling and tying knots, anchoring.
A tightrope to dance on over and over,
Tugging, stretched, fighting, breaking,
but my rope's getting slippery.

I've used it so much it's hard to hold on.
It's overused and now
everything's
going
wrong.

Only a matter of time before I can cut it
without effort,
just one scissor,
and it's no more.

I'll tie it back together but I can only try so hard.
It's wearing down, going gone.
It withers and soon I'll have none.
Nothing to save me, or them
if I start abusing it again.

There is a Mouse in this House.
Insatiable,
He keeps me up at night,
thin fine claws on metal stove tops,
whispering to the birds what a fool he's made of me,
because I couldn't make the fibers of my home work with me.

There is a Mouse in this House,
Immortal,
I've fished him drowned out of drains,
fed him bleach on silver trays,
listened to him choke in air vents,
his chestnut jacket perpetually in the corners of my eye,
leaving reminders in my cereal,
this rodent he refuses to die.

There is a Mouse in this House,
Intangible,
he is not slipping through my fingers he's dancing on them,
quick petite feet tapping on my counters,
fleet and fast like smoke,
I've seen him seep through a clenched fist and still escape with wedding bands,

There is a Mouse in this House.
Impish,
he waits 'till I'm alone to play his music,
the crack and chew,
too early with the morning dew,
he will not play his song for you, it'd be too easy to be seen.

There is a Mouse in this House,
primeval,
he's been waiting,
mapped the walls and painted my flaws,
tactician skilled and iron willed,
this beast knows war far more than my militia mind was ready for,
plotting out insurgencies for restless and anxieties,

There is a Mouse in this House,
emaciated,
what's his is his,
what's mine is his,
there is no sacred to things with tails.
clearing out my pantry,
his jaws now tasting for my sanity,
finished with the:
Rye,
White,
and Sourdough,
he's fixed his tongue on sweat breads,
scuttling with unnatural flow,

There is a Mouse in this House.
Charming,
too handsome a creature to ever be singed,
he peddles on the burners simply too strut,
scampering through flames to test his luck,

There is a Mouse in this House,
Insomniac,
from now until each evening hour,
his paws touch turns time sour.
Ivory teeth clanging out a new ink-printed deed,
he owns the tenant and never even had to rent it,

There is a Mouse in this House,
arrogant,
too self-assured and clever,
cunning, devilish a creature he may be,
but he has yet to get a load of me,
holed away within his den,
his first mistake was not letting me win,
setting aria's on fly's wings to declare his victory,
this furry phantasm is all too aware of what he did to me.

There is a Mouse in This House,
sleeper,
I'm plotting my comeback,
sure-footed,
slow breathes,
and savage hands,
I'm ready,
silent and steady;
this beautiful monstrous mouse had best prepare for battle.

There is a Mouse in this House.
But it's my House.

elemental [ˌɛlɪˈmɛntəl] adj
1. fundamental; basic; primal the elemental needs of man
2. motivated by or symbolic of primitive and powerful natural forces or passions elemental rites of worship
3. of or relating to earth, air, water, and fire considered as elements

My skin shapes itself around the scars seared mercilessly
Into my mind, soul and body.
I breathed you in.
The salt and tobacco, overwhelming
As I recall your twisted embrace
Enchanting, and toxic
Suffocating my soul, diminishing the blaze.
And I must rekindle myself
To find that place,
where you can’t be.
There is a part that wants .
To feel your presence, once again.
Holding me
Back down, into the dust that shapes,
and folds under
Crushing waves.
Of water
as they are colored by the suns flames
here resides an ever present rage
The fibers of forest green are darkened beneath
The weight of wet
assimilation
Transpires, enveloping you into a distant memory
Of nothingness
My scars seared on like armor
Remind I burn through air
And earth
Transcending creation,
Destruction’s my curse
You, as the maker
Took more than I was worth.
Maybe you knew in the wisdom
That sometimes comes with
strife.
The life you had given
Was not yours to claim.
These walls I built for water
stand sturdy, scorched by pain.

