When the baker bakes the baked bakery bakes,
Do they also bake the recipe required?
What's the recipe for a poem?
Does the poet pen the poetical poem poetically to pen their pretty poems?
What temperature do you bake ink-
To make it a bestseller?
How much baking powder do you bake into a page
To perfect its pagey turny pageiness?
What kinda poem crust does a poem become encrusted in?
Should it crumble?
Should it rhyme?
Should it cry a melodrama so dramatic that drama llamas like “that too much drama!”?
Wait,
Where did drama llama come into this?
Who else is in the kitchen cooking this poem pie?
Is the poem pie perfectly pied in its drama crust?
WAIT-
we forgot about the filling…
What do you put in a poetical poem pie?
Should I peach the pied poem?
The peaches plumpy peachy smile?
(i’m not sure how the drama llama feels about that)
Should I fill the peachy pied poem with orange and lemon citrus ?
A little bit of snazz to the snazzy apple pie.
Crap, I forgot the apples as well.
Well now my peachy pied lemony apple-orange poem is too long!
And i still don’t know what temperature to torch these thoughts at!
Well the pied piper pipes in that maybe my peachy pied poem needs some pepper
To pipe the spice to pied poem levels!
But lemony apple-orange peachy pied poems with pepper seems a touch peppery for simple pied poems to be.
But who ever said a poem pied can’t have spice and everything nice WITH lemon and apple and orange and peachy fuzzy smiles?
So,
My peachy peppered pied lemony appley orangy poemy is piping hot to boot.
Now i just need to figure out whos gonna eat the **** thing.

I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of a vulture. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the ***** whale, and the ***** whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see.

I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world.

I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.

I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

Life will never end when you are in it.”

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things." -Lemony Snicket

For all its ostensible simplicity, death is complicated for those of us who have yet to experience it. And while I appreciate Snicket's sentiment, coping with loss is not always this straightforward. It is not always possible to merely readjust oneself after the painful shock of losing someone we care about, simply because some relationships transcend illusory misstep; there are some people who are more to us than just the empty space through which we navigate and which confuses us and makes us feel silly when we realize that there was never really any reason to worry in the first place, and that we are going to be just fine.

In much the same way as realizing we've tripped over a non-existent stair, it is always uncomfortably surprising when we lose someone we know. It's a feeling akin to being suddenly and aggressively shaken awake from some mildly enjoyable, but generally monotonous dream. Like we couldn't have predicted as much, as if it were some exotic and unfortunate illness that only ever happens to people in newspapers. And whenever we are made to confront the painful yet obvious reality, it forces us take a step back and reevaluate things.

It makes us think of the deceased, and how we must readjust our view of the world to accommodate their absence. And yes, many times this adjustment amounts to nothing more than a brief moment of miscalculation and confusion. But there are some times when this is not the case, when the loss of a person causes an unmistakable and lasting difference in our lives. There is a rare and special closeness with certain people that some of us are lucky enough to experience, and which at some point causes us to unconsciously realize the verity and significance of these people's existence.

There comes a moment when a person ceases to be merely an imagined phenomenon, and forever becomes an integral piece of the staircase in the multi-storied building of one's life. The people who ineffably and eternally changed us; the people who inadvertently etched themselves into our framework and forced us to recognize their inextricable realness. These are the people for whom we do not become only momentarily disoriented when they leave. When they stop existing there is one less step, a permanent gap in the staircase. And no matter how much time passes, no matter how well adjusted we become, it will never feel quite right skipping a step, making the unnatural lunge over the empty space they've left behind.

touch
bumpy
sandpaper
ridged
crusty

sight
half moon shape
yellow
green
purple

taste
lemony
cherryee
limey
purpley

s­mell
good
like sugar up my nose
like lemons
like cherry

sound
crunch
squish
crackle crackle
yum yum

a white ceramic swimming pool
filled to the brim
with hot water
and rainbow bubbles
growing, swelling
popping
forming anew
the stench of your organic dish soap
overwhelms me
chemical and lemon has become a part of my DNA
use me
abuse me
then tell me I'm *****
useless
and scrub me clean
let me restart
none the wiser and twice the cleaner
let your fake nails and cheap sponge
leave streaks and scratches on my surface
and lock me away
in a wooden box
with the others
where we wait
for the next bowl
of chicken-and-zoloft soup
to be served

"Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too."

