In the amber sunroom the regal canary perches,
Surveying his sun soaked kingdom from a golden throne,
Positioned just below the thick wooden rafters...
They might as well have been treetops.
The weathered oak armoire below, their immovable trunk;
The oversized tank, teeming with exotic fish, his ocean.
Through the translucent shades, the engorged sun turns orange,
And settles on the domes of the distant dragon trees.

Soon the silver haired woman, with "dust in the creases of her face,"
Will open the arched doorway, and into the sultry Moroccan air he will spring
Majestic yellow wings propelling him above the treetops,
Diving towards his vast ocean, circling between the dusty antiques,
Reveling in his glorious freedom, yet always returning,
For that is only the penultimate pleasure of every evening;
She will always call him home with the suculent scent
Of a luxurious dinner: mango, pomegranate, and papaya.

A sharp, tumbling trill disrupts his peaceful musing,
A flashing crimson streak leaves a momentary swatch,
Emanating from the open window, invading his territory and ending atop the amoire.
He refuses to look at her, intent on maintaining appearances.
She comes and goes so freely, innocent of any thoughts for me.
Feathers ruffling with discontent; jumping, leaping without direction.
Seeking the highest perch, closest to being free; only to be confined
By the bronze rods of social correctness, locked with the brass clasp of my own fear.

His little lion's heart becomes a battering ram,
Smashing against the inside of his toothpick ribcage.
Rapid fire thoughts soon dissolve in an attempt to compose
A song that is worthy of her. And so he waits, and watches her turn,
Red wings outspread, escaping back into the evening sky.
That blazing orange ball, finally sinking beneath its own weight,
And the failing strength of the mighty dragon trees,
Now merely blackened silhouettes of their former glory.

musing on pondering,

cogitating on ruminating,

postulating on speculating,

considering multiple theories,

deeming the discrepancies deniable

positing the petty presumptions,

theorizing multiple condsiderations,

apraising the mediations,

digesting the deliberations,

allowing for freefall meditation,

envisioning the expectations,

presuming the pontifications,

anticipating the asumptions,

comprehending the conclusion,

accrediting the rationalizations,

concluding the comprehesion,

spinning synaptic wheels,

hypothesizing the conjecture,

recollecting of the reminiscence,

adumbrating the prognostigcation,

concocting of the subliminate,

masticating on the cereberal machinations,

of the ocillations, in the agitatation,
apparent,
in an insomniac's maniacal brain,

reckoning not,
on the simple summation,
of the night's wayward,
mental arbitratration,


there is... just too much time,
to think....

and far too little time to write....

The arboretum watched her grow:
each day the wood-chipped path
would creep in through lace holes
and scrawl its earthen signature
upon her socks.
When she could walk on her own
the rustling blows tugged
the secrets of the leaves through the hair
she refused to fasten;
so it danced, rebelliously
on her shouldered landscape.
The labelled trees, landmarks to tourists
on the nottinghamshire tree-trail
linked outstretched arms in solidarity
around her when she froze on the bench
to skip the dining hall.
And the birds of paradise
who chirped in minor a lament
of their chicken-wire palace,
understood, when no one else could.

When they drained the lake to search
for a body,
and the parched park cried leaf-crisps
in red and orange, they were warned
from walking alone
and the grass stretches ached for
musing students to sprawl
chatter on its back.

When the time-dust sprinkled a veil
on the rumours and caution,
She appeared
taller, and hand in hand
with a boy.
They tried to decipher
the war memorial and it's message
in foreign symbols
for something to talk about.

The Arboretum has not seen her for
years,
but its crafted script
Is carved like wax in
her mind's journal.

The internal battle..eternal....(one from the vault)


Lucifer and Jehovah dancing some mad bossa nova

While angels on horse backs fought devils with black jacks

The white dove of peace had surrendered his lease

So God ripped off his wings.. he no longer sings

Then the Devil ripped out his heart so it could end at the start.

Wagner and Chopin got frightened..

..and off they ran.

But Beethoven and Bach were sat in the park

Composing arias to fight Hells hot fires.

While Chekhov and Handel burned coramandel

But the smoke from that pyre stank like a byre.

Socrates was sat dispensing the ethics

Hippocrates swore while dishing out medics

The Muses were musing one or two were enthusing

Oooh look.. the good against sinner

Let's go down the bookies and have a bet on the winner.

Cometh the day cometh the morn

Cometh the hour cometh the dawn.

