im shaking a snow globe and all flakes are stuck to the bottom.
i can't make it snow inside.
the smiling statuettes are broken and there's a hairline crack that slashes across the glass.

it used to wind and play the lightest tinkling music
like a jewelry box my mom bought for me when she wanted me to be her girl.
that's all over now.
i think it got thrown in the trash years ago with my pink baby blanket and the arching ballerina doll.

i used to be someone's daughter.
i used to be a girl shook up in snow with music ringing in the background.
it's dead quiet now.

my thoughts are stuck to the bottom of my skull
and can't be shaken up and the music crank is jammed and my heart is a silent overture.

i don't want to be a girl
or a boy or a thing
with limbs.
and i don't want a girl or a boy
or a thing as fragile as those statuettes with fractured arms.

they're still smiling even though they aren't whole.
how do they hold their pose so completely?

ive never been much good at that so i just watch with admiration at the
art of the inanimate,

cracking a hairline smile that can't stir my eyes.

i don't think i can shake you any harder and i don't think i can unglue those tiny flakes. after all, that's the whole ******* point, isn't it?

what good is a snow globe that doesn't snow or a person that can't love or a daughter that isn't?

what good am i to anyone if i can't be whole or good or correct?
ive been playing at the art of the inanimate and
those eternal smiles and pointed ballerina toes.

i thought if i was quiet as a figurine--
i thought.
i thought.
i thought.

and I'm shaking
shaking
shaking

and nothing is coming unhinged.
there's no music.
the hairline crack has become
formidable.

I can't tell anyone still
because of the complications of
this grotesque girlhood and the *** that hangs suspended between us
so artificial and illuminated.
do you see it hanging there? or is it another thing
that can only be
and never act?

im getting better at this
art of the inanimate.
and this veneer of wholeness
and manufactured joy.

smooth down my body in poreless plastic and close all entryways to trespassers

and the womanhood that fast approaches can't find me and the selfish needs of limbs will be void
and the human desire to destroy everything it touches will be curbed
if just for a moment.

i want to destroy you with how much I want.
how much i want the snow to fall. how much I want to be baptized in the cold and kissed in a vacuum separate from the world.

our own dimension of mistakes and quiet
where both of us can practice the art of the inanimate
in peace.

i see you performing it too,
and your own hairline smile that cracks.

did you think i wouldn't notice?

i think the snow is coming loose.
i can feel it running down my cheeks.
and im smiling even though it feels wrong.

the thoughts are dusting over me and resting in my eyelashes.
i see them every time i blink.
she's gone and so is he and
there's more than i can count on all my fingers and toes
that have left.

my knuckles turn white.
my fingers tighten.
the world is glittering glass
that falls like the first snow.

The retainer where she was put
Was made of concrete. My father told me they had
Dug the grave first, then poured the concrete in, waited for
It to dry and harden, then hammered in six
Circular spikes in the four corners, two on either side
Of the middle. They lifted the concrete cast out with a crane.
My dad was going to be charged 300 dollars a day for the rental,
But because of the circumstances, Home Depot let us have it for free.

-

Where was she?
Where had she gone?
Would I see her face again?
Would she want me to
Meet her on the other side of the river?

-

I answered my cell phone.

"Make sure to bring flower's."
She had been crying. Her voice wavered the way sun light
Does on moving water.

"Make sure to bring flowers," she repeated, "And
That you wear what your father and I bought you."

I nodded my head with the receiver pressed up against my ear.
We both let out a sigh. My mom hung up. I put my phone in my back pocket.

-

Lately, I had been seeing a shrink about repetition. He liked to use the word cycle.

"Everything is repeated," I would tell him.

"Life is a cycle," he'd disagree so to get me talking.

"Can cycles be identical?"

"Technically not. Some cycles are extremely similar, but no two cycles are
Completely the same. Are two people's lives ever exactly the same?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't know that many people. Maybe."

"You know lots of people, Camden. You have told me about many of your friends."

"Are we talking about the seasons?" I asked, changing the subject, "Like fall, winter, spring, summer? We are born, we live, we die, and we are born again?"

"That's a very natural way of looking at it."

"I know it is." I inhaled deeply, swallowing air and wondered what time it was.

"If you are so sure, why look for validation from me?" He liked this one, I could
tell. I imagined him shopping for clothes and then exploding in aisle 16 because of a sale on jeans.

"The word cycle is used by people too afraid to use the word repetition. Everything is
Repeated for the next generation, the next group, the next of the next of the next. We shift things
Around, give things to one another to shift life to make it look different, but, things remain the same. Everything contains the primal function we were all doing and living from the very beginning, only now, there is more of a separation. Music is still music, words are still words, paintings are still paintings, love is still love, death is still death, only done differently and more intensely."

"We are talking about man furthering technology because we, as people and creatures, are
Statistically more prone to flee than fight?"

"Why do you think it has caught on so quick?" I touched both
Corners of my lips with my tongue and suddenly realized I hadn't eaten breakfast.

"It is a theory," the psych nodded, "A theory with, I am sure, many
Palpable facts you could make a very nice report with to prove...something." He
Was at a lost for words and I felt guilty that my mom was paying him $75 an hour.

"We are very split. There are too many of us. Too many hands spinning the china."

"Who is we Harry?" The psych hadn't looked up from his pen and pad of paper, until now. I could
Tell he was annoyed with me either because he was making no progress or because the session
Had just begun and I was already digging into him.

"Culture. The government. You, me, my dad, my mom, the taco bell cashier, the geniuses at Apple computers, a paper weight, my dead sister. We're all apart of these shifts, all putting in a certain amount of energy and lies to keep the protection of the projection going. The question I keep asking myself is: do I want to use my strengths to be apart of this cycle or not?"

His eyes flared open for a moment like he'd swallowed a firefly, not at the question I had posed for myself, but from what I would soon see was from the mention of my sister. He had something.

"I was notified by your mother that you may not want to talk about your recently deceased sister. Is It O.K. if I ask you some questions about her?"

I was leaning forward on the couch with my hands clasped in between my legs. The psych had looked up at me now. He was sweating at the top of his thin hairline. Observing that I was staring at his building perspiration, he, trying to be nonchalant, took out a thin, white napkin from his grey shirt pocket and dabbed the top of his head. The napkin looked like cheap toilet paper. I'd have offered him some water, but I had no water to give and I didn't know where the sink and cups were to give him any. I figured he did - it was his office - so I asked him for some. He pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I got up and found a stack of paper cups. I poured myself a cup and went back to the couch, but instead of leaning forward, I sat back, relaxed, and let the expensive leather couch take the weight I had been carrying away.

"So," the psych maintained cooly, "Would it be alright if we were able to discuss your sister?"

I lifted the paper cup over my head and the psych's eyes, after I poured the water over my hair, my face, and clothes, was a mixture of what my mom's eyes looked at the funeral, defeated, confused, and with a loss of faith and hope. My father's eyes had only held hate, anger and the need to lash out at someone, but the only someone that would have fit the bill would have been God.

"Sure," I answered, "Let's talk about my sister."

-

I finished drying myself in the car. The psych had let me keep the towel.
I leaned out the window to look at myself in the side mirror. I looked fine.
Presentable. Accountable. Like I had been through something where I had
Faced my soul. Like I had used and abused my emotions. There was comb in my glove compartment, so I took it out and rushed it through my damp hair. Slicked back. The sun
Was out, no clouds, burning up the inside of my car. That taste that comes after
Finishing something that's supposed to do you good didn't come. I was left with an unsure hand.
Putting my keys in the ignition, I turned them, and felt the engine rumble in front of my legs.
The sun sat in the sky like a lazy hand and I had nowhere else to go but home.

-

"Let's go to the river today," my dad said over coffee and two over easy eggs on top
Of burnt wheat toast. "I'll drive and you and your sister can sit in the back and sing."

I looked over at Ally. She was gazing into her fruit bowl she had prepared for
herself because dad didn't understand the concept or how to make it. The lamp light above us
reflected in the smooth apricot yogurt and the flecks of granola scattered on top
looked like beige, jagged rocks. My dad's offer hung in the air and neither
of us bit the lure. I had just woken up and was unable to speak clearly, a decent
excuse. Ally was simply choosing to ignore him.

"What you think there Ally?" I asked her. I sipped my coffee. It needed more cream. I got
U, got it and brought the carton to the table.

"We can take the truck down there and load the back with the fishing poles and tackle
And inner tubes. We haven't...done that...in a long time," he said, chewing his food as he spoke.

Ally poked her fruit bowl with her spoon, silent.

"What you think, Cam?" My dad was desperate. He knew I'd say yes.

"Sure. I've got no plans this weekend."

"No schoolwork?"

"It can wait till Sunday. Only math and some reading."

"Ally, what do you think?" my dad asked, leaning over to her. I could see he was
Trying to be as courteous and gentle with her as he knew how to. I felt bad for him.

"Sure," she muttered, "That sounds like fun." I could barely hear her, but somehow,
I could tell she sounded happy.