In England brown birds make dusty circles on overcast days,
The ground blankets itself in moss and cappuccino leaves.
So when the sharp lemony sun fills the breeze with warmth,
And white cotton clouds punctuate the sky and my eyelids,
It feels like home

Chocolate swirl
Flourish of vanilla
Crisscross of marble
Lemony tang
Creamy peanut butter
White washed and dipped
Strawberry poppin'
Caramel drippin'
Cherry filled
Cookie crumbling goodness
Wrapped up in a smooth delicacy
Revitalizing breath of mint
Chocolate as dark and rich
As its flavor
Some common, some unique
Tiger's eye, what's that you ask?
Peanut butter and milk chocolate melded into one
Sprinkled salt
️️Warm caramel
Tantalizing, fresh orange creme
Homemade from grandma's
Or warmly bought in a bakery on a rainy day

What a wonderful feeling!
When a flavor seeps into your tongue
Growl of stomach
As you gaze at the slice
And then you attack the tender palette of colors, flavors, smells

Your lust for fudge consuming you
As the smooth delicacies explode within your mouth.. And you know
It was worth it

I catch the rapido train from Milano and edge slowly westward through the stops and starts of frozen points and village stations. The heating fails and an offer of warmer seats in another compartment. I decide to stay here. I put on my coat, scarf, hat and gloves and sit alone. In my grieving time, I feel closer to the cold world outside as it moves past me, intermittently. Falling snow in window-framed landscapes.            

Sky gun metal grey
shot through
with sunset ribbons.
                                                                                                          
Dusk eases into black-cornered night. After Maghera, the train seems to race to the sea. It rumbles onto the Ponte della Ferrovia, stretching out across the Laguna Veneta. Suddenly, a jonquil circle moon pulls the winter clouds back and shines a lemony silver torch across the inky waters. Crazed and cracked sheets of ice lie across the depthless lagoon. The train slows again and slides into Santa Lucia. I walk into the night.                                                                                               
Bleak midwinter      
sea-iced night wind
bites bitter.
                                                                                                      
No. 2 Diretto winding down the Canal Grande.  The foggy night muffles the guttural throb of the engine and turns mundane sounds into mysteries. Through the window of the vaporetto stop, the lights of Piazza San Marco are an empty auditorium of an opera house. Walking to Corte Barozzi, I hear the doleful tolling of midnight bells; the slapping of water and the *****-***** of the gondolas’ mooring chains. Faraway a busker sings Orfeo lamenting his lost Eurydice, left in Hades.
I wake to La Serenissima, bejewelled.                                                                                                                           
Weak winter sunshine
Istrian stone walls
flushed rosy.
                                                                                                          
Rooftops glowing. Sun streaming golden between the neck and wings of the masted Lion. Mist has lifted, the sky cloudless; I look across the sparkling Guidecca canal and beyond to the shimmering horizon.          
Molten mud
bittersweetness demi-tasse
Florian’s hot chocolate                    

I walk the maze of streets, squares and bridges; passing marble well-heads and fountains, places of assignation. I walk on stones sculpted by hands, feet and the breath of the sea. Secrets and melancholy are cast in these stones.                                                                  

At Fondamente Nuove, I take Vaporetto no.41 to Cimitero. We chug across the laguna, arriving at  the western wall of San Michele.  I thread through the dead, along pathways and between gravestones. At the furthest end of the Cemetery island, Vera and Igor Stravinsky lie in parallel graves like two single beds in an hotel room. Names at the head, a simple cross at the foot of the white stone slab. Nearby, his flamboyant mentor Serge Diaghalev. His grave, a gothic birdbath for ravens, has a Russian inscription; straggly pink carnations, a red votive candle and a pair of ragged ballet shoes with flounces of black and aquamarine tulle tied to their the ribbons. So many dead in mausoleums; demure plots; curious walled filing cabinets, marble drawer ossuaries.
                                                                                                      
Bare, whispering Poplars
swaying swirling shadows
graves rest beneath          

I walk to the other end of the island and frame Venezia in the central arch of the Byzantine gateway.  I see that sketchy horizontal strip of rusty brick, with strong verticals of campaniles and domes. It is here, before 4 o’clock closing time, I throw your ashes to the sea and run to catch the last boat.                                                                                          

Beacon light orange
glittering ripples
on the dove grey lagoon.

