I breath in the misty air
The birds are chirping everywhere
I pass by a nearby stream
Where fishes looked a sparkling green
The waterfall sprays cold mist
Where Romeo and Juliet once kissed
The sun shines on the forest floor
While I eat an apple to its core
Insects fly and crawl around
A rainbow stone was also found
The leaves are green with big raindrops
They are as big as two gumdrops
The ground is wet and full of mud
The flowers are about to bud
A beautiful and gracious butterfly
It's wings the color of the sky
But now my trip is over
My souvenir is a four leaf clover
But what I will never forget
Are the animals and insects I met

i was there with the locked up free
they stared straight through the bars at me
the gate was open
no one had to stay
they spoke of church in exchange for food
lights out with 50 smelly-*** bad moods
i saw it superseded rude
so, i walked down and ate the trash
i had no church
no shame
no cash
the garlic bread was free
the sweet rolls weren't for me
so, i walked back down to the dead-soul church
to find a name i could besmirch
with lust, debauch, an empty purse
she told me she had her own room and bath
we tried to pull one on the *****
said that we were legal hitched
she asked for proof and I.D.
we didn't have a thing
that ended our sad little fling
goody gumdrops ain't gonna get my ring
grab my gear as i walk i sing
i know the words to everything
if i happen to forget
i'll make up better ones you'll bet
raised my sign and i raised my thumb
hoped a car was gonna come
sat there in the Yakima heat
sign propped up next to my feet
a nice redneck stopped and said
"have a seat"
he was welfare office bound
i was just a broke road-hound
waited for him in the shade
told him jokes for smokes
he made a good trade
got dropped off at an angry sunning truck-stop
flew my sign
one eye out for cops
a white guy in a small red car
pulled up and said
"i'll go that far"
soon we broke down on the road
i was sure my luck would soon implode
instead we put our heads on think
we woulda fixed the kitchen sink
but waters last to beer when i drink
we got some bolts and ******* 'em on
before we knew it we were gone
he got a smile
i got this song
then we hit Seattle like a ****
nothins' right if ya don't know wrong
NOTHINS' RIGHT IF YA DON'T KNOW WRONG

with skin of ivory
that blushes at the sight of sun
even when the clouds are out,
i turn into a silly shade of pink
          with a heart that drops
falls down, down, down
into a rabbit hole
at the sight of anything
remotely shattering,
gasping at little cracks on the sidewalk
carefully tiptoeing around bumblebees
          with lungs that fill with cotton
in fear of a hansel and gretel gingerbread house;
lead me to the witch
where i will cry and wonder,
“how did i get here?”
and forget about
all the gumdrops in my stomach
          with poise that only lasts seconds
in the face of spiders,
they crawl into my mouth
kept there until given the chance to spit
them back into your face
          i will hold my breath
and picture fields of lavender
where a tanned girl spins carelessly
until my tissue-paper limbs
learn how to hold me up

There is a blue stain from my pajamas blotched upon the white wall from where you pushed me up against. From when your hips gridded against my thighs, a graph with linear equations that doubled and doubled and tripled. From when your fingers found the furrows inside my skin, planting seeds I am eager yet scared to see blossom.

There is a blue stain from my pajamas specked upon the wall, from when our hunger was too ravenous for even the wolves I tried to suppress. From the sweat I licked off and tasted sweeter than gumdrops coated with honey. From when my legs found your waist, squeezing, Medua’s hair demolishing a man too good, too tasty. From where your palms collided with my wrists, blacks and blues and yellows shooting through closely knit pores.

There is a blue stain from my pajamas splattered upon the wall, and I pass it with a smirk, feeling the presence of you. What will be our next victim, I wonder

Gumdrops come in many colors
Yellow, orange and green
My gumdrop hides his color
So his feelings can’t be seen

His character is charming
His humor can’t be beat
He’s loving, kind; a friend of mine
Yet, he creates his own defeat

Avoidance is an issue,
Procrastination set in stone
His fears are locked so deep inside
He fights the world alone.