Here is Joshua blowing his horn

And here comes Gabriel but all that he meets

Are the countless dead lining up on the streets

And the wounded and deathbound far far below

I feel sorry for Gabriel I wish he could go.

But Picasso arrives and cries

My God it's my Guernica I'll do a pastiche

Oh F*ck it he says and has a pastis (or two)

Then Pollack turns up totally ******

Picks up a paint and says what I have missed?

What a fantastic sight.. angels flashing demons crashing

The hounds of Hell with teeth a gnashing

Then Neptune arrives astride his watery chariot

Scything through Demons and sat beside Judas Iscariot

Mermen and mermaids mercilessly slayed

By Beelzebubs prototypes

Those that live in the black nights.

But as the dawn breaks God knows what it takes

So he sends for his legions calls out to all regions

Take arms and do battle

Till we hears Satans death rattle.

And the heavens rip asunder to the sound of the thunder.

Satan rings on Hells bell.. tells them all is not well

Then disappears from our sight as if he's turned off the light.

Then I awake with a start knowing that I've been a part

Of something vast something grand

A spiritual war being fought in this land

I am alive and I shall survive.

PRAISE BE.

Every word that falls from my lips is untasted, preserved in its bitterness by the space between me and you like a vice that ferments and grows in silence.
But in the reality that a tree will still make a sound if it falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, I’ll chance to tell your unlistening ears a story that fell into my head today.
I saw myself in a room, in the same reality as your past, but in my present body,
Knowing all that happened between us, and aware of a stigma that does not exist between us as of this moment in your past.
You are a silhouette, a small brown head, among how many other small heads in a classroom, around a table, on the stairways?
Elementary school, maybe even middle school. Years before I know you and you knew me,
When we were separate and had not joined, when existed but were unknown.
Maybe I was a teacher in a classroom, or just another student visiting, on some educational excuse, and watched you, and assessed you. Quiet, and with a quiet something wrong with your body. You were a defect. There was a quiet acceptance and maybe there was a defiance in your brown eyes. Chocolate brown eyes, or iodine? Or gasoline?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
What if I had the chance?
In this reality, I was, for the only time, taller than you. My shadow fell on you, but you were absorbed in a book. Typical. My shadow was too contrasted from the ink to divert your attention.
And here, I had the upper hand.
You were not on your guard, friend. You were trusting, or something like it. Maybe it was the childish, young semblance of cocky assuredness that you were immortal.
Maybe, in this instance, you were innocent.
Maybe you had not yet given up on the fact that none of us ever were.
Something was in my hand, as I stood over your shoulder. It could have been anything to fit the picture, a pencil, a pen. A sharpie.
My eyes were not on the object, so I don’t know. It felt long, sharp, and on the fence about what it was meant to do, to create or to destroy.
I too, was on the fence.
The classroom, suddenly (if it had been filled with filler characters in the vision before this transition) was empty. I, the unperceived grim, had the faceless and unbiased entity of silence on my side as my own personal weapon.
I could do it. I could hurt you. I could hurt you, and make you hurt, and make you bleed that blood through all your organs and your dysfunctional body that has something wrong with it that I will never understand through experience but was left to guess about because I had to trouble myself with something about you to show that I cared, in some form.
Maybe, it would make me whole, would keep me from being dysfunctional. Me, not having given up on the fact that none of us were ever functional to begin with.
Unaware that I was still there, a hovering, self-interested ghost, you turned a page and kept reading in the empty, nondescript classroom that my own mind had designed for you.
I wondered, in that moment, out of nowhere, where all the other kids were.
Knowing you, you had made the independent decision of keeping your solitude. It seems like something even a younger version of you would do. Something that always made me laugh a little, because your comfort with being alone made me uncomfortable in the way that misunderstanding something always makes someone feel uncomfortable with their own perception of reality.
But there was always the chance that (and I always wondered this): the other kids had not wanted to play with you at all, and in defense, you made the choice to be alone.
Was that fortress that you built yourself for the miser of a kingdom of one? Or did it make you feel like a monarch encased in a palace?
You will never, ever answer me that for the simple reason (and you would be right in saying) that I don’t deserve to know what the answer would be.
But back to the vision, in which you are defenseless and under my thumb, and I have been stalling myself from contemplating the morality of my choices.
The water had not yet crossed under the bridge, you see, and I was keeping myself in limbo.
Limbo, I find, is often easier than admitting that you are telling the truth (and finding that you don’t like it) or lying to yourself to make yourself feel better, but always having that little weight against your chest to tell you that you are a liar, and that is the ugly truth of the matter.
I stood over your pale, face with the budding defiance in your chocolate (iodine? gasoline?) eyes. And I would win, if I wanted to.
I took a step into the oblivion of my oblivion, the vision of my vision, the suspended reality of this dream world suspended even still within the reality in which you are reading these words-
I asked myself:
Is it possible to avenge yourself before you have been beaten?
In that reality, in which I stood like the reaper over a younger version of you,
before I loved you, before I hated you,
before I gave so much of me that it was somehow allowable for me to call a part of you mine…
I hesitated so quietly that even a literal tree would not have made a sound in the silence of that envisioned void.
Would it make it better, now, to fix something that had not even been given the chance to have been broken?
My God, what a ******* paradox.
The truth, you ungrateful (and I guess rightfully ungrateful, because this was only the mercy that I owed you) acquaintance (because I guess that’s all I have the right to call you, even after all this time and every word that we’ve spat that I still hear in my heart after months and months of typing messages and then deleting them because there is nothing to say to you and I am painfully aware of this distance within every neuron that makes up my own miserable, wretched, beautiful existence) is that I realized that you, small and quiet and alone by choice,
You had done nothing. Not yet. And it was not you that owed my blood.
And it was not you, in that reality, that was owed this apology.
This is an apology that you will never really receive, because although I have tried to find the words to throw at you, you would never, ever take them, because you are the king of the palace you built yourself,
And I’m just a stranger now, knocking at your doors, with a remarkably familiar face.
And as I lowered my hand, and whatever potential weapon was in it, the smaller version of you never turned around.
Secure in your innocence and protected by it.
At least in my innocence, and maybe even still in my hopes and wishful thinking about who we both are,
You are still innocent.
Innocent. Green, without the thorns yet that would someday make me bleed.
The vision ended there. I never saw your face, and you never saw mine. I guess there was no way to even know for sure that it was you, and not just my imagination placing you there for my own musing. Maybe I just wanted to see you.
Not in a naive way, like I miss you. If I miss anything, it is who I thought you were, not who you have proven yourself to be. I’m sure you feel the same way about me.
This vision must reflect a parting of the ways, a final apology and goodbye, though you will almost certainly never read this and even more certainly never acknowledge that you did if you somehow bridged the gap between the classroom reality and the one in which there is an elephant in whatever room we are accidentally trapped in, together, for the space of a moment before one of us steps out the door.
In the vision, I stepped out the door. My back to you, I heard you turn a page of your book, and continue the story from one page break to the beginning of the next sentence.
And in the same manner, reader, so must I.