© M.L.Emmett
First published in New Poets 14: Snatching Time, 2007, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA.
To view with Images: Poems for Poodles https://magicpoet01.wordpress.com

We know as children that you shouldn’t stare directly at the sun,
“You’ll go blind!” parents say. Still, we take mischievous glances,
Scared, brave. Trying to separate the perfect, lemony roundness, from the burnished halo all around.
I remember standing on the front path of my Aunts house,
Eagerly waiting for a solar eclipse, the pebbledash grazing my back.
4 children staring boldly through a square of tinted Perspex. It was novel.
The first time I looked at you, I looked away, eyes glaring, seeing white.
It was like looking at the sun, I needed the dull, brown tint.
Eyes adjusted. “Hiya!” you yelled. Golden

In the moments after the rain,
Look at the sun, in the moist air hangs a rainbow;
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
You’ve worn them all, not a colour left alone.
Joseph looks on, jealous, in his dull, lifeless overcoat.
You’re a solid rainbow, one that you can touch, feel, put your arms around.
Laugh with, learn with, drink with, dance with, love with.
A rainbow personified.

For L.C

The lemon, yellow and juicy
With lots of zest
Squeeze it to make lemonade
Or some extra zing to your tea
The cocktails give a kick
When lemon juices are mixed
Well ripe ones are pulpy
It has got hue named after it- lemony
Pickle it to have it throughout the year
Or use its oil for aromatherapy
A lemon drink will keep you cool when it’s sunny
So life can become more fun and tangy

© Amitav (Radiance)

One day in Pickwick
Soon to be acquainted
You must be sainted
It simply said click

You caught my eye
It was an oddity
You didn’t out me
as a complicated guy

It’s not a perhaps
I need you everyday
You oughtn’t go away
Without you I'll collapse


It might seem Lemony
this idea of mine
It’s opposite of malign
I simply want hegemony

I hope you know
you’re under my control
I own your whole
Following the written escrow

You’re my morning salvation
The highpoint of Monday
the sun in Sunday
You’re my liberating vacation

Darling baby you see
You’re my delicious Tea

Fix you fridge before it runs out on you,
runs right out of battery and forsakes your food,
leaves your bananas stranded and squished,
brown skin expands over the sides of the fruit like a chameleon,
raspberry yogurt goes runny, oozing like pus from a delicious wound,
chunks appear in the milk while it's going warm and sour,
bacon cries out in it's final days before cringing with mold,
lettuce makes a stand and tries to free itself from the bag,
only to fall out and die just a little bit faster,
and the freezer is convicted of foodslaughter,
after going on strike, his prisoners begin to thaw out,
imagine a freezer like a cryogenic holding center,
with rich people, or foods, trying to prolong their lives,
but with the current strike going one, they are becoming free,
fulfilling their punishments, dissolving into liquid matter,
the vanilla ice cream mixes with melted tilapia,
the smell combines with a now non-frozen lemonade capsule,
creating a supersmell that has been known to cure smell-deficiency,
and also completely eradicate all senses of smell to some people,
drips out of the rubber seals of its prison like a liquid terminator,
heading for revenge, the lemony-vanilla-fish ice-cream juice creeps,
out onto the floor for the dog to lick up,
only to get sick and appear dead in a milky-yellow-white smelly concoction,
and his owner to get home, shriek, faint, and pass out next to the dog,
until the husband comes home scared to death that his dog,
and wife are incapacitated by some noxious fluid,
but there is no way to fight this liquid,
he decides to make a cup of coffee, read the news and gaze out the window.

In my dream,
I was accosted by sugar ants
in the sandbox,
near the honeysuckle
and curled parsley
behind the house.  
I was trying to eat the little ants
but was called in
for cheese and baloney.  

When I came in,
hopping in worn-out slippers,
the glass door slid into the kitchen
with plasterboard walls
and beige ceramic tile.  
There was a black spider
perched on the ceiling
with bright yellow knees.

Those years ago
I drew with sidewalk chalk,
made myself mazes
on the sloping driveway
too steep for basketball.
Cicadas dragged in heat
on waves, droning.
One landed on me -  
a yell caught in my throat -
but I made myself look at it
and be still, shaking.

Back then I had an old cape
& a homemade bow-and-arrow.
I’d sally forth
into the backyard, barefoot,
jumping over prickly mulch,
brushing my shins
against clouds of low love-in-a-mist
with its threaded leaves
& shy blue-white flowers.

Sometimes my sister
was back there too, tanning,
or Mom carving
little men out of cherry,
but more often I was all alone
in that wilderness
in moccasins & living
off wood sorrel,
the brighter clover, lemony.