I understand his silent walk
My feet step in his tracks
Circumstances changed the soul;
True confidence we lack.

When tragedies besieged him
His body young in years
He coped the only way he could
While fighting back the tears

He lost himself eventually
Gave in to worldly sins
But, Gumdrop has the strength of few
He stood-up, once again.

With work, he rose above the clan
Temptation everywhere
He faithfully now walks the walk
Recovery he shares

Sadness still surrounds him
Eyes open for dark skies
Preparing for the looming breach,
He limits joy inside

Why would he risk familiar odds?
Reality is rough
To avoid the possibilities,
Is safer than to trust

Don’t try to understand him
He won’t let you in
He’s had to learn the hard way
He won’t get kicked, again.

But I am pretty lucky,
I’ve known him for so long
With memories and good times
and Billy Joel’s top songs

I wish for him bright colors
Prayers I’m always sending
But Gumdrop holds the steering wheel
He writes the script and ending

Yep.  Gumdrop is a blessing
My friend he’ll always be
Can he step outside his comfort zone?
I guess we’ll have to see.

Being weird is important to me. I find it's a gift because it means that you are different than everyone else. I know I am weird because not very many 9th girls have my hairstyle. I say weird things. Instead of saying, what's up, I say "wasabi". I tell corny jokes. I'm weird because I like hugs and not very many teenagers like hugs. I'm weird because I eat olives and sunflower seeds, for snack. I'm weird because I believe in fairy tales characters like mermaids, fairies and unicorns though people tell me that they're not real. I'm weird because I'd rather read a good book than watch T.V. I'm weird because I have at least 20 nerd glasses and 5 snap backs. There are so many ways to be weird. I'm the weirdest person I know so I'll use myself as an example.
I know I'm weird because not very many girls have dreads at 14 years old. I also say weird things. Instead of "what's up? "I saying "wasabi". I also tell corny jokes that I know aren't funny like, what did the penguin say when his friend asked "why did you slap me? ! " He said, ¨I didn't slap you, I high fived your face." It's not all that funny is it ….Thats why its weird to say it.
I'm weird because I like to give hugs to show someone I care, but others only do that with boyfriends and girlfriends. A ****** like me might have a fairytale land of their own, where fairies, mermaids and unicorns live. I have a fairytale land of my own, full of candy canes and gumdrops, fairies, mermaids and unicorns. I have a black unicorn with a green and neon yellow horn, green tail, and a neon yellow mane. His name is Lucky. His favorite snack is Skittles and, his favorite food is graham crackers. His favorite drink is strawberry milk. We have dinner under my tree full of hearts. I'm weird because all that I just said is childish, but I don't care.
A ****** like me might rather read a good book than watch television. A ****** like me might have twenty pair of nerd glasses and five snapbacks. A ****** like me might not wear dresses, skirts, or shorts. A ****** like me might write books and poems.A ****** like me might fall on purpose to make someone laugh. A ****** like me might like school. A ****** like me might stare into space without noticing. I do this five times a week for at least two minutes; weird right. A ****** like me may dance, sing, or look up at the sky randomly without knowing. I'm me and you're you. I'm not you and you're not me. So, please don't judge ******'s for being who they are because they're gonna be them and you're gonna be you because that's how its suppose to be. So how weird are you? I bet it is not weirder than me.

Bunk beds are fun

and dandy.

When hiding from chores

they are ever so handy.

But not so much

when my kid brother

falls asleep on top with

a bag full of candy.

Diamond beads roll off my skin
Sweaty hands and age old gin
Sunshine pupils in candy eyes,
Crying gumdrops and sugarcoated lies.
Raindrops on my fingertips
Poison blood on broken lips
Black and blue painted thick
Cheeks flushed red; a simple trick
**** yourself but stay alive
On your rotting soul they'll thrive.
The shadows of forgotten thoughts,
Who rap themselves around your heart
And suffocate the breath you wished was gone
Turned my sunshine into war

I don't feel better anymore.

i’d love to sugar your mouth,
gumdrops a sour lipstick compared to
umami tongue flickering with laughter

your hands are like syrup around mine
and i find it fitting to drown often
infinitely into the parfait puzzle piece.