Walter was history's best fisherman -
history's best minnow fisherman.
He combed and cleaned his net
like a lint trap or a summer screen door
so delicate, seaweed fibers, mussel shells.
He fished more of a dance, a twirl
his arms up and down and around and always
spun in the shallows like a waterspout
he would glide his butterfly net through the lake
and capture little fish he placed
into a sand castle bucket filled halfway with water
he would always pour back into lake.
He was strictly a catch and release fisherman.

All the mothers on the beach would stare
at Walter and his water waltz and at his mother
who stood next to him so he wouldn't fall.
It was hard not to stare at Walter
always alone with his aged mother
and he had to be at least a teen by now.
Perhaps it was hard to tell, autism doesn't age well,
but we had been beach regulars for fifteen years
and Walter and his mother had for ten.

The last time I saw Walter he danced and fished.
I laid on the beach with my cousin and we observed
his patterns and his mother his rock who stood there
for ten years with the minnow fisherman.
The next day my own mother cried
more than when her own mother passed
and she told me, she died
Walter's mother died

Even now I stand in the shower skin deep in water
and think about where Walter is now.
I see him in my mind dancing in some bath tub
with a butterfly net in some foster home
without a mother to break his fall.

These days
I am too cold
My palms are at rest
Down for the long winter
My coordination and
dexterity will hibernate
And I'll cloak this poor body
With anything I can

An almost married woman
Clings to the hems of my sleeves
With thin fingers
With scissors
There to cut away the warm wool
With wild eyes
and a bitter mouth

She gathers my coat in a basket
Unravels all the careworn fibers
To cast upon her empty loom
As though she'd spun them

Casts off newly sewn kisses
Threadbare affection
Muttering crossly about the weather
And how the sun
does not melt the snow

She is only my friend when
She can touch my bare wrists
Give me white hot iron to hold
And ask me if I'm warmer

Only my friend when
She can graze my skin in surprise
Wrap my hands up with stiff yarn
And ask me what burned them

I thought I heard you today

I was on my couch when I recognized your voice
Something struck my ears
I picked up on it
Quick
Then noticed I was by myself and the TV was off
The seat next to me on the couch started to vibrate
The fibers began to wrap together and grow
Slowly they took upon a large form
A body
Your body
With that body sprouted your face and smile
Fully clothed in that black dress I saw you wear
In a picture
To a dance
That you didn’t invite me to
Then you put your head on my shoulder

I only took one hit of salvia and already
I have what I want the most next to me

I wished someone had seen me
Just watch my ****** express drop and stare
At something that, in reality, isn’t even there

We talked; it was great
You said these funny jokes that reminded me of the time we
….never mind let’s skip that part
Tricking my brain to see you for not even 20 minutes has become
The best part of my day

That’s why I’ve stopped with hallucinogens
I can’t just watch you take your head off my shoulder
Sit up perfectly straight
And start to fade away back into the fibers of my couch

I swear, an hour went by
I swear I was done tripping
Then I saw
A long brown strain of hair on my shoulder
I plucked it out
And played with it
I thought I heard you today

I’ve recently developed a hypothesis
It’s crazier than the idea of an atheist
The truth is the hardest pill to swallow when it stings like a vaccination
So I’m dealing with the fact that my love may be broken

I’ve had a broken heart but those can be repaired
With time, effort and divine intervention
The fibers of the heart can be re-stitched together
But my love – my ability to love – seems to be destructive

When you care too much, you lose what you wanted most
I wanted you; so I said so
That worked like a poison, numbing your feelings for me

My love is like a broken boomerang
I throw it out with heartfelt emotions
Hoping and waiting for your love in return
But my love never comes back at all
It doesn’t even come back as a letter ‘returned to sender’
It simply died when it was on its way

Whether in your negligence or on the journey love take us on
My love died like a single drop of water in the desert
I wish I could figure out the enigma of love and the defect mine seems to have
My love is broken like a bird without her wings
Grounded against her nature and denied to possibilities of true life

My love is withering in my own heart – you can only love yourself so much
I was ready to give you all I am
But somewhere along the way I feel like my love is not only broken…

I tried another time to love another soul
My broken love had a heart attack and died in route to the grave
It wasn’t taken to a hospital because my love was a lost cause
Something unworthy of its name; love

My love was never seen as love by any other being
It was seen as infatuations or crushes that crushed life out of attraction
So now that my love is dead, what do I have to offer the world?