There are times
Much like tonight
When I want the city.
Nights when I want the gritty hustle buzzing in my ear canals
With liquid longing burning in the bowels of my being.
And through the lingering ring of restless machines
I would wander aimlessly.
Up and down streets past boutiques and café seats where people meet.
I would let the LED silhouettes of men and women in motion guide my feet until the beating of my heart and the grinding of trains and cars is absolutely indistinguishable.
Beneath a sky without stars, I can forget that I exist.
But only with a sentimental twist can that existence bring bliss.
Looking back now on the neon and grime, I have the time to take it all in.
Those subway rides when I would ride the snake,
Sharing the belly of the beast with those whose voices cease in the company of strangers.
Though eyes may align for a blink at best,
My mind would never rest on another
Especially
When she would breeze by
Hands outstretched
Mumbling humble rhymes with the hope that a few welcome nickels and dimes might fall from the pocket of a wall street man pretending to check texts on his black berry.
Or maybe those midday walks in central park when I’d skip my acting class to pack a bowl while I sat and listened to the street musicians who bled their instruments dry as if it were the only way to exorcise the city from their souls.
A taxi ride to Harlem
When we ****** in the backseat.
And though those free birthday drinks made me think I loved the way your tongue tasted
I knew in the back of my mind I was wasted.
Then
When we arrived to your private hideaway and your picturesque descriptions of a love
Once sung stitched my lips, it was all I could take.
And though our hips did risk the heartbreak, my unfettered balloon of misdirected affection flew out the window with hopes to impregnate the moon.
Cuz when the sun scrapes through the skyline,
Into your heart broken,
Hung-over,
Blood-blistered,
Hunger-driven,
Crystallized eyes, you feel so much less than empty.
Which brings me back to now.
As for how I now stand before you, flinging listless anecdotes from my chalky smoke coated throat…
Two words: Love.
Love.
So while I sometimes indulge my past perdition with immaculate midnight metropolitan musings steeped in sweat and cheap beer,
I am thankful that my intuition thought it better to put me in the company of those who I hold dear.