“i haven’t eaten in days” i breathe on your
face while we forget that the playstation
whines still. “me either” your eyelash falls
on my shoulder and we dine on eachother instead.

Gumdrops in Candyland, teardrops in soup;
Tomato red, I spin my head;
And jump now through the hoop.

In the rain I walked, in the rain we kissed;
Paper hats, playful chats;
Forgetting what I missed.

Forethought for me, an afternoon with you;
Flick the light, to day from night,
More love, your love, I do.

Your my anatomy antidote. Mentor, a friend to the broken. You know I'm not a prodigy. But honestly you've always believed in me. In perfect peacei dream of the secrets in store. At utopia door. I wish I could sneek. To this place of harmony. In a waterfall in a rainbow. There are gumdrops. And Beauty. So much love. Walking in a fog of colors.

Chorus Your sending me to the promise land sending me and someday I'll see water change to alchol. The miracle man healing the blinded. Walking on water is no challenge in the promise land. Ohh the promise land.

Flowing out comes a river of milk. Spreading trees with trinkling honey. Dripping in cinnamon. There are sins cast down. In the mist of the ocean. As the blue tide comes in it washes them all away.Forgiven and forgotten are our past mistakes. Here Emotions. settle and don't rot in the sun. The ocean is full of water you breathe under. And there are no bugs. Only the ones that benefit us by fluttering by with vibrant wings. This is my mission to touch this utupia that many have called heaven. At the gate of destiny.

Chorus Your sending me to the promise land sending me and someday I'll see water change to alchol. The miracle man healing the blinded. Walking on water is no challenge in the promise land. Ohh the promise land. Flowing out comes a river of milk. Spreading trees with trinkling honey. Dripping in cinnamon. They call this place magic with grace. And theres a canal filled with unfamous greats. Anyone can swim in just for enjoyment. Lifes great cause here it lasts forever, never ending.

.And there's no disease that sends you to the grave. And when he gave his life away. He gained the world it's victory. Because. Of this humble servant I can honestly say I believe. I believe. Beleive i am saved. When he bled on the cross. He took my heart and mended it into clay. So he could mold a perfect being. Out of sinful me. Beautiful flawed l. Chorus Onward we walk. Together we stand. Forward we soar to the promise land We lift our swords to slay the beasts that live here in this human air. And on the beach we will dance a soldiers victory prance. From here you can Look at the sky. Feel the heat on your skin. Hold the sand just to watch it slip. Stare near the clouds see the gulls float. With perfect unity they land in unison. Reminding me that there's is even better above the clouds and in the heavans.

(when I forget to take my pills)
everything round becomes a gunshot, a bullet

your freckles fall off
one by one
and shoot down the road towards me ( as fast as bullets go
still I never can catch them)
I can never paste your freckles to my face

of everything I want to put my mouth on,
kiss, then never touch again

pillows shrink to the size of gumdrops ( I will never
sleep again)
and I swallow them, cushion my heart

say it is okay
baby baby soul baby arteries
everyone hurts when the pupils still have to grow
it takes time to snow, to become

quiet.

That summer of what you want you have.
We walked everywhere our hearts weren't
cutting corners just to feel like kids
I wore your sweatshirt
sleeves rolled.
The gray hitting just around my legs.

Your eyes held mine for too long
as we stepped into the night.
I told you I liked your tattoo with an air
of embarrassment.
You let half of the compliment fall to the ground
while the other half fed your smirk to
full perfection.

The waves got fuzzy and far between.
Hair got longer and shorter all at once.
Button ups and bows sealed our outward appearances.

Big eyes and band tees.
Mosh pits and burritos.
Girls and boys soon to be women and men.
Front porches, steps, and ever turning wheels.