We all respond to lost love in our own way
I would fight until I had no breath or strength – then again
Maybe it’s not my love you need, or even want

That’s the trouble with loving you
I overstep, overlook and over-wish
My love was just too strong for it’s own good
Now I weep in the arctic for the faithless cruelty

An arctic that I call summer from the frozen tundra of my heart
Hell has frozen over – hell has become my heart

If a word paints a picture,
and a picture is worth a thousand words,
then what is the worth of a word? It seems

the fibers of the fabric are the words we've woven to create the canvas on which we paint pictures that are worth a thousand words;

words painting pictures that are worth a thousand words onto canvases woven from words that are the fibers of the fabrics.

If a word is worth a thousand words,
then a word paints a million pictures.

Shrouded in deep purple fear and billowing clouds of crimson shame,
I sat on the floor, a trembling moth in still air.
I swallowed. The taste of bile remained.
My warmth flowed out of my body into the icy bathroom tiles, escaping rapidly through cracks in my split-open soul.
She sat beside me, quiet, waiting.
After an eternity, I nodded to her with a shaky breath.
She helped me gently off the floor and guided me to her bed, tucking herself behind me to become my tight cocoon.
With my head rested against her chest, I heard her blood pounding through her, but her breaths were slow, controlled.
The fibers of my muscles remained tense, straining to compensate for my spirit - raw, exposed, vulnerable.
Her small, soft fingers ran through my tangled hair,
drips of golden honey appearing as she began to hum.
Her radiant honey oozed from the smooth, full notes of her voice and dripped between sharp fragments of my shattered porcelain.
The clock tutted at us from the wall, approaching the third hour of morning, but she held my shards together tenderly and unhurried.
The fight drained from me as she sang her sweet melody.
A puddle of purple and crimson beneath me. Pieces, tenderly held.
Her pure, glimmering honey meandered through my etched cracks and between my too-prominent ribs to replace my purple and crimson.
She sang the life back to me, held me together with her sturdy grace.
She waited as the liquid gold began to solidify and I began to feel closer to whole once more.
She - who loves me laughing, who loves me dancing - loves me messy, too.

If I am waiting, why not now I ask?
Must I receive your elegance in a slowly introduced doses, simply not to overdose on that of which is your perfection?
If I am waiting, what defines my love to be that of the tangible,
an idea shaped and distorted horribly in my own head?

I’m always that of a time keeper, counting the intervals between the dials of each millimeter between the second markers on the grandfather clock, stretched into a string of ever-expanding infinity.
A line that over laps beyond comprehension, builds that of dimension, time and space, we come colliding!
Yes we do, we always do, if one thing I can count on, it is this.

We are that of every love, repetitive but never stagnant, ever shifting, ever changing, just… beauty in the bell jar.
Captured mid second, frozen in time, in a place
where we meet simply by chance, I will live that of a billion lives, if not for anything more then just one single chance.
I would put my mind in every living creature that has echoed before me, along side me, and will continue to do so long after I depart.
I will short end a fuse to a bomb there for springing a chain reaction, surging convulsions of electricity that only then could even conceive to recognize that of which is my own consciousness!

The purity in the moment of coincidence that takes place when we meet.
That of a flutter of a butterflies wings, the rippling effect of said butterfly.
We are and forever will be locked in sight, because I believe, oh how I believe-

And does my pinky hurt so with the tug of this red string leading me to that of which is you.
It was never a safe path I admit but one for the likes of the profound and the brave.
To build me up, to break me down!
I follow this red string and endure every challenge the gods deem fit for my conditioning.
Because on the other side of that red string is you, and when I say.. It just had to be you….