Her quaintness was saturated with 'sweethearts' and 'honey,' bespeaking the youth of my face. I have let its hair grow free for three days now and the bare patches are starting to show, but it seems I have not fooled her. No. I have not fooled myself either. My teacher shoes feel a half size too big and my feet are sweating profusely. I wonder if God made summer for the lemonade or the perspiration. In three years I will have developed a label for this period of my life. I am currently three years short of expressing myself properly and I fear this will always be the case. What do men do in empty hotel rooms? I kick off my shoes to watch them bounce bluntly on the carpet I have seen somewhere before. There is a poor imitation of jazz playing in the lobby and I'm positive someone has mistaken it for the real thing. It leaves a weak hope I will fool them too. Maybe most men are pretending.

I will always remember
Those nights we laughed and sang songs till dawn
I will always remember
The days we fought and rambled on and on
I will always remember
The stories we'd ask each other to make late at night
I will always remember
How we would start talking in less than an hour after a fight
I will always remember
How your chocolate brown musing eyes looked into mine
I will always remember
When we hugged our bodies would like a puzzle fit just fine
I will always remember
How you pushed me in the hallway while fighting
I will always remember
Talking to you was always exciting
I will always remember
How I'd make you a remind list and you'd tell me your stories
I will always remember
The things we did and OUR memories
I will always remember
Your pudgy stomach and chubby thighs
I will always remember
When you held me at the birthday party and you sighed
I will always remember
Telling you stories about my dogs and family
I will always remember
When you cried you would sound like a baNy
I will always remember
The person who mimicked Mr bean
I will always remember
How your hair never looked clean(:p)
I will always remember
You loved talking about science
I will always remember
How kissing you gave me mice
I will always remember
The problems we helped each other pass through
I will always remember
You.

let me tell you all about driving the back roads of the south
gravel keeping tight while rubber runs at about 95
and father john misty is musing over emma dearest
there's even a town called riverside
with the prettiest tides
setting off fireworks every time i'm headed back home
do you think they do it for us?

Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

Each day the wood-chipped path
would creep in through lace holes
and scrawl its earthen signature
upon her socks.

Collared wind blew
the secrets of the leaves through a tangle
of whistling hair

The labelled trees, landmarks to tourists
on the nottinghamshire tree-trail
reached to her
when she froze on the bench
to miss the dining hall.

birds of paradise
chirping in a minor lament
of their chicken-wire palace
understood,
only.

when they drained the lake to search
for a body,
and the parched park cried leaf-crisps
in red and orange, they were warned
from walking alone
and the grass stretches ached for
musing students to sprawl
chatter on its back.

then, as seasons cast a veil
on the rumours and caution,
she was
taller, and handed
to a boy.
they deciphered
the war memorial's
foreign symbols
for something to talk about.

I’m addicted to pain
Seems my epiphanius moment
Came a little late in the game
Just the same
What have I to gain
masochistically maintaining
Perpetual pain
Let’s see
I shut out out out everyone
Comforting like rain
Alone with my pain
Only I remain
Wrapped in the insane
Or is it just colorful choosing
Sorrowful musing so amusing
Drowning in pity
So pithy
Doesn’t do it justice
Poor, poor pitiful me
It’s plain to see
Nobody likes me
So I
Cry, cry, cry
Why
I remembered last night
The reason why
You’re going to die
The reason why
Is because
Crying said I with a sigh
always got me what I wanted
what a surprise
Guess, you guessed that
I said a little flat
So I continue to cry
And wonder why
Why isn’t this ******* working
Always worked in the past
And it was such a blast
What a shame
I’m such a crybaby
This is so personal
I think I’ll reversanal
Sounds like a pill
I’ll have two or three
Between you and me
If you know what I mean
My transparency’s my screen
Once I’ve said it
I can forget it
Put it down on paper
And it disappears
Inhaled vapor
Vapor paper
So, if you saw it
Or read it
I’ve already forgotten it
close to the cutting-edge
stretched out on a pledge
allegiance to who be
doobie, doobie do be
I’ll never fall over
That edge that I spoke of
Just a thought that I thought of
I’m no more attached to it
Than I’m attached to you
I know you believe me
Because only you see me
Through all my disguises
My mental gymnastics
Exercises
Only you see me
The lies and the *******
If you want to believe it
Go right ahead
You’ve ignored the warning signs
The tracks converged
And there’s danger up ahead
Only if you believe it
I saw the ending and I saw the beginning
Still can’t tell if I’m losing or winning.
I’m stuck, stuck, stuck
Seems only right that I repeat it
Since you can’t be stuck
If you don’t repeat it