One person would be coming in the front door;
the other would be rushing out the back
with arms full of luggage
luggage containing film from times so separate but
defining to who we were.

Puking in every other sewer we had our minds in.
I would only be able to find you when you were immobile.
Screaming with arms wide open, we would feign at the
sight of others.
Placing diamonds and breaking glasses,
Your pepperonis offsetting my gumdrops .

One of four..wheels
The constellations on my face told you
where your luck might lead you.
I asked you where yours aligned one cold winter night.
I hung up the phone and tried to dull the monologue in my head.

I sat on that same front porch weeks later
bottling that same feeling of anguish
you told me how beautiful I was,
inside and out.

It was always a high dive,
never a wade.
So much to risk
So much to gain.

When you had a cast on your arm,
I poured water down your back
When you slept in my bed for the first time
I think I cried.

Held together by bandages and gum wads
rock and roll and disco
I saw you with my eyes going into the back of my head
You looked at your watch politely and kept moving.

Our lines kept crossing but never touching
One vice presented in front of another
I couldn't tell you how ****** my valentine
was for you, especially when one of us was
making lines with a razor and one of us was
making lines on a bed.

At that point I already knew how I felt but
I still had some growing to do.
No more cutting corners as I couldn't be a kid anymore.
Everything we wanted was no longer there.
The things we wanted all expired and new desires
filled our brains.

You saw so many tears from me
heard enough ******* to fill a pen.
I put my face up to just about anything
but I could never face you.
How many times did we bait our hooks
only to come up with some algae on our line.

I lost my lasagna over you
to a late night phone conversation.
Rumors split my forehead and everyone said to try.
Sand was always getting in my teeth as I worked up the courage
to finally tell you how I felt.
I blew it, mouth full of water.
In that bed where I had mumbled so many gray words before.

I was scared, as always
But you held my hand as we walked down the tracks
of your hometown and spoke of nothing.
The full moon was the only one talking
she told us how she liked our dance together
and no longer separate
Rain hit against the open windows that night
It was autumn.
I had fallen for you once, but I had fallen for you
again.

Gave me a locket with your name inscribed
there are little rubies on the side, a white gem in the center
and it lays right across the ******* you ****** slow
in my bedroom’s night.

The moon came through the lace
curtains, you came inside me. Both looked like a shadow
against the walls of something smooth,

untouched, virginal. It was Christmastime but I was
not cold when you slipped my ******* off:
felt like I had warm eggnog swimming around in my belly
and your handprints on my bottom was holly wrapped
around the tree, your ****** hair mistletoe hanging.

This locket says your name,
it says that I kissed you and you kissed me. It says before
winter could end, I knew you tasted like cinnamon
and you knew I come like vanilla gumdrops.

psychic infantile bopping
play silent drum kits in ear canals.
screeching like whales
in caverns of sea and stalagmites.

servantile shrapnel leaking into abyss:
feeding on skin and bones,
parasitically.
eating through biting cries,
viciously.

gumdrops streaking sidewalk
in musical rhythm stain glass windows
and blurry red eyed sun high in the sky
shines down crystalline tear drops
over your singularly secular shadow.

the boy I am sitting cross-legged in front of
shares the same bruises as me
and we create new ones
on each other,
swelling like sweet gumdrops

or ripe fruit. his hands mold me
into a mulberry –
I bleed

sugar and water and sap. I close my eyes so that
it can be a surprise,
the stains I will wear for weeks.

we have loved so hard since we met,
we created puncture wounds
into each other
****** the salt out
then bandaged each other up and smiled at

the soreness.
the togetherness of it all,

opening ourselves up so that the other
can love our insides, too. his
is the burn of incense with the silk of warm
milk,

and I am laying down
in the happiest ache from him
knowing we wear our skin down until it is so
thin that
we can't help but feel all of one another.

