The fallen pollen is reclaiming the oxygen,
Suffocating the rain until its soggy tendrils
Devour the world's sickness and plague.
Gunshots pellet the windows,
Booms of the ostentatious cannons
And blinding flashes of electric bombs.
Screaming birds; tumultuous ponds!
Overflowing and impenetrable.
The aggrandizing mushroom cloud
Envelops the sky into opaque nothingness.
With a bang not a whimper
The unending symphony
Self-destructs
Into clamorous silence.
Cries of the vulnerable innocents
Brought into the season of life,
Full of the absence of color
In chill, white hospital rooms
Where even the purest souls
Can sense the lies they are being told.
Oh nameless sadness, oh forgotten song,
Oh unspoken elegy
To the hidden
Stigma.

Need adventure Helicopter not included
I mentioned before California is like cereal it is full of fruits nuts and flakes well add Larry to the list he
Found himself out in the yard in a lawn chair and the unthinkable happened he come to the conclusion
He was bored now that just won’t do not in Los Angeles so to solve the problem he dashed down to the
Army surplus store bought a bunch of weather balloons stopped along the way got a tank of helium
Brought them home filled and tied the balloons to the lawn chair then tied the rope to his jeep went in
Got his pellet pistol sat down in the chair so with figuring at release he would float up thirty feet one or
Two ways to get down use the pellet gun shoot a couple of balloons float easily to the ground or if not
That you’re just about even with the top of the house surly you can get the house underneath you to
Jump Off on the roof now Larry wasn’t mechanical so anything to do with engineering was out what was
Is that wonderful feeling of being up there so he pulled the rope there was a slight difference in the
Expected feet not thirty but he shot up and leveled off at sixteen thousand feet ever feel your rope
Might be missing some length well if the thought ever crossed his mind about the pellet gun idea two
Things he was certain about he wasn’t bored and he didn’t want to shoot any balloons deceleration the
Other Way was not an option so what’s a not to bright Californian to do well besides holding on for dear
Life and freezing you added yourself into nature mixed bag nothing left to do but let nature do her thing
So eight hours later he drifts into the Los Angeles airport corridor of all people you would meet a pilot
Trying to land three hundred people calls the tower with this message I passed a man setting in a lawn
Chair with weather balloons and by the way he is at sixteen thousand feet and he has a gun to scrabble
F-16 would be too much even for California so good news for Larry they sent out just a Helicopter and
Brought the lame duck back to safety just another day in the state it’s hard to be surprised in but some
Still succeed

i felt so safe, sleeping by the bear cave
and the honey he brought me kept me warm
the morning dew glistened while he danced for me
while i ate the honey

funny bear
you make my heart melt

last winter seemed like it lasted forever
and the frost froze off my toes
he carried me in some spring water, and cloves
i kissed him on his big old nose

i felt so good, laying there and dying
the comfort he gave me was irreplaceable

then i heard the hounds

he buried me in some cedar and pine needles
i could hear him climbing the big oak tree

the baying of the hounds must have lasted a hundred years
and i was still alive
so was he

then you came
you took out a pellet rifle
you started shooting my friend
you started shooting my friend

the excitement of the hounds grew
the hair on their backs stood on end
so did mine
so did his

why did you shoot my friend with that air rifle?
why did you shoot my friend 23 times?

i was laying there listening when he fell
when the dogs jumped on him, at your command
i listened while your dogs tore my friend to shreds
my friend didn't even make a sound

he was a good bear
such a good bear

he didn't bother anyone, and would have given the hide off his back
but you killed my friend and took his hide off his back

you killed my friend
you killed my friend!

you let your dogs tear him apart

================================

i can still see you dancing
funny bear

you saved me from freezing last winter
my toes even grew back!

thank you, my friend
your warmth and love has kept me alive
the things you taught me will help me forever

will you please dance with me?

Moments like these,
When you're at peace,
No one else to see,
and our hearts are finally free,
When I lay on my bed listening to my cats purr, while petting his fur...

Moments like these,
When i hear the tune of a sweet melody ringing in my ears,
No one else to hear,
and i feel calm for once...

Moments like these,
When i lay in a dark room filled with silence,
No one else to see,
and a sound of a soft rain pellet crashing against the window.

Moments like these,
I cherish the time you see,
and when i feel good to be alone,
it's because i'm finally at peace.