"Perfect," my dad smiled, "We'll pack the car up Friday,
Drive up Saturday morning early, camp one night, then get back Sunday afternoon." He
Took a long sip of his coffee and swished it around in his mouth, then dug
His fork into the dry toast and ran his small steak knife over the eggs. A silent pop came from
The egg and the light orange yolk spilled out. "Perfect," he repeated, "Just great."

Ally poked a grape from her fruit bowl and dipped it into the yogurt.
I took another sip of my coffee and looked up into the fan, spinning above us.
We were going to the river.

-

"Your sister turns five today," my mom told me, "And that means
I want you to be on your best behavior."

I nodded, unsure what the point of a birthday was. I had had one before, or at
least I thought I did, and all I remembered was that I got presents and the colorful balloons
and the cake we all ate with fire kind of floating and burning above it. Somewhere
in that moment I remember thinking that the cake was going to catch on fire, then they, everyone,
some that I knew and some people I had never seen before, yelled and shouted to
blow the fire out, so I quickly did, but not because it was for a wish, which I later found out it was supposed to be for, but because I truly thought the cake was going to catch fire and they wanted me to take care of it. At that point, I was unsure what it meant to be alive or why to celebrate it all.

"This is her day, Camden," my father told me, "So I want you to be happy for your sister."

"I am," I said. I was wearing my favorite white and blue striped t-shirt and
New shoes that my mom had bought me for the party.

"Sometimes you have to think of other people," my mother continued, "And today is one
of those days. I don't want any crying because you didn't get any presents or that none of your
friends are at the party. There are going to be a lot of Ally's friends there, but not many
of your's...do you understand?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Do you understand, Cam?" My father repeated. His skin was the color of a burnt
pancake and he smelt like stale sugar and sun tan lotion. He was in front of me and was
holding a thin magazine with a man in a boat holding up a fish on a line on the cover.  

"Yes, Dad," I said again. I was hungry. I wanted mac n' cheese, my favorite food.

I had been on the floor, laying on my stomach watching Ren and Stimpy. They were standing in front of the television and I remember trying to wish them out of the way. Behind them were two, large bay windows where three palm trees stood in a row like tropical soldiers. I could see there was no wind because the three of them stood still, as if posing for someone. Their leaves were bright green, a mixture of the neon green Jello I used to love to eat and the orange Jolly Rancher my dad would always have in a tiny tray in the middle of the dining table. My mother hated having them there because it always tempted Ally and I, but he never moved it until he moved out.

"Do you like your show?" my mom asked, turning to see what I was watching.

I nodded, absently. Ren was licking Stimpy's eye because he was complaining about having
an eyelash in there. Stimpy was completely still and smiling like he does - dumb and content.

"Interesting..." my mother trailed off. She walked to the kitchen behind the couch and
Opened up the pantry for something. "You hungry, Camden?"

"I'm starving," my dad said, "Let me go check on Ally in the bedroom. She should be up
from her nap."

I got up from my stomach and sat back on my legs, "Do we have mac n' cheese?" I asked.

"Let me check."

She reached up for the cabinet over the stove where I could never reach and
Opened it. I rose slightly up from where I was sitting to see if I could see the glorious dark blue and orange package, but wasn't able to see over couch. I hovered there, still like a humming bird.

"You're in luck," I heard her say, "We've got one box left."

"Yay!" I screamed and got up, running into the kitchen.

"But," she smiled, stopping me, "You'll have to share it with your sister."

"No! I don't want to! I always have to share."

"What did we just talk about Camden?" she said, lightly stamping her foot.

I tried to remember, but couldn't. I shrugged.

"You need to learn to share, Camden. You also need to listen better when your father and I are talking to you. You and your sister are going to know each other a very long time and I want you to learn how to share now, so you two can be happy in the future."

"The future," I asked, "What's that?"

She paused, then said, "It's a time," she paused again, "Ahead of us."

"Do we know where it is?"

"Not exactly," she sighed.

"What's it look like?"

"No one really knows. People can only imagine it."

"Is it very far away?"

She opened the top of the blue and orange mac n' cheese box and poured the dry macaroni into a large silver ***, lifted the faucet, and let it run inside for five or seven seconds. She placed the *** on an unlit burner and turned to look at me. Her eyes looked far away and right there with me.  

"Closer then you think," she said and turned the burner on.

-

I turned into the taco bell parking lot. There was something I was trying to remember that was in my trunk, but I couldn't recall the picture. A haze blew over the windshield that was a mix of heat and wind; I wished to be somewhere else, someone else, someplace else, but, there I was, sitting there underneath the sun, like everyone else. If I was able, I would have unlocked the door to my car and opened the door and walked out - but - there was something else lingering underneath my fingernails, something I couldn't name.

"Two tacos," I said into my hand, "And a water."

"Pull to the window," the voice buzzed over the muffled speaker.

"Yes," I said through my split fingers.

In front of me, over a patch of clean cut green grass and a yellow, red, and orange Taco Bell signature sign, was a fresh gas station with a willow tree *** near the front entrance. He had a sign that hung around his neck that read Juice Please - Very Thirsty. How I knew this was because I had seen it every time I had been asked to fill up my dad's car every other Sunday. I had never given the tree a dollar, yet, I felt that I owed him something. I tried to pull up to the window, but my clutch was grinding and a cloud slunk overhead. I was tired and only wanted to eat.

"That'll be a two twenty-five," the voice said through the thick, clear glass.

"Yes," I said to myself, digging into my wallet for three dollars.

I ****** the three onto the thick plastic platform. A quick sweeping plastic brush pushed the bills toward the asker, and the bills were gone. I had no food. I had nothing. My money was gone and all I had was a gurgling car in front of me and an empty front seat beside me. A pair of clouds waded by my front shield window. A shadow drew itself out in front of me like a **** model. A beep. Sudden and behind me. There was sound. I looked over my shoulder and a black  2013 Cadillac was sitting there, windshield tinted grey, the driver a shadow. I was unsure what to do...so I pulled forward six inches, hoping the offer would be enough. I wasn't in the best neighborhood.

The window to the left of me slid open. An arm erupted forward with a plastic bag,
"75 cents is your change."

The hand dropped three quarters next to the plastic bag. I grabbed the bag with the two tacos and three quarters and quickly wound up my window. The face in front of me was a dangerous blur: smiling, frowning, not caring either way what happened to me next. The hands had gobbled up the three dollars and I was happy to see it go. Who needed money? I tossed the plastic bag onto the passenger seat and sped off two blocks for my grandma's house. Salvation. The holy land. A place with free hot sauce and two dog's that were stolen without paper's. Eden.

-

"What are you learning right now?" I asked Ally.

She hesitated, then said, "Something to do with science." She paused," Lot's to do with rock's."

"Rocks?" I stammered, not remembering a time when I learned about rocks in school, "What kind of rocks?"

"I don't know," she grinned, looking up at me, "All kinds."

I laughed and kicked a stone into the river. The sun was out and reflected on the water like an unpolished diamond. We had grown up a quarter mile away, but still, it felt foreign to us.

"I like it. There's some things you could see that you would never think to read about it in books."

I had read plenty off books. Most, I took little from, but Ally, I could see, had taken plenty.

"What are you doing in school?" Ally asked me.

"What do you mean?" I

the surgical procedure required to probe into your
skull is way too difficult for me. how difficult is it to
learn how to examine the thoughts you conjure up,
like arithmetic or magic. the stem cutters to pull the
dead roots out of you are dull, like the color of dead
coral or fishes that don't see sunlight. maybe the fishes
just don't swim to the surface too often. if i would have
seen your arsenal and armory before i dedicated every
inch of my pointless existence of a heart to you, every
hour of my life wouldn't hold disdain and regret for you.
the only difference between us and a car crash was that
the shrapnel and glass was our shattered memories.
the hairline fractures that are burned into my wrist's bones
have turned into full blown fragments eradicated from the
ligaments. i've seen fall, winter, spring, and summer meet
all in the same day because of you. you are an impossible
calculation, a lobotomy no pet scanner can recognize.

- kra

Got a heart with a hairline fracture, every beat making it break faster.
Pain spreading like a growing vine,
pulling like the string around my heart, twine.

Got a brain with a minor clot,
that can only be solved with a single shot.
Pain pushing like an unborn child,
working it's way through the system,
making me wild.

Got a hand with arthritis,
means I don't have the touch of gold like King Midas.
Pain aching like an old widow's heart,
never mending, completely sharp.

Got a life that's all messed up,
like the remnants of a shattered cup.
Pain stepping like a high heeled girl,
thinking she owns the world.

With all these things I still manage to have you,
a love with bipolar disorder.
Another thing ripping through my aorta.
Pain scolding like hot oil does the flesh,
how'd everything become such a mess?

Doctor's give me a week to live,
as I think of people to forgive.
Guilt springing up like a daisy bed,
something in need of weeding before I'm dead.

