One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

My lips were still parted

as I walked heavy hearted
dragging my feet
like darkness,
across a dimly lit street.

I stopped 4 times.

Four times
between the security gates
and the bed
your scent still slept in.

1
You turned to walk away.
I couldn't breathe,
like my lungs had learned
your leaving.

I begged you to turn around,
in whispers,
through heaving.

I wondered if they had run me through
the x ray machine,

the way they did the rest of your baggage,

would they have been able to see it break me.

The rungs of my ribs
collapsing
under each step we took apart.

my heart sinking in my chest,
like treasure.

My hands clenched around each other
if not out of loneliness,
than in prayer
for you,
for yours.

(Walk)

2
I didn't know where I was going
at first,
I thought my moving, madness.
See?
You wouldn't really go.


I didn't make it to the elevator.

Nothing about me in that moment,
could fit into a box
I couldn't be brought down any further
I couldn't watch the doors close
on the only forever I ever had.

Too much symbolism will get to you like that.

The way I see you in
clocks and calendars,
still clinging to a countdown
your watch would stop short of.

I can still hear mine tick.

The way I smell you in
cocoa butter and ocean mist,
our love belonged on a beach
but swam too far from shore.

The way I taste you in
red wine and cigarettes,
I was drunk on your stare,
But you know those things will **** you.

The way I feel you in
poetry and panic,
praying into my palms
until my body felt holy.

Sometimes I write to your God.

(Take the stairs)

3
I'm outside.
The air is lit like a cigarette.
My body,
frayed
like a fuse.

Im bursting at the seems
of a skin that has never quite fit me.
Pounding on the doors of a mind
who can't remember
why?

I recalled every moment
you held forever in your eyelids,
then blinked.
When suddenly it hit me,
what if this time you really meant
goodbye?

I was trapped in wide open space.
Like the ones between my fingers.
like the one growing in my stomach,
like the one on the other side of the bed.

I guess I should have mentioned,
It would **** me if you left.

(walk)

4
I didn't leave a note this time.

But I promise
I had a million words to say to you,

I typed them up,
I wrote them down.
Watching each one
rise at my fingertips
and fall at your feet.

The way I did.

You spoke like family.
You felt like the pages
of my favorite book
when I ran my fingers up your spine.

I kept every note I wrote,
this time.

I couldn't hide another word
in the soft folds of your suitcase.

Secrets never travel well.

(Shhh)

I touched the door you'd touched before me.

Empty rooms are like a boxing ring,
My back was against the ropes
while my eyes fell to the drapes
tracking take-offs like ticket sales.

We packed the house.
Our home.

As time huffed and puffed
and blew the whole thing
down.

I stopped four times.

Each time I'd turn back
but when I started,
I'd remember the last time you left
while I watched, heavy hearted.
My lips were still parted.

Our lips were still parted.

So the day I say I'm done,and finished with it all..
Was the same day that the house of cards I built began to fall,
Karma huffed and puffed and blew it all away,
Whether i deserved it or not? well its hard to say,
I need to take it easy but im living life the harder way ,
Living life day to day - there's gotta be a better way,
Love Drunk from the potions from Amy's wine house ,
I sobered up but it was only to find out -
Your lion-like roars turned to Microsoft words,
I was in my own word - she was in hers,
No, I'm not modest and dishonesty's a problem for my nerves,
Approach the point of no return? We def on the verge,
Better yet the brink, and to think, our past you rubbed away -
Washed down the metaphorical sink,
And now all sounds of trouble power point to YOU,
My mind is now tainted, as you are in my point of view,
I'd hate to break the glue we used to make the news,
But i have to go away from you - Later boo..