Most fruit bear their seeds in the middle of their flesh,
To protect their offspring from unwanted guests,
But a strawberry's seeds pellet its outer skin,
They don't care about their kin

Sweetly reaching for my hand
A rattlesnake curls up in yours.
Smiling oh-so-carefully
To hide your poison pellet
Delivered with a kiss.

Platitudes and honeyed words
With fishhook barbs inside them.
Lies disguised as candy bars
Offered out with sticky fingers
Mostly crossed behind your back.

Promising that all is peaceful
And there’s no danger to be seen.
Alarms and sirens drown those words
And say my world is burning here,
And sinking in a morass there.

If only words were scimitars
To slash a way to truthfulness
And cut the evil from the hearts
That proclaim love for one and all
And secretly deliver hate.
ljm

***** from the bottle,
Warm.
Hot dogs from the package,
When your down and *****
The grotesque becomes magic.
Pawning a guitar for a pellet gun,
To procure breakfast.
Squirrel stew in the back of a scamper camper.
Spotlighting bullfrogs,
And mopping floors for a hot meal,
And a cold beer,
And a sympathetic ear.
Nights when the blacktop turned into void,
And the painted lines became a tightrope to nowhere.
Full circle,
Bangor to Frisco,
Any woman who was willing to sleep in the bed of a truck
Was a queen for as long as she stayed,
Always had **** concealed on me,
The copper piece of road currency,
To the gold and silver, of *** and gas.
The exchange rates would change overnight,
But syphon some gas at a truck stop
And it all will be alright.
Misspent youth, following bands
And getting lost along the way.
***** from the bottle,
And hot dogs from the package.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
T­his poem is self translated version of my Hindi language poem titled "शिव स्वरूपं" published in pratilipi on (Dec. 2017) Can be read through the link ==>> https://bit.ly/2P4j7vE
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^­^^^^^^

That face of Lord Shiva is most beautiful in which he holds Ganga in his hairs
The Moon feels blessed by beautifying the head of Shiva as a glittering crown

The Serpants also became jewellery by themselves and decorated his blue neck
Shiva holds the trident on one hand and plays the Damroo from the other one

He has seated himself on a mat of Tiger Skin and rubbed pyre ash on his body
He has left elephant and the horses and decided to travel on an old Bull Nandi

By such an amazing face form, he is always ready for the welfare of devotees
The cruel and wicked have always been afraid of his eldritch face and form.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^­^^^^^

Shiva (See Line 1): A God (The Destroyer) in Hindu Mythology
Ganga (See Line 1): The Holy river whose flow and speed is controlled by the coiled hairs (Jatas) of Lord Shiiva
Damroo(See Line 4): A sort of musical instrument ( Pellet Drum )
Nandi((See Line 6)): A bull in Indian mythology who is the vehicle of Lord Shiva

Does anyone remember when
Baseball fields were full
When you always saw a hundred kids
When you drove by every school
Pick-up games of baseball
On every field you'd pass
But now the only scrub that's there
Is just overgrown, clumpy grass

I drove on by a park today
One that I used to play baseball on
The backstop was all broken
And the dugouts, they were gone
The field was full of garbage
Weeds and echos of the past
I remembered times between the lines
With a long forgotten cast

"HEY MISTER...MOVE...WE'RE PLAYING HERE"
"CAN'T YOU MOVE SO WE CAN PLAY?"
"HEY BATTER, BATTER, SWING NOW BATTER"
"YOU'LL NOT GET A HIT TODAY"

I'd crossed into a baseball game
One from many years before
The ghosts of players long deceased
Were still playing here some more

I crossed back to the dugouts
Stepped behind and they were gone
But, as I stepped back to the old coaches box
I could hear their haunting song

"HEY BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, SWING"
"WE WANT A PITCHER, NOT A BELLYITCHER"
"HEY BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, SWING"
"WE WANT A PITCHER, NOT A BELLYITCHER"

I sat there watching the game take place
On a field not worth a ****
At least not in the present time
Then a kid hit a grand slam

He touched them all as he ran by
I saw it plain as day
The only thing I wished was that
I could join them and play

"HEY MISTER, STAND ON  HOME PLATE"
"THEN COME WALK OUT TO THE MOUND"
"WE KNOW YOU WANT TO JOIN US"
"WE KNOW IT'S HALLOWED GROUND"

