What goes on in my head?
The words start playing with themselves and I try
to make sense of the nonsense occupying what little space there is left.
It is so hard to explain what goes on, in, under, above, across
when all I want is a projectile through this skull.
Some nights, I'm as scared as you are.
The noise louder than panicking sirens as I cower
hoping it all stops
before it's too late,
before the worst
yet most relieving end.

But sometimes I grow as numb
as the people who think they know
a ******* thing
when they don't.
THEY DON'T.

3 AM is for studying ways to make death look like an accident
so I don't hurt anyone else after the process.
I cry my nonexistent heart and soul out
like I never do in broad daylight
while using neon highlighters
to mark exes on my throat, my wrists, my chest,
then put both blades out of reach.
I try to memorize the places where I shouldn't hurt myself.
But I am already bleeding everywhere.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

No one wants scars around their hearts because the hurt doesn't count
unless you're dressed up for death in a hospital gown
so that everyone sees it,
so that everyone ******* believes it.

I'm not stupid
just sick.
But, if life is a lesson
I quit.

I feel like fading ink
gushing dry on my pile of unread books.
And maybe all those
record stores, libraries, museums, cafés, lighthouses
and sunsets waiting for me
won't wait any longer when I'm gone.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

It's 3 AM again,
one day
I really am going to lose it.
But for the meantime,

I am tired.

I don't know how
long I could
keep fighting
this.

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

It's 3 AM again,
and again
and again
I'm sinking.

It's 3 AM again,
let the ghosts back in.

I am the gushing river's intent,

Somersaulting waterfall's

still moment, just before

it's touch down on the ground.

Blowing wind's sweet desire,

in it's core to carry pollen on and fertilize.

The upward ****** of the wave,

to touch the crust before the fall.

The lovers' cliff hanger moment

before the lips touch and

meld together in the first kiss.

The seed's yearning am I,

to break the crust and come out

to find a place in the sun

I imagined
   the end
        would be much worse
After a peace treaty
    muttered through clenched teeth
        the horrors would be revealed
And the carnage
    the dead
        the dead heaped hopelessly
            carelessly
                strewn in every place unimaginable
And the wounds of the wounded
        bleeding profusely
            gushing violent red
        festering foul-smelling yellow-orange pus
    wounds, that even when healed
            still ache
But this
        this
            this is manageable
A bullet straight through the chest
        clean
            sharp
                precise
                    shot by a professional
    so there is only one casualty
Only one heart impaired
Somehow this
        is better
An assassination before the war begins
And all hell breaks loose

The river has gone underground ,a cracked dry bed of a mouth
where the tongue lays bereft as a washed up fish on muddy banks
trying to breathe through gills, clogged with the very surrounding air ,no longer able to swim, just flap out its final strength until dead. This is the tongue of a poet who once sung from dawn till dusk, into the watches of the night, and found a delight in every small fountain gushing out the places so eagerly sought, and found in the wilderness, the oasis of song.
The clear spring of the river gushing from the great mystery of life, once more, just once more is all that's asked.

You found me bleeding
Oozing, gushing
You bandaged me
You tried to fix me

The old dog you
Left out in the rain

Expected to be better
Expected to heal
Expected to refrain

My guitar and pajama pants
Two of the few
Things that give me
A home
A pastime
A joy
An escape

The way you see it
I may have everything I need
But never
Can I ever
Be happy
Be content
Knowing
Seeing
And living
Without him
Without his voice in my ear
His hand in mine
His lips on my cheek

I am just  
The old dog you left out in the rain
The rebound
The fling

The depressed girl.

With silence he is crowned
And eyes which spilt eternities
The future he thinks
To hold the leash
And the past he covets

Beside the fire
It is his desire
To think of it
There is no sleep

And when the sun
Slits the horizon
the wound gushing on pale sky  
He squints bloodshot eyes
And he is alone
There is no sleep

A dream is a gushing rarity
Throbbing in explicable clarity.
It stretches the walls of imagination
To seamless leaps of pulsate stagnation.

It blows in a raging flight
Racing blindly upon each bend.
A prism to a faulty sight
To see  the beginning  from end.

It cuffs the voice of reason
And frees the mind from prison
To hover and graciously be blown
Forth vast wonderlands unknown.

It tricks the heart to please
And be happy in vanity.
That the sorrows  cease
And we awe in queer insanity.