Indigo. A dream of the color, and the sound of soft rain. Bathing birds babbled among pines beyond her window, and morning light was warm on her closed face. An ache in the spine. Creaking knees. Shoulders cold cliff-rock. Complaining muscles knotted tight as wood. The wooden house around her also creaked in the wind. Smelled wet. And somewhere echoing through her fields Edgar barked three times, then once more in playful affirmation. Today maybe the last today. In her mind’s eye, falling almost back into dream, Nora surveyed the long acres surrounding her cold home: untended wheat, alfalfa, cattle-corn, all woven through untold ecosystems of weeds. Stray indigo flowers and violets. Scattered dust-filled barns. What the place might look like after all this time. With her right hand she sought the frame of the bed, found it, rough chips of paint flaking. Slowly exhaling at once Nora lifted her iron legs over the edge, thin-socked feet found the bedroom’s planks. Cold air. November hopelessness. With spider-sensitive fingers she plucked her way around the room, imagining violet dawn spilling through her screen window. Stood before the poker-faced mirror out of habit, ran her brush through hair that must now be silver. She felt the satisfying tug on her scalp and loudly past her ears. If her dresser was in front of her, to her right was the window and the pine-scented boxes where she kept his clothes, behind was her rumpled bed, and to her left then was the bathroom. She felt along the door-frame, the sink, the toilet, and sighingly she settled onto its seat. Relief.
Rain drops on her roof were like the “shh” breathed to an infant. Warm blanket of rain over the cold farm. The breathy wind was driving the rain towards her house, cranky knees told of a storm to come. The boisterous wind had the sound of laughter and strife, of voices: the twins arguing somewhere, Edgar probably with them over-enthusiasticly ******* their footsteps. The bellowing wind made the house creak more than usual, but there was something else. A distinctive groan from the foundation up the east wall to the roof-tiles. Someone was in the kitchen. Constance, just like it used to be. Connie was here and the twins were outside: they had arrived closer to dawn than Nora expected. Heavy truck’s tires in mud, headlights had pioneered dawn darkness. Smell of soil. Massaged her own back, kneaded the the flesh on either side of her spine, then wiped and stood from the seat letting her nightgown fall all down around her knotted ankles. Washed herself, and a short shower before the water turned cold. Dried her wrinkles feelingly, smelling soap, and pulled her soft nightgown back on. Socks.
Always a joy whenever Constance came to call — less frequently these days it seemed — always a joy to be with her grandchildren though little Bastian was still mistrustful of her. Always a joy to see her daughter’s family… but she never got to see Matt’s. An image of her son’s face, a red haired ghost of the past, flickered in Nora’s memory. He couldn’t stand this place since he was young, hated his full name “Matthias,” maybe hated Nora too. No reason to stay after his father died. He fled to the city. Must have a wife, several children by now. Well. At least Constance kept coming by. The rain grew heavier, played on the roof like the roll of a snare drum.
Out of the bathroom and bedroom, feeling the planks of floorboard with her soles, hand by hand and foot by foot she traced her steps down the rickety stairs. Uneven. Nora knew the chandelier she once hung here was red; she pictured the color as hard as she could to envision its reflection on each surface of the stairwell. Smell of pine. Like the smell of his clothes safely preserved in the boxes by the window. Jagged nostalgia. Nora had met dear Rowan back in another world: a world of whirling sights and colors and beautiful ugliness and ugliest beauty all. To America when she was nineteen, leaving behind all Germany and studying her new tongue. Had still devoured books then, was able to become a school teacher. When twenty-three, met in a chance cafe Rowan who worked the docks. Red hair. Scottish but of many American generations. Nora grabbed blindly at a face just out of memory’s reach. Her hold on the bannister revealed the places where varnish had been rubbed away by her wringing hands. From the kitchen, acrid cigarette stench and shuffling. Inflamed knees hating her meticulous descent, but better this ordeal each day than to abandon the bedroom they had shared. When the two met, Rowan still sent money to his agricultural folks in New York (“Upstate,” he protested more than once, “Not that awful city, but in the countryside!” and he’d pantomime a deep breath) because of the expenses of running their farm. Nora’s now. From the cafe he had bought her an almond pastry, triangular, smaller than a palm, its sweet crisp flakes made her think of Mediterranean forests, and when the two were married they worked this hereditary farm. Nora knew all the animals, when they still kept livestock. Now Nora’s farm, whose after? When her little Matthias was born they had praised him as the farm’s inheritor. Unwise.
Last step. Sound from the kitchen of Connie shifting in her seat, rustling papers. Smell of strong coffee. Strong cigarettes. Composed herself, quietly cleared throat. Sauntered down the hallway, monitoring expression and tone. Nora said, “Hello Constance. When did you three get here?”
“Hey ma,” said the woman’s voice when the elder crossed into the kitchen. “For christ’s sake don’t call me that.”
“For christ’s sake, don’t take his name,” Ma scolded, but then traced her way past the table to the countertop and felt about for utensils. “I’ll make you something Connie.” The counter was in front of her, bathroom to the left, stove to her right and along that same wall was the back door. ”How about some nice eggs and toast like how you like.”
“No ma, I handled it already.”
“And what color is that hair of yours this time?” Ma asked, carefully inserting slices of bread into the toaster. “Seems like months you haven’t been by.”
A patronising, sarcastic chuckle. “…it’s orange, ma.
Listen—”
“That is so nice. Your father’s hair was just that shade of orange.” Felt around inside the refrigerator. The styrofoam carton. Small and cold and round, her fingers seized four of them. “Do you remember?”
Pause. “I remember, ma.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Ma swallowing a cough, expertly igniting one gas burner as practiced and putting on hot water for tea, “is why you don’t fix to keep it natural. I love our nice fair hair, very blonde, very pretty.” Back home in Germany Nora had been the favorite of two men, but many years since engaging in the frivolous antics she in those days entertained. “Best to flaunt your natural hair color while it’s still there: orange like Matt and dear Rowan, or fair like you and Lorelai got.” Memories of her own face as she remembered it. Relatively young the last time she had seen. What wrinkles there must be. What a mask to wear. No wonder Bastian. Nora ignited another burner. Tick tick tick fwoosh. Smelled gas. Sound of the almost boiling water complaining against its kettle. Phantom taste of anticipated tea. Regret. The contents of the vial hidden on the top shelf. Today maybe the. Sound of heavy rain. “And how are your bundles of mischief?”
Connie sighed. “I told Lorelai to get her little **** inside the house, as if she hears a word. She’s playing with Ed somewhere in the fields I don’t wonder, rain be ******. That girl is such a little — well she’d better not be down by the creek anyhow. Could get flooded in a downpour like this. Bastian was out with her, but he’s playing in his room now. You know we don’t have time to stay long today, it’s just that you and I got to finally square this business away. No more deliberating, ok?”
Swallowed. “Course, Constance. Just nice to hear your voice. You’re taking care?”
“Care enough. Last time I was — oh! Jesus, ma!”
Ma’s egg missed the pan’s edge. She felt herself shatter the shell into the stove top, in her mind’s eye saw the bright orange yolk squeezed into the albumen. The burner hissed against liquid intrusion. Connie made a strained noise and scooped her mother into a seat at the table. Movement. Crisply, the sound of two fresh eggs being broken and sizzling on the pan. Scrambled as orange as Connie’s guarded temper. The table’s cool surface. Phantom smell of pine wood polish and recollections of Rowan at his woodworking tools building this table once. Other breakfasts. Young Constance, young Matthias. Young self. Her left hand massaged her aching right shoulder, then she switched. The sound of plates being readjusted with unnecessary force.
“You know,” said her daughter, “living in one of them places might even be fun. Might be good for you instead of moping about this place. But like I’ve been saying, we got to make our decision today: sell this place or pass it on. I know you don’t take no walk, cause where would you go? What’s the point in keeping all this **** land if you’re not gonna do nothing with it? You can’t even ******* see it!”
“Constance! Language!”
“Come on ma, just cut it out! This is great property, and you’ve let it get so it’s bleeding money.”
“…But Constance I can’t sell it, not like your brother wants me to do. He’s always trying to get rid of this place and turn a profit, but someone needs to take care of it! You know that this is the house that your f—“
“‘That your grandparents lived in where your father and I raised you…’ Yeah I know, ma. And I get it. Believe me. But what you’re doing is just plain impractical, why don’t you think about it? All you’re doing is haunting this place like a ghost. Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere where you can make friends? Things can’t go on like this.” A plate was placed softly on the table and it slid in front of Ma. Can’t go on like this. Egg smell. Salted. Toast, margarine. A cup of tea appeared nearby. “Anything else you want? Here’s a fork.”
“What will you eat, Constance?”
“I ate, ma, I ate already. Have your breakfast, then we can talking about this for real. Ok?” Then, the sound of her daughter’s body shifting in surprise, a pleasant unexpected, “Oh,” before Connie said low and matronly, “Hi baby, how you doing? Are you hungry?” But only the sound of the downpour. Orange eggs still softly sizzled. The wind pushed the creaking house. “Sweetie, you don’t have to hide behind the door, it’s ok. Come say hi to grandma… don’t you want some scrambled eggs?” Refrigerator’s hum. Barking echoed, coming over the hill. But not even the little boy’s breathing. Grandma had met the twins two years ago, following the **** of Constance’s rebellious years and independence. Nora was reminded of her german gentlemen and her own amply tumultuous adolescence. She could forgive. Two years ago Lorelai and Bastian had already been too big to cradle and fawn over, but they were discovered to be just starting school and already bright pupils. Grandma hung her head. Warm steam from where the uneaten eggs waited patiently. Edgar’s approaching yapping. And, fleeing from the doorway, a scampering of feet so light they might have been moth wings. Down the hallway back into his room. “Sorry ma,” said Constance.
Shrugged. A nerve flared in pain up her neck but she didn’t react. Only fork scrape. Ate eggs. On introduction, poor little Bastian had burst into tears and refused to go near her. Connie had consoled: “It’s ok baby, she’s just Grandma Nora! She’s my mother.” But poor little Bastian inconsolable: “No, no, no! She’s not!” What a wrinkled mask it must be. How hideous unkempt with silver hair. How horrible unflinching eyes. “She’s not,” would sob the quiet boy in earnest, “she’s a witch! Don’t you see?” And he never would let Grandma hold him. Lorelai was always polite, hugged warmly, looked after her pitiable brother, but her mind too was far elsewhere. Edgar alone loved them all unconditionally and was equally beloved. Barking. Yowling. Scratches at the door. Downpour. Door and screen door opened, wet dog happy dog entered, shook, and droplets on her cheek.
And there appeared Lorelai, a star out of sight. “Hey mom. Hi grandma!”
Grandma swiveled for cosmetic reasons to face where the door. Grinned, “Hello Lorelai. Wet?” Envisioned yellow sunlight entering with the excitable girl in spite of the deluge.
“Oh it’s so rainy out there grandma, I found little streams through your fields and big mud puddles and Edgar showed me where your secret treasure was, we found it!”
“Stop right there, missy!” commanded Constance. “For christ’s sake you look like you took a bath in the mud and the **** dog with you. Come on, your filthy coat needs to be on the rack, right? Now your boots.”
Warm nose found Nora’s palm, excited lapping. Slimy fur, smelly fur. A cold piece of egg dangled in her fingers, then dog breath came hot and licked it up. Satisfied, he trotted off elsewhere, collar jingling out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Little Lorelai lamented, “I couldn’t help it mom, the mud was all over the place! When we got past the motor barn and the one alfalfa field that looks like a big marsh frogs went ‘croak croak croak’ but Edgar growled and chased them and then we made it all the way in the rain to the creek and it’s so much—”
“Now you just hold on. Hold still!” Sounds of wrestling. Grunts of a struggle. “That creek must have been overflowing! Didn’t I tell you not to? You didn’t take your new phone out there did you, Lori?”
“No ma’am.”
“**** right you didn’t, cause I sure ain’t buying you a new one. Didn’t I tell you not to go all the way out there? Didn’t I? Now you get into that bathroom and wash your **** hands!”
“But I’m telling Grandma a story!” huffed little yellow haired Lorelai.
“Well wash your hands first and then we’ll hear it, Grandma don’t listen to misbehaving girls who are all muddy and gross. Not a squeak from you till you look like you come from heaven instead of that nasty creek.”
A profound sigh, a condescending, “Fine,” a door closing and a squeaky faucet running. Muffled hands splashed, dampened off-key ‘la la la’s.
“Who knows what the hell that one is ever talking about,” said Connie. “It’s everything I can do to get her to shut up for five ******* minutes. You done with your eggs?”
Ma fidgeted. The plate was scraped away, and a clunk by the sink. Licked her lips, mouthed a syllable, about to speak. But then her house creaked three strong along the east wall. From deeper within bubbled a suppressed sob: “Mom,” little Bastian wailed, “Mom, come quick!” Constance sighed, Constance cursed, and Constance swept off down the hallway struggling to refrain from stomping.
Sound of washing. Wind. Rain. Alone. Cold. Picking out the paint for this room, listed in gloss as ‘golden straw yellow.’ Rowan hadn’t liked it and chose himself the bedroom’s color in retaliation. The loss of the home they had built together. The contents of the vial hidden on the top shelf: do they see it? Bathroom sink stopped flowing, door wrenched open. Smell of soap, clean smell. Grandma said to her, “Your mother went to check on Bastian,” Taste of eggs still yellow on her tongue.
“What a *****!”
Stunned. “Lorelai!” she snapped. “Don’t you dare take that language!”
“But mom does it all the time.”
“Then Lorelai, it’s up to you to be better than your mother. When I’m not around any more, and your mother neither, you’ll be the one who keeps us alive.”
“But as long as you’re alive you’ll always be around, you’re not a ***** like mom. And remember? I got all the mud off so can I finally tell you can I what we found? Well actually it was Edgar found it. Oh and I’ll describe it real good for you grandma just like you could see it: when we pulled up we were just wandering in the blue rain, Bastian and me, and silly Edgar joined us but Mom tried to make us come back of course but I told Bastian to stay with us at first, but later I changed my mind on it. It was he and me and Edgar were hiding in the old motor barn where it smells like a gas station remember grandma and he was so excited to see the sun when it rose and made the morning violet sky he started clapping and Edgar got excited too and was barking ‘bark bark’ and howling so I told Bastian to go back even

Once there was a water dragon. He was brilliant and blue and he knew the depths of the sea like no other. Once upon a time a spider laid it's tiny eyes on him. This spider saw how wondrous and free the water dragon was and decided to silently follow him only so as to be close. The dragon, once observant noticed this but decided what's the harm. He let the spider look on as he continued to be himself. One day the spider realised it had something inside of itself that wanted to be free too and it bit the beautiful water dragon. The bite was venmous and the dragon could feel it corse through him and before he could even muster a thought against it, he wanted it. He wanted it and everyday the tiny spider would come to bite him again. The dragon knew this was wrong but he thought, that tiny spider all alone and everyday it comes back to bite me, that must be love. That tiny venom I feel in my heart must be love. And so he kept it.
The spider came from the ground but there was never a way back so it just stayed close to the dark. The cold places where there was little light and slowly those places became the dragons home too. He didn't swim in the light anymore. He didn't swin at all. His beautiful blue faded to grey and he forgot the sun. The spider continued to bite him every day until that last time when it borrowed itself right underneath his skin and then, the spider was swallowed whole.
The spider was called
Lie.
The water dragon thought, at last it is dead now I can be free again. I can go back to the water now. And he did try, he tried to escape the cave but when he started to see the light again he had to turn away. His head was hung. The spider lived inside of him now and even if it was forever only in that tiny place, he knew he would not escape and inside he felt it and in the bottom of his soul he knew the spiders name.
Lie.
He was trapped but at least now he could see the outside or watch as it went by. He could even feel the water again and float, floating was better than nothing at all, and he accepted his fate. He was content and he could be happy with being content and he wasn't even all that grey anymore. Mostly grey but still so magnificently beautiful. So he would watch the world but no one could ever see him because all they could know was a sad angry thing that is only called a shame because the dragon that once was is no more.