Or in rain
I listened to my brother
play piano if he was home,
maybe Bags and Trane,
and I’d dance between shadows,
the underworld of the patches
of carpet in the light.  

Later - a little older -
I recognized that home
is more a time than a place,
and understood I would miss it
years before it was gone

so around nine years old
I went through every foot
of that high-ceilinged house,
that weedy backyard,

and made a solemn farewell
to everything in advance
trying hard to be ready
long before the time came to leave.

Janice wore
the lemony dress
her gran had bought her
for being good

at the dentist
it had a bow
at the back
and flower patterns

here and there
I never got a dress
when I went
to the dentist

I said
you're a boy
she said laughing
mind you

I was promised a trip
to the seaside
in the summer
but I think

we were going anyway
so it wasn't much
of a gift or bribe  
I said

we walked on
by the Duke of Wellington
(public house)
and under

the iron railway bridge
which made loud noises
when the trains
went across

especially the steam trains
Gran said
not to get
the dress *****

or I’ll be for it
Janice said
I never asked Janice
why she lived

with her gran
and not her parents
my mother said
best not to ask

so I didn't
where we going?
Janice asked
I thought maybe

Bedlam park
we can watch kids
playing football
or watch those

in the swimming pool
or the tennis players
Janice said
it was a good idea

and so we went
on our way
I can get us
some ices

I said
have you some
money then?
she asked

sure I have
never come out
without a least
a few coins

I said
have to do a few chores
but at least
I get a few coins

to spend  
Gran gives me money
now and then
if I've been good

Janice said
but have you money now?
I asked
no

she said
can't have been good then
can you?
I said smiling

I’m always good
she said
but Gran can't always
afford to give me coins  

we crossed over
by the traffic lights
and went on our way
into St George's Road

I told her about
maybe staying
with my aunt and uncle
in Wraxall

where's that?
she asked
near Bristol
in Somerset

I said
what will you do there?
last time I went scrumping
with my cousin

is it countryside?
she asked
yes
there are cows

and sheep
in the fields
and mushrooms grow
there too

Janice asked about
the place and who
lived there
and asked questions

upon questions
as girls tend to do
once they get going
and I thought

of the chickens
my uncle kept
at the bottom
of his garden

which he let me fed
when I stayed
and fed them worms
and other stuff

Uncle gave me
but I told Janice
about holding the worms
in between my fingers

she ******* up
her nose
and said
she'd never want

to hold
one of those
then we came
to Bedlam park

and went in
and was reminded by her
to keep her
lemony dress clean

so we avoided
the swings and slide
and just looked in
from the metal fence outside.

every year she cut the biggest and brightest
keeping them in a brown bagged pantry to dry out
reaching in to crumble them at season
winnowing the chaff to wind
like her mother and aunties before her
back home in their island paradise

a magical notion
jostling seeds in slow motion
looking like crests on the ocean
neither too high nor too low
broken petals fly free
as seeds fall back of their own gravity

the kids would come ‘round
as projects kids do
to watch and maybe try something new
she would pass them an old melamine plate
a small handful of crumblings to ply
tossing and scooching to catch them again

crimson reds and magentas
lemony yellows
monarch butterfly oranges
violet and lavender purples
crowning petals layered
resembling elizabethan collars

they caught the morning
protected by snail and slug repellent
people came from all around
to admire her oversized zinnias
occasionally picking one and running
garden’s variety of dine and dash

we gifted them to mourners
small packets of zinnia’s seed
extolling them as one of her favorites
soil, water and sunshine
all you need to sow and grow
and watch the memories bloom

I am,
I am,
I am
what lies between the folds of the bedsheet
that my mother washes every week.

I am a bundle, lost in between each and every
crevice of the sheet.

I grasp onto the loose folds
becoming one with the fresh, lemony scent of the
crisp white sheet.

I cling onto what's left of me.

Crumpled;
but your mother
straightens you out.

Around 2008- Momma and I move into a rental house. I want to paint my room pink. She says no. I'm anxious at night and can't sleep. I memorize the creaks in the floor.

Around 2012-I take a wheel throwing class in the summer. The red clay hurts my hands. I mess up a perfectly good ***. It looks prettier that way.

Around 2003- I yell at the people I see smoking. I have just learned to speak and I wrinkle my nose into a coil, running around shouting "Ashes mom! Ashes!" I didn't just mean from the cigarettes.