My tornado thoughts
Spinning
Spinning
Spinning
Tearing ideas into
fragmented shrapnel
whipping around in the wind
one piece landing in my chest
the other miles away

My oil rig thoughts
Drilling
Drilling
Drilling
Diamond drill bits
sparkling yet damaging
ravaging the mantel
of my brain, hitting
a deep subconscious
oil pocket, black ooze
gushing out to the surface

My flint spark thoughts
Burning
Burning
Burning
One spark hitting
the kindling forest full
of dried pine needle worries
igniting an uncontrolled
wild fire, turning everything
into black ash

These untamed beasts
Clawing
Clawing
Clawing
my mind apart

Into our rooms, we scurry
into the comforts of chairs we can spin on,
screens we stare at for hours;
there is so much we have condensed
into the slight rhythmic movement of the wrist.
Only twenty years old and where have I come to,
on a desk with a jar of money beside Derrida
(with a cartoon where Plato instructs Socrates)
and the tattered pages of
Foucault, madness and civilisation -
those sick lepers ride a boat, which reminds me:
the Leith overflowed today, gushing
rushing into the harbour. I
looked out the window, imagining
it was Styx
and the ferryman had come to get me.

There is so much
artistry to it all, sometimes
it overwhelms me and I stutter
and remain silent for days;
the swirling air encloses
around; leafs tear,
wind flurries, shuffling shoes
shuffle shoefully
marbles that drop down stairs
knock knock
tick tock, tick tock
old Clock tower ding ****
ding, these clocks, Burns, don’t you get sick of them?
it is now time to begin
the lecture. Open
the rows
for late students.  I am definitely
going to be late today. Look, someone has inscribed
“you are the yellow bird I have been waiting for”
I feel great
Can we write our stories with passion today?
Can we speak to each other properly today?
Can we see the sky rupture today?
It’ll be like walking the beach at night
at sunset.

Oh, god
when will
I ever




Forgive me, forgive me, I was distracted
for a second there
with Lear’s fool who implores
“Give me an egg and I’ll give thee two crowns”
and the funny looking cat that stares at me through
the bathroom window.

A warped mirror perhaps?
My face always twisted,
always grimacing behind a dry beam.
Two Tylenols are never enough.

Ella.
A lump caught in my throat.  
Her scent walks by,
uninvited, yet welcomed.

A blurred outline,
a cutout blocking the light.
I yearn to sweat nightmares
out of my pores.

At night, her voice still fogs
the thick wall of silence—
muffled.
“Are you listening?”
Obscured echoes stir
down the pit of this endless night.

Tulips grow somewhere
on the side of the bed,
where it whirrs and beeps,
and reeks of alcohol.  
But the night is ever still,
unperturbed, as it sleeps in my arms.

Murmurs drift like dust motes,
caught in a sunbeam—

Ella.
I chase shadows of her laughter,
fading out against gushing white noise.  
Fingers twitch to speak,
for words are somehow
lost in static.

The walls hum a song,
croaking with hurt it sounds—
“Stay with me,” it pleads,
but my indifference swallows
the words.

In the spaces between breaths,
I linger suspended.
Ella might be digging me out.

The movement is so swift and natural, a drop of blood
A dark crimson splatter, the feelings subside.

I must move quickly
I must ebb the flow
it's gushing and flowing with such speed
such ferocity
I feel slowed.

But then I awaken
a horrid dream
it seems my sleep
is ruined again

No amount of pills will seem
to send me into graceful dreams
I hallucinate, while my living nightmares
glide about my room

Back to sleep I want to go!
I need to dream again!
I don't need someone to understand
I don't need someone to hold my hand
I don't have space for another in my heart
I don't need that pain again!
I don't need love again

sometimes I think of the night.
I cried so much over you
my eyelashes became crystalized, encrusted,
with salt.
an ocean just previously
gushing from within
my cavernous diaphragm.
I could pull it off with the tips of my fingers
touch it to my lip
taste the brine.
Forget-me-nots laden in my skin
shrieking memories
calloused thin.

she was thinking again
about the seams in her legs
the stitches
and weeping.
it terrified her
the blood gushing out
torn skin
the flavor of pain
her eyes were locked open
and she stared at the seams
tears pouring from her sewed-open eyes
she sits on her pile of ashes
her blood mixing
making a muddy paste
that crusts on her eyelashes
her bruised cuts growing on her flesh
opening
and reopening
maggots gnawing on her body
eating the remnants of flesh
and she stares.