Faces flashing in and out,
my mind a flowing spout.
Drifting off to sleep, to faint clicks,
the sound of your heels in my mind just sticks.
Waking up to your face,
put my heart in a strange place.

When I received the sorrowful news,
all I could think of was telling you.
You, who changes your mind twice as often as the seasons,
for which you give very few reasons.

Love expanding like my last breath,
consumed with you and with my death.
Sensing your words as I fade away,
begging me to please stay.

She's a hurricane,
A billowing chaos.
Streets away, you'll hear
The howls at her presence.
For miles you'll feel the air
Choke up.

Girl's dynamic in ways
Unique to this world.
Prominent in a way
I'll never be.

She's a tense muscle
That never relaxes;
A gun with a hairline trigger.
Longs for affection
And intimate hands
But shrinks away
In times of crisis.

For her, everything's a crisis.

Found her on the floor one night,
Lips blue,
Arm belted,
And the voice beyond the veil
Gargling in her throat.
She told me it was nothingness.

Certainly sounded like nothing good.

I've never known a darkness like hers,
Not really.
I don't think she's ever known my peace.

Not really.

"Hey, how are you you doing?"

"I'm doing okay..."

I'm okay because I cannot describe all the different ways I'm feeling apathetic.
And I give you that smile that hides all the hairline fractures in my heart.

Every wonderful longing is swallowed alive,
I'm transcending my emotional capacity to live and love.
All my cheer is shallow and without substance,
Naught more than a cooked marshmallow:
Sweet and crisp without any nourishment.

My wretched self allows me to suffer thus.
Isolated when never alone,
Alone when in true love,
Irreversibly broken,
Choking on my frozen dust.

The hands on a clock
are only in sync
twenty-four times a day.
The hands spend one thousand, four hundred, sixteen
minutes a day
racing around the clock,
trying to be together.
The arms on a clock,
like the arms of a son,
do not always mask one another.
Arms on a clock never leave.
Nature’s clock can tell time and kiss fathers’ foreheads
just long enough to leave a spot.
Around the sun-kissed spot is a receding hairline
and wicked-sharp eyebrows a mile away,
just above the dark eyes and weak smile.

Over time, history repeats.

Who knew that just a strong bond could create such similarity?
Soon, the same dark eyes will be found
just to the right,
below a receding hairline;
a replica of December, 1995.
The problem with dates
is that they are in the past
and the strings of time
that hold such father-son relationships together
fray until the ropes of hope
can no longer be held
on both ends.

and
       just like that
I am falling
unfolding in your eyes
layers of shadows unraveling
in polar-laced
              spirals of hunger
deep freeze melting upon tongue
an icy build-up
thawed in seconds
for my very cells burn
          beneath your gaze
as you take in the fullness
                 of my presence
     despite the smoky,
glass-paned haze
My presence-
     suffused with
          the darkness of silk-
          I want it to graze your skin
the most gentle feather
  stroking emotion
       coaxing out the
        delicately-wrapped
          firestones in you
           spinning them into    
a frenzied lava-slaked ocean
     and then those unexplained,
flurried lattice flakes
that somehow soothe and cool
within this inferno
of just-missed proximity

My essence
             is cast like a net
over you
as we dive into
         the volumes
as I pull the
heated visions out of your mind
             feel your heart's closest
  most tiny reverberations
           little beats barely heard
yet in some unlikely way
pump blood into mine
Undo me
as my wet blue pools
dissolve into yours
my trussed-up implosions
flowing out in air-spun tempest
Unwrap my defenses
          a soldered-up dam breaking
                 a glass tubular bell
                   hairline fracture quaking
Strip me bare
no need to even touch me
for the vapors of
your voice
remove the layers
of debris
like the steam of earth
irons out
the blackened quilt of sky
to reveal
the altar
           of our
stars

these thoughts...
they are my own,
walled within the deepest recesses
of my
cerebral labyrinth.

sprouting out of vine covered walls,
are multicoloured blooms
brandishing thorned stems
and
thirsty stigmas,
dripping with
absinthe.

mind full of poison in
permissible amounts...
i am caught in a
web of restless stupor,
anguish...
and regression...

these thoughts...
rationed out sparingly,
for they're not for unready ears
blooms of thought meticulously
triaged before
necessary expulsion.

hairline cracks between
insanity
and peace...
i tread precariously
the fine,
meandering line.

still clutching my flowers
in a tight obstinate grasp...
not letting go
for these tainted blossoms
are
undoubtedly
mine.

My mirror's broken.
I want a new one with You've Made It
spelled in lights across the top.

I want the holograms
of tiny clapping hands inlaid
along its sides -
applauding when I give the nod.

I'd like a slight distortion, looking
younger, better kept ideally;
so I see me but
with all this potential in repose.

It should say I Love You somehow -
any time, whatever state,
for simply being there.

I would stare and I would stare
from follicle to freckle, plotting
every facet of the features
glaring back at

mine, mine, mine. I want
to share myself with something.
Let me care completely
for some imperfect reflection.

My mirror isn't cracked or
anything like that it's just I can't
quite catch the little twitches
twinkling my eye.

TURN OF THE SEASON

For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees,
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled it hides in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old-
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays
And April effortlessly falls into May

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
Slowly trudging through the paces
Slowly they tighten their laces

And set out for another monotony dipped day

Planting their ears to the ground listening
And many things they'll hear and say
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening
And their lovers will whisper are you listening
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here"

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
And they'll make many a plan and in cases
And step over cracks in fear of dark places


The clink of a glass carries on down the hall
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call"
And they'll retort "for what reason"
And he "none at all"
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall
And summer slips effortlessly into fall

What reasons can they make when the night is through
When it's time to wake what will they do

As the days retreat with their hairline
And each mirror more distortive than the last
They'll retreat further, further into their mind
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast
A desperate thought floating in the breeze
A candle to thaw the freeze


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb
Trying arduously to abandon actuality
But failing and jumping the curb

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid"
"They've gone to the races"
Each two lovers in two different places

Rest assured rest assured they'll return
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom
Rest assured rest assured they'll return
At this moment they are Carpe Diem

Rest assured rest assured
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture
Plenty of time
To spend with her
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give
Now's to go slow not make haste
Now's to go slow and live


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss
And where their feet stood
And what they missed
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be


So, before you grow old
And wilt away
And the December cold
Melts the summer’s day
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy
...


Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
And bards’ men song
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête

No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus
Who instigated the apogee of Athens
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted
Won a few
Others busted
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering
I've lived like Cummings
The farthest extent of emotions
I've kept a drug induced devotion
But never could I stop from wondering
Never could cease sundering

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static
And the only sound a high tinnitus pitch
They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use

Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...



They're troubled tonight
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-

To have
To have not

To operate in the probity of normality
To practice trembling sobriety
To lose an arm for the ones you love
To have in heart the morning dove,

Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion
...

The very next morning
Or so it would seem
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream

Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard

"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes

Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"

Intolerable mornings of required communion
Accompanied with formulated phrases
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table
Breathing the memory becomes stable
They hold on to it as long as they are able
Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center
Across the room mother enters
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble
"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"

The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.

I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways
If only I could grasp youth for longer
If only my frail body were stronger

If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence
Opposed to openness
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness
...

Shaking off the foreboding dream
A distant luminary seemed to gleam
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud

"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter
My meaning is lost under soft mutters

My smile shields my solemnness
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness
But refuse to possess helplessness

I am as I decree
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission
Just one in a transition

I have tasted the bitters of love
Witnessed the horrors of death
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath

No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent

I'm dying not dead
No resolving to expiration
Living instead
No meeting expectation
No bowing my head

In credence I say
I'm living for today

No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow"

...


The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the lucky ones heaved their load.

"He was not an exceptional man

Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.

To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"
Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan

We climbed from bedrock
to Idyllwild the home
of Pines to Palms
and Suicide Rocks
but not for us
only for those
poor tired souls
for whom the world's gone
flat
refusing
the night threw
itself boldly into the fray
of winds which blew
from storm to calm

so this morning we awoke
to a placid knap
slipping on snowy piste
to turn cold snaps
hot
spiced Nepali tea
sipped from ice
nipped cups
I see promise
picks up

from backward leaps
time forward flips
breaking free range igneous
into pan
piped sizzling
congenial song
that carries on the tree line
like spring
water sprung from
creeks to go scurrying off
with wet socks
until pulled up
by old school granite skies
hanging pools out to dry
in sopping blue rinsed sun

ahead any bald rocks
or hairline fractures
are long since dialled in
as baseless fears
knowing this mobile age
can merrily slip like air
through numb fingers
while baseline hands declare
“hold me close to gather”
edelweiss echoes gone
rappelling through time
the route we've chosen's
to be tied to each other's
peaks in the way of sun
and moon

come what may
be it creases in our skin
or crevasses
we'll win the battle to slim line
any overhanging ridges
so I take care to tighten
my girth hitch to top notch
and hold firmly
to both your conviction
and reach

that setting
out to move mountains
we call home
achieves more than
staying home
and calling mountains

so bright
you have me forget
all things too trite
banal office hype
shopworn old hat
mowing lawn weekends
too dishy to be clichéd

you polish off the stereotype
slam the Dior on out of shape
and dull as ditchwater tripe
keeping a victorious secret
or two in the slip knot
too tranquil shade
taking allure to new heights
we'll never drop
down from
tonight

I can’t stand that I can’t understand
Why my heart heaved its contents into your content hands,
Tearstains dripping through my fingers as we [danced].
I remember the days I’d [collapse] in crowded streets,
Because my heart would [skip] too many beats.
Then you’d [spin me], kiss my cheeks and whisper
Something sweet about my [feet’s] defeat.
But I knew then that I couldn’t [keep rhythm],
So I must’ve suffered from heart failure.