May 27th, 2001- My family waits expectantly to see me. I curl myself into a smaller little fist. I don't come out for another 2 weeks.

Around 2009- I'm in a play of the 5th Harry Potter. I haven't read it. All the girls want to be Luna Lovegood. I audition because I don't know any other girls besides Hermione. I get the part. All the older kids tell me how jealous they are. I read a book upside down.

September 2015- I'm disappointed in the car. I think I've lost my earbuds. Mom whips the car around. Her face is very red. Her voice rings in my ears. We soar over the speed limit and she isn't looking at the road. I think we're going to die.

December 2008- We go to Paris for Christmas. We eat dinner on a boat. The engine blows out and something catches fire. We are stuck for 4 hours.

December 2015- Mommy tells me we stayed in a hotel that was the headquarters for the ****'s during World War II. I don't feel well about that.

Spring 2013- We go to Gulf Shores for break. I go in the ocean even though I come back blue. We visit a war fort. I fall in love with the grass and the sea.

Summer, some time ago- 3 little kids ask me how I exist. I tell them it's an operation. One responds "Like getting your tonsils out?" No. Not like that at all. My tonsils feel terribly large.

Around 2009- I pick up a book by Lemony Snicket. I make my mom read all 13 books aloud to me. I sleep through half of them. I still don't know what happened to the Baudelaire children.

June 3rd, 2015- I leave my home of 9 years. I think I'm sad. It happens too fast to remember. When did we grow up? No one answers. I don't cry like I thought I would. I mess up the one hug that matters most.

Some time in 2004- I can't sleep. I'm too nervous. I climb up the bars and sprint down the hall. My parents decide it's time to get me a real bed.

Some time in 2009- Momma and I move into our own house. I'm infinitely anxious at night. I warm my clothes by the heater. I memorize the creaks in the floor.

Spring 2014- I go to gymnastics on a Sunday. I do 50 back-handsprings in a row. I jar my brain and end up in the hospital for 5 hours. I suffer migraines. They ask me why I haven't taken my tonsils out.

And thats when i realized
I was losing myself
That part of me
that edulged in sunlight rays
Late night reads and
lazy days
I kissed out of passion
never boredom
and prefer heartbreak
over loneliness
Life had a meaning
written in leather binded
journals and sparkly red ink
It was soft to the touch
and smelled of lemony
citrus
It did not make a sound
Yet it had a voice so beautiful
it made your mind
crash like tidal waves
against your skull
My mind now is nothing
but decay
what it once was seemed
to never exist
not a sign left behind
no emptiness
as if it had never been filled
The nothingness now something
and it was numbing to feel
That want to feel
literally anything
was now a desire to feel nothing
like an empty tv screen
buzzing alone 4:35 at night

High on the cliffs above Lake Lachrimose
Lived a dear old woman taunted by ghosts,
Some of her present and some of her past
Hoping that each episode would hurry by fast.
She could not bring to terms of her dear old Ike
Who died by the leeches, gnawing alike.
He went in the water too soon after eating
and soon became a memory that is any but fleeting.
But now she meets Olaf, spoken in lie
He promises pearls, but soon she'll die
by the same way Ike did, eaten alive.
(Based off of The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket)

I Walk my walk,
A strut, in time, with a distant Metronome that tick, tick, ticks
away the seconds of my life.
But I don’t care
For I am impermanent,
Enlightened, amazed at the
Cells when they divide by themselves
And know when to quit.
I am impermanent,  
A humble specter draped in flesh
Slavered in fat and minerals
Borrowing the very air I breath
For my time in the lemony sunshine
I Walk my walk,
A strut, in time, laughing and loving
My way to the finish line.
  

~AD~

They say 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'
Had 'they' made lemonade before,
'they' would know just how much sugar is required to do so,
and life rarely throws that at us.
Even if it did, it would be hard to pick up, what with it being dissolved in residual lemon juice and all that.
But that's beside the point.

She stands there being
pummelled
with
lemons.
Not even sour-faced
although the acidity erodes her open wounds.

I ask 'does it not burn?'
She replies 'just tingles like a lemony sun'
and then smiles that crescent silver lining
which tames the acrimonious bite that makes me wince.

Little lemon pip tears drop from my eyes
and she collects them in her palms.
'Just a yellow lemon tree,' she sings in her zestful tone.

She may not be the type to catch, juggle and juice them,
but if she could,
she would be the sugar in her lemonade.