They walk towards me in a line.
They are all wear black cloaks.
{I am asked: Do they have blood red eyes?}
They carry twisted red walking sticks and wear silver masks.
{I am told to call my dragon}
As they walk, they walk around me...
{They are moving on twisted blood, their intent is evil.}
{ Look behind and see what is in the distance}
I look past them to see a tiny white light.
I see water gushing at me but never does it touch me.
{This is a becoming right. do not run, you asked to be closer.}
Where I stand the faces gather closer and closer to me, then stepping back...
I hear no sound for there is none to hear.
{ I close my eyes and talk to dragon, I see them back away.}
I now see double circles on the black floor.
{What is your name in these circles?}
I see Raven Caller.
There is no voice to hear, I see it on the wind/air.
{Are you stronger or weaker here? Are you afraid?}
I feel strength, I feel pulling, my blood hot, being pulled, stinging. Where I am standing is a white very faded rose design.
{You can become the rose cross or penta rose}
The room is now half black and half white, but the white seems to be running like wet paint into the black
{Is there a name in your head you see/hear?}
Yes, Raven Caller
{Is there new symbols within the circles?}
A white heart and a black heart intertwined above the rose I stand on now shows clearly.
{You are bonded...}{RavenCaller}
(This is a dream state) ac

I touch your chest.
Scraping your skin off with my fingernails,
Layer by layer.
Meticulously.

I reach in.
Slowly snapping the bones back,
Rib by rib.

I watch you breathe.

This is the part I love,
Feeling your heartbeat.
It keeps perfect time.
The blood gushing, it's poetic even.

I take my finger, slightly pressed to the beat.
You're gorgeous like this.
Under the smallest push of my finger.

This won't be clean.
I wrap my hand around the source of it all.
I twist, tug, and pull.    You love it.

I take you in the palm of my hand.
Still beating, still vibrant, so beautiful.

I bring you to my lips, and I kiss you one last time.
I swear I can taste you in between my teeth, raw still.
And this time you stain my lips red.

These words aren’t about you.
They’re about the person I let rent space
inside my heart.
They’re about the times I wished I could go back
and say to them, “No it’s okay, you can stay longer
I don’t care if your payment is late."
Because having you there was enough.
But these words aren’t about you.
They’re for the person still hiding behind these drained eyes.
These shaking fingers.
These weak limbs.
And I’m still not sure which is better;
to feel everything at once or nothing at all.
Because sometimes it is both,
and you are the gushing waters drowning my lungs.
And sometimes it is neither,
and you are the words I wish I could take back.
We always left so many of them unsaid,
letting our bodies do the talking.
But now I wonder how many conversations
we’ve had with each other when we
thought we were asleep.

It's hard being the second choice,
if not third,
if not fourth.

It's not just something that I can easily get over with
It keeps repeating itself
And so does the thinking

It's not a light scratch to the heart,
It's a deep wound gushing out blood to no end
It's something you wouldn't even care about because that's not your priority,
It's not your first choice

Lately I've been feeling quite numb.
From the time I wake up until,
my head hits the pillow.
I want to call you, text you, miss you, think of you,
but, instead I feel numb.

I read all the poems I wrote for you.
Heart felt, deep, passion
gushing out of every single word scribbled, but,
tonight as I'm lying on my bed,
typing away on my Android I just feel numb.

I remember the long romantic conversations that lasted forever?
Words, feelings, thoughts came easily, but now we communicate via poems.
All I know is there's something missing, and it's not you.
All I want is to write another love poem.
But I can't cause I feel numb.

Pick them out
Like you’re picking a lock
And throw away the key
Once you’re inside
My brain, throbbing, uncertain
Panicked a bit
Tossing and turning
Before I walk to the fridge
Open it up, touch my eyes
Pick them out
Out of that zip-lock
They’re fresh, but not able
To see the light in your smile
Or the venom dripping off your canines
Why, dear, do you fail to announce yourself?
It’s not polite to lurk about so
In my mind, like a waterbed
You float beside me, liquid gushing
Places between us
You can’t have me forever
I’m meant for just now
Be happy with that or
Or, Or, Or,
You can just take my trash out with you
To the DMV or wherever you’re driving
You’re legal and willing
So pull to the curb when I scream blue and red
Show me credentials and I’ll let you flee
Go on then

I. nope.



II.
long-windedness verbosity
diffuseness prolixity
wordiness rambli­ng
circuity discursiveness
redundancy tautology
tediousness verbi­age
verboseness length
longevity permanence
garrulity windiness
v­olubility circumlocution
expansiveness babbling
periphrasis gushi­ng
blathering protractedness
waffling lengthiness
iteration repet­ition
prating prattling
jabbering digressiveness
dreariness tediu­m
deadliness wandering
repetitiousness repetitiveness
pleonasm co­nvolution
logorrhoea boringness
maundering superfluity
duplicatio­n tiresomeness
monotony reiteration
gabbiness informality
mouthin­ess diffusion
logorrhea wordage
blah-blah dryness
dullness boredo­m
sameness loquaciousness
talkativeness loquacity
freeness orotun­dity
roundaboutness breadth
gobbledegook gassiness
wittering mult­iloquence
perissology big mouth
gift of the gab garrulousness
staleness tallness

We blow ourselves away
Like blades of red grass
Gushing out of a lawnmower
After it's run over a neighbor's leg.