It’s only a game if you think it is

Wishing something extreme
Before I scream
I need a push.
Who the **** am I talking to
Because nobody’s listening
But that doesn’t deter me
I see you before me
You know who you are
Anyone I want you to be
Doesn’t matter if you’re real
Only matters how I feel
You can’t stop me from loving you
Even if you don’t love me
I’ve been so alone
I rather like it like that
No mundane chitchat
******* will **** you
So if that’s what you’re offering
Better stay away
But god
I pray
May that day
Never come
And this is my prayer
That you’re real
Because until then
I can’t feel
Amen.

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)

loped and curled the razor wire goes circular
in lacerating motions upon my reflections.
Like confetti of my thoughts descending
or ascending  upwards I cant distinguish I'm
blind to what I grasp on to as all is indistinguishable.

My palms sweats perceptions as I have no object to
illustrate the needing, so I pick up glass and torment
my wrists till I pen my musing on the surroundings.
It was disfigured emotions as every single word
was an ounce of pain to release speaking in silence.

I was a van gogh of illustration my pain painted my
words dripping on the wall. The paint soaked in each
particle of repressed anger and torment, the fluid from
my lacerated thought now like snow settled on this wall.
But this was snow urinated in blood I look blank at my words.

Let's cut the crap and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We weren't made for romance and sappy poetries, weren't made for love songs, and cringey sweet nothings and gazing at the sunrise after camping out for the night on a hill. We were made to hold hands and a few almost-kisses during drinking sessions and forget about it the next day, to smoke and lie down a little bit too close to each other on rooftops and talk about depression and anxiety attacks, and deny everything in the morning. We were made for my unsaid "I miss you too's", that want to escape my lips the moment you say your drunken "I miss you's". We were made to see each other break down in between a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of local ***. We were more like two ****** up souls recognizing each other; more like two faultlines causing an earthquake and taking everything down with them, more like the first raindrops to fall apart before a thunderstorm, like two planets out of orbit crashing on each other in a brief but destructive way.

You see, maybe we're just drawn to people similar to us, and maybe, we're just drawn to each other because we're equally messed up. Maybe it was just the strong urge to save the other that borderlined to romance. But I guess being messed up wears people out, and sometimes I find myself wondering who got exhausted first. Where did the talks about "wanting to die together" go? When did the conversations about our saddest secrets cease? What stopped "Man, loving you is a disaster I won't mind being struck by," from coming? Was I too depressive and sad for you? Were my breakdowns suffocating? Did my fuckedupness stop feeling like home and started looking just plain ****** up? When did you start fading away? Why would you do that? Stupid questions.

You should know, it beats the **** out of me to say it, but I was perhaps a little bit desperate for you to stay. Perhaps I got too comfortable with your demons, I almost adopted them as mine. Perhaps the fact that you were willing to give me your ******-up all was comforting. Perhaps I was selfish, and I kinda wanted my darkness to be the only darkness you'll wanna light. Perhaps I miss you and it feels like I'm a chainsmoker on withdrawal from her cigarettes, and what ***** more is that I don't even know if I still cross your mind as that same sad girl you were happy being sad with, as that same sad girl who had always been your destination, and the very same one you apparently stopped coming to. And perhaps, thinking about all of these is *******. We weren't some modern-day knight and damsel. You weren't the guy with the beautiful blue eyes, and I'm not the girl with the blue washed denim they sing about. We were just misfits who made a mess out of the messed ups we already are, as if that isn't already enough. We were just planes thrown in the air, hoping to land, but ending up crashed and burnt. And that's how it always worked for people like us.

I was never worn out by your sadness as much as I was worn out by mine. And clearly, you were my favorite messed up, but, you're just not worth it anymore. And this — this is a just an unpoetic musing about the wrecks that we are, an impulsive attempt of detoxifying you out of my system. This — this is me, disowning your sadness; this is me disowning your demons. So let's just cut the drama and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We were the almost-but-not-quite's, the could've-beens, and the never were's. We weren't the kind that bags the happily ever after. We weren't the kind that makes it.

All we are is everything short of lovers. All we're made for is everything short of I love you's. And this is everything short of love.