Once there was a beautiful water dragon...
Now no one remembers, no one searches because of what they might find...
Lie.
It's better forgotten.
The dragon became a thing that was lost to even a single thought but if there ever was one it went like this.
Beware of that hidden thing, he was once something you may have spoke of. That's all.

But the same water dragon was still there somewhere and he himself knew this much and in everything that was enough.
That's what he wanted to believe.
It wasn't real though.
One day a curious girl found his dwelling, he was sure she'd be too afraid but admittedly nervous as she was she did not look away. Her wide eyes only grew. She touched his face and whispered "beautifil" he unclenched and began to free himself from a rigid position he'd been wrestling with for what seemed like lifetimes. The girl lost her footing quick realising too late that she stood on the dragons tail. She fell back off the cliff from the cave right into the sea.
The dragon thought, if I do this now if I save her then I can remember myself. I will never be grey again but I'll remember that it was not me. If I go out into that sea now I might not ever be able to find a way back here and even though I know this is not home.
this is my only home.
But the girl was drowning.

The dragon saved the girl and he brought her back to his home and there she woke and said "I love you dragon, you have saved me but you are most beautiful in the light. You do know that don't you?" And she gazed at him in wonder but he just hung his head because he could not forget what he believed the girl should never know.
Lie...
He remembered that spider who was long dead now but part of it would forever remain inside of him.
The girl slid down and caught his head in her hands, smiled and pushed him back into place.

"I found you dragon, I FOUND YOU!!! That means you are mine and I say you cannot live here like this anymore. I will take you with me and we will find someplace beautiful for you to swim again so you can be what you are, so you can feel the sun. I want that for you, dragon. You know why"

"don't say no ok! let's just go far away from this cave now because I love you and I won't ever leave you here but I am a girl, dragon. And I need to see the sun and I want that and that is a freedom that you could never know confined to this cave"
The dragon came so close he was almost inside of the girls wide eyes. His huge, deep, warm breaths on her face made her skin come alive like she was in command of countless living creatures, breathing in her veins. Powerful. That is what he made her.
The dragon said, I saved you didn't I! You know why but please don't ask these silly things. I will not leave here now because it is my home somehow but you can come here anytime you like and see me. Looking at you makes me happy and you know, you know I'll love you but just don't try to move me now because because I am so much bigger than you tiny girl and know this, I have already tried. Nope! I am not going anywhere so don't even ask.
The girl smushed her face into some kind of unnatural expression and huffed.
"I'll show you dragon"
She kicked his tail and ran right up to his ear and whispered.
"I am not afraid of you. I saw that spider once and I know you feel it too and dead as it may be that spider will always borrow down deeper and deeper unless you just let it be free. The dead have left marks all over you. something a girl could never imagine, dragon. I see that and I do not have to know but you should know this, I am not afraid!
And I'll be back tomorrow, and tomorrow and all of eternity because I will never leave you alone here dragon.
And tomorrow, I will make you smile.

Tomorrow the girl came back. She scaled the slippery wall with a world of belongings on her back and when she reached the top where the dragon called home she flung what could have been all of her tiny life's worth out on to the hard rock. She yelled
"I am here, dragon"
And the dragon appeared. He slowly wrapped her in his cold skin and he said nothing. The girls face looked disappointed so he tightened his grip but she sighed and wriggled free and looked at him in the eye.
The girl laughed.
The dragon was in awe of how anyone could escape his grip and he did indeed seem defeated almost but the girl just smiled at him and said "silly dragon, you know that I am too small, you could never hold me"

"But dragon, this is the predicament now you see, I have told you that I am a girl who needs so many things and the sun and the sun but you are my only sun and that is the only warmth that I want to know now and I don't know how to tell you I was wrong. I only need you and I've taken all these things here with me so to make you admit what you yourself already know. You have said it and not said it in too many ways so now you just need to let it be. You dragon, you love me. You have saved me and now I will save you too"
The dragon still said nothing so the girl continued.
She stood the ground, taller than she was and proclaimed.
"THREE THINGS I WILL PUT IN FRONT OF YOU
Not to sway you but to show you how to look and see what is real. This is all I have dragon, so it will work because you will not tell yourself that it cannot.
Just see"

"First,
I took these three strings, sangen. And sometimes I can melt colours so you may not feel grey anymore and I will write and sing for you a million songs if you promise to always open your eyes for me.
Secondly,
All of my words which have now fallen right here in front of you. You really should open your eyes and see, it's like an endless haiku.
And third,
What else do I have of value save for myself and who knows how much value is in that. But third, it is spilled out clear. Honesty dragon. All of my honesty and I am not a perfect girl, not at all but I will accept whatever you show me because I only want to see you and I am not afraid"

"look"
she asked the dragon and she showed him her heart and all the times her tiny frame had cracked trying to get it out.
"I was not always this either but it is enough dragon, even if we are the only ones who ever know. You are still alive in here.
We are.

The dragon spoke and he said, ok girl I am listening. I am looking so show me. Then the girl whispered
"I know the spider all too well"

"it camouflages itself as something innocent but it was never that. I have been bitten by a spider too and I know what it never wants you to see"

"it can never rest even when you know its dead and the further down it digs the more eggs it lays inside of you, dragon and the only way it stops is if you set it free and I know that feels impossible but all you need to do is show me. Then it is gone and you will be free. I can see its marks on you, it's all over you poor dragon, but it is dead now so please let it go"

"I am only because I had looked at that spider everyday until I wasn't afraid, so I picked it out from inside of myself and threw it away. I cannot do this for you, dragon but I can stay here and make you smile while you find a way to let it go. But, just show me and I promise you it will go and don't worry I know I am small but I am not weak and I am not afraid of you and I will still stay"
The dragon spoke again but only to say,
stay here just don't say anymore.
Sleep now.
But the girl refused to tire and finally the dragon grew strong enough to show her.
Look now, you see it can never come away and I will never let it go now because I am afraid.

The girl saw the spider and it was in the dragons beating heart. She kissed his heart and told the dragon.
"it's ok, dragon. Thank you for showing me this"

For several days and nights they slept until a day the girl awoke. She was alone in the dragons empty cell and she walked to the opening where a light broke through and stumbled over a dried out tiny corpse of something that was once called
Lie...
And she looked far out through the cracks onto the waves and there he was like she had never seen him before and yet somehow it was entirely fitting to her image of what she knew the dragon could be. He was blue again and so fast and when he moved she could feel it through the bones. 

The dragon came back to the girl but still he said nothing. His breath was so close to her again that all the tiny creatures she never let die ran back through her veins and she knew. She was alive.
The girl climbed on the dragons back and he said said
Now, we can go home.

Green eggs, Spam and grits
Sam and Pam had their fill,
Then made their way to Main Street
Down WhoDat’s Whatsup Hill.

Waived "Hi!" to their neighbors
To show them that they cared.
All smiled except two who
Just stood there and glared.

Hulu Q Hopps and
His shorter half-brother
They came from two pops but
Shared the same mother.

Hopps came at them fast
So they quickened their pace
Sam and Pam flew past him,
Boy, this was a race!

Hopps huffed and puffed,
While shouting very gruffly:
"You better stop now, or
I'll treat you roughly!"

          "Just what have we done
           To make you so mad?"

"If you don't stop right now,
I'll do something bad!"

Pam and Sam finally stopped,
Turning right around,
Awaiting their fate while
Standing their ground.

Hopps wide-eyed and breathless
Finally stopped within inches
"Listen real closely now,
Your see Mr. Pinch is
Hot on your trail
Looking for retribution
Based on your failure
To give restitution."

          "We don't know what that means,
           We don't know what to say..."

"Doesn't matter at all,
Pinch is coming your way!"

Since Mr. Pinch meant
To slow cook their goose,
Pam and Sam agreed to do
What they learned from Dr. Seuss!

They asked all their friends
To lend them some help.
Eucalyptus, Betty Loo,
JaeJae and Miss Kelp.
Hortman, Octavius, and
Hopps stepped up to bat.
Even Kat came back
And threw in her hat!

Off in the distance
The Catawampas growled
And soon after that
The Terrormasu yowled.

Down came Mr. Pinch
From atop Mount Dumpit
In his impedimenta SUV,
Like it or lump it.

Rolling into town
Entering WhoDat's Square
Pinch shouted "Sam and Pam!
Are you hiding somewhere?"

"You must pay the piper,
I'm here to collect.
Excuses mean nothing,
Your pleas I'll reject!"

Pam and Sam stepped forward,
Friends forming a line.
          "Pinch, you won't get away
           With extortion this time!"

With that Betty Loo
Pulled out her didgeridoo.
The others pulled out
Their instruments too.

All began playing strong,
Singing loud and clear:

"You are hostile Mr. Pinch
And your breath reeks of stench
But we're stronger than you
So you can't make us flinch.
Mr. Pinch you are mean
So you better flee the scene
You're a ****** like no other, Mr. Pinch..."

They droned on and on,
A multi-stanza bonanza:

"You're a villain Mr. Pinch...

"You are ****** Mr. Pinch...

"You are nasty Mr. Pinch...

"You're a ****** Mr. Pinch...