I did the tasks directed
I joined the players from ago
And as I ran up to the rubber
I went as fast as I could go

I could feel myself get younger
I didn't know if it was real
But, they say as you get older
You're just as young as you may feel

I pitched two good strong innings
Then the echoes chose to fade
I knew it was just imagination
Of long lost players I had made

"COME BACK AGAIN TOMORROW"
"YOU CAN THROW THAT PELLET KID!"
"WE'VE GOT TO GET ON HOME NOW"
and...go back...you know I did!

what am I I don't know I think I'm a boy I grew up one time reading a book with a gun in my hand with a pellet gun in my hand I grew up a boy

rain mist wreathed
virid groves
of evergreen
sun languished
behind clouds grey
overcast sky
lachrymose;
distant rumble
thunder;brontide
pellet-laden gusts
of wind;cold
leaf-stirring
nubivagant drops
falling
glistening foliages
rustling;
celadon leaves
rain-washed
brushwood damp
galore humus
dewy silence;
gerful downpour
incipient

I mentioned before California is like cereal it is full of fruits nuts and flakes well add Larry to the list he
Found himself out in the yard in a lawn chair and the unthinkable happened he come to the conclusion
He was bored now that just won’t do not in Los Angeles so to solve the problem he dashed down to the
Army surplus store bought a bunch of weather balloons stopped along the way got a tank of helium
Brought them home filled and tied the balloons to the lawn chair then tied the rope to his jeep went in
Got his pellet pistol sat down in the chair so with figuring at release he would float up thirty feet one or
Two ways to get down use the pellet gun shoot a couple of balloons float easily to the ground or if not
That you’re just about even with the top of the house surly you can get the house underneath you to
Jump Off on the roof now Larry wasn’t mechanical so anything to do with engineering was out what was
Is that wonderful feeling of being up there so he pulled the rope there was a slight difference in the
Expected feet not thirty but he shot up and leveled off at sixteen thousand feet ever feel your rope
Might be missing some length well if the thought ever crossed his mind about the pellet gun idea two
Things he was certain about he wasn’t bored and he didn’t want to shoot any balloons deceleration the
Other Way was not an option so what’s a not to bright Californian to do well besides holding on for dear
Life and freezing you added yourself into nature mixed bag nothing left to do but let nature do her thing
So eight hours later he drifts into the Los Angeles airport corridor of all people you would meet a pilot
Trying to land three hundred people calls the tower with this message I passed a man setting in a lawn
Chair with weather balloons and by the way he is at sixteen thousand feet and he has a gun to scrabble
F-16 would be too much even for California so good news for Larry they sent out just a Helicopter and
Brought the lame duck back to safety just another day in the state it’s hard to be surprised in but some
Still succeed

the snowfall came tumbling down
   resting sweetly on my eyelashes and toes
like the feathers of one million unfortunate doves
     that dad popped in the chest
     with his pellet gun

being the "sum of what the world 'thinks' I am"
is written, smeared in blood across the cave i've come to love
and leave behind but only in an understanding:
selfhood carries with it all we lack.
it carries on its seas the diatomic algae fruiting slowly back
it carries on each ladder-rung the selves that other's see,
the lovers' feelings felt,
the mailman's kindness kept--
a stranger's instant siblinghood in eye-flash recognition wept.

my heart is tattered there, and rebuilt here;
i could not be the beating love-train joyful as the sorrows,
the pain and lonely misery, the mind-split cosmic surd of this
that Jenkins must have felt, before her captors left hir dead...
--a bullet in hir back, a simple heart-stop pellet placed--
i could not be the beating love-train joyful as the sorrows,
without your words, your rich, kind thoughts of me
that others do not know they have,
that Kiesha could have known.

Total parrot care
Cried the signboard
In the narrow sleepy by-lane
I gave it a dreamy stare.

I have been too rare on this road
Coming this way was no need
But when I chanced upon that signboard
My search ended for parrot feed.

Is there anybody there?
I echoed de la mare
Found none at the counter
Not even the shopkeeper!

Dismayed I looked around
If some human semblance could be found
But fell nothing in my gaze
Other than a parrot in a cage!

Turning to leave I was stopped by a voice
Find here sir a variety of choice
Not just parrot feed
Under one roof all that they need.

Who is speaking I asked in awe
There wasn’t a human face I saw
But could tell it with certainty
There were eyes watching me.