I wonder, sometimes, why it is a fact,
A gifted, handsome man should be alone.
My iambic pentameter’s intact,
And yet I tend to lyric on my own.

Alliteration alienates romance.
The ladies scorn my struggle with cliché
They scoff, then aggravated, wring their hands.
Yet still I need to couplet every day.

I’m thinking as I sit beside my date,
“I’ll syllable you soon if I am able.”
At times my meter renders me irate.
It’s difficult to rhythm at the table.

“Another cup?” I search her face for clues.
She looks a little bored. It can’t be me.
I pass the menu for her to peruse.
“Why don’t you try a blended Chinese tea?”

I’m formulating ditties as she speaks.
“I think I’d like to go. I’m rather hot.”
“Do stay. I’ve ordered brussels sprouts and leeks.”
Her grimace indicates she’d rather not.

I wonder if I’ve aimed a little low.
Her diction leaves a lot to be desired.
I’d like to teach her how to ebb and flow,
But ‘clueless’ leaves me, frankly, uninspired.

She fidgets nervously and looks away.
I wonder if the woman is a freak.
“I hope you’re not illiterate,” I say.
I may have been a little indescrete.

My fears were justified, she’s never heard
Enjambment quite like mine in all her days.
She slaps my face and tells me I’m absurd,
Then dumps me in a non-poetic daze.

I could have blessed her with a monologue;
Enthralled her with the kernel of my quill;
enchanted her with dazzling dialogue,
If only she’d have stayed to pay the bill.

Now woe is me. I’m lost and incomplete.
Lamenting my position; full of doubts.
Deliberating how a man can eat
A double share of leeks and brussels sprouts.

i'm like when 2 am ferociousness met with 5 am alarm
smudged off the **** nuance off the corner of my lips in the dark

back home, drained, phone lighting up except it's not who i missed
make changes, perfect the scars — wipe out the traces that exist
feels like a music video, no cameras anywhere in sight
but i feel them watching, and with every reflex i hope to hide

multiple versions like blind spots behind the walls
were the masks always as potent as planned for them was?

surreal sometimes, watching it slip
i pull the cloak over, can't let it flip
for even a second, for it carries my whole identity
if they truly saw — saw truly for who i am
i don't think they'd even recognize me
faking pills, anti-calamides, the entirety of my existence
look at pictures on my walls, to lose grip over any remaining hesitance

it's in stages
when it happens
undoing my skin, zipping it down and stepping out to breathe
during the nights when it gets as real as it can
i look at my wardrobe, it's filled with masks
who should i be for the day? choosing is a dire task
one that i must achieve, tally all the previous repeats
and it's never the same — midway through, i have to tear myself apart to hold my coop

signs, watch for them
like ants leaving behind a trail to follow
dropping crumbs even tho all they wish to do is swallow
can't carry it all, no matter how much they can borrow
there's moments when it flickers
everything bare just for a second and the world seems to hold
as if waiting, hide it away — telling me — hide yourself whole
this is your chance, run, or settle down
wait, or burn yourself out
extinguishing a flame is impossible when you give the oxygen
give it all to aggravate
in the end, how dare u cry for all the mess it made?
can't kiss the flame, why get close to it in the first place?

there's rainbow fumes slipping through the blacks
the radio playing the album's sixth track
the board up says take right
but there's a figure standing right midway
vision turning bright red, it flashes white
x-rays me through, i can't see the eyes
but they tell me a tale i've long since held
been rotting in the prison for so long
even the wind seems to snap

your eyes speak
like butterflies held in watery imagery
like that one store open 24/7 for the hungry
resembling a payphone hanging off its cord
the voice echoing, "knock knock knock"
you loom in between the dimensions
almost floating, with dragonflies in your palms
stretched out towards me
there's a puddle of rainwater on the ground
a gas burner bright blue and white in the faded background
the screens flash with errors and figures
they walk past, like fishes swimming in an aquarium
the neons slip through the eyes
irises fading into a silvery crash
thousands of people drift by
barely a hundred holding hands
distance separates, time forgives
forgetting is like looking deep into the liminal
knowing there's no ending to this beginning

the streets aren't all too familiar
the buildings carry lives that speak
their windows tell stories — a dozen different endings
the sunshine falls a certain way
creating grey memories across the streets
do shadows overlap each other?
multiple questions — the answers to which lie in the mist