And once you left in October, and my soul was sober
Not drunk on my tears,
I would wonder what could’ve persuaded you to stay,
But once my heart attempted a [pirouette]
I no longer questioned my place.
.. I don’t know if you watched after that,
But I’m sure you saw the {snowprints} I’d leave in your yard,
My only way of telling you that I hated being my own {saving grace},
Because a {fallen angel} drops too hard.

But icicles hung from your eyelids that winter,
And splintered your vision.
Looking back, I believe you cried as much as I did,
And the tears froze across your eyes.
Because you never looked me in the eye as our minds ran to pieces
As we raced to find peace with ourselves.

You spun me for a loop,
My skull kissing paintball splattered remains of my left and right brain
As they bled all over themselves,
Knocking my sanity off of the shelves
In an attempt to explain whether love is history,
Or chemistry,
And I didn’t want to ponder the prospects
So paper was my band-aid fix all.
I wrapped my mind around it,
Concealed my soul beneath my words,
Until I was my own mummified form,
Too afraid to rip them off.
Because what if nothing had healed at all?
I rotted beneath my façade.
My smiley face band-aids the only hands of happiness that hugged me for
Months,
And I
Sunk
Into depression,
Not unlike this current recession,
Not knowing where my silver lining would be;
Wondering if it would come only when withered lines worked their way across my cheeks,
A gray hairline visible in the sun,
As proof my time had come,
To be happy.

But something better came sooner with the rains of May,
And a new boy painted smiles back onto my face.
Removing the bandages that had bruised my body,
And punctured the skin of my poetry.
So I was free to bleed again,
With fresh pieces to breathe in.

Was it happiness, or freedom that flushed my cheeks?
Or was it the uncomfortable spider that would weave my stomach in knots
As another part of me was lost
To the boy who painted my peace
For a price?

I didn’t mean to hand so much to him, love,
But a measure of pleasure came with a cost,
And at some point my beliefs were tossed to scatter in the wind,
And the spider of guilt in my stomach sunk its teeth right in,
Sadness seeping through my veins,
The venom of regret.

Because you were the only one who ever held all of me and none of me at the same time,
Who never asked for what I claimed to be mine.
All of me was yours,
Even the things you never asked for
Were stamped with your name for a future date.
But mail gets intercepted sometimes,
And my contents were spread
Before someone I hardly knew
And I-
Missed-
You…

Because you never asked for too much to touch or too much of my love
I loved you the only way I was able to.
And now…
I’m just a tainted tin can on the side of the street.
And I know you don’t have use for me,
But I’ll do my best to undo the dents of my past.
All I know is that yesterday you told me you hate it when I don’t say what’s on my mind.
But my tongue was a sponge that soaked up the ways that I’ve wanted to say
That I’m sorry.

And I’ve skipped my own beats for a year and a half,
Letting my turn to tell you I yearn for you pass
Right over
In an endless drum roll.
But-
I feel a –rhythmic- rattle-
In my –beaten-aluminum-body
As your footsteps
[Stop].
Please.
Don’t let me suffer for my heart failure.

Casts, Braces Or Slings

Night or day blend into one, windows blacked out, limit all doubt
Holding back hurt, mental game to disguise deep pain
Knowing others DO feel like me but they are not here to see, that philosophy hold lots of clout

        Here in my room
Soon to test the limits of my soul, Life WITHOUT GRIEF major relief
Tomorrow's mystery will be if I Capture a fracture, closed, open, hairline, new day await another X-ray
...............Breaking Bones........
                                                                                                                    
Backed into a corner hiding behind the light, unlike many I hold back over bearing internal fright
She will soon be throwing her stones, Loss of air, SCREAM of death
Who will I be when I awake, nervous neurons playing foresee my fate

Here in my room
Soon to test the limits of my soul, Life WITHOUT GRIEF major relief
Tomorrow's mystery will be if I Capture a fracture, closed, open, hairline, new day await another X-ray
...............Breaking Bones........

My room, a bed, became a padded throne, revolving time has no zone
Longing to lumber or to be put under, past flashbacks of TWISTING my lumbar
Mystique of fate hangs like a black or gold gate, which entrance or exit always an unknown

Here in my room
Soon to test the limits of my soul, Life WITHOUT GRIEF major relief
Tomorrow's mystery will be if I Capture a fracture, closed, open, hairline, new day await another X-ray
...............Breaking Bones........

Have we held the door closed to long, blind to the good adjusting too easily with the wrong
Unexplored outside grows larger while the walls closing in make a room smaller, do we give up or call the queen of hearts on her bluff?
Have the number of bumps or bruises increased over time? Has age just showed me I am not as strong?
Many gambles as we ramble, move forward into wicked wind, are we failing to foresee a fine future or blinded by hate without feeling love

Here in my room
Soon to test the limits of my soul, Life WITHOUT GRIEF major relief
Tomorrow's mystery will be if I Capture a fracture, closed, open, hairline, new day await another X-ray
...............Breaking Bones........

I like being underwater because it reminds me
of a different world.
Like the rim of the atmosphere, or the inside of a womb
where everything is slippery, even the past, and all
I can remember is the air in my lungs.

I like being underwater because it reminds me
of when you held me above the water as a child
that time we walked too far past the ******* and could no longer touch.
You hoisted me up on the hips that birthed me and  
beatering your legs you struggled, your hairline trimming the surface
so I could breathe.  And when we finally swam back onto the ridge you panted to the rhythm of the waves.  Looked down at me and smiled,
“That was fun, wasn’t it?”

Fingers interlocked on the way home down the beach, where
bare feet walk on wet handlebars in the morning and footprints are flooded at night by the moon.  The ability to erase but mostly

I like being underwater because I am made of water. And so are you.
And the ocean surrounds me with the salt of your last breath
felt stroking my cheek with weak, small hands waving goodbye.  

You were so small and
the water is so big, yet when I’m under,
all I feel is you.

"I know your vexed great spirit, miles away, a gentler more playful you thrives on a journey of life. There among a ridge, the plateau where you dance, leaping, ripping yourself out of the air,escaping towards the light. Free from the weight which chastises and locks you up. Out of the medicine cabinet quaffing your deepest breaths, urging your hours shorter and shorter. You cascade like glass buttons scattered on the desert floor, let those wet cloths be forgotten, may your sorrow disappear amidst that great arenose simoom.  When the ghibli makes you stutter before the bright outlook you once displayed, do not forget to visit the flowers that bring you the most  peace of mind"------------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------ It's here. In the pile-ons, wrapping around your head like a cool, wet bandage, keeping out a headache, or the rancorous guilt of an ugly night. It sits on the top-layer of your forehead, beading off in fresh droplets of self-pity, uncomfortable and self-defeating restlessness and despair. I rub it with my hands, removed each new wave of desperation and soothing your hairline with a swath of my hand. I raise up, your cucumber colored walls, that bright pink bedspread, nothing different ever changes. The masonite paintings still there, that old familiar **** carpet, a thatch-work of menage-a-tois and fifth grade-style arts and crafts. The light bulb has been out for six years, third drawer right-side down is still stuck, a mystical blow dryer blocks it closed, and the door won't ever quite close- I take a shower with the world wide opened and you trailing a fastening steep. And so your fever rises, your feet soak in a tepid iron clad bed frame while your mind rattles against your skull. Thirty days have past, lifeless, echoing in this wicked upstairs chamber. The West Wing. Slatted blinds, the white dresser, the Chanel books, the pool party photos, the blue swim-meet t-shirts, the fake gold trophies and the true gold hairs on your head, my fingers dash across your forehead again meeting your brow with the cool folded washcloth, I reach for your back and you turn, slightly rolling; something routine, unsteadied, even wicked limps in a stress ball inside your bottom lip. It's just a quiver. Nothing different ever changes. It's the devil inside, and I am nowhere to go. Maybe midnight or maybe twilight. Every hour of morning is another hour of night I'm ever taking my sleep back into. I don't count the days, just mark them in the thoughts of worry that flurry through in brief thoughts. I am obsessed with care-taking now. Three hours have passed since I showered you out of your black party dress and sparkly Gucci slip-skirt, since I took bits of post-digested food from your hair, held your nose with a tissue and told you to blow it all out, again, another night of building a sick room and sauna. I never tire, I just make arrangements, I build a small room and I wait the weight out. Nothing different ever changes, and I don't expect the unexpected or dare to meet your smile again.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------ Three months ago, thrifting on Valencia and 26th Street. Walking from Blue Bottle to the Bay then to the Breakers. I climb atop A Buena Vista with man Adam, you scale a mountain-sized hill with your teal green and cherry red Nikes. We make a photograph in front of white dogwood blossoms overlooking a steep Ravine to the East. A bird chirps, a homeless woman barks, and four children smoke cigarettes and joints in a treetop. Every ***** goes up and down, each footstep dithering amidst our biduous ascent. I buried you last Thursday beneath the dogwood, your cherry red and teal green gym shoes planted at your doggerel.