Huffah! Rise up!
Today a new day
So glamorous
So grand and gay
That each passing of tree frogs shall
Slither
Spoil and spit
My naked toes never touch ground
Or do they?
My flitting flee turns heads around
Upside-down
I bemuse continually
Continue to follow through
Weightless in flight
In plight
Black-tailed hawks soar shrivingly with might
I gather and twirl and spill
Arms afloat and fingers outstretched
I greet the world
Hello!
Lovely lures linger in my spine
Ascend to my neck only to
Explode with confetti out of my ramby ringing ears
Explode with laughter!
Such yippity yap cannot view
Such vague heights
They don't catch me
I spill thrice with slender legs ahooved
We all come crashing down
I give a smile
Take a frown
Such grace and beauty
An epiphany to some
An engagement to all
Bliss meets ground in the fall
It rains colors
Tickling tiny eyelashes
Clickety-click I blink!
Oh woe! How my soreness traps all reds!
Shades of yellow
Shades of gold orange brown
Teet and totter
Only to divide and conquer
My fellow
Autumn leaves as Autumn comes
For I make no rule away
Grass grasps and clings
Leaves no trace but in my hair
How it curls and shines with flings!
I lick the sweetness of blue
Gumdrops begone I beg of you
Clamber to my lips
I kiss the sweetness in pips
Of more than two

Feed the people,
feed them the forsaken fruit.
Shove the sugary sweets,
frosted with sugar coated frosting and a cherry on top,
down their unsuspecting throats.
Top it all off with a bed time story,
about gumdrops and rainbows.
Then retreat to the catacombs,
where you, like all the others before you,
will die.
Famous for nothing,
but ******* an unsuspecting country,
you'll die a hero.

hello, sweetheart in the lightbluejeans, what’re you thinking of
whatever happened to gumdrops and thankyou notes and long skirts that say
‘I am a forward thinking woman’

how your eyebrows in self-photograph are the spitting image of your grandma’s
and how she never had a funeral and neither
did
you,
but you’re
****-sure not living anymore, not since the world-bruise and the ankle-bruise
and your protruding soul-bruise (your soul is in your hip bones; it bangs on the doorframe
when you walk into the kitchen every time)

you don’t remember the year but there was one
when you knew it all would be beautiful
for you
how could it not

back up to that long-gone January. that evening in your best friend’s car
when you choked on the phone that it physically hurt to listen to the sharp voices
no matter what, but especially when you knew what you knew and you *******
knew what you knew and you couldn’t
forget
not that January

not that May, when you told him you’d decided to be better
not that December, when you told somebody else
not ever—you were better but you wouldn’t forget
not ever

you set your course on what you didn’t know—what you didn’t know
would never, never hurt you, and

your best friend said go. he said do what you love he said
no one loved like you and you had
a smile and a way with words and the world deserved you and your
big, big love
you were full of love
you were love

and then he left—your big love wasn’t the kind he needed and you survived,
but a little less wholeheartedly because you were missing a little bit of it
and you saw that sharing the whole thing was
what everyone said it was
after all

you were a little smaller the next time when
somebody else told you what you were—beautiful and big and
worthwhile—so many times that you said what the hell and you
kissed him
and he took that kiss and turned it into red
red
red wine
and you had no heart to tell him you preferred white; he had you already
you had him already
and no one would go un-
bloodied

and what do you love? your best friend that day
assumed you had an answer—so did you
but what the hell was it,
you ask through the *****-fog
what do you love?
do you?

and now
what’re you thinking of, honey
how the next one and the next and the sunglasses future
is cracking summer ice, not stone, and you’ll
kiss but not say
iloveyou
it will be misty and gray for you
you’ll plan on only what you know in sweatshirts and quilts
and you’ll shut the shades

and even this January
not forget

not since the world-bruise
and your own

I stand on the gleaming rocks
and gaze out toward the pond.
I've been coming here for years now,
ever since I could throw
bread crusts to the mallards without
screaming and running away.

Across the lake are mansions
dripping with frosting and gumdrops,
but their pretention gets no heed.