"You disgust us Mr. Pinch...

Mr. Pinch screaming loud
With hands to his ears,
Made a beeline to his
Impedimenta SUV in tears.

Then Pinch did the math
Calculating the odds
He wasn't going to get
Anywhere with these clods.

"You haven't heard the last of me!"
Fist pumping as he shouted.
When he left, all WhoDat cheered,
Disaster had been routed.

Sam and Pam thanked their friends
In a way that befits.
A WhoDat picnic serving them
Green eggs, Spam and grits!

So there she was I
knew I saw Jennifer the
fairy in the sky

O she twinkled bright
left happy zig zags flowers
floating so freely

Anyway as I
sunbathed whilst dean fished ,I saw
a big willow tree

Oh my he looked like
had the **** , Jennifer made
his eyes go bosseyed!

She was trying to
round up the dragonflies but
they kept flying off

I was observing
as usual eating a cheese
and tomoto roll

Jennifer was bored
again so she surfed across
the pond racing the

mallards and swans , her
tiny wings tried to keep up
but she had slowed down

But Jennifer was
not going to lose , she loved
to win always..it

was a problem she
had since she was born , her best
friend Peter the Snail

told her on many
occasions to lose is not
a bad thing it can

be a good thing as
well , but she'd much to learn
For now she wanted

to win, she fired
her bow and arrow and hit
a passing carp fish

All of a sudden
The carp turned into a
dragon , she jumped on

his back and both raced
through the sky towards Mr
Willow who was still

in a grumpy mood
but I could actually see
a twinkle in his

eye , he waved his long
arms in the air , Jennifer
and the dragon

had won the race , the
swans and mallards huffed and puffed
not happy with her

winning , I looked at
her and smiled , by now my big
toe was hurting me

And Deans fishing rod
was bleeping , he had caught a
carp, but oh no it

wasn't a carp it
was a dragon,  Jennifer
had forget to turn

him back into a
carp , wooo me and dean run as
fast as we could back

to van where he drove
like a maniac to dodge
the dragon who once

was a carp , as I
looked out the rear window I
could see Jennifer

giggling , she was
riding the dragon with her
bow and arrow , I

thought to myself she's
a mischievous fairy
And I just smiled wide

I got home quickly
and me and dean had salad
and a nice cold drink

Dean still can't believe
we got chased by a dragon
Maybe one day I

shall tell him about
Jennifer the fairy and
I bet he'd smile too

:)

I could see him standing beneath the bridge,
dressed in blue and navy
cotton and denim,
his beard was long,
longer than your train
the train you had as a kid,
his beard huffed and puffed
telling the story of growing old
his eyes were clouds
floating on his face
and if he was angry only his nose would know,
bent and flat pushed up farther on the right
hung down lower on the left,
I only assume he had lips
and teeth,
only his beard moved
but he never spoke
beards don't speak,
he wasn't wearing shoes,
it was cold outside,
snowmen would melt,
but it was still cold,
It had just rained
I could see the puddles
but I couldn't see the sun,
This man saw nothing
he just stood there,
I just walked by.
I could see him thinking all the thoughts
we try to forget,
his face was wrinkled,
furrowed brows make the deepest lines,
a soggy man,
he ate enough or drank enough
i guessed,
because he was warm enough,
a thinking man,
what better place to think than under a bridge,
I'll call him the troll,
I'll paint paintings
and write with chalk
I'll make a memorial
for a man who's only a memory,
I saw him,
I can't forget,
This man will never die,
he'll last as long as the chalk on the ground,
keep thinking for us troll
thinking keeps the boy insane,
keep saving us troll
we can't do it we keep forgetting,
keep standing troll
cause we keep falling down,
be my savior troll,
and I'll keep walking,
just don't steal my ****

Every now and then,
When I'm sitting alone in my
Pajamas, with a cup of hot
Chai tea and a dash of honey
In the morning
I sit against the wall
I breathe in and out
Once, twice, a few more times

And then I let down the
Gate in my mind
And my thoughts
Prance in the field of
Morbid dreams

I imagine my death
And I wonder just who
Would bother to show
And I wonder if
That boy, yeah, that one,
The one I loved for
Five years,
Would anyone even
Tell him?
Or would he be too busy
Shooting up, getting drunk,
Too busy trying to attempt
Inadvertent suicide?

I picture my mother
In her pressed black pants
And her modestly sequined
Funeral blouse that I've only
Seen three times or so
She'd rip the glasses off of her
Head and scream at my father
Why was she such a *****?
Didn't she know I loved her?

Yeah, Ma, I knew
I knew you loved me when
You grounded me for an A-
I knew you loved me when
You glared at the food on my
Plate,
After I hadn't eaten in a week
And huffed,
You're going to eat that?
Do you want to be an elephant
Or something?

I knew when you read my
Diary in seventh grade
And yelled about all of the
Deep secrets I wrote to paper
I knew when you told me
How disappointed you were
When you swore you'd never
Ever
Be proud of me

Then my mind wanders over
To my father
The big teddy bear
Graying scalp, icy eyes
His suit from 1977
That always made me laugh
And I let myself wonder
If he would even
Bother to cry

I skim across my friends
Druggies
Thieves
Liars
Cheaters
They'd miss me, wouldn't they?

Last, I ponder over
Who would show up
That I wouldn't even want
To be there
The people I've crossed
And thrown away
The ones I loved
And wrote off

I'm sure there would
Be plenty of those
Spewing lies about
How I used to be

And it all swirls together
Down Tornado Alley
My ex's lack of interest
My mother's bleeding heart
My father's vacant stare
My friends' misplaced grief
My enemies' back stabbing falsehoods

And I wonder if any
Of these people
Would honestly be able to say
That they knew me at all...



Meanwhile, the Christmas music
My mother loves to blast
Flows down the hallway and
Under my door

*Fa la la la la
La la la la...

You chased
I ran
You yelled
I turned
You swung
I ducked
You huffed
I pushed

The back of your ankle caught
on the underside of a gnarly root

You twirled
I watched.
You screamed
I watched..
You bled
I watched...
You gasped at air
I watched....

The old jagged branch penetrated
through your squishy eye
and kissed the back of your skull
blood burst and squirted
while the rise and fall of your chest slowed
and your body grew cold

A rose bush was born amidst the clutches of an early winter

I left
You haunted
I cried
You permeated
I stayed silent
You spoke in my dreams

I know they found you
I visit and leave you flowers
But I am through,
I finally convinced myself
that it's not my
fault.

the bluebird had queries and questions
and thought he should ask the moon,
but the moon was dark that night.
its hood was pulled tight.

the bluebird sighed, and so did the sun.
the sea greeted him with a waving hand.
“bluebird, bluebird up there!
the moon does not speak easy.
having its skin broken too many times.”

the bluebird whistled a sad tune.
“whatever shall i do, when i need the moon?
he will not speak, and i am too weak
to fly to him up there.”

the sea crashed against the rocky shore,
and its response was, “you need not wings,
bluebird, when the moon will come to you.
for when your light falls the moon will rise,
in the darkness it lights the skies.”

the bluebird huffed once again.
“i am not the sun, silly sea.
you mistake my feathers for blue skies,
i am not the stars in the night.”

but the bluebird could not see,
how bright he was to be.
and as he flew away,
the moon began to say,
“your wings are bigger than they seem.
bluebird, do not fret.
our time is to come together yet.

so the bluebird whistled a tune
as his wings expanded and grew,
and lifted him high into the sky,
and to the moon he drew nigh.
he landed among the stars.
bluebird, you will indeed go far.

She frolicked through trouble, and dandled with mischief. Alison Wonderland; everything I wished I was and so much more. Ever emanating her doe-eyed façade; proclaiming our jests mere “mischief.”
Yet, an unspoken verdict (Foretaste? Conception? Notion?) had cloaked the truth: wickedness rippled beneath our parade.
I nuzzled her contours; my peripheral eye – nailed to her profile, her blueprints, her chassis. I stalked her mirage – dancing with vapor.
She glissaded about, no fool to my truth, varnishing my mantle.
I belonged to Alison: perpetually at her side. Our couplet became a “we.” So, We regretted nothing. We veered for the pyre: caroming(skimming?) those embers alit with vice.
She narrated my mental seminar. Discarding my dogmas to uphold her own; and thus, my mind was hers.
My mind was her mind.
Alison made heads turn, and mouths water, as we sidled – hand in hand – down the street. She was my Christmas morning: each colloquium – giftwrapped with finesse. She personified paradise, she illustrated utopia. Hatching our Carnival; netting us, enamored, sidling the Carousal. We’d skim, we’d sail, her halo – my fossil. Her lips, her eyes, her hands… they echoed the innocence of a child. Niave, innocent, and giftwrapped in wonder.
Little Miss Wonderland: my very own fairytale. She was mine alone; she was mine to keep.
Did I want her, or did I want to be her?
Alison Wonderland.
Her aura – so celestial – paralleled my prose. When she banished my husk – Maple Thatcher – I cackled good riddance… And I grew a new personality to accommodate her own.
For, without Ali – devoid of our we – I doubted the very existence of me.
On my composition, she bestowed rhythm. She gave tune to my silence; her chimes, her cadence. My ink was her song – fusing a symphony. A symphony of Alison: the melody to solidify our tryst.
My mind was her mind.
And yet… somehow, I missed a carriage – or two – aboard her train of thought. For, the same felon spiting my existence, was the angel I loved to life. Gladly, I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew Maple down.
Fused against Alison, I needed none of Maple.
Carnival infatuations…

Alison Wonderland.