It’s been a decade and a half that I haven’t returned back to my little home in that far away magical place. Fifteen years- exploring and travelling through the world. It was always my dream, ever since I was a young boy. Living this life is lonely. No one ever belongs to me, nor do I ever belong to anyone. Seeing a million things is marvelous, but it could be twice as marvelous with a companion to express the feelings over instead of my usual, battered black log book that never talked back but was filled with entries from all over the world. One day, I’ll publish it.

I guess the fact that I was always alone was the reason why the little home and my little mother that I use to take for granted became more and more part of me as I stayed away. The land, the gently curving hills and glassy lake grew clearer and clearer in my mind until sometimes, it was all I could see when I shut my eyes at night after a long day of work. Sometimes I would smell the soap on mothers’ skin acutely and played her voice in my head like a radio.
A blur of bright brown eyes.

I’ve been to almost every country in this world: Japan, France, America, Denmark, China and all the different continents… almost a hundred different countries. Each country held such a different (but slightly similar if they were in the same continent) flavor in the air and never failed to teach me one new thing. They all held such distinct character. Beholding the stunning sights and noticing the heart-wrenching small details of a new place was my passion. It captivated me, but the calm, steady love of my heart remained still.
Nothing touched me like the memory of home and my mother. Not the women who flickered through the chapter of my life, appearing in explosions of lust and never meaning more than ***, though some begged me to stay. My loneliness would sway my path of thinking for a short one or two week before I realized it wasn’t what I truly wanted.  
My lovers reminded me of cookie crumbs fallen from my mouth down onto my shirt- there for a brief, brief moment- sometimes picked up to nibble on or brushed away and forgotten.

Oh Love; Love never found me. Perhaps all the travel I did made it harder for Her to find me. I was never at a place for long. Perhaps She, Love, grew tired of trying to catch up with me as I crossed the seas and vast lands. Maybe She got lost one day in an Indian market with the exotic, fat fruits and glittering bangles- fading off into the air with the aroma of powerfully rich local dishes.
Or maybe I travelled away from Her, and She got left behind.

2 a.m.- On a train: the train is brand new and the metal is still yet glossy and innocent from hard rains, thick snow or fiery heat as the Southern part of my homeland is so prone to. The window is surprisingly see-through, unlike all the muddy windows covered in dust, grime, bird droppings and smashed insects (especially squished mosquitoes) I have looked out of in the past fifteen years. I think I’ll read a few chapters of that book about Cambodian culture to distract my impatient mind: sitting on this cold train that will take me home is all I can possibly think about. Hurry, you ******* train, hurry!
There is something about a train that calms me down and makes me feel all starry-eyed. It is the memory of the only girl I ever loved. A little girl I grew up with. Such thick dark brown hair, big round bright chocolate eyes and the loudest, most obnoxiously boyish laugh I have ever heard from a girl. Hmm, I recalled the small rounded chest and bottom.
We lived so far deep in the country side and one day, on an overnight school trip, the school we attended at took all hundred students on a trip to see the city for just a day. Flashes of her eating a creamy white ice cream sprinkled with tiny candies of the rainbow and standing in awe of the huge library made me smile to myself.
How when everyone was tired that night back on the train, even the teachers exhausted after an early morning and keeping a hundred thirteen-year-olds under control for a whole day, fell asleep. My eyelids were just drooping when she appeared- I smelled her first, sweet like honey with a tinge of something sour like orange or lemon peels. My senses have always been sensitive- especially sight and smell. She carefully peeled back the curtains around the bed, crept into my bunk and cuddled with me, curling her tough plump legs.
My mind flew in many wild ways- for as I said, my senses were sensitive and the curiosity and thrill of an inexperienced young boy did not help to make them any paler- and try as I might to quiet the thoughts, they leapt at her every movement.
I suppose it was her way of telling me she had fallen in love with me. Her cold monkey-feet pressed against me and whispering the night away: her tousled head as she kept sitting up to look out the window on the side to look at the stars. I sat up with her and held her against my chest. I remember wondering how my heart wasn’t bursting from the enormous love I felt for this creature in my lap, watching the dark silhouettes of trees rushing by and the black swaying fingers of rice patties illuminated by needle-point stars and a full, silver moon. The beautiful creature turned around, placed her icy finger tips on my hot neck, and gave a little sigh of relief before leaning in and kissing me.

My skin was covered in goose bumps.

Oranges are my favorite fruit.
I left her, my little home and mother at nineteen. The darling was mine till then. I wrote to her, but when she got around to replying I had already moved. And there my love became my once-loved.
The heart ache didn’t last too long. There was too much to see, I was young and full of cravings and impossible to satisfy hunger despite the countless number of women. I lived in the moment, the fiery moment of passion and life, and the memory of her were blown to wisps.
A ray of pink sunlight broke me from my thoughts and as I rushed back from the past to its future, I wondered in a haze whether she had married or not.

Five a.m. – the sun was up. The sky had streaks of dark blue, so dark it was almost black. A ****** red of a newly-cut wound ran through the sky, arm in arm with royal purple and a pink the color of a child’s lips.

Six a.m. - twenty-two or so students milled into the train chattering. The younger ones have neatly combed hair, slicked down with mousse and parted so aggressively the comb lines are visible cutting the hair in hard chunks with a paper-white hairline slicing through the scalp. The smallest one would be around thirteen and the oldest at eighteen. The oldest-looking one is very pretty with slanted gray eyes and chestnut hair- very matured for her age. A puff of powder to conceal any imperfection of her skin, and the first two buttons on her school blouse unbuttoned to hint at a cleavage of well-developed large *******. Her gaze darts over me frequently. She looks like a lover I had in Holland. I give her a small smile and she returns it, batting her lids to reveal matted dark lashes and shimmery pale blue eyelids like the wings of a butterfly. No child, only if I was much, much younger and had just left home as you will so soon.
A stench of too much perfume emits from the girl beside her. So much that I am momentarily diverted and glance up at her from my log book. I will be relieved when they leave. If there’s one thing I find extremely unattractive in a woman is an overload of perfume- it becomes a stench that is a reminder of gaudy prostitutes.

Six-thirty a.m. -  The train jolts to yet another stop and they clatter out but not before I heard the words, “That man on the train near us was rather handsome, wasn’t he?” I cannot help but chuckle.

Seven a.m. – the train has stopped at least five more stations. This is going to be a long trip. Rummaging in my packed bag for a pair of dark sunglasses I push them on, waiting for the fact that I haven’t slept all two weeks in excitement (and travelling at the speed of light half way around the world at the same time) to kick in and hit me unconscious with sleep.

Two p.m. - the dark glasses cannot block the glaring sunlight of the sunshiny afternoon. We have almost finished passing the city. The rows of buildings, large houses, one-story apartments are narrowing and shrinking in size. I know the railroad tracks have remained unchanged in destination and twenty-so years ago I took this exact same ride but everywhere is unrecognizable.  
I check my wristwatch once again even though I know the time: around nine more hours to go before it reaches the very end possible station and I take the long walk back to my little home.

Six p.m. - I talk amiably to passengers on the train. It is beautiful to hear my home dialect again. The words I speak have grown quite clumsy and my accent is rough. No matter, in two weeks time I’ll be fluent and chirping along with the same fluid accent as the old man beside me is.

Eleven-thirty p.m. – I am all alone on the train. The old man just got off at the station before. He shared a portion of his sandwich with me and a swig of beer from his water bottle (naughty old man), seeing as in my anticipation I forgot to buy any food for the day. A very interesting old man who was delighted to know I travelled just as he use to in his earlier days- quote to remember from him: “Too many people go on about this ******* of a ‘fixed’ home: Home isn’t where you live, son, it’s where they understand you. I’m telling you, that’s something so special in this crazy world.”
It is horrible to be sitting here alone counting down the minutes without a distraction but after all, it is near the last of stations and no one ever comes here anyways. There’s nothing here that could attract visitors. If I were a traveler nothing about this place would excite me very much. Yet for this first time in fifteen years, I’m not an outsider and this land promises me much. My hand shakes from fatigue- but mostly from eagerness. Little home, darling little home, I am coming!
It is a chilly, chilly winter night. My breath pants out in short white puffs. I wrap my scarf more securely around my neck, capturing the warmth as I step out from the warm train into the cold air outside. I can barely notice my environment on the way home except the path has remained unchanged. It is as if I am travelling back into time itself. After a while, the coldness turning the tip of my ears and nose pink is forgotten. All I know is each step is taking me closer and closer to home.