I dream of inhabiting the island between us
that measures about six steps wide and just as far long.
There's a "no boating,
no fishing,
no swimming" sign to my left,
so I don't know how the dilapidated shack sits
between two steps and four, but I
want to sit there forever and
stare back at the people
who stand on the gleaming rocks
and stare out at me and
don't run away from the shrieking mallards
or the East Eggers on their gingerbread balconies
who rock back on their heels
and laugh at the show as birds
rip open their sandwiches
then turn to top off their schnappes.

I'd pay attention to that island, though.
I think it's made of breadcrumbs.

I don't own a boat,
fishing is useless,
and I'm too afraid to break the rules.
So I let the waves lap my feet
and convince myself that I'll come back
and do the deed at sundown,
even though I know I won't.

I'm laying in the ruins of my own new lifestyle.
Tipped over bottles of ***** aside,
I still feel okay.
I wonder if the world's crusted over pedestals still condescend to me
or if I have gone beyond their gaze.
There are little plastic fairy tales dancing around in my head like tipsy gumdrops.
What wonders shall spring from this:
(the new day,
the old day,
the ever increasingly frequented day)
except hangovers and light thoughts about how I'm handling this well,
I'm handling this extremely well.
Again.
I still feel okay as long as there is 80 proof to wake up to.

When she was but eight
And the world was kind
A winter struck world
Was a Snow Queen palace.

City buildings of crumbled brick
Under the scowl of a cumulus gaze
Were castles dusted with snowflakes
Like in her fairy tale book.

And the knot of **** choked
by the rusted iron fence
Was a magical beanstalk
That towered into the sky

Not impaled by cold gray metal
Or stifled by flakes of iron rot
Nor kneeled in a final prayer
Or in the last cry of a hungered beggar.

When she was but ten
And the world was still kind
She wore her hair in pigtails
That boys pulled for as she ran.

And she heard giggles
As she put on her new glasses to read the board
And wondered what the worth of sight meant
As much as any ten year old could.

But the cracked, ashen sidewalk
Was still a cobbled walkway
Leading to an enchanted forest of gumdrops
Like in her fairytale book.

When she was fourteen
And the world was more strange
She wore her mother’s makeup  
And the boy with dimples smiled at her.

And she tucked her glasses into her bag
Even though she couldn’t see
Along with her book of fairy tales
Because boys didn’t like girls who were smart.

When she was sixteen  
The world grew cold
And as was the instinct of lightning to strike
Was the spark of her tongue.

Crumpled papers slashed with red
And threats of a future looming meant nothing
Because of the boy next to her in the seat of his car
And the promises his smile held

But as the palm of his hand slid up her thigh
And she felt the lust in his soul roll off him
The beat of her heart spoke trepidation
But his smile reassured her and she succumbed.

When she was of twenty
And the world was one bleak
She held close to her chest the head of a babe
And rocked him gently as they cried in unison.

Papers scattered on a wooden table
In a room flickering with dying light
Asked for more than what they implied
And for more than what she could give.

And in the cold light of day snow fluttered past her window,
Fermented teardrops singed and bitter
The walkways on which they lay just broken sidewalks
The castles upon their touch crumbling to dust.

Chocolate soldiers wield peppermint sticks , guard the Duke and Duchess of Licorice Whips ..
Admiral Nougat Candy Company sails the ocean blue with a cargo full of candies made especially for you !! Bound for Cinnamon Beach on The Cocoa Islands , home of Marshmallow Trees and Butterscotch houses !  
Lemon drop dancers perform in sweet harmony with a Lollipop Choir and a Sugar Cookie Orchestra !  Sir Candy Cane and the Earl of Peanut Brittle , the Baron of Gumdrops , Lady Plum Pudding !
Queen Divinity reads a poem to her JellyRoll Kingdom while a Cupcake plays a tune on a Horehound Fiddle !

The Underground Man

“By the way, what does a decent chap talk about with  greatest possible pleasure?
Answer: about himself.”