How dare you see if the prior verse
Was misread?

I'll have it be known
That unbeknownst
To you, whom this concerns,
That I'm of undecipherable wit
& pithy
Only known to the likes of
Your mother.

So leave me be,
Lest you'd enjoy a visit
To the infirmary.
I'll be better off without you
By my side,
Just leave me here alone.
Be gone so that I may begone,
As I lie down in tears to cry-
Beating down my fears,
O why won't they die?

As the tree overhead drips its leaves, I sit beneath
Squinting I raise my head as the sun arrows through my half closed lids
In the distance a beautiful figure in long purple attire, looking toward me
I can’t help but stare almost at once love and care abound –
This is the first time. no other  day or night has felt this good, ever
This can’t be true......
Gazing still I watch as she walks sedately, dark hair streaming
Heart thudding as a base drum, ears ringing with expectation
I keel over and lay on the green green grass breathless
Given up already I’m hit with such a gust of  her aura
Transfixed as she approaches, silently as a vision
Yet apparent and so real
Transported as she glides but  I am rooted here
I can’t lift my head yet I am floating high above the trees
Single emotions would be a luxury, but they multiply exploding within my feeble body
Making me a god of everything and a pauper at the same time, I reel
My mind is dragged along as completely as a fish hooked from a gushing stream
I want to look and see deep into her eyes as pools of light
I hear her breath and feel her presence,  all at once she’s here
In front of me and behind and above all over and around
Enwrapped in her I lapse into sleep although I already am?
Listless and with frailty I feel her hand as she reaches, soft as wings
An angel, my powers are sapped and yet strengthened with this encounter
A warm wrap encloses me, warm as a woollen blanket
Strangely I know where my destiny is,  suddenly  in my mind I’m there
If ever I was doubtful the slate is clean and my future shown as a story book
Ever real yet can life be this beautiful, I have no way of knowing?
Lifting me my arms seem just appendages loose and failing, my head lolling uselessly
She carries me and places me gently the swish of her robes intoxicating
Upon a bed of white so soft and inviting as clouds of cotton wool
I hear a whisper yet was that her voice, my eyes still tightly shut?
Her silky palm on my forehead and the same voice utters such perfect sound
The aroma of her I want to keep in my heart and release as  every morning breaks
I believe I am just born as new as new as new
More and more I feel so relaxed, complete and whole, my weaknesses mended
I want to look but am fearful  that she will just fade away
In this state I am blissful and almost unaware, gently, so gently, her lips touch mine
Opening my eyes I gasp with pure delight
It’s you, it’s real and it’s now.

You know how when you are eating oatmeal and it suddenly hits you that you are super full? You wanna finish it but you just can't.

And because of this, you sort of just take your spoon and mindlessly scoop up a heap of oatmeal only to then kinda twirl it around in your fingers and watch -mesmerized- anticipating the oatmeal's breach, its last hoorah over the edge of the spoon, like when you first chance a look past the warmly lit scaffolding of language, only to peer into a lidless unflinching abyss where the wires of "justice" or "truth" or "god" or "father" don't actually plug into anything really, dangling over a cliff to who-knows-where, and, after losing not only a staring contest but also meaning and purpose itself, you watch the oatmeal splat into your bowl?  

Well maybe it's not that melodramatic but you get me right?  You start to play with your food..

Well, that is kinda how I feel sometimes -- like unwanted excess oatmeal creeping over the edge of a spoon.  

I mean, not to sound annoyingly existential, but, really, what's the point?  I guess I could run that errand that I totally need to run but, ya know, entropy.

I mean I guess I could get out of bed and make something of myself but -really- I'm already half-dead.  I'm 32.  The average life expectancy for a male is 68.5 years old.  I am nearing that halfway mark, slowly but surely.  The bottom of the bowl awaits splat
  
That old saw plays over and over inside my head: we are all going to die; cease being here; away forever.  It is a mindfuck. We all pretty much have a preexisting condition of not-yet-dead --- and even with Obamacare that **** still will **** you dead.  