I finally see it. The small little house with a small brown door standing quietly alone next to other identical houses comes into my view. The little homes are clustered on the edge of a river bank, surrounding by dark green trees. The crisp rustling of the leaves in the winter breeze brings a melancholy happiness so great it makes my chest throb. I cup a tiny bit of snow from the ground in my mitten and taste it: oh the same sharp iciness on my tongue.

I wonder if she still lives in that one with the indented steps, the stairs worn out by the thundering saunter of her and her five brothers. They still haven’t bought a new flight of stairs?

The river’s surface is smooth and serene, its surface looking like molten silver rippling in the slight breeze. I remembered in the summer when we, the children, danced; splashing in the water and the elders watched lovingly.

Mother’s carefully watching eyes on me as I swam to and fro, my laughter mingling with everyone else’s. She was especially careful after that near-fateful day when I was six and foolishly went swimming in August without telling mother as she made us her special clear chicken broth. I had inhaled gallons of water before she fished me out, both of us soaking and sobbing. How wonderful it was to hold onto something warm and solid: something breathing, full of life, and I clutched onto her and she clutched onto me and my life.
Up the wooden steps… how surprised mother will be. The ghosts of memories come running to me, pounding their way towards me to greet me first as I open the wooden door with the key slung around my neck as always: mother with her hair curled in soft mocha *****, mother making an ice lollipop in the hot summers in her flower-printed summer dresses, mother swishing around the house cleaning in her blue apron, the hot fire with hot chocolate as we told stories, all the different cats we had purring in a soothing melody… Amalie and her laughing figure spread over the sofa chattering away, Amalie’s quick, hidden kisses in the corners when mother was out of the room or pretending not to look, Amalie’s long hands creeping towards mine… Amalie and mother gossiping together and mother declaring Amalie was the daughter she never had and mother eyeing me knowingly, expecting me to settle my ways and marry Amalie…

Oh little home, I am back, I am home.

I shall go lie on my feathery bed and in the morning I’ll wake up and have no idea where I am before the thought comes back to me that this morning- no, I am not somewhere around half the world away- but in my little hometown.
As sure as the sun will rise, Mother will wake up at her usual eight o’clock and I’ll be downstairs in our sunny-tiled kitchen making a bowl of porridge for her and me.
After her tears and hugs, we’ll sit down by the fire with hot chocolate despite it being early morning and the skies aren’t yet jet-black. I see in my mind’s eyes her dark eyes huge as I unravel my colorful carpet of stories and treasure box of tokens from all around the world.
Maybe after that I’ll ask her whatever became of Amalie…
I hear the tread of footsteps on the stair case. They are heavy sounds. Has mother gained much weight in her old age? She was always a lithe little woman when I was here.
A burly shape appears in the shadows.
For one ******* blindingly stupid moment I think it is mother much fattened in a fluffy night gown, her hair curled up in soft ***** yet again. Perhaps I saw what I wanted to believe despite my senses and instinct suddenly prickling up in one jolt through the spine.
And the shape emerges holding a bat and the outlines gains focus to become a bear-like man with dark brows furrowed and a mass of curls. He starts yelling at me and slashing his bat dangerously.
I raise my arms up in defense and the world swirls around me. From far away I hear my voice shaking in fear and fury, “Where is my mother!” I yell her name and I yell my name to let her know I am here. I am insane with fear for the safety of my mother. No, it cannot be that I come home on the day a demon decides to rob the house of a frail gentle angel. If he has killed her, I will- “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?!”
“What?” he asks in a tone quiet from extreme bewilderment, his grip on the bat loosens and I am quick to see this and take advantage of it.
With an explosion of violent swears I leap onto him to throttle him to death. “MOTHER?! MOTHER! WHAT HAVE YOU ******* DONE TO MY MOTHER?! I’M GOING TO ******* **** YOU, YOU *******!”
A fast pattering of feet sound down the stairs and my mind registers them to be female before I am wrenched of the man and we are separated. I am about to clutch this woman safe from the hulking beast before I notice the skin on the hands pushing my panting chest away from killing the beast are too young to be mothers’. Her hair is a dark mahogany brown, not mild coffee like mothers’.
I stare at her, silent in shock. All the fight drains out of me.
Those eyes that were once so chocolate-brown and bright have lost their sparkle in her tiredness and appear almost… dull as she turns to me.
She says my name three times before I can reply. “Sit down here.”
It is strange that she has ordered me to sit down on my own sofa in my living room. Her frosty hands guide me. “Amalie… where is mother?” I manage to stutter, all the time keeping an eye on the monster of a man.
“Listen to me” she took a few shuddering breaths, “I’m sorry to tell you this way, I wished I could’ve told you any other way but this… your mother is dead. She died five years ago.”
She watched me with an exhausted expression, “In her will she left this house to you and me because she assumed one day-” she shot a cautious glance at the man who towered in the shadows next to her, nursing

my father died alone.
in a car by the side of a busy road.
a young couple,
returning from a day at the beach found him.
they thought he was asleep,
he had, had a massive stroke.

i went to his funeral.
as a stranger
and heard the eulogy,
of a man i barely knew.
we had been disparate
for over twenty years
and before that sporadic
at best.

i did not weep.

five weeks
and two days later after breakfast and feeding the cats.
i went to open the front door. to begin my days toil
my hand on the lock began to shake.

i broke,

i just broke.


and fell against the door in keening, sobbing, rending sorrow.
i slid headfirst down the white painted surface,
opening a cut against the doorbell.
collasped in on myself, huddled into a heaving heap,
pressed into the corner.

i cried pinktears.
all that day.

i stayed in that corner
staring, crying,
beyond thought,
beyond comfort.

ummovable.

beyond .. .

at that point in my life
i lived alone.
with the exception of my cats.
my misery, abject, so complete. so dark, so ink jetblack, so bereft of life, so remote from love so deep in repression, unlocked. so ferocious in attack, so outrageous in it's anger and sense of defeat had hold of me.

i had lost myself.

it is with pure hearted certainty.
i say these two furry little souls.
with plainitive crys of need and slinking warmth, curling heartbeats and insistent nudge of feline body.
saved my shattered, tattered, beaten soul that night.

i got up.
i fed my friends.
and then went to bed.
turned inward on myself
for two days more
this was my path.
bed.
cats fed.
toilet.
water.
bed.

i gave no thought to the outside.
to the phone calls,
doorknocks,
work,
family,
friends.

my apathy bordering catatonic.
i was locked in chains in stygian hell,
inside my head.

they broke the lock.
my two samaritan friends
and found me
a weeping shell.
guarded by two hissing cats. shocked beyond words,
they instigated help for me .

this was my descent into clinical depression

my acsent
back out of the bomb crater, triggered by my fathers death, was arduous and long.

two days heavy sedation.
two weeks close observation 3months at a sanitorium
years of medication.
months and months of dedicated therapy.( i still occasionally do therapy.)

crawling over jagged glass feelings
and rusted tin memories.
that would lock my jaw and break my back.
through slime and muck and crap.

i would crawl,
mentally, forward
and then fall away.
it was, excruitingly, painful.
but also,

redeeming and liberating,
to fight my way up,
back.
to open new doors.
to learn new ways
of thinking, seeing.

another 6 months,
a completed PhD
and an eventual move
of towns.
had me standing tall.

re-invented, restored more complete than before.

that is my history of depression

now eight years on:
i am no longer on medication.
(5years free weaned under Dr's supervision)
i met, married and had a child with the love of my life.
i have great career doing mostly what i love.

i am no hero, just a survivor.

i have a small ragged scar at my hairline,
a rememberance of less than betterdays.

i want no sympathy,
my life rocks.

i live life,
with love and gratitude,
in the forefront of my being,
each day an adventure.
some are blazingly good,
some mediocre
and some are bad.
but always,
tommorrow, is a chance of sunny.

i write this to encourage
those in the mental fight
with this disease.
to show that, there is a bright, enduring light.
beyond....

and to thank those,
who guided me toward,
it friends, family, doctors,
and furry ones.

There once was a guy named Marx
Who thought the bourgeosie were a bunch of old farts
He proposed a solution
Socialist revolution!
But when will it happen? Don't ask!