Evil Tales

So you think, you know who I am,
I killed Mary, and ate her little lamb.
I killed Goldilocks and ate the three bears,
then dumped the porridge down the stairs.
I pushed Humpty Dumpty off that wall,
I'm the reason for his great fall.
I'm the one who killed Bambi's mother,
that deer tasted like no other.
I put the poison in Snow White's apple,
the blood from the seven dwarfs,
I put in every red Snapple.
I chopped off all of Rapunzel's hair,
yes I know that wasn't fair.
I'm the father of Cinderella's step sisters,
after midnight I gave her some cold sore blisters.
I put Sleeping Beauty fast asleep,
then ran her over in my new Jeep.
Georgie Porgie kissed the girls and made them cry,
that is the reason, he had to die.
Little Miss Muffet ate her curds and whey,
it was my spider who had a Muffet buffet.
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
I pushed Jack down and gave Jill a thrill.
Little Red Riding Hood went to Grandma's house,
then the big bad Allen pulled up her red blouse.
The Three Little Pigs never had a chance,
I huffed and puffed and ate pork til I **** my pants.
This old man, he played one,
knick, knack, paddy whack,
then my dog ate his thumb,
There was an Old Woman who lived in a shoe,
then one day, I filled it with crazy glue.
I killed Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy,
inside my head is very, very scary.

Eager rushing sensations, waiting to escape, finding love and never finding the right words to say. Varied and wondering dreams, restless in all it’s waking threads of time. Rose gardens that house all kinds, like sunflowers for Van Gogh, humming amongst them. The mood helps providing a sense of freedom, though most never follow through. Maybe it’s only peace that I’ve always wanted. Something that isn’t found under a chestnut tree. Poetry a way beyond conversing with oneself, a self portrait for one’s eternal life, opened for viewing, it's something more than wanting street fame. Flashes of knowledge. As pearls. Self-doubt has become normal, something lingering around, it’s tiring in my engagement with it. Clouded mists, dripping over my essence, for I’m guilty for being anxious. Though there’s a-lot of men who stay heated, most of them stay bluffing underneath, hollering at the moon on the roof, passing any yearning for actual love. Because it’s something made out of lust. Now poetry spoils me, maybe it’s too much of a good thing, I’m alone in the world and it’s something I never wanted. For me, it always seems that I end up like this, a darkened world and I’m centered in it. For love, it was all bone and ashes, with poets skills, turned them into something so potent, forming beauty so we all forget about life’s natural wonders. A nightmare for the moment. Thoughts that are vivid, I’m not lost, I’m on a path that’s constructed for me. The only predestined item, in my own existence. Not reluctant. Even when you’re heading towards your fate, it’s still no obligated to provide you all that you ever craved, including the lips of a lover. It’s a sudden and unexpected shock. Sometimes laying a scent of bitterness inside. Yes, it can provide tears. Maybe I’m just impatient. Though in poetry, I take glimpse, into another’s world, another’s experience. I just don’t want to know about love. The experience of it, that's in experience love, far-more illuminating than any poem that anyone can read. It’s a certain grace, a different type of contentment, being in love, maybe a final place for personal progress to stop, rest and let go. Feeling safe in another’s arms. For if the same love is given back. Controlling the movement of the sun with each poem. Salmon sky, starlight, fireflies, providing a sense of romantic aroma, scented poems, kissing, eyes glitters in their flickering. Hands holding, insecurity fades and each lover forgets about them, fear forgotten to the point of it never existed. Love, not belonging to romance art. Violin for symphonies. Some infinities are bigger than others. Changing fates, change paths, I’m a paradox. Whenever I’m glanced at. I’m under no obligation to be the person others are. Like how life is to me. Not out spite. Not to taunt. Just be.The issue of self-awareness, giving me the knowledge to be my own person. Harping in the waltz. Solemn in my own thoughts. Private. Wanting to burst. But I render to myself on my path, dealing with daily struggles. Maybe I’m private in order to keep myself for the one I’m meant to be for. This is all just a prelude to my own enlightenment. This is only a note to a track record. Fire. I look back on times of that self-awareness, what a large lump of weary years. The wanting to live, the desire and dreams, than not having the ability to do so. Till I started the to notice the beauty of life, without knowing the beauty inside, I looked inside and saw a supplication, and produced my own courage, hollowness in others I could always understand, people's wanting to understand, to have friends, to talk, to be noticed, to be helped. To what I didn’t see, original lives, people all just fitting into conformity. Friends and family will believe always in your potential, nauseating in person duality. Always. Without fail. It’s a different story once you want to act on it. Nothing there is spontaneously. Oh frown on that life where it's easier to bleed, than it is to smile. Maybe nothing in life is predestined. And the search to have my own fate come to furitation is all any illusion, a trick to find myself. To create something holy here on earth. And it’s shocking to see how many people want you grounded. Though what do you do, when love turns to hate?For all I know, my own heart isn’t meant to be enclosed. But if you can’t create yourself, if you won’t rebel, stand up for yourself. In order to avoid scars. Beauty won’t belong to you. Not the beauty of the flesh. The kind of beauty that comes from inside.The soul is stronger than the flesh, rendering it more valuable. I’ve noticed the war between Angels and Demons.I could be all wrong. It could just be something of a self-made myth. The smart philosopher will know, the peace is known internally and the externally will never match. There’s few things more pleasurable than *** and revenge. It’s returning to a place of hardship, during success. And no one notices how much doubt affects our own lives. To apply within, to save myself from all those fears and insecurities. For I had meet someone, changing, shifting the patterns inside, I first felt illuminated for the first time. I smiled, encouraged me to stop reading, reading the lives of others, begin to live for myself. He held me hand, caused me to smile, asked me to talk, sat and listened, took an interest, asked for nothing more, than my time and presence, for what we did during that, that was up to me. Putting in time, was the only work required. Projecting ourselves beyond the mundane parts, going forth, passing poetry itself. It was like discovering Mozart’s music for the first time in humanity. We replaced the mocking chants of time’s minutes, moments or angst future to be now, with passion, love, heated exchanges of wanting to dive into one in another. And each lover can remember the first, the last and the only. It’s a brief life. To have it full of something else, like holiness. It’s another thing. Trust me, to be enticed, to be tempted, to be curious. If it’s for true love. Let it happen. It sparked the belief for me, that real love does not live in poetry, paintings, in novels or in some cosmic planet or parallel life. Our soulmates belong in our hands, to have them feel safe to be themselves. It’s funny, I had always wanted a man to come in, storming into my life, to save me. God cannot be everywhere. The most dangerous thinkers are the ones who act on love. For God made lovers, not to be everywhere, for I ended up saving my lover. Poetry only nature's the faith of love, because poems are food for love. But who has not truth in their heart, will not see the beauty of the other. To how I had lost him. It’s on account of the earthly problems. The ego is the ugliest part the human race. As for ignorance. It’s too bad no one can feel pain from it. It was love, at first sight, and everything turned into beauty. It littered this land. Staurating the poets of thoughts of grandeur. Free to be wild. Locked in the heart to be tamed and own, for me, shivering in my frame, providing aesthetic to reality. Burning the sky, dnce all crazy, eyes on fire, we got them in a trance and impending doom of death, drips and melts away. Pulling in dramatic tension towards us, melodramatic and meticulous in our love for one another, ourselves dripped and personally forgotten in the presence of the other. We had broken the fuse of life, it’s living spark, to any predestined wants of it, created our own, anywhere we went, turned to romantic pilgrimage, and finally for the first time, any flaws of life, any poverty, burden or burning want, left, as we shrugged our shoulders, smiling at one another. We have and are, fully absent of any muse that we had once, prior to meeting thee and used for earthly wants and values. Like Milton said, do not think about morals, for they the ability to think about themselves. And our souls, larger than Rome, stronger than any empire. This isn’t a result of dreams, we had lived in reality and said no-more. Because it didn’t watch the throne. What do you do when the willingness to live, turns into something of no more? We just replaced the reality of life and created our own. For the mind is in a place of its own, to what comes into fruition, tangible and touchable. I’ll wonder deeper. Awake and rise. For this isn’t to copy. Something to leave behind. Perhaps this adds charm, shade to the stillness parts of life, colour to the darkness. A feeling of perfection to anything that may of so seemingly born lifeless. And ever since I’ve been left alone, I’ve come to grips in solitude. Out of truth, until this day, I have no idea how to articulate true love, I tell myself, something so beautiful can’t be express in poetry. And if it isn’t true love. I don’t want to know. It’s allowing to continue to believe in love, remaining here under its spell and that we all have a soulmate here, waiting to be discovered. My heart will ache until I find thee. Yes, I’ve heard it’s dangerous to romanticize one’s own past, have it brew to the surface of old sensations, from the secret depths of my own soul, alluring our attention to it and placing a veil to the future, maybe why we romanticize the past, is a simple reminder that life isn’t so bad. Perhaps I’m just a foolish romantic, an expression-mirage of hope. As the thoughts of love, keep coming, I’ll continue to walk, if it’s in exile, alone, parting from everything that I had become accustomed to, let it be. But at least I don’t refuse the potential of life’s fruits and to what I can bear with my own hands.  