Don’t leave sir without the delicious pellet
Once you take it you’ve to come back
Serves well a parrot’s palate
The bird loves this crunchy snack.

It now emerged who was playing the trick
I was hearing parrot speak
None other there not one human folk
The shop was run by parrot talk!

*I scampered out with one long hop
Disappeared the lane the parrot shop
I was tossing on my sweated bed
By this funny dream that rocked my head!

I once shot a bird while my mother cried
A single pellet in a winged angel, stolen from the unforgiving sky
Neither burial nor pyre brings ease to her mind
for her boy shot a bird,
and she saw and she cried.
I held the rifle in front of me,
Its wood my flesh, aging and weary.
As I approached the pigeon bleeding, soon to be sleeping,
I laid a hand on maternal shoulders weeping.
The mechanics of life cocked bitterly in my hand
also ran red amongst feathers down into the thirsty earth once again.

791

God gave a Loaf to every Bird—
But just a Crumb—to Me—
I dare not eat it—tho’ I starve—
My poignant luxury—

To own it—touch it—
Prove the feat—that made the Pellet mine—
Too happy—for my Sparrow’s chance—
For Ampler Coveting—

It might be Famine—all around—
I could not miss an Ear—
Such Plenty smiles upon my Board—
My Garner shows so fair—

I wonder how the Rich—may feel—
An Indiaman—An Earl—
I deem that I—with but a Crumb—
Am Sovereign of them all—

there was a red bird
sitting on a branch not ten feet
from my porch
and I thought
to take my pellet rifle
and shoot it dead right there.
it would be an accomplishment,
taking calm and precision,
and it would leave an impact on this world
but not too big of
one.

that red bird
begged of me though,
reminding me of my mortality,
how someone else could take their pellet rifle
and aim their sights down on my chest,
ending me, just as I could end that
bird.

so I sat inside
and watched that red bird
from the window of room.

I let him live, and realized
I had accomplished just as much
and yet nothing at
all.

"If you dont like the weather in Boston,
Just wait a minute"

last night
it was seven degrees outside
my teeth chattering
holding my body
for warmth
as I waited for my taxi
to arrive

the hail
felt like it was tearing my face into pieces
with every ice pellet
that hit my skin
I felt was tearing
pieces of you off my flushed,
warm cheeks

now,
it is morning
I havent slept.
my mind has been occupied
by you,
and lust filled fantasies
of you
inside of me
filling me until
I could burst

it is morning
the pellets that lashed me
violently
and landed in a soft pile
outside my bedroom window
are melting

I see the sunrise
the day
meeting the night
in a lustful embrace

if our bodies ever meet
I promise to make your sun rise
and then erupt
in a beautiful display
of spicy red
with hints of purple
to leave on the hotel sheets
a reminder
that tomorrows sunrise
is just a day away

you may be colorblind
but I will show you red
with my tongue,
my mouth
my lips

believe me
I will show you
color
how it's meant to be

In the shadow of a tall mountain
I pitch a tent
I lay a fire
I eat berries
I bathe in the pond
People come, people go
They say much, as do I
And once after the fortnightly storm
A hole I dig, and a seed I sow
Of a pellet of light wrested from my chest
And people come, and people go
But the sunshine never comes, for the mountain is tall
And the mountain is strong
But the sunshine I need, for the pellet to grow
And grow it must
Grow it must
Into a ball of light to walk into
That shines right through the mountain
And all around
But the mountain is tall, and the shadow is long, and the pellet has been sown
In the arc of perennial dark
People come, people go
But this time, one stayed
Without a reason too firm
And little is said
Except the voice of the lantern carried in anew
And the gentle, flickering light, flows on the seed
Like the lapping of rippling water on the pond’s shore
The pellet of light throbs softly, breathes easy
And after we pat fondly the mound of earth on the seed’s womb
We pitch a tent
We lay a fire
We eat berries
We bathe in the pond
In the shadow of a tall mountain