Read the fine print of life and you'll find: "um your molecules will start to **** soon, sorry"

Like an ocean tide, we come and go and no feelings will change that.  

The final It does not care - it just does, and then does not.

So, what's the point? Might as well say **** it..

But life.

But sunshine, a sudden warm glow of heat after the sun peers out from a passerby cloud amid a half-eaten blueberry sky. But the wonders of reflection, deep dives into the mind, delving, creative spurts gushing. But the rush of accomplishment of a simple stupid errand that you stupidly procrastinated over. But the big ******* to shoulda's when you get **** done. But the gradual respect of fear, not giving into it but not running away from it, facing up to it, going through it, letting it have it's say and do its worst, letting it teach you. But ***, really ******* good *** where you *** so ******* hard it makes you laugh out loud afterward cos you can't even believe that such a feeling could ever exist. But the being OK about the tears that don't come, that elusive big cry that as a child made you feel like a renewed self, purged from the fires of this strange new world you were still getting used to; and now made all better, brand new, scrubbed, ready to go again, ready to play. But the nostalgia from something as small as a smell, stabbing you so perfectly that you could swear you were back there.

Something phenomenal calls!
Its voice is like a gushing waterfall.
Endless continuums of percussions resound
The rhythm infiltrates my consciousness and my veins.
It becomes synchronized with my heart and brain.
I writhed like a woman in childbirth.
Struggling, I sought to cast out this rhythm and the source of this call.
I wanted to sit. I wanted to crawl.
I wanted to smash this thing against the wall.
Enduring until the sound dissipates.
Drenched and exhasuted, I wait.

Eternity is ike an endless mile.
Mortality is a second in a day.
A new dawn beckons.
As the rhytm crescendos,
I surrend to its beat.

I am a newborn on the stage of life.
Is this my scene to make as I wish?
I am a fish out of water drowning from air.
Yet an Oscar awaits the moment I participate.

The choices I make reflect on the past.
Who have I cast, but myself?
Constantly, I am prepared to tangle with each day.
Reaching out for help, I am pulled from the fray.

Like a rose that forgot to bloom,
I am struck with the onset of gloom.
Counting the years, I have left, can I make the deadline?
Fate screams, "Get in line!"
It is my turn to shine.
I have resolved that I just need to be me,
Be courageous, be open, be free.
Allow life's paths to converge.

The blinding light of life has turned green.
I am revved and ready,
To make my grandest scene!

Allow me to
Take you to
Another side of Linny where
Rustling papers and
Noisy staplers and
Grades and records are
Abundant in number and
Children speak and
Children listen.

This is she.
Calm and cool as water
Never breaking her dam
Despite our endless
Relentless questions and
Talking sessions
She is patience.

This is she.
A world of second chances
And in our English classes
Forever with
Grace on her lips
Grace on her fingertips
Speaking out
Breathing in
Grace.
She is grace.

This is she.
Understanding and knowing
When you are struggling
She is there helping
Because she knows
She knows what it's like
The students' life
Sleepless nights
Bottomless cups of coffee and milk tea
Sometime between midnight and half past three
Trying to finish up essays and submit projects on time
She is kindness.

This is she.
A flowing, gushing fountain of
Ideas, ideas, and ideas
She comes in with magic in her pockets
Sunshine in her hair
Excited to share
A part of her life
A part of her mind
With us
Wanting to unleash the
Artist in everyone she
Tries to squeeze out every ounce
Of imagination and creativity we have in us
She teaches us to think
To ask "Why?"
To question our surroundings
To be open to new things
To find answers
To learn and to live
And be more
Than we think we are.
She is art
She is inspiration
She is patience
She is grace
She is kindness
She is a blessing
She is
Ms. Linny.
Yes.
This is she.

Towers,
raining down tears and blood,
Showers,
raining burning steel,
a gushing flood.
Panicking people,
leaping to their deaths.
The only chance to find
a dousing rest.
Buried in the heap of ash,
the smoking pinnacles have crashed!

Oh, New York!
Mourning for your dead!
The flag's colors have run,
all have bled
into darkest scarlet,
deepest red!

Frightened Lady Liberty
had dropped her torch,
her harbors so badly scorched!
The dust pasted on each ghostly face,
the horrified, tear-stained
human race!

In a Pacific Ocean playground palace,
calm Alaskan waters--
but no comfort!
No hideaway
for this American daughter!

Thousands of miles away,
oh, New York City,
was I in a midst of serene sea,
yet longing,
longing to be home
nearer to thee!