When it’s in love, anyone can farewell to hope and fear, for the very last time. In heartbreak moments, its singing of torment and personal chaos, collapsing of my private world. To which I deemed valuable on any night meant for you and I to share love. **** and full of fashion. Of how much pain the heart can stand, imagine the experience of tightening strings to crack like glass to the point of no-return. Miserable in the infinity. Just to devour anything worthy of oneself. Huddling together with the darkness and whisper between ourselves. Than by force, burden humanity. And a good poem is the blood for any romantic, but it’s forgotten when love is currently being enjoyed. To the unbearable doubt, I’ll not fall victim to, poetic, I’m fraile inside, like we all are. They’ll be no heros if our inner-worlds weren’t such soft touches of complete tenderness. Mingling glories. Kiss me now. I’ll smile for you than. What is it mean that someone is clingy? Perhaps there is nothing for them. Maybe they had just saw for what I’m worth and saw nothing but beauty. For that, there is nothing else for them, besides to infuse romance. Just wanting to leave me breathless. Tenor for rose beds, shepherd to anything the world made of beautiful, touch it, it will multiple. The breath of life. Hollering at moon on the roof. For the reminds me, of what he thought of me, when he first saw me. But I always answer in response, ‘what about now’. Lowering his head, resting on his arm, hiding his smiling. To which reminds me, it’s always getting better. Like the revolving poems. In spontaneous overflow of something we can’t control. What is the paramount goal between lovers? To self discover? To know another? Be poetic in one’s actions? Oh musing poetry, how can we know how to love thee? How to live? How to write poetry for thee? Now I see the value of peering into the arts made from any romantic period. But what does it mean to pass those poems by? Losing all value of life. It's just passing moments, threading together, stuck to the forefront of my mind, I’m unable to forget. So I lose sense of time and daily obligation. Smoking magic. Spellbound. I’m fully alive and aware now. Constant. There is no change. I’m unable to forget. Though let me breathe in that breathe, an intoxicating perfume. Extravagance. Blunt in twilight. Pierce through obscurity. Temptation to praises. Holding lovers hand under sunlight and moonlight. Pitchy. Eyes convicted of seeing the endgame of beauty, never to look away. Containing fairy tales in dreams, the ability to stain the earth with it. Got to be carefully not to let the evil of this life and earth trap thy. And all I wanted to say to my lover, before I told him, that his voice is my favourite sound, is to say simple words like I love you. So when you see me, our dreams will flicker like the stars of the night, never to fade and when the sun rises, the golden dawn between us, will expand the sun’s glory. In clarity of mixed feelings, we had lived dormant and a calm temperament, contempt to achieve earthly success, to which our heart could never be satisfy with. Drowning in oceans of filling hearts by love, produced by one another. When you’re in love, the world is yours and it spins around. But when one’s heartbreaks, nothing but numbness and you’re alone. Late night, bright lights, lust and lies, everyone with their hands out, no one is giving, but I cannot blame people for trying to get what they can. Loving seeing your lovers smile. Anything goes under this shared sky, who knows what you’ll find. I’m just distilled in poetry. Needing one single kiss and I’ll open my arms, present myself so proudly. As for the naturally wonder, they’ll blink, display itself for everyone, jealous as we walk away. But when your heat breaks, everything is gone and nothing ever seems to matter, plucked into forever. And all wanted, nothing within poetry, is to love. Can one ever get blamed for that? It’s as natural as being born and to die. To my doubt, that no matter how I live, do not engage with me, on how I’m supposed to be. Cello symphonies, tenors. Can I survive a misspirit? Oh for what I’m I really waiting for? For when you open your heart, look how they try to play me, write a couple a poems, now they wave at me. I’ve had my heartbroken, to lovers smiles. From a romantic in desituition, to someone's love. Experience in musings. And to every step I take. Just want to tread over romance and transition into poetry. Smile for me now. From a trembling throb, shaking hands, strengthening of heart, it’s enough for me to know that I exist, not to be contained in any single moment. Do we really know life? I just want love. For poetry, I’m happy to hand out freely. To be beautiful, it’s when one glares at you, to be valued, is for when one knows you. For that, lover? Maybe? Otherwise, it’s not the purpose of existence to be either beatiful or valued for the outside. To which, I can easily do either. A free woman in this unfree world, would be a woman dreams never dared to speak to. A daughter of muses. Dreaming about the romance world. My mind goes boom! For me in the world of romance. To doubt should be a sin. Not to be brave enough to follow through, a sin. Refusing faith that we’re all meant to be for another as a soulmate. A unique miracle for another’s life. For a romantic, a day without love is like no salt on the road for the saint. Ever since adolescence, calling out for my soulmate, until he returns, it’s all eyes on me. I desire, so therefore, I exist in something of an aura, taking in this world’s pressure, without a sound, I slide, I’m unbreakable. It’s not that I can’t make it on my own. I’ve tasted love and earth or this life, cannot provide and other contentment, melting over in illumination. It’s incarnate and inherent. I’ve measured my own worth and dream of someone better. And if they’re less, better go to work to match my eyes. Stars on our door, stars in our eyes, stars exploding in the bits of our brains were the common sense should have been, where anticipation of love making sessions isn’t our greatest pleasures. Unstained by fulfillment for what we can do for each other. When I was younger, my hunger was to let loose in exile, catch me if you can, I giggle at those more vulnerable and impression years. Demand in the present, higher status in the future. Narration of poetry in soft whispers. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world. As for me. I created a love no other human can ever attain, so I’ve replaced every muse that had ever existed. No longer to question my own existence. The lover yet not conceptualize in my hands, is just another unexplored land of flesh and character. Waking each day, a little more, living, movements under the eyes, flicker of light. I gasp and breathe in. Somnolent gestures, it’s a little more urgent and intense, somethings different. More raw and upfront. I’ve loathed and now no more. Piano keys pressed. Heat rises, rains felt colder. Die another day. I huffed and puffed. I came to grips for the life I had live. Parted from it. Moving fingers to wave goodbye. I smiled. For love is funny. It’s comes out of nowhere, at the silliest times, from the most random people, like a fluke. Flutes and melody, along piano keys. Love, hitting me hard, never to leave. Asking in cliches, ‘where have you been my whole life?’ Finally, without effort, a man to understand, even from the smallest glimpses of glance, a single touch, a soft spoken word. Loving each other, not knowing how, but we do. In balance, obliges his self-care, never to allow me to struggle in my own wants of life. Understanding in instant flutters of fury and still yearning for more.  And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur. I see him as a series of marvellous shapes formed at random in the kaleidoscope of desire. Filling out my meaning in his living action. To each look, it’s like the first time, in the last few moments, glancing at me, like it his final outlook on life. Our love, devoted to life, but we couldn’t accept life and it’s demands, so, we devoted ourselves, to one another, and it wasn't enough, so, we committed ourselves to holy love and rose above anything that had once been considered as limitations. Dripped off the sides, in alluring colours to the cosmos, left, in supernova fashions and drifted into mythological fame. As we should. Love hits hard, it hits fast and in unexpected times from the most unexpected people. Most of all, it was horrifying at first, made only for the brave, for those who have never tasted love. It’s like, seeing eternity, mastering it and got all the time in forever to stand and glare out to the immense sky. Careful in one’s manner, so no one will notice, eyes opened wide, never to shut, like if I have found creation more than I could explain. The sting of a poem. Why so often my thoughts flustered. Once went everywhere, unrecognised. Time slows. Instead of a mocking face. I regretted nothing in past loves. I am happy that I had an effort. Are the ones too concerned with these earthly concerns. I doubt would ever be themselves, let alone be in love. Don’t ****** me. Now it’s time to be a ghost. For the devil greatest magic, to have the faith that he doesn’t exist. Filtered through my demonic mouth, this is the end and I know how cultures die. This beautiful sigh. A firefly kingdom. Will it be like this, when I cross over to another place? Grief at lost love, when I’m capable of loving now. I’m the romantic, leaning against poetry, filled with love, whisper it’s tone with meaning. Wet summer in low times. Lover without love. Paralysed at my core. Those who glimpsed inside, know of senseless violence. Eyes that not dare no more to meet mine. Pendlum swinging, more selmn than the sfiting emotions. Do not come close to me. Deliberate gestures in the dark. Behaving like the gloom of failure. I know how the world ends. Artists, raise images as homage to death. Is it like this, on the other side, trembling with sobs. No prays to be heard. Valley of dead bodies, steaming ash, sizzling skin to bones. They never talk. Lifeless. Spasm in Zion. rapture over earth, screams from the religious, who pledged their lives to their dogma, slapped in the face. Shadows. Life is short. Between the desire and the action, I’m there, existing. I’m the essence of your desires. I’m breeding new kingdoms. Whimper in public, no-one will hear. For Zion has forgotten you. For I know how the world ends.  
(knowledge variable)