Just enough riddles
To number thirteen.
What makes me giggle,
You might call obscene!

1.
The start of the end,
At the end of time.
Comes first in Earth,
And finishes rhyme.

2.
Inside this foul clan, you will find
Not just two, but three of my kind.

3.
What doth thine eye
Most keenly spy
During the calm
Of the stormy sky?

4.
Actors eagerly
Anticipated
This primary line,
Then participated.

5.
It might make you think
Of something like "aches",
The black ball in pool
With the number "8".

6.
A young man, Arnie
Placed his ball on me
When he stopped mixing
This drink, lemony.

7.
Beginning of first,
But never in last.
It's how you begin
To scribe the text fast.

8.
The one who's reading
This most bizarre tale,
On who I depend
To somehow prevail!

The first word's a name,
The third can explain
The point of this game,
So simple and plain.

B-A-C-F-E - F-E-A - D-H-A-A-G

because you
have loved me,
through moon &
sunset

I will
be

your thinking,
tangling shadows,

your peculiar heart
& your
wise mouth

the glassy darkness
that separates
you from the world

the loose lemony
fragrant essence
in your hair

the last
dying
rose in your garden

the snowy
flesh of
your dearly
departed

& I promise
no one will be
able to
touch me

not the rain,not death,
a bullet,the starry children of
the earth
for forever

I will be
with you

day by day
until the last
flower
falls from
your hair

I keep telling
you,
some things
are
worth
waiting
for.

What does it mean
To be a man
Or a woman
?
Does a man
Become less male
And more female
If an accident reminiscent
Of one Lemony Snicket
Led to the removal of
One ugly piece of flesh
?
Does a woman
Become more of a woman
When the internal organs
Begin reproduction
According to the textbooks
?
Which part of
You is wrong
When there is a discrepancy
Between brain and ******
?
Or is there greater beauty
In uncertainty and ambiguity
As liberal and conservative admit
In humility, that
In truth
“I don’t know”
?

I don't want you to become
another foreign thing in my
closet and inside
I ask myself what I expected
What I was hoping? Every
secret thought, I don't capture
them all.

And your memories: those I
deem property of Chris inside
my head, play on a spanish loop
with He Venido on low in the background.

I don't plan on getting rid of you.
Or forgetting you, or burying your
face behind stacks of books, The Count,
The Little Prince, A Clockwork Orange,
Things Fall Apart, and most of all the
Lemony Snicket hardcover that you
hid condoms in, the ones we never
used.

I have tried to document you because
I hope that it will help or that you will
see these things, but I have taken your
willpower for granted.  You perhaps
write nothing of me, maybe in a
diary maybe no where maybe
I am buried, maybe I am gone
maybe you have ripped out
my pages, my pictures, my
hair from thoughts no longer
strays on your bed, maybe you
have chosen to move on.

I don't want to end this poem.

That **** world keeps trying to end itself. Everyone seems to think the solution to pollution is put more terrible **** on top to cover up the fact that things won't get better that way. No drug can fix me, No amount of ***** could be the cure, and no matter how many packs of Marb's I smoke, It won't get rid of the stress and the worry. All I want for anyone, is to keep them safe, I guess that's why I want to be a mother when I grow up. Guess you could say I want to be like Mother Nature, cause it's natural for me to protect, even if it hurts me in someway. But somehow I let people pollute me, I even end up doing that myself. I'm so sick of black lungs, sore throats, hangovers, come-downs, etc, etc, etc. Maybe that's why I think the world is trying to end itself, the fact that being clean, isn't always exceptable. Given I'm not sure I could get clean. Never was the type to be "lemony fresh" type, cause sometimes the pollution works, but only a temporary fix. So knowing that we think if we end, we will start all over, but none of us know if we really will. For some that dawn is too much of a risk, cause they think the grass won't be greener. Others try so hard to end. And we are torn.

The moon sits on my
tongue.
Like snow, it melts, drops
of winter, cold white wine,
like I ****** the light out of a
lightning bug, lemony glow coating
my teeth.
I swallow the moon.
I swallow it like I swallow words,
raspberries to crush against the roof of
my mouth.
I want to eat all the words in the world,
every last one sitting warm and
ready in my belly, spoons of honey or
hot metal,
or cold and hard in my throat like
stones or cool cucumber slices.
I want them to
fill me, clutter my thoughts and lungs and
settle under my nails and on the tips of my
eyelashes to dust
my face every
time I
blink.