i could scan your eyes
find the me's that exist, see if u see me the way i do
check for pictures in your wallet, in your camera
in your feed, in your head — on your body, on you
but knowing i can't describe it all
describe them for you, i can't seem to stand tall
i'm afraid for you, seeing you walk out
is perhaps the best chance i can take
but a miserly one at that, it's a coward's mistake

should i count them out?
on fingers, i'd say just three
there's more — but facets to multiple sympathies
the major ones though, i call them the protectors

one exists — borderline deceitful
never aiming to hurt, keeping peace closed off
in a loophole, almost
living in boundaries
closed off, hiding in plain sight
having created doors, windows nailed shut
speaking in controversies
it preaches to protect the soul

there's another —
the publicised centre
lives empathetically
provides requests, hearing pleading
walking epiphanies
the bored, tired, sleepy version
meeting eye to eye
smile for smile
never faking, but never loosening the knots either
tie the loose ends just right

the remaining, the original
is a psychological art house
chaotic, musing, no doubt in the dark clouds
writing warfare of the minds
speaking soft, almost gullible
closest, truest, no boundaries like the previous
she lives as she breathes
grief filled in the soul
with a happy-to-go personality
i believe she's the one
except she hides beneath all that is dust
drifting through the mess she's become
it's calming, silent, wrecking havoc amidst
stench of sugar, candied crushes and humor
psychic tutorials, rafting rows of water
she lives in nightmares,
daydreams — almost as if there were none

Sometimes I muse about the strangers in my life.
I like to pretend that some of them have telepathy like radio
and when they see me as they always do,
in the commons at the school,
jogging past me on the sidewalk,
or in the polite but awkward silence of the elevator,
I wonder if I intrude upon their fuzzy bubble of mid-morning consciousness.  
If my inappropriate thoughts make their way through the static of theirs.

I almost want to apologize to the woman who jogged passed me this morning.
She didn’t need to know that I scratched my nuts
sniffed my hand,
and the scent of that ball-sweat brought me back a time when the room reeked of sin,
in the afterglow of rough ***, and that it made me miss
Her.

And that classmate didn’t need to know
that I secretly hoped the girl
that they keep talking about on the news would just show up dead,
so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.
Or the guy I just shared the mandatory hellos with,
if only he knew that just before we talked I was pondering the best way to induce mass hysteria
- a plan involving a *** of one dollar bills and LSD -
not that I’d ever actually put it into action.
Chaos is just fun to think about sometimes, I think.

And now I’m thinking of how weird it would be,
if one of these people tuned in right now and overheard me musing about them.
Woah…that’s so meta.

I gotta write this **** down.

Disconnected linguistics leave a broken fragility
turning tongues tumbling to trite truths,
tales spun seeking refuge in imagined worlds,
realities left shattered in their wake
while the crumbling crust reveals
heart held, beating in its embrace.
Thoughts turned towards musing,
secondary perception detecting that creeping chill
sliding as ivy from toes
to engrossed mind constricted,
comprehension continuously catching
the cold of ancient rites,
a reoccurence of yesterdays',
it echoes on in such melodic disorder.

With sweet venom she sang my way,
understanding aural shortcomings
allots no egress of racing choruses
coordinated to keep pace on her tongue,
lacing time so delicately, a feat
of only passionate disdain
tastefully recounted in every syllable
crashing in with a vicious viscosity,
leaving life to buckling knees,
forcing haggard steps
while the mind abstains from physical obfuscation,
knowing contact lends focus
to the surrounding mists, draining away

these rains you called, in echoes
of cries once denied
harmonies gaining pitch in perfect paces
found once allowed to resound
in the dark halls of your eyes,
until tomorrow fell to
yesterday's reign of essence,
breaking escaping waters to essentials
encircling columns we've yet
to deem pedestals.

It is in your service
that's found purpose,
an audition of caution
refined to presence,
I step into those commons
you still hold.

In nightshade and baby's breath
your song still emanates,
guiding through corridors
while the ceiling fills with
observant eyes of those predating sorrow,
unwilling to be its end,
or allow a Freudian slip
in which to reveal
a true identity,
they hold our hope
just within reach
though grasping fingers do naught
but brush aside that shadow
cast overhead, if only for the moment.

In this maze I am flanked
by hedges of stone,
mortar,
a mixture of
one part water
to every action
allowed to cement itself
in habit.
Reformative shifts scaling
to emerge a new horizon,
walls become signposts
as you echo inwards,
or up,
directive differences
falling to disorientation
either is understood
your path.

