A poem is like a giant jawbreaker.
It has layers which are revealed with time.
Each layer revealing a new color and flavor.
No two are exactly alike.
Every single one has something new to offer.
A new pattern of colors and flavors, or words.
All artistically aligned.
For everyone to enjoy.
Practically endless.

A human jawbreaker
With a layer for every occasion
And a center just for you.

I remember that maroon shirt
A size too large so it hung like a sack
Over my twiggy, seven year old limbs
It was rough and scratchy against my belly
I absolutely hated the color
I was one for turquoise and scarlet and sparkles
This was a cloth of rusty mud, it was purple gone terribly wrong

Of course I protested
Whining at my mother like a cub at her lioness
Why should I have to wear this ugly thing
That you brought yesterday for no reason at all

And then you said there was a reason
In that quiet, somber way you get when you homilize to me
That tone that makes me scared enough to flatten my unruly hair

It was the first time I heard the words
Mass Shooting
But it was far from the last

I went to school that day
I tried to tell the others
Some had heard a snippet or two from mom and dad
Before being sent out of the room
But most just looked at me like I had a third eyeball in my head
They shrugged it off and went back to foursquare
They never gave a **** about the news if it wasn't Charlie Brown
And they never really talked to me more than they needed to

The grownups hurried us all along
Avoiding all mention
Of Virginia Tech
And they would nod and turn away when I told them
How was I to know that they didn't have any answers either

I sat on the swingset
The cyan dome that seemed so familiar in its vast vacancy
Was now so empty and abandoning
The bark chips were suddenly silent
In juxtaposition to my mind

I mouthed out the words
A feeling in my mouth like a jawbreaker too large to fit it but crammed in anyways
I didn't have the words for it then

How could someone do that?
How could someone just walk up
With a special stick and some bullets
And end twenty six lives
Like they were swatting at flies
And how could everyone
Be so calm and carefree
When so much harm had come
When so much blood ran
Turning to a rust color in my mind
Like that god-awful shirt

The day was done
I threw the shirt in a bottom drawer
I never wore a maroon thing again until I was thirteen
I felt glad to be rid of that jawbreaker
And the strange feelings in my gut and neck

But it was not over
None of us were rid of it

Aurora
Sandy Hook
Breaking News: Mass Shooting
San Bernardino
Pulse
Breaking News: Mass Shooting

Guys, one of our competitor's teamates was killed
It was a ******-suicide by his father on him and his mother
So please be considerate

Good God, how many has it been
When did it begin
What should we do
And how did I get so numb
To my semiannual jawbreaker moments

But all I hear is
Who do we blame?

The foreign ones?
Let's blockade them
Because it's not like we were ever that way

Maybe the ones with ****** up minds?
Yeah, they're the violent ones
It cuts me deeper than any work of my own blades

But god and the NRA forbid
That we have shootings
Because we have the means to
That we have a radicals in the U.S.
And they only came from us
But when has policy ever made sense?

All I know is
That we can't keep going numb
To the jawbreakers in our mouths

can we just watch the 3 stooges for the rest of our lives or at least the rest of tonight and just forget about all the ****** things that have been happening?  can you sleep over next weekend and i can make you breakfast in the morning and you won’t complain about my morning breath of coffee and cigarettes?  and we could totally forget about all this *******..  i don’t care anymore.  i’m 21 and i still want a jawbreaker tattoo.  i don’t even know how long they’ve been broken up for.  yeah jets to brazil are ******* rad but nothing will ever compare to 24 hour revenge therapy.  you like the simpsons?  i love the simpsons.  just stay tonight.  please just stay forever.

My peach yogurt tastes like your skin
in the morning when you used to stay
at my apartment, the leftover sweat
of a night spent loving each other,
and the sun slipping through my *****
blinds, while I'm eating my breakfast
at my desk checking emails, always peeking
over at you, bare-chested, snoring
through the sound of my fan and my music
turned down extra low.