Theses lives we live, these perceptions we carry, the sounds of music pleasing to the ear, and the books we read that make our eyes soar.
I find myself here in a pool of my own tears dabbed with a sense of poetic justice and as this unusual shade of blue, oh that unusual shade of blue that car bared that day in it’s paint.
The whoosh and whirr of the engine roaring so silently but valiantly, if not to be a that of a last act effort to simply warn me of the moment I’ve been waiting for only my entire existence.
That sound it couldn’t reach my ears in any plausible way but somehow I knew when my eyes were lifted by that passing shade of an unusual blue that was that of a fleeting glimpse of scenery.
My alerts were called to attention, if not just to gaze and check the progression that time has had around me.
So tell me what is the chance of a million chances if not one but of infinitely shifting possibilities and interchanging ideas, what is the chance, that my eyes met with yours that day?
When that car that was painted an unusual shade of blue passed on by in an explosion of fate and destiny.
I bet you the driver of that car didn’t even know how important his role in fate & destiny was that day, what leads me to you that of which was of an odd and unusual shade of blue.
My attentions were called to this date, this second, this very moment, and as I become aware of my shifting surroundings, in the fog of the overwhelming take in of absolutely everything…

I see you, with a voice soft and elegant, hair stained with mystery of time, a face, oh she has a face! with eyes the ones I dream only to stare into until the ends of time, a mouth with lips I can only compare to the soft touch of velvet, and the skin I rub the back of my hand on to check if you have a fever….

For time is not that of restraint, because some part of me knows the whoa of your ever lasting echo.
your existence is so potent with fragrance.
I could smell you since I was in the womb, and when I cried for first the very first time fresh out of my mother’s womb, I cried with the worst feeling I had ever felt, to be born into a world where we have yet to meet.
Almost as if the Angels of oblivion “shh”ed me of the knowledge of the love I will come to know, but I am left with this eternal void with a depth so great it is beyond any means of measurement.

Oh the sorrow that moans, alone and riddled, all the time that is infinitely expanding, tick tocking, and slipping into the future ever so slightly.
Between my short spark of existence and yours was a magnet that chose you and I to be intertwined in the fibers that are the forevers of time.. When I found you.
Because some part of me knows the whoa of your echo, I’ve always known.
Your existence is so potent with fragrance, I could smell you since I was in the womb, and when we first touched you awakened me with the familiarity of that fragrance which I already somehow knew, but never really could put my finger on the idea.
The “I’m home” that rushed over me, the forevers in beckoning, chiming to a melody of birds singing in joy, with the hormones of spring in full roar, an ode to the time keeper himself when I say.. I only want more time with you….

The beauty that lies in that moment is the realization, that I can wait, though I rather not.
Because I can feel you echoing in the fibers of my existence crying out to be found and awakened, and oh am I searching in the eyes of every love that ever fell short.
Only in failed attempt to capture the essence that is you.
Because you just know, you’ve always known, our souls calls out and little do our increasingly limiting minds know, the storm you will have on me..
The desert inside me screaming with drought, and your existence quenches my souls thirst.

I know my heart strings would snap if my life wasn’t that of a mosaic to be built upon just for you.
The time I spent in solidarity, the desolation grew inside me, so I seek, I look, and sometimes I make mistakes, but my heart belongs to you and only you, the women with hair that is stained with the mystery of time….

WHEN will you come out of your shadows, WHERE will I be, WHAT decisions must I make to perfectly aline my life to one day run into you by that of simply chance, and oh I’ve said it a million time but WHY must I wait?
It is nothing short of crippling to know that of which is on the line, I can feel your vibrations more than ever now if not before, and I see the flame that lights the wic of this candle burning method that is my soul.
I let go, and I trust fate and destiny because they hold something of great important to me, and dare if I forsake it, they might just make me not be able to find my keys the day I’m supposed to run into you by that of chance, and I need to be able to find those keys oh so desperately.
So I say “praise the lords of time!” and I swear on my existence if that of which is not meaningless, that you give me meaning, in every way, shape and form.
You are that of winters mid day, you are that of a summer sunset, you’re the smell of a never before opened book, you are the melody that catches my ear every time.
Because you were always there for every single living being if not just me, you were always there, and I will meet you in all the lives I live, because with hope there is a way, and sure there may be dead ends, and forsaken ending, but where I survive, where I live another day, where I see through the eyes of which is mortal, I will devote my effort to search for you my love…

The unspoken beauty of always knowing when I say.. “when I get married” “when I have children” “when I die she will be the last face I see” we and myself including say these things these silly things as if life is to viewed as a promise.
With ever so fragile existences, we die a thousand times if only just to meet once.