He used it this morning.

Kevin Robinson,
Who has thick curly hair
And
Thinks
He
Knows
Everything.

And I told him,
"What kind of a word
Is
Irradiate?
It isn't a word."

And he told me
In his
Know
It
All
Way
"YES, it IS."

And he spelled it for me.
Because he's into spelling.

I
R
R
A
D
I
A
T
E

So I huffed
And left
Kevin Robinson.

But Randy Weidman
Whose last name
Has a whole different meaning
Had his fancy
New
iPhone 5
And during
First period
Which happens to be
Geometry Honors
He took out
Sira
Or
Whatever
Her
Name
Is

And he asked her.

Sira did not understand.
Sira is not so smart.

But autocorrect is.

And it turns out that
Irradiate
Is
A
Word.

You sat beside me and spoke so sweetly
Let your hands run up my back ever so discreetly
I felt you dancing along my vertebrae
To the tunes of your own words that mould like clay
It took all of me to lift my sleeves
And show you my scars, the reason why everyone leaves
You titled your head to get a better view
Pointed out every dark depressant hue
Then you let your tongue slip
To tell me they're not the wreckage of skin, shadow and ship
That they're not remotely close to how bad they could be
Little did you know how much those scratches mean to me
You spoke of a girl you once knew
Like a Broadway play acting on cue
Mine were nothing compared to hers
In your words, mine are like nicks from spurs
You left me blowing in an empty breeze
While I whirl around like branches falling from trees
Nicks and cuts becoming apparent
My chest transforming transparent
Now I sit curled in a blood soaked bed sheet
Unwillingly trying to compete
Keeping my bones warm
While emulating thoughts swarm
To think you were going to be the one to make my bed
To think you were going to be the place to rest my head
As if I don't hate my inflections enough
You turned into a wolf and puffed and huffed
Blowing me down like a house made of straw
Then you sat back and laughed as I crawled
Letting the stones cut my upper thigh
You asked me what it feels like to die
I told you that it feels a lot like this
And those tiny little nicks shouldn't be dismissed
Because every wound bleeds
It's a part of sufferings deed
And soon enough they'll bleed you dry
By then it sure won't help to cry
You will be the death of me
And only then will you see
That those nicks and cuts mean so much to me
And that they are as bad as they could be

Motions croak in crimped t-shirts
Peace hurts the leg of 3 wheelers
Spit in a book, carefully holding hands over healers
Frosted articulation of bricks hitting off buildings
The doctor resumes surgery on the filming
Actress gummy mouthed backpacker sharing rooms with a jet-lagger galvanizing goo
If I phone myself, I’ll phone you too
Ad-hoc hop around dentures holding saxophones, laziness is the common king around here
Match the sketch with the deliriant fear free freedom and sneer
Shut the promo drunk and dolo
Potions of pogos bouncing so low
Both bones focal, keeping in a smile from an eye perched over the edge spitting on the populous
Attacking formulas with cruel gruel from the oesophagus
Wilting oxalis wooded in obelisks
Mortal coil in amphetamine greed for the sleep
Positioned slightly awkward and barely out of reach
Been seen being dreams piercing holes in the purple of the seeds
Peace is deemed green, free me from the iron between the sheets
Coins flipped in a river and an etude rings out with a profound sense of urgency
Won't wake up faces blindly painted deranged by a 5 sided box that gave fame to what was contained
Warp the wattage, walk in nervous
Hold cosmic stardust in one hand
Another a phone to call the best man
To marry the two hands and I’m sure the priest will understand
Hairs on the ceiling float through the window and provide an outspoken account of how they are feeling
Canisters of friendship huffed in the backs of vans till passing point seizures explain themselves
9mm film reel candy bars and ring modulation skeletal structure cat gut harps
Never finish a walk to work without beginning the start
Trolleys of Dolly Parton facelifts
Knife cutter butterfly anaesthesia makeshift
Hollow bellies of pardoned mop heads becoming a commodity
I can't say sorry if I begin to speak so oddly
I’d say probably yes if you lit a fire beyond the fence where the old man gambles drop-***** with 50 pence
Bite down on copper, synchronise the action
Winter comes and goes like conversation going out of fashion
Morbid, terra-fin switches waterbeds
Hints home at spit-roasting ostrich heads
Cost and effect, cause and intellect
The castle puts his foot down only to find a horses neck
Zipped up in honey, the combs hive mind should reconsider its self lucky
Unorthodox autodidact naturally diffracting compound eye composes paranoia and lies
The patronage of the savant is murderous and contrived
Its better out than in
The constant metaphor for unluckiness
Is where we begin
Radiance in a hot water semi permeable membrane crescent
Strokes the backs of frogs in the desert, stars iridescent and sun bears a weapon
Hammocks, ****, sweat on the brow, split lips on cornerstones of the solstice in the dead of now
Space-age ape on the country road lets out a cough
Caution to the hissing hills ****** in hidden zygotic havens
Actors have no time to cut themselves shaving
Austro-Bavarian chemical burns Molotov cocktail sewers
Crayons let me draw this face on, paint the day on and on, it gets newer
Its the context at which you and I notice the separation, that cues canned humour

stone's throw and the water's current, clouds shifting in the valley of the sky above
screams could be heard near
no,
it was more of a giddy falsetto, shouts that sounded too drunk,
it was an all too familiar sound for james an all too familiar person

"look at my wings! im a fairy! im coming home to the beloved land! wait for me fairy sisters!"

he went to the clear to see if he was hallucinating he wasn't
it really was her;
sophia
nine months since they broke up; that tearful separation

for a minute he just stood there at the far end of the river watching his ex girl friend spread her arms and glide near the banks in the bridge chanting and giggling

god, did he miss her voice and her laugh

she was just like how he remembered her, her timeless free spirited soul still intact as if she took her childhood with her as she grew up, clenched tightly in her fists

the moonlight kissed her milky pale skin, bathing it in a dusty sort of blue.
she was all by herself and he could tell that something was off;
like she was only half there, like her soul vacated her vessel and she was talking to someone not there

she seemed disoriented and james wondered if she was getting bad again,

the worry kicking in as soon as he thought about all those nights,
those times they got high and drank too much and drugged themselves, injecting poison they craved into their veins, letting cigarette ashes fall to their feet, tiptoeing about as if by a marionette's force trailing along the synchronized beating of their hearts
his mind and being time travelling, to the motel room they stayed at that summer bursting with heated afternoons and passionate air, the sheets that smelled of their love making, the wooden floor they sat on as he strummed the strings of his beloved guitar, singing to his muse, the balcony where they laid in each other's arms, in awe of the world around, cicadas chirping
their adventures and misadventures where she pretended to be a superhero and had him as her sidekick the times they pretended to be spies on quest and missions-she introduced and dragged him into her colorful magical realm.
she had dog eared, coffee stained colored books piled in the trunk of her car with words and sentences blacked out, renewed into greater poetry. he could've put a bookmark between pages of one of those books, and they could've dived right into it, staying in a chasm of a sappy, lovesick, sensual poem. they could've gone on a quest of slaying monsters and stopping time for eternity. he couldve stopped them from drowning

they were looking for heaven not knowing that heaven is not a places on earth

all he did was pull down the anchor and let her sink as he kept afloat. sure their connection was real and pure. they comfortably had both of their minds and spirits bare around each other they were two kites flying in a parallel motion but the wind dragged them down hurling them recklessly

they were rarely under substances, almost never under the influence of vices. it filled them up like birthday balloons and their love was the needle that caused them to pop. it had reached the point where they were trapped in a psychedelic haze holding on to each other to stay lucid

the drugs took their toll on them resulting to violence, abusive fights
he loved her so much that he built her a house of bricks and cement to protect her from the big bad wolf not knowing that ****** and ******* turned him into a wolf and he huffed and puffed til he blew her down blew her dead

he felt his heart hit the flat line as her heart stopped for seconds in the ambulance that night he felt everything warp into everything he's ever known everything he's ever had, ever los. he felt the drugs warp into her as if she was the side effect instead of the addiction. the drugs gave them the illusion of being alive while remaining two lifeless, misguided souls.

miraculously they were able to revive her back to life but comatosed with only monitors and tubes sustaining her "life".
that night he dreamt of being with her and holding her hand for the last time as they made a pact, the promise; that they would both get better, get help, get rehab, have blood in their bloodstreams again and have normal functioning lives. they parted with a promise and a someday; that someday they'd meet again when things were right and the stars have aligned maybe, maybe. they kissed and touched in one another's presence before they parted in different directions, for freedom for the better it was a dream within reality. he knew she dreamt it too, that they were stars weaved in the same dream.

he walked closer, to where she was, still seemingly trapped in a trance mindlessly but she alarmingly tethered too close to the water, flailing her arms inviting the wind to knock her down and be part of the river, be the tides the rocks skipped. he had to do something

" sophia!" he screamed, her name echoing past the trees and the trailer houses. it was enough or her to look at him with those eyes, the same eyes that said it all before. recognition fleeted for a second before it went blank but she stopped tethering and perched herself on the bridge

he gave her a lift and took her home to the dorm she was newly staying at for the semester (it was hard to get it out of her from her drunken slurs almost like he had to pull her back from space) and on his drive back with a cigarette perched on his lips he thought about the way he laid her down, passed out and how he stayed for a bit longer, letting his fingers linger across her hair spun from golden silk and the lopsided smile that hung in her face while she slept.

he wondered most of all if she really got better, if the dark was behind her and if she was truly beyond it. he really wanted to believe the pictures that lined the walls,pictures of her smiling, with her friends, her family months after the promise.

she did look better, her skin baring a hint of plumpness and had a healthy glow replacing the sagging hollow that lived in it all those months. after the episode he witnessed (she did reek of ***** and had bloodshot eyes and was shaking not to mention the trance she was in), he didn't know if she was only good at keeping up the "better" facade. but he had his fingers crossed

he was about to let himself out, an ache growling in his stomach as they were to be separated again but he guessed it was the closest they would ever be.

"tell james i love him. always"

his head swiveled back to her and she was still tucked asleep. he could've sworn she said it, he couldn't be hearing things-after being eight months clean of substance usage.

he felt the familiar burn of the cigarette, and he threw it out of the window leaving the remnants of the nicotine inside him. he hated himself for lighting one up and keeping a half pack all this time. this was his first successful relapse and it was all because of her. like a ship tied down to an anchor;he was still tied to her, invisible ropes weighing him back to her ghost



she would always be his downfall

Don't be scared to get a little dirt under your fingernails.
Dare to dig through the tunnels
her scars have built around her
wipe your hands when necessary -
pause - catch your breath
but keep going

Get yourself new spectacles
ensure they're clear enough to let you see the cracks
and when you do
pick and pull at them
start at the corners
they fall off more easily
watch as rock slips after rock
some heavier than others
because memories can be hard to let go of
look for the loose ones and caress them
listen to her song
let it guide you towards her

don't listen as tick follows tock
she is not a land mine
she is a hidden gem;
be gentle

when you are exhausted - sweating and panting
when the sand has huffed and puffed on your face
and doubt begins to whisper,
look at your bare feet
they no longer hurt from the miles walked
Mother Earth has painted them with strength
she has embraced them,
you are her child and
your feet are pointing forward;
Don't you dare defy them

Don't be scared to get a little dirt under your fingernails;
Dig through a few layers of society
and you will find unadulterated beauty

After you have climbed all her mountains
and swam her rivers
you will finally see
that she is not pretty
She is not confined in five letters
She is a sonnet, a love song
an unread novel
ready to be explored; liberated
ready to be alive

She is the happiness in your face
when you reach the hilltop,
an autumn breeze on a summer day,
she is the courage that it takes
to look into her eyes
and give her your lusting fingernails;
To say:
You are the true face of beauty.