It's five months later and my peach yogurt
tastes strangely like that iced tea
I had instead of liquor on the night my friends
threw a party in my living room, us
sneaking off to my bedroom just to kiss
ourselves through another evening
we'd rather spend in our underwear watching
a movie over smiling in group pictures
or dancing to cheap country music.

It's so much later and my yogurt
still tastes a little bitter, a little sour
on my tongue as I try to swallow
a breakup that's bigger than a jawbreaker.
It still kind of tastes like the bottom
of my sink as I put my dishes in it
just to wake you up, watch you
get dressed in a pair grey sweatpants,
sticky hair that I'd comb through.

It's far too late for me to think about
your hand in mine as we'd walk
as far as we could before we'd have to separate.
It's far too late and far too many people
have intercepted your memories and turned
them into something new to smile about,
but today I pulled the lid off the container
and licked the silver side clean
just to be reminded of how sweet
things like you used to taste.

Silence is a matter of body
Coming towards your language
He's in the lounge on his
(I Pad) looking frightfully cleaver
Slice cake mad
Not the happiest lad
she's wearing her fit to
be tied but feeling upside
down but lifted firmly up
in her falsies cup
 ((Hush  get your rush in silence))

But she failed to make him
these incredible ***** dozen
baking brownies
What a rookie cookie girl
Cannot keep secrets to be silent
But her deadly **** pout
     (( Card-Flush-in silence))
She screams get out!!
The Bill **** she's the
killer eyelashes hot flash
She was quite challenging 
That silvery dainty moon lady
hurrying
She's all capped-plated her knife
crazy eyes
 He's channeling her
Quietly with her bedroom eyes

   ((Rush-Silent-night))

Putting up a fight that's life you win

((The silent love))
Or start over your sin is
the silent killer
The silencer staying put
didn't explode
Her fifties smoking was
her weaknesses
Oh! boy, he had the right high tech glasses

What Belguim chocolate but her
Latte caramel she was quietly
running late more time with her
perishables love doves
(Such patients hospitality above)

What a braggart in her brassiere
She got his attention to look
over here
Over their all in the family
Like an Army military fit, Starwar
skirts super tight something didn't
feel right
They couldn't breathe and
someone asked  her to sit
silently
So uptight down handed
Well guarded she the lady with
wits and guts scorpion landed
Oh! what a killer fights the dust mites

That silent killer lady was not
someone you could trust websites
What a fund money signs on her
forehead but tough elephant's skin
She needed a new hobby silent flirting
Her wrinkled cute puppy dog
What hogwash wearing your
Frownies all wrinkles they say
sometimes owners resemble their
dogs this the Hollywood hot dog
Out of state doggone it townies
obsessions something to die for

(Recent prayer of silence)

Forgive me darling I need to wear my
Frownies I am not going to be around
those loony tunes I needed to make
my getaway faraway really soon
He was wearing his yellow polka
dot bow tie every month of June

Smarties alcoholic anonymous

Malibu Lolobolu Honolulu
I love Lucy she wearing a tutu

All sizes and silent mouths
Things get louder when you're older
Loco in the Cabeza hot blooded
Little red Robin hood so silent
She is looking like a good pair
The silence is killing you  
I wouldn't get one taste out of
Moms French roue'
My Eden garden
Met -us
Something will **** us

The fresh green's healer
The mood set-us
The goods got us

Whats the in-betweens
No-one will ever notice
what's not green
(Like the blindsided lover)

My courage thumb needed
to break the shades of silence,
 To trust the secret promoting
her shampoo anonymous
Overly powerful her weapon
Dennis the menace
Loud as the hippopotamus

Mixed Thomas Islands
the bottom dirt
He was dressed in tweed
What a **** killer bloom
Wearing his stark white shirt
Madmen needed more room
We need the funhouse Amen

Heres looking at you
Stranger/Lover/
Kid/Mother
Your brother of prodigy
The silent scheme chemist
He acts like a psychiatrist
(I am talking he is so silent)

  Like a franchise lemonade
Put your foot down and stand
Her hair mousy brown
the sounds of silence

The fuller up spouse
Met his match fuller brush man
These herbicides hitching a ride