Note one: On the Circus.

Lies are cars, I tell you, pummeling through the freeways of smiling faces and charmed ears.
Spitting smoke in my eyes. Despite this clear fact, honesty is *****.
I turn on the TV, I choke on the noxious laughing gases of the permanently paradoxical world.
******* smells of roses. We’re wooed by the scent of scandalous roses.
******* is a beautiful bouquet beating on so many dead horses. A million bouquet armed gadflies
Stinging the horse. Grating her with their stems and thorns.
Our lips contracts as sphincters in a never dead language, a romance language

L’amour du merde.

The air smells of rosebuds and vanilla candles, and I break into ulcers.

They sing the sugar songs. Muddled by the sound of a flock, imitating a fog-horn blaring in the mist of song. Speaking openly is **** and the **** clinch tightly to keep it in.
But we dance with bouquets reeking of peppermint, gumdrops and bon bons, smiling with courtesy, modernizing a Victorian cordiality
A half-made smile. Fetal. Sloppily pasted. Circus clown faces hysterically melting under the intensity of the honest moment.
It is truth: Half of the single human life is spent taking part in the most pornographic reality we can conceive, while the other half is a mask pretending we don’t grab the ***.

Note Two: We are an aftertaste.

Some days I feel ugly to the world. I justify these sensations by the believing the world to be ugly to me in return. So the world and I glare at one another in a staring contest between two ugly wounds. We’re really quite eager to bark the last word in a garbled string of language.

BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!!

Going on in the nights where my eyes are wracked by the tired pins and needles of insomnia.
My heart rate jumps to the skipping rope turned by anxiety and exertion.
Muscles are stretched thin and I’m no more fluid and wanted than old Play-Doh left to cringe in the sun.

Then the red glow of alarm clocks shriek at me to lie in sleep.

I’m a hammer split against a wall stored in a shanty hovel pooling of novels and slanders hissed through grit teeth and clenched jaws wading through this growing cesspool where I hiss and hiss as a coiled snake residing in these hidden underground passages.

I will be vile because the world is vile. And I will be beautiful for the world is beautiful. Humanity is the manticore. A Monster consisting of a million realities. A colour palette of melting hues and every person wants to say we’re pink, red, or green. We’re a mysterious aftertaste, left lingering in the back of nature’s tongue. A platypus walking on two legs. A monster with eyes leaking ****, with irises more alluring than Shakespearean Sonnets. An Angel with a lyre belting out the best of Bob Dylan. A mother leaving her newborn to rot in a dumpster.
And a doctor saying he ain’t gonna make it. Mama’***** the bottle cuz’ daddy’s comin home and daddy’s hittin’ mommy because look at what she made him do.

Humanity is a manticore. He gnashes her teeth at coiled snakes. He wants to swallow its eggs.
A bank machine to wallets, and creditors to pockets.
She’s crude and cold. He has eyes of atomic flashes, roar that wails an echoing wail of lives spent sighing behind a monitor. Tragedies piling into transcendence, gripping onto God with heads packed into ovens and daughter swallowing one pill too many.
Of wedding bells and birthday parties and strawberry shortcake and the hope we’ll just get together and feel all right. He has an underbelly glistening of ivory white, and she’s brimming with dreams filling with the hope of seeing Xanadu. A belly of ecstasy and climaxes of the most ruthless sort to glisten to the light of ****** that embers the night towards the ecstatic scent of chemical mornings.


The gravedigger.
I am the world’s gravedigger
Burying the world
In the needless disgust
Of a muscular mind, armed with an atrophied hand.

A moonlit room
fills with dreams
Dancing shadows
and shiny things

Colored clouds
finding shape
Truth and fantasy
sharing space

Flowers dance
with honey bees
Songs are heard
In willow trees

Candy wrappers
and lollipops
Telling jokes
to pink gumdrops

Golden ponies
run wild and free
as a little girl
sleeps peacefully

Conversations with
porcelain dolls
Simple thoughts
bounce off walls

Memories of
childhood yesterdays
Playing with minds
of molding clay

Sweet dreams fill
a pillow case
As smiles appear
on a sleeping face

richer than chocolate
sweeter than gumdrops
the glimmer in your eyes
tells me
I'll be fine

It tipped me off to the merry-go-round

under the smiling sun.