Catching firefly notes,
we've lined our world
in an unaccustomed passion,
all requiem and maladroit,
It was ours.
In the center,

our masks sufficed,
not having the time
to trade selves after
skirting two terrains of lucidity,
this reflective core the only stage
for our melting embrace,
idyll frivolity now perceived reality
in which falling apart proves
a simple concepts,

it's marked, our time now conceding
to the allure of situational  gravity,
spiraling downwards is the start of
constant uphill struggles,
crawling when called upon,
yet refusing to take knees
to provisional tears,
and finding conceding timeline tears
commonality.

For now though
we'll sit beneath this eldar tree,
sinking to material dissociation,
as the wish of a lover's kiss
washes upon us,
left surfacing somewhere past
these leaves of fall
in time to release
the seas of change.

And as waves pervade
she wraps her palm 'round mine,
whispers collecting in tense tendons,
sketch a note between innocence's evidence
and dust's barefoot impressions.
Signed in years marking its begin,
we addressed it
to any that may return.

Thank you Galileo for tilting up at their sky,
as the bull, crab, and ****** sent caution from thought
to the flat dirt umbrelled by musing why,
''or a fire of stone from an old hellish plot''

Sinners will crumble like a drum to a wall.
Glints of knife scratches shall drop from their clouds,
while Libris will beckon to the vowels of the tall.
Your protest shall quiver to madness aloud.

Plighted in brick, left to whince to your game,
the branders, hatassers preach love and then die,
but the truth of their lie only whispers exclaim.
Thank you Galileo for releasing this sky.

I rolled my own tobacco tightly, lips pursed through a gormless grin,
As he, the idle Gean Canach, warming up, kisses a lonesome gin,
This dream as told to be his tonic - the bitter slice - so I begin...

Musing over beauty, his admirable hair, warholic an' fitted to wear,
Of Tartan-clad men whose ghosts have chequered stares,
An' Art, Free Speech, Faith, dipped in batter - much to his despair,

Of people, prickened purple as they blow a silent whistle,
To how the sun beams through heather-fields of shared pistols,
An' those scattered morsels of society, left to nothing but the gristle,

To how more questions than answers affect his whispered speech,
Yet he stirs mulling over youth and language receded to their peak,  
'...Come, I'll walk you back to your hiding place – safely out of reach...!'

Back home to talk of MacDiarmid and McFarlan, to agree and feel solemn,
As he explains that a poisoned bee carries but only poisoning pollen,
An' how a love of our country, for its freedom, is all we have in common,
  
He tells of the tears from the Nationalist, nation-less, who lives in arrears,
Of the ink further dried on the receipt of forced union; of some 400 years,
An' that of my friend the leprechaun; ****** on the burnt grass that he shears,

An' now he exclaims - '… Swallow the pound..! Gulp on its hardened flesh...,
...We are as separate -  the reluctant strawberry atop this eton mess...,
The majesty of our homes, as one, forever in a state of undress,

...We shall squander fortunes on entire pleasures dear to empty minds,
The resources of our country fixed to the crown with no benefit in kind,
Computerised Tesco's an' ****** at the BBC is all that we will find...'

It is time to take our leave; he has risen sharply an' yet crumbles into a seat,  
The fires of the red sun burn for independence with stomping feet,
My dream recited, I wander still, and turn to the fools an' scoundrels on the street.

'Waves on a sea bed of linen,
Are at the heart of every prison'

Such a strident thought to plague my mind
A single yawn before the dream.

Outside, I reach my moon
As it touches me,
Such a quiet companion
To be keeping
With the busier of minds.

I sit in the porch swing
For over an hour.
Rocking.
Thinking.
Creating.

I imagine a southern jukebox
That comes through clearly
By listening for its beauty in the ether.
Its music feels too endless.
Too easy.
While moving through me too freely.

My throat heats.
My heart aches.
I begin to weep.

Afterwards, I scare my ducks,
(Because I can)
And make my way towards the pond.

The new grass beneath my feet
Warns me to run forever.
As the memory of you and me,
Stops me at water's edge.

Where the frogs soon move me,
From musing nature's scant lullaby,
To analyzing Pharaoh's teeming nightmare.

I eventually retreat back inside.
Across the lawn.
Through the house.
Up the stairs.

Beneath my canopy of night,
Harsh thoughts
Clash wholeheartedly
With heated tears
And stifled cries.

'The stars were never shining down on me,
They just looked down on their luck.'

Such a wretched truth to plague my mind,
A mere wasted wish before the dream.