To be silent? This is not the
beauty patent
The mineral-sea-shore comes to the
dead sea
Giant green mutant/Medieval funhouse
Silent track betting racing horse
He's my General-tea-shirt

What are you after- the traveler
Or the loner meeting another drifter
Having tea plea party guilty green-tea-
Monk- by the sea mountain
What we kept Barbie dolls
Looking in the mirror in silence
Seeing the Fountain of youth
Beatle bopping heads
Ketchup packets spicy I pods

Eventually, Gods come to our front door
That chemical stinks cleaning our floor
The smokers teeth yellow the gray
shark Jaw's He Haw
Chinny chin Mr. Jawbreaker
The kitchen should be our
the safest haven, little rascals
Met the ***** scoundrels
Silent killer lady is so driven
Chemicals and health risks
Red silent Rooster
A silent chat his killer smile
Over my dark coffee
Mr. Beanster
Why was I put in this spot
Empty space looks shot

Your egg biscuits
Trilogy game of Triscuits
Wearing a bandana
***** dancing at the
Copacabana

Organic eggs no bacon
With the cabana boy
Hey sardine pork and
My killer beans, O-D and
more coffee!!!
Something renewable
Even if you're a twin double

Phoenix bird beauty of her flight
The silent killer lady didn't
get a decent sleep even one night

Not fancy leafs plain and simple
My smile high cheeks dimple
My Brooklyn tree smiling at
my Mom and Dad that's my
Brooklyn roots

All my friends they smoke this things
And handed me a Chesterfield King- Jawbreaker from Bivouac

Lyrics I tried to memorize
with my friends, while *******
on the syrup crusted
mouths of  glass coke bottles.
Singing loud and off key.
On the side of a Ralphs in the stagnant summer swelter.

The soundtrack song when being a punk skater
was a profitable venture,
and landing a kick flip was an achievable
*******.

When we could play Lane’s boom box
just loud enough to drown out the whimpering
from our sprained ankles
and scraped up knees
that left the sidewalks on Foothill blvd. so ******.

The music we were hearing now,
was way beyond Sunday school.
It was the sound of the sixth period bell,
and rushing to Jeff’s backyard
to smoke his dads cigarettes.

As we got older
We tried to quit the smokes
and forget the lyrics. But sometimes
we’d still  proposition people
on the side of that Ralphs
to buy us cigarettes.
When we succeeded
We’d sing that old song coughing, hissing, and wheezing.

-Kevin Theal

As Nature's finest gold is green,
'Till hindsight glows,  truth stays unseen
Shrouded in some candied lie
Delicious  then,  now noxious sigh
Smoothly first slid past the tongue
Spread to stomach, swiftly stung
(W)retch! the twitching soon subsidies
Nothing new,  now minus pride
Ponder trust, and life inspect
Enlightenment through retrospect

01.28.98

Russian stacking dolls.

I layer like a jawbreaker
Folding one face
over the other.
My hello, smile, freeze frame.
Molten sugar shaped into points and curves
for eyelashes and lips.

In the days, flourescent and white
I lead, I direct, I juggle

Night spent, curled in the orange glow
bracing against the pain of
distance, wiping childhood away,
being the proverbial 'strong'
picturing your eyes
and mouth, both of us
mimes and mirrors for the other.

Conflict- do I open a portal
to the distance,
and
nod to our promise and hug you
with my heart

or fixate it on it, decline
and hold the refusal
in my mind, whispering into the pillow
consoling the dodge of not
trying to lie about salty cheeks.

'balance on the wet stones,
continue your creation.
You made this construct,
and you know the way through.'
-this is my feverish mantra.

But...
In this dimension I fracture my soul
to live forever, only to get through today,
this year
this week...
while we are on opposite ends of this
fearsome Bridge.

And when the lace comes, the celebration
the toast,  I ready myself to take our bright flare
the kiss, and our promise, back with me to my painful, green cave.

and hold it in the dark, cover it, too
in salt.

and pray with every bone and fiber for
the place where our timeline can
converge.