Even with our own fragile existences thrown in the balance reality forces the idea that we are a pointless specs in all that is nothing, and I spit at that idea, I spit to it!
Because when I say those things I’m putting my trust in the fact that some day I just know we will meet….

Maybe we will be lucky and find ourselves in park as children and form a love in the shine of innocence that grows like a hundred year old oak tree.
Or if we meet in a place as old as time itself with that smile only to be lighted with a hint of embarrassment showing on your rose red cheeks and that look on your face filled with rush and panic, only to be becoming of you, a sense of urgency floods when you say, when you always say, what you have said so many times before, and will continue to say in the whoas of forever… “I’m sorry I was late.” And I will always return with “it was worth the wait…”

What stories could journals tell?
What we forget
is that they are not just repositories of words
but also of thoughts,
feelings,
emotions

They are places in and of themselves
Saving these emotions,
stashing them away
so they can be discovered
at a later time.

But the true beauty of these journals
lies within discovery itself

A droplet of water will fall
further
down a curved surface
taking a pale tan color
like its surroundings
It will fall off the surface
Onto the fibers of the page below
Leaving a darkened splotch

More droplets will follow
More tears will follow
As twenty years from now
A thirty-five year old woman rediscovers
the girl she once was.

On an Ohio vacation, we got the call.
Dressed in a navy t-shirt, and stiff boating shorts
(plucked fresh off a J. Crew shelf just earlier that morning –
        I wanted a darker grey)
My mother and I parked by the open grave.

The visitation was packed with strangers.
Stuffy, suffocating almost – I tugged at the new shorts,
coarse, rough-feeling, no time to break in yet –
        fibers still unset –
My back hugs peeling wallpaper.

My mother's tears stain my shirt, the salt stiffening fresh fabric –
Baptism. Each tear carves fresh wrinkles, crossing her face like rivers,
slicing into her like canyons. Her hands are childlike upon my shirt,
grasping blindly for anything, her vision blurred, her breath short,
her heart broken.

I peer at the uncovered casket and look at the woman's face.
Thin halo of white hair, skin pale like alabaster –
She is stiff. Eyes fixed, blood cold. Her hands clasp tightly.
Her black cardigan holds her like a piece of glass,
stiff, hard, yet so fragile, threatening each second to crack,

and the sounds of its breaking my mother's muffled cries,
and my hand's rhythmless consoling pats upon her back.

on fire
seems too
violent a
phrase to
describe what
kinds of things
ignite
so to speak
when i
think of
you

My fingers felt those synthetic polyester fibers
Small little worm like strings
Moving as my hands made waves
Moss amongst the water
Seaweed in the current

Ripping them up,
Unplanting them all
Tossing them to burn
Little strands of law and order
I sought deeper
Driven to my end

Repetition drove me
Pulling, tugging at those roots
Of your history
Tearing at the surface
Plastic woven particles
Frayed times gone past

I couldn’t cease, stop, leave
The beginning had begun
Closer I came
Yet knowing unnamed

In the movement of the motion
Those peaks fed my yearning
An underground history
To explore
Impossible to cease
I hungered for more

I held those fibers of truth
The dirt was ridden with a story,
Discovered, unearthed
My thirst fulfilled

Do you remember my wool sweater:
How the fibers used to catch on your wristwatch
And tangle themselves in the buttons on your checkered shirt?
Those loose threads said what I was too afraid to—
Don't let go;
Stay just a little longer.
Fiber after fiber, they unraveled,
Until that old wool sweater was tattered and frayed and scattered—
Softly curled strings on shirt edges and neckties,
A memory begging not to be forgotten.
Even after all this time,
I'd bet you still find specks of red on your pillowcases
Or on your jacket as you ride the bus to work.
I hope you do.