I’m not like the Ripper or a notorious name
A celebrity killer looking for fame
I could be living alone in the house next door
In a suburb next to a family of four
There’s nothing really dark about me
Just a few skeletons behind the settee
One night I had a few friends around
By morning they just could not be found
A couple of them were acting like fools
Messing around with garden tools
Things just went too far last night
A few arguments and then a little fight
Air rifle pellet went right through one eye
Picked up a ***** and swatted a fly
They had ****** on the carpet and foul sofa stains
Bits of ***** on the wall with blown out brains
Glassed in the face and the mirror smashed
All the guests have gone and the party’s crashed
I arranged their limbs in little squares
In the cupboard just under the stairs
Just take a look at this Motley Crew
All ******* useless with nothing to do
They came for a laugh and left in stitches
No more fun for these sons of *******
I won’t bore you with the details of my deeds
How their hacked off fingers were planted with weeds
Shaved their heads with a sickle and axe
Disposed like waste in carbon sacks
So remember this if friends are fake
They never give back but always take
Don’t waste more time or ask them why
Lets them go, let them die

A man tore himself apart
It was just the other day
Limb to limb, bit to bit
****** pulp, sinew askew
And now he sits and wonders
Was he always in such discord?
Or was this a fabrication
A fabrication of the mind
Or of the absence of a mind
Self diagnosed insanity
A man who had reached an end
A break, a crack, in his psyche
Exhausted every nodule of sense
Along the highway of consciousness
But how has it come to this?
What was it that sent him into madness?
Was there an actual affliction?
Or did he see his reflection?
He took his manifestation of monotony
Blew it to pieces with a shotgun blast
Picking out buckshot with broken fingers
Each pellet another unanswered question
How many times can a man crush himself
Before he's pressed too thin?
How many times can his world be flipped
Before he knows which way is up?
How many deaths must he endure
Before he feels alive again?
But he can no longer take action
After all these mindless meltdowns
He lays on the forest floor, motionless
Becoming one with the earth
Buried in leaves and branches decaying
The dirt below him is cold and wet
Insects crawling and colonizing
Marching through his rotting flesh
And it all feels romantic and beautiful
Sunlight and serenity fall upon him
Feeling nothing and everything
And then nothing again.

Yes I conquered these woods in the fall

Me wounded

Comrades falling by my side-Dying in my arms

Again and again we ****** ourselves against them like a wave against sand

Weaving through the trees

We ran out of bullets and had to use knives

Out numbered by a margin legends are made of

Being stabbed or shot always somewhere non-vital

Gasping but never crying at the pain

The dead leaves under us with their own sharp gasp

Then I was called to dinner

Throwing Pellet gun and Beer can grenades aside

I ran home

Yes

As a child I conquered these woods in the fall

I read a line of scribbled spit nickels
Down the front of your shirt
You pressed a sheet of purple glue
Upon your eyelids
So when you wake up
The sky glows merry
And the trees blow cherry blossom
Daggers in your mouth

The bees **** in your ears
The silence swims in centuries
Your pores are hidden caves
Through which the red sea tide escapes from
Down the river
It flows like spilling
A bucket of butter soaked
Fingers frying on telephone cables

Let’s be so close that we are hideous
I don’t blink enough
to miss the way your eyes looked like half squeezed limes
blond knuckled
teenagers loving their thighs
under the rusty playground slides

I tripped on broken windowpanes
To laugh until my lungs broke through
My temple of loose ***** xylophones
Crickets co-wrote my backyard requiem
My ears were sauce packets
Filled with broken glass microphones
Fast food pottery

Yogurt stains swing dance when I close my eyes
The chalk tastes like baby blankets
Horseradish carpenters bleed bitter pellet gun lubricants
I hung fifteen different shades of mustard yellow
So that I couldn’t hear your sandpaper cackle

Only your cousin’s frigid toaster
Can understand me

in previously dining with sultry, elegant fire*,
i was a gazelle with its neck bit to the bone-
breathing,
but not alive-
a fractured coffee table melted into a morbid pool of cheap, liquidized steel,
decimated via hazel iris communication and spilled wine.

my skin,
ablaze,
took the shape of your hip-bones,
outlined with red lace and childhood scurry-
a grey ghost changing weightless piano symphonies into expired canned goods,
dented to the severity of hairline fracture.

--

band aids eventually peel like browned, dampened leaves in the sorrowful days of autumn;
scar-ridden skin does not dance into the fading sun to never return,
but rather sits on skin like
wet newspaper
and whiskey breath;
it creeks a screech of attrition in your throat like an unhinged screen door,
the splinters down-pouring into esophageal tissue like ash.

re-dressing the wounds must not be a death sentence,
as the gauze is the clock-tower,
perched in the center of town,
striking noon.

it took far too many rotations around the axis to realize that a wounded