Russia's first ****** was Lenin
His blueprint for Russia was telling
Although his hairline receded
He finally succeded!
By stopping those Whites from rebelling

Oh what a poor sap was Engels
He built communism from its fundamentals
He helped write the book
Yet we gave him the hook
Marx, the chorus, and he, the instrumental

With my face over her hair fallen neck
sending through my lips
what I’ve dreamed of compiled tastes

One arm wrapped her waist
The spinal curve of her back
Give-way my others embrace

In my palm falling slowly
with surrendered hold
Her reclining body takes plunge

A body wondrously dreamt by the Gods
but never to beholden
For that vessel has since long belonged
And in a quiet covet,
the Gods continue to sin

Over and across the bed
Released from my grip

Upwards into her hairline
a sweat spreading mist

Grabbing a fistful of mane
I’d lay down on the runway to attain
this flowing coat between my fingers

For the length of time
her hair has entwined me in cuffs

Pulling harder
I gladly yield in acceptance
this braid given stain
a permanent scar

Slow let go of her feathers tangled

In her neck I’m keeping
a burrow in repose

Seeing buttons undone in sync
to expose

The destination of my lips next imprint
like advanced shadowing hints

In a mechanical motion

Hair pulling emotion

Triggers upward
her chest and chin

Two spotlights on the ceiling what her ******* up send
Shaping her back an arc
like a half moons descent  

When she finishes her unbuttoning
Next for my belt she reaches
then the unzip I’ll never forget

She takes me in invest

I take her in continuous shooting

All the unfastened
unclothed

Now Firm
Quake
Earned
And Shake
The peak is reached from this encounter
defined by a collection of far to many lustfully seductive
mental hive of trapped aches
Then I kiss her lips in return she kisses me back, felt...

Sometimes I watch
the man in the benign pastel shirt
and the drab khakis
with the receding hairline
and the thick glasses
cross the street
with a package in his arms;

And I think to myself,
"There goes a good dad,
mild mannered, loving -
trying to make his way
in this savage world."

Then, almost instantaneously,
the doubt creeps in:
"Or, he could be a monster,
who beats his kids,
or his wife,
or sets fire to homes,
or has adolescent prisoners in his basement."

From then on I question everyone I see.

That lovable looking old lady
with her sun hat
and disabled parking pass
might shout racist obscenities
from her balcony
at poor black kids
playing in the park across the street.

The clean-cut young man
in the shirt and tie
with the papers in his hands
may spend his weekends
filling envelopes with anthrax spores -
one for each name on his list.

I can no longer see
the father whose arrival from work
is anticipated by a loving family,
or the grandmother who delights in
handing out the most Halloween candy
to every kid in the neighborhood,
or the industrious young professional
striving to make a meaningful contribution
to society.

I wonder if the darkness I see in them
is a magnified reflection
of the darkness I know
that lurks inside of me.

The walls came tumbling down,
as if a wrecking ball
had broken up that brick and mortar
displacing it, from its position.

Really the crack formulated
several years ago,
and in honest truth
was no bigger than hair.

Ah, but this crack was placed
within the foundation,
and as you walked away
so did its disposition.

Truthfully this is how it’s been
how it will be for a while
beer gut receding hairline
my grumpy artist man
buys me gin and Mexican food
and tucks me into bed at 3 when I can’t take it anymore
I don’t care how many times you forget
I’m your baby and I’ll be waiting
hating your guts
to kiss you at the door

Take a fresh Playstation
Add plenty of seasoned frustration
Marvel at the glory of this Machine
Roll a spliff made for Charlie Sheen
Game for 6 hours at room temperature
Squeeze controller until you see hairline fracture
Anger rising to the top
That guy lied to me, the one from the shop
Nothing but coffee flavour in this bag of Revels
Listen to your shoulder devils
Ask Playstation to work the way you want it
Refusal to comply, I miss 8bit
Swing controller like a ball and chain
Look, as its blue eye turns to red in pain
Proceed to dance on Playstation to tenderise
A madman reflected on the screen in disguise
Last salvation is on the warranty sheet
Enjoy, Bon appetit

I don’t think I fear anything more than being rejected; I have been rejected more times than the counting a 5 year old knows

Little kid isn’t afraid to jump in puddles, splashes of mud cake his jeans hems and droplets of mud line on his chin to cheeks to his hairline and

He does his little dance out in the street if he hears his favorite song play, he sings lullabies in broken voice, messing up all the words, but smiling nonetheless

He is fearless, careless and blind to the world’s cruelty.  what happens to us? Does society change us to such an extent that I rather not post anything than post 2 lines on which I am going to judged mercilessly?

I hate it, when you don’t reply to my texts, I hate that I am left hanging up in the air, hands outward, toes clinging on to metal bars so I don’t fall off

Tell me what is wrong with me? I am not afraid to hear it. Just tell me why can’t you like me?

What is so wrong about me? Days like these I want nothing more to go back to being a 5 year old; I had nothing to worry about,

just pouring flowers into white sheets ,colors that ran out of petals and trees that looked more like a nest of green lines

And dancing, round and round, like a ballerina, laughing, giddy, looking upward in the sky, smile so wide that if lifted my mom’s health problems and money problems that plagued my daddy

I don’t think I want anything more to be just wanted and needed; nobody ever makes me feel that way,

I always feel like I am an extra, on the movie set, I just really want to be ****** of someone

For just once, I want to be free, away from the clutches of ravens, I want his fear of rejection to just vanish, and so I can do crazy things, and figure out who I am and who I am supposed to be

a certain morning stiffness
in your joints

you find your face
in the bathroom mirror
and wish you hadn't

the puzzled wisdom
    of middle age
wavers from your eyes
deepening wrinkles
   of many laughs
   many frowns

   how many more?

   nevermore ?!

the room becomes aflutter
with poesque ravens
the presence of absences
fills the void
your life is on the brink
of deconstructing itself
to the periphery of the universe
a discourse of silence
forever becoming ... becoming ...
what...?

   nevermind!

so

you close your eyes
   hard
for a minute or two

when you look again
you meet the stare
of a not-so-bad-looking
man in his best years
  
   graying sideburns
   receding hairline
   20 pounds too many
      BUT
   a firm decision
   to work them off
  
   still a bit sleepy
   yet determined
   to shave
      get dressed
      have breakfast
  
   and teach
   that wonderful seminar
   on 19th century poetry
   to eager graduate students

I can't remember the last time
Where I looked you in the eyes
And simply said what's on my mind.
It seems every time I'd lie;
Taking another chip from your heart
And placing it in my shark shaped
Piggy bank.
You called me out and I ran away with my words
Down another trodden path
Of familiar verbal catastrophe
When all you wanted was me.

Well if that's all you wanted
I guess I should start from the top.

I'm sorry but I think I'm leading you on. I'm apologize for coming on way too strong in the beginning. But I feel afraid all alone with no comfort from close friends, just media drones. I keep you around for the ***, however convenient, yet I can't stand the shape of your forehead, nose, or neck. I want to take away your breath, if not for the moment so you don't speak, then for the mornings when all I want you to do is leave my bed. I'm so insecure. My character faults tumble down the rabbit hole like a bead of sweat wet from my hairline on my head to my hairline in the crevice of my rear end. I still pick my nose and sometimes eat it fearing that if I don't that I'll feel cheated. I convince myself there are starving kids in Africa; kids who would do anything for a meal that they would endanger there body in the form of human trafficking. I'm selfishly selfish. I come out with personal gains for every favor in my friends' names. My *** ***** hangs but not as low as the average, a trait I think most females would laugh at. I have trouble saying "I love you" to my mother because deep down I feel troubled that she would just ridicule me for having feelings for another like she did when I was twelve. I consistently lie through my perfect teeth that hide the grime and cavities that I do keep. I feel like I should somehow be embarrassed and express all of thoughts to a psychoanalyst. But they would make me tell the truth which seems to be the most difficult thing I could do.

When all I want to do is lie to you.
And keep you on a fish line
Because I like the way our bodies intertwine physically.
Just please stop asking me what on my mind
Because honestly, you really don't want to know.

Foster, what family? Lower class, dream of  vacation
******* what trickles down, affecting a life situation
White to Blue Collar; a rebuild or invasion?

Millions inside the boxes of convention
Justified superficial, backhanded salutations
Refute Love, proposed as mankind’s invention
Pulled by a string of instant gratification
Finding freedom’s temporary
If ever, long term locations
Constricted, system of classifications
The socially admissible connections,
Not to mention gangs of corrections
Flowing through the previous, my own generation

For the infinite hours
One after the other
Trade integrity for the illusion of power
Not all those with a gun should be considered a coward
Face the souls sold on Wall Street,
Remember those from Twin Towers

Ground zero, abandoned. Now bare, desolate
The idea of terrorism denied, while some wrestle it
Rationales dislocate, post hairline fracture
Frontal lobe imposter, posing in rapture
As if talent, love, or hate could ever be captured
Held at gun point, then forgotten years after
My children will one day look to me for the answer

What’s society, this twisted maze we live in?
I will gaze in their eyes with the same exact question
And don’t ever allow me again not to mention
Real criminals can’t learn from minute or life-long detentions
Some incapable of that level of retention
As our battered soldiers forever sleep at attention

Politically correct, tongues in consistent hesitation
Kiss police ***, only to go to the station
Before the thought of who signed the citation
Treated as if it were a felony violation
Our basic rights according to our nation
Arizona & Co for minority elimination

Die fighting the statute of poverty’s limitations

vi.i.xi

The ocean breeze—
Soft yet so harsh.
I wrote your name,
at the back of my palm.
The seagulls sounds like they are screaming your name,
And then I realized that this sorrow seems to have no aim.
I called out your name,
While half of my body is already in the water,
The coarse sand under my feet,
Feels like the bottom of your hairline.
I sank my head underwater,
But all I can taste is my tears.
I don't know what the wave hitting the beach is saying,
because all I heard is your voice.