The gumdrops stained with honeydews

were taming them for fun.

You quivered under frosted light

just like a Christmas tree,

and twisted in a merry shape

with quiet harmony.

I cannot risk it being known,

however red I bleed,

that standing there before my soul's

exactly what I need.

And so I scribe this turnabout

with flick'ring eyes askew,

As snow falls on my eyelashes

I'm waiting here for you.

She leaned back on the black couch,
we merge like gumdrops melted and gnarled;
sticky with sweat, long legs in a nightgown,
the bridal gown she wears
uncertain of whose bride she is;
she struggles at playing chess with her feet,
I struggle with my hands,
look at me, I could never win,
but if she knew the toil I was in,
would she laugh?
She has always had a nice smile.

-Jamie F. Nugent

It was the night of the thundersnow,
Meteorological harpie normally reserved for our northern brethren.
She stood grimly at the window,
In wait for a dawn which would not come
Save for the odd light, the incongruous rumbling,
Mock forbearer of those easy languid evenings of August.
She'd made some noise approximating a sigh,
Then returned to undress,
I hurriedly unlacing my boots, removing my pants,
(My feigned nonchalance a foolish, pitiable thing)
And I remember her ******* as  oddly demure,
Her ******* bewitching gumdrops,
The triangle below her waist downy, almost kittenish.
I'd broken her maiden clumsily, eagerly, all unheeding haste.
We'd lain next to each other for a short while afterwards
(The schools already closed for the next day,
Her father recently gone to the boneyard on Ludlow Hill,
She soon to be shuttled off to some spinster aunt in Dillsboro.)
I'd nattered on about summer vacations and thens and laters;
She'd said little, simply studying me with the bemused half-smile
One saves for sad dreamers not intimate with the knowledge
That notions of tomorrow and forever are strictly for suckers,
And as I strolled home come mid-morning,
The sun implacably straddled the sky,
Leaving the sidewalks and shoulders of the road
Completely dry, as if the night before had been a thing
Of perhaps-only, of dreams and tales for a later time.

I too often
Feel like I am not living up to
What the world is offering me
Instead I'm settling
In my own comfortable reality
Too afraid
To cross the line
But I hear that on the other side,
There are clouds were rocks should be
The rain tastes like gumdrops
And everyone listens to your ideas
Maybe I'll see it someday
But for now,
I'll be here

Baby feet
like sugarplum gumdrops
Covered in sweetness
Only the tongue can describe

Enveloped in intrinsic tenderness
It can’t help but commit-
Akin to the kind of touch a mother holds
Her precious children with

Plush plush plush
Fluffy poodles and the smile of the old lady who sells
Candied strawberries on the street
Drizzled around the eyes of a kind maiden
Laden with tumultuous softness
That always welcomes embrace

With honey trapped in dimples
Skin smooth and supple
I sneak a nibble,
Sly and delicious
Simply nutritious
To my soul,
As it seeks this aura everywhere.

This does not mean
Weakness.
This can withstand
A million and one falls.

The echoing ripples of circles
In the pond of teardrops
Reserved for the world
And everyone in it
Seems to scan for you in a hopeful distance
Permeating constantly…

I’m merely a timid girl
Who fears rigidity and barriers
Desperate for a haven
Of feathers
Of warm rotund flesh
To retreat my head in

No matter how hard
I rub it the wrong way
It will never catch flame

And anger skips straight to a pensive forgiveness
That will continue to love and be my friend
Forevermore

For we do not keep scores
And we treasure scars
Silly enough to pick at scabs playfully
Taking the new ruggedness
Regarding it still:
Soft.
Plentiful,
With the mark of experience.