"Annie, can you get me another box?"

Anastasia's Mother sneers, finishing her last stick. Sure she heard it, that's why she's running up the stairs to their old town house's roofs.

There, she saw the Mother of her life, stood moderately at the edge. Although her Mom looked homeless, with messy hair and wearing cheap clothes, Anastasia still thinks she's beautiful. From her Mother's pale and dark shaded lips, the picture of her habitual smoking and to the bags of her eyes. Anastasia saw sorrow and humiliation.

"Another box? But isn't that the third one this week?" She questioned. The concerned girl stared at her wasted Mother who just huffed at the moment.

"Just do it, baby." Her Mother commanded. A sigh escaping from Anastasia's mouth as she nodded in full obedience.

"Alright, Mother."

She walked down the steps again, reaching out for money from her own wallet as she headed out.

The wind is pretty frisky this day. The cold air fogging up the populated skies as its getting darker in the entry of the night. The breezy air is tugging at her skin, hugging her petite body. She doesn't have any thick clothing or a layer, nor a jacket to support her now shivering body.

She went to quickened her walking, knowing that her Mother won't be staying up the roofs sooner and the cold air is truly bothering her.

Finally arriving at her station, she entered the shop and she went straight to the counter.

"A box of Marlboro reds, please." Anastasia half smiled, waiting for the counter guy to get one. Once handed, she waited for her change as a boy around her age went beside her.

"A pack of Camel light, please." The boy with raven locks said.

"One-second sir."

She stays patient. She went to look at the boy beside her again, only seeing him looking at her box then to her. She decided to brush it off as her change is handed to her. Anastasia exited the shop to only find that the skies had turned darker.

She turned her heels to the same path to their home as she went straight back to the house.

■ ■

"Don't tell him a single detail about me." Anastasia's Mother said sternly.

"I'll see you soon, Mother." She replied. As soon as she has the chance to leave, she quickly did.

Walking out the door, she pulls a cigarette out from a pack that she got from her Mother's. She calmly lights it up, though she makes sure that she's going to the right path to the Boat Station.

That night, last night, her Father called. Her Father told her to come by the Ocean. She loves things like this, admiring beautiful places at peace and just having deep thoughts about randoms.

Since both of her parents are divorced, Anastasia has to spend her time separately with them. Although her family background is broken, she still believes that quality time is important. Especially when you're the only daughter.

When she arrives, she saw a bunch of males hopped to a Downeast cruiser. She went for another stick of cigarette as she waits for the guys to settle the boat.

Once finished, she sees her Father coming towards her as another man followed him. Seeing her Father smile, she knows that he is happy to see her, happy that her daughter finally visited him again.

"My dear, sunshine." Her Father greeted with the widest smile ever. As they both embrace each other, she reassembles herself and stared to her Father's features.

He didn't change much. Twenty percent of his beard had grown, his skin also went tanner and his noticeable bags underneath his grey eyes is an evidence that he has been working hard these days.

And she felt her heart spun a bit, it's not breaking but it's pinching with joy.

"I've missed you, Father." She spoke, voice cracking and eyes glistening.

Her Father went to cup his daughter's cheeks with both hands and smiled. She felt the warmth and the love to her one and only man, and that is her Dad.

"My apologies. Anastasia, this is Captain Adamson, he's our new lead sailor." Her Father added as he introduced the man beside him.

"Please to meet you, young lady."

"You too, Sir."

She looked up to Captain Adamson, he has the same features like her Father's. Same dry skin, oceanic eyes, firm and sturdy smile and just a typical sailor could be.

After a little talk, Captain Adamson and her Dad motioned her to get to the boat. Once lifted and settled, she saw old men and only men in the small place. She counted them, and in her calculations, they're about six or seven. But something spotted her eye...

A young boy, around her age probably, is one of the sailors. It surprises her a bit because she once thought earlier, she was the only youngster around here. But yet, she's wrong, but was she glad?

Feeling their boat move, she went over the edge as she let her body sway from her moving grounds. It was sure such a wonderful relief when they finally made it to the water.

She went to ignore the people around her as she decided to be alone at this moment.

At the edge, she swam through her thoughts. Deep ones like the ocean whom about twelve feet fall.

She thinks that what if the ocean is harmful, a violence and tolerant to other people. Like when you fall, you have nothing to do but to drown through the steep and heavy surface. Although its water, she can still think its a huge burden to anyone's bodies.

Her fears hugged her, her anxiety embraced her as she thinks of this. It made her shiver, not just from the wind but also to the awful life she has. It made her cringe once, now she'll cringe forever.

Grabbing another stick from the box, lighting it up as she blows one. She let the tobacco smoke combines with the coastal air, she watches it and she somehow feels satisfied.

Tapping her right shoe in a tune, she also hummed the unspoken lyrics, feeling the rhythm. She sips and blows, sips and blows, again and again. It doesn't seem to end, though her Father has its rules. Nothing she heavily worries about because she knew its always a mild segment.

After the stick has reached its filter, she flickers the used cigarette from the running waters as she lets out a sigh.

Casting a shadow beside her, she sees the youngster staring at her with an unexplainable look. He eyes her up and down in a respectful way as Annie didn't make a single move.

"You know, a filter can destroy the ocean too." The boy speaks. Anastasia shrugged her shoulders as she grabs another stick.

"So." She coldly said, though the boy sort of expected this coming.

"So its trash, it's not good." She rolled her eyes to the boy. A silly conversation about Nature isn't the right mood for the day today.

"Nope. I am trash." She chuckled like she's some kind of a joker telling puns whenever.

"I like that, Miss. My name's Keith Adamson, the--

"The Captain's son, I get it." She finished the boy's statement as a small smile form on her face.

"You do?" He questioned, playing it all in.

"Yeah, that's why you're so talkative about the waters." She shrugged again.

"Right, but I'm sure I've seen you before." The boy guessed and it clicked her head quickly.

"From the convenient store?" She grinned, making Keith nod in agreement.

There was a moment of silence in between them, did she care nor did she thinks its awkward? No. She went to lift her box from her pocket and motioned the youngster beside her. In her surprise, he gladly took one as she offers a lighter.

"So, Daddy sailor business?" Keith asks, giving Annie a small nudge.

"Not really, are you often around here?"

"You can say that. But why did you come here?"

"I don't think you deserve to know."

Anastasia's smile turned into a smirk, feeling her words with power. What does she call it? Sarcasm? Probably, but therefore, it's just the based truth.

"Feisty. Just so you know, I only come here to help my Father. Sailing ***** but I enjoy the ocean, a lot." Keith babbled as it made her nod her head.

"Me too, but not when you're in it." Her voice went weak as she feels her whole body become numb.

Heavy.

Heavy.

Just heavy, all are heavy.

"What do you mean?" The boy asked again. She knew she wanted to tell him but she respects her own privacy. Maybe she can, in a more intellectual way.

"Like the waves, they're a big struggle in a person's body. When you drown, you drown, why keep convincing yourself to dive up when you know its already too late?"

At this moment, she thinks about her Mother, her Father, and just the tree family she used to be in. The happy, normal and complete people, she misses that. Their silly moments and the happy memories, she wants it all back. Now that its ruined, damaged, broken, well name it. She still thinks she's contented. Why? Whatever god knows why.

"The waters are so much sweeter if the waves wouldn't step further like a hurricane, you know?" She smiled again. She then turned to her right, she sees her new friend with a confused expression.

"Wow, too deep to understand aye."

The both of them started laughing. At some thoughts, she's glad that she met Keith. He's so much more, She thinks he's more of a something.

"Everyone, get ready to sail!" A sailor's voice rung around the companied boat as they both of them got alarmed.

"Ready to fight the waves, Anastasia?"

"How'd you know my name, little sailor boy?"

Anastasia is not surprised that Keith knew her name. Many conclusions collided to her head but one resulted among them all.

"May I point whom your Father is?"

Without second thoughts, she nods her head. And she knows for sure, that she's ready to fight the waves.

its the difference between separation and anxiety
that breath taken and the stars you see
my head spinning and the scars they bleed
hands with trees and parts for thieves
taking more of our wants notta needs
deceive and leave before our guilt does freeze
precede to do what our greed internal feeds
triggers the fingers that only haunt our sleep
it treats the feet as stumps
smiles flip flop and fronts
drugs snorted huffed and blunts
man thats just the story of my month
mouth cancer after spliffs with lunch
abdominal six pack or beer crunch
i can stop taking all the medicine that is you
an addiction that i didnt ever see before it grew
its true
who knew
that you
would only humility the few
that tried,
never lied
and flew beyond more then his backyard or stoop

There’s a factory child, ragbone and alone.
Sleeping in between one mill and the next.
Used to toil and clamour, inferno and hammer.
Mother and master.    
A slump-rat, slithering down the gulp, forgotten
As another factory child
And I’ll do my best to ignore her –
But her shadows still stretch the air
Belched and huffed,
the little bones that burned.