The four wheels that carry my family
Into the path of the moon.
We're away on a hairline breeze, he says
Dashboard shoulders jumping
With every bump on the road.
The earth is never far enough for him
Sea shoes well worn from perpetual wading
Sand in the sun lines of his eyes.
I hurtle Father.
Fists, teeth; I have forgotten the art of talking
Too wrapped up in the headlights growling,
Swearing apart confidently.
All my smiles like a train waiting.
Never fear Daughter.
Those are fireflies that wind their way
above the speedometer
And we'll make a space prophet of you yet.

You are like a beauty contest
Where nobody is keeping score.
The clothes make you beautiful
But I like you naked even more.
You’re a hot hunk of manhood
From your hairline to your boots
And you look a lot better naked
Than some men look in suits.

Yeah, I have to admit it here
It was your looks caught my eye
But as time went by I discovered
There was much more to you, guy.
There’s poetry and wit and then
That ever present sense of fun.

At first it was just infatuation;
A fan sitting close to the stage.
But later it turned into something
Beyond a **** picture on a page.
I found out there was more to you
Than the beauty that stops hearts.
There is something special there
That sets you delightfully apart.

So, I hope I can be forgiven
For being such a rabid fan.
I have excellent taste in things
Like the looks of a hot man.
I have heard so many call you
One hot, **** son of a gun.
Of the members of your fan club
I’m sure I am your number one.

(Readers I been going crazy to write  like this for a long time so if it suxs  too bad lol please read its a bit long also 4 those who do ty for reading & commenting)
________________­_______________
She seen his stares since earlier in the ball room & during most of their acquaintance's growing up also when he'd visited her family at her home in Hampshire... She bluntly ignored his many advances while
at the Queen's Ball and she also publicly shunned him in front of  many aristocrats, He asked her even then to be his wife, She flat out said NO! with out going through the proper channels it  "*******" just wasn't done,  Her chaperon Lady Gideon was no where to be found so she did what she thought was best and walked away from him as fast as her small frame would allow.  

She did indeed find Lady Gideon in the kitchens with  the cook in the "Blimey!" broom closet. NOW on this night she'd truly become his and pay for her misdeeds & mistreatment's of him at The Queen's Ball...Duke Lincoln Pierre held his new bride Virgina Abagael Pierre  
tightly as he assaulted her mouth thrusting his tongue in her mouth- parting her lips in a seductive dance, as his hands moved lavishly up & down her buttocks, betwixt her bodice caressing her breast.

Lincoln tried hard to control his need for his new bride,  He was supposed  to be with his "mates" for another hour or so whilst his-  " well now" his wife's maids readied her for their marriage bed.
Lincoln couldn't wait & as he rushed his guest out the door not even
waiting for Jefferey his Butler to do so, He ran taking the steps two at a time, His need for Virgina was more then lust.  He wanted her ever since she shunned him at the Queens ball & as he visited her home--  watching her bloom into womanhood, Tonight she'd pay for his humiliations of that night at the Ball. He burst open the door and bellowed  for the maids to Get OUT!

At once they went running like rats. All except Beatrix stood her
ground and told him in not to kind-of words that  "She" had to prepare Virgina properly and He was acting reckless.
Beatrix  was his nanny & nursery maid, she was  also there when he first open his sparkling  hazel round eyes, God rest "Duckies" soul, His mum, she died in this same bed whilst she gave her last breath for this handsome devil.  His Da,  poor man was getting on in age and this was a wish he left in his will to be fulfilled before he died. "Lin" as she'd called him must fulfill but without scaring the poor chit off.

She unfasten Virgina's stays & hooks as fast as her old hands would allow, before she could help her out of her bodice  "Lin" ushered her out....Well she'd said her peace and exit Lincoln's rooms praying as she left.....
Lincoln kept  up his assault  while Virgina had a look of fear & misunderstanding in her mahogany sapphire eyes, Her small frame was shaking to her very core,  Poor chit but it couldn't be helped he was in a rush to be done with virgins and their silly concepts of love ex specially this "his" new prudent bride,  Yet he wanted to make her come alive, bring out the "bleed'in devil" of lust he knew was trapped deep within Virgina's un tapped core.
Lincoln teased and licked as he removed her clothing, ripping a bit of fabric in is haste, she kissed him back! Shocking his own sense of sensibility.

He picked her up splayed her on the bed and stared at her dark luscious Honey chocolate  creamy coco skin, it shined like a lovely indigo ocean on a summers night.
With carious longing and dread,
it was still an interesting moment Virgina didn't know what to do and as he capture her waist she felt  even more unsure, sensing a thrilling sensation wash over her,  Her new husband Duke Lincoln Pierre kissed her with un-abandon lust Virgina instinctively crawled up to the head board on the bed, as she did so her new husband reached for her in a blink of an eye she was caught in his steel grip, she cried out not for pain but because she had no ideal what he meant to do with her,

Lincoln laughed and made a tsk tsk sound as he pulled himself atop of Virgina.  "My Lady I beseech you please leave off I mean you no harm''
Lincoln proclaimed yet his meek smile said he was lying,
Virgina only stared with her mouth gaped in a perfect lush O shape.  
Her husband undone he own clothes  in a heated rush.  
Once done he stalked towards her kneeling on the bed.  
With Virgina's gaze fixed tranquilly on his stiff shaft, she looked at it apprehensively  she wanted to move away yet her limbs wouldn't allow her to and with banned tears threatening to over flow
she ****** in her breath as her capture Duke Pierre her husband climb a top of her.  

Little did her husband know she'd wanted  him all her life she longed to become his bride but she had no ideal it entailed this rough treatment of her person to gain access.
She'd sit with her own nanny "Liv" short for Olivia  
at Hyde Park watching as his carriage made it's rounds.  She dreamed even then to marry him, his eyes always laughing and He was forever teasing her when He'd visited  her "now" deceased parents lord Duke&Duchess; Harrisburg. She'd dream he were always saving her from dragons and evil villains.

But tonight he seemed the Villain.
As he touched creatively over her she felt flushed, his hands trailed down to her hairline where her tulip was hidden as he proceeded to caress her he felt for her budded rosebud playing teasing  rubbing his fingers with gentleness over her.
He continued until Virgina's head was thrashing wildly left & right on the pillow she was scared and shocked not knowing what was coming over her,  she wanted something--   this need that was growing  building within her, she didn't understand and it made her feel weak with a longing she couldn't comprehend, as he removed his finger & hand a light yet cool breeze cam through the cracked window causing the sensation to slowly subside Lincoln moved down trailing kisses as he went his mouth hovered mere inches above her tight yearning rosebud he bet down and tasted honey as he licked in an out of his new bride, sliding his index finger within her tight silt wile wrapping his mouth around her budding rose, he ******, gently  causing Virgina automatically to lift her legs wrapping her hands in his golden brown hair.

He felt her throbbing shaking and he wanted to laugh because of him she now new what it meant to be pleasured,  Virgina began trembling with a urgency not knowing what her body wanted just that she liked this feeling that washed over her from her toes up to her Honey dark coco head.  Her long brown auburn hair fell in waves of curls around her as she melted to her husbands ministrations.

Lincoln could barely contain his want and in his eyes His new bride was a wanton ready for plucking like a ripe strawberry, His little filly was bucking beneath his demonstration's.
He'd played with the God's wile tempting the devil & now there was Hell to pay...  Sadly for his new ****** bride he could no longer hold back, he wanted to consume her, his control was failing, wreaking havoc on his now intoxicating senses.  

Virgina bucked up towards his mouth letting out a seductive cry breaking Lincoln's last restraints  
He spread her wide held her fast
both his hand on either side of her hips as he lead his shaft within her lustrous wet inviting opening, moving in her swiftly as to not cause any more unnecessary pain,
He felt her maiden-head give way but it was to late t pause, he try not to move slow,
which with half in sympathy he wanted to stop his penetrating ****** yet his need for release in his new ****** brides velvet tight silt kept him urging forward deeper&deeper; within her tight walls.

Virgina let out a piercing scream as she also called out Lincoln's name twas an interesting moment when a fierce jolt consumed both occupants of this lovers den, she cried out as he ******'ed deeper still within his new bride....

No longer did he want to  punish her he felt something chip away at his heart releasing a need to want more then her body as they coiled becoming meshed together in legs & limbs traveling on waves of ******* bliss.
Duke & Duchess Pierre

Always Me Ayeshah