In moments of raging to the hospital, the jolts from the road, the squeal of the tires, and the tripping of your feet only multiply your anxiety. Delicacy is suspended amply in the air, hanging daintily on the thread of life and death.
          Delicacy is the soft and inconsistent beeping from the cardiac monitor. It controls your thoughts; yet is only a shadow on your radar. It shares the rhythm of the pounding in your head, and the thumping in your chest. You strain to shut everything out, leaving only the shy quiver of breathe slithering out from their lax lips. Their lips tremor under the reign of some foreign enemy, and their eyes flutter from an unseen truth. It is the suffering you wish to unburden them from, the pain you would inflict upon yourself in return for both their lives intact.
          Delicacy is a light fragrance, a mixture of disinfectant and sweat. Is it the scent of creating a life, or the imminent end of it? Beads of perspiration stream down your face and sting your eyes.
          The sweet caress of silk treads faintly underneath your fingertips. You rub the back of her hand, clammy and fragile. Rubbing the skin, you forget who the comfort is more for while footsteps pierce the stillness in the air. A figure dawned in white appears before you. Their form blurs in and out of focus, their voice a toneless muddle seeping through your cloud of stupor.
          Delicacy is a whisper flashing goosebumps across your skin, "We can only save one of them." It is the realization that too much pressure, and two months premature, is a cocktail dyed with poison. She looks to you with eyes of understanding and acceptance.
           Delicacy is the collapsing of all you know. It is the berating of incoherent words tumbling from your lips for the pure sake of escaping. You're swiftly taken from the room, kicking and screaming to the hallway.
          The unsettling tick of the clock mocks your every fiber. You **** the void of silence with the tapping of your foot, taming yourself from barging your way into the room. With the screaming from the bed, the instinct of protection, the stiffening of your back, the nurse quickly ushers you back in.
          The soft and consistent rising of the baby's chest is surrounded with the light fragrance of life. The plush fibers of the yellow blanket tug on the skin of your fingertips. The fascination apparent in your eyes, look to her while wondering how this little body will have the biggest impact on your life. Delicacy is the soft whisper flashing goosebumps across your skin, "We made it."

Twisted fibers, burning flame
Random chaos, shooting pains
Wild thoughts, running trains
Flying solo, empty plane
YOu are lost but I am not plain
Very different , gold among grain
I am a thinker, using my brain
Away from the followers, they drain
I soak out of bad like a strain
I stand up and stand strong like a crane
So high on the strongest strain
Rising up like a fire flame
Making plays in my life game
So now you will never forget the name
Makstastic

the sum of my parts
is not greater than i am as a whole, no,
i am not simply a collection of scars
and ******-up storylines, oh,
i
am more than
the gristle and bone
the fibers interwoven through my arms
my lily-white striped clavicle
this corpse is my throne

i am not simply a ******
i am a ****** with a history
i am mauve valleys' majesty,
i am more than just my regrets
and my atrophies
and if it's not commendable, well, at least it's a story.

i,
simply because of my condition,
have lived through more than you could imagine
i have burned down in the depths with fire-skinned demons-
with messes deeper than your credit-card sins-
and i
have managed to get through it

these are my battle scars
i've fought ******* wars
and yet you shun me as if i'm not a hero
as if i'm not honorable for just making it
but i know you simply don't possess the tenacity
or the strength of wit
to deal with my ****
there's no reason to reproach
the type of behavior which keeps me alive
when i've done greater things than you ever will

stop staring
like i'm some sort of reject
like i'm something to pity
like i'm something worth nothing
like i can't recover
this is just a bad habit
and though you may find it disgusting i know i
can find worse dirt staining your mind

even if i leave this life
without a square inch of me unscarred
i have never backstabbed
i have not given in
while your inky secrets stay unspoken,
mine are imprinted upon my skin
and darling, that's all there is

if i am hateful, i will show you so
i have nothing to hide
my mouth isn't lipsticked shut

so what
if i cut
i'm still a good person
and though my battle is visible
there is nothing more around the corner
i am here to stay
so are my scars
and that's all there is to say