A memory can be sweet as candy
Like a jawbreaker
It has many layers
With time
And patience
It will flake away
One
By
One
Each detail lost
Each color faded
Until you are left with the core
The heart of the story
Why you remember it
As you bite down
You remember it
It all comes flooding back
It releases the sweet memory
Across your tongue
Then you do what we all do in the face of candy
smile

i hope your happiness grows sweeter and sweeter
and each layer of dulcet pleasure wraps around
your heart like some great red lozenge.

i hope your happiness grows hard in your chest
like a too-sweet lump
with a liquidy sour center

i hope your happiness tastes like my mouth
and my bile
and my love for you powdering your lips.

i hope your happiness grows like a tumor
and your skin shrivels around it
while you wither in late summer heat.

i hope you cant sleep at night
and your heart slathered in happiness
draws every hungry bug.

i hope you have it removed,
that jawbreaker you call an *****
and i hope you choke on it

With jawbreaker eyes
  and a rot-you smile,
  they wash you again.
Dissolved, in solution, rinsed
  around the glass of a warm beaker.
"Get cooking," his voice comes through
  the pleasant taste of a grin.
It won't stop. You will react.
Judgment has no weight
  against the pace of a smiling god.

Black and green scale segments
My coat of arms
I twisted around sage brush for 30 years
I had predators
and potential nests
Always
Foregoing eggs
Alone but capable of swallowing the world
Moving through long narrow casing
Like a jawbreaker swallowed by an ostrich

Then I met you

.Ecdysis.

I shed thin snow skin
A layer of suffering slowly flaking off of me
A new dermis of
a love I have never known
Affection I've never shown
and a part of me never grown.

it took so long to make my existence possible
money, doctors, and prayers to a mythical man
(desperate attempts to rearrange their cells into an offspring)
only to be given a jawbreaker

hello father
my time with you was short
but your wires keep tightening around me every time I stray (when will my neck finally snap off?)
I don't believe in biological purposes
or anything other than unreasonable spontaneity
my specimen is here simply because it is here
this specimen acknowledges its meaninglessness
what you didn't know didn't hurt you
what you found out through force, did
my portrait is slashed, this painter did a ****** job
you can no longer complain with a slanted mouth
my independency was torn away
my legs were ripped apart, indecency (your waist was too hard to straddle)
placed on a cross only to feel the blood rush to my head
I'll carry on my maiden name so the beliefs oppository to your own will forever be attached to you
I love you but not of free will
my image of you is artificial
so much damage has left the roots exposed, I can't seem to recall how many branches sprouted

now dear mother,
I'm sorry to disappoint but my departure is soon
my ears leak of worded substances that should not have ever been implanted
intimate acts, violated areas, broken promises, a pawned marriage, forged perfection
I've watched you grow and pass on responsibilities
you are no different than him
a narcissit could never take a better form
stale breaths when my self-interest is on display
decisions based on how many tears you can shed
you're remarkable, you've managed to instill guilt in me whenever I expose my troubles
as I write, my stomach is near your husband
I should not ridicule your selfishness because you know who this piece is actually for
high endurance, continously treading water with an anchor
this device is about to explode, take cover
if I'm mounted on him, you're hands are on my waist
chemical imbalances and mental distirbances
all relationships altered at the stake
just crucify me, you're used to loneliness anyways
you welcome grief
I could be dead already
you wouldn't know, your mouth is still open
we've endured a lot
let's sink

it sounds underwhelming to say I have trauma
and dramatic if I request guilt
let's just agree on muted discomfort
he doesn't rest in a cemetery
he's situated in something we can barely call a home
he's dust while the other uses his ashes to powder her nose to see a replacement
I scan over and over again, a cycle of stares
they're not sorry
they're not sorry
they're not sorry
they have no concept of what that is
why must I understand sympathy in order to enact that trait upon them when they could simply open their eyes to their hypocrisy?

demon. jawbreaker. tongue.
i’m not complaining. i have a radio and god.

do you pray with your hands

It’s a sweet world
Words drip off my lips, like honey

It was high fructose corn syrup
When we were forever

You, with your lollipop thoughts
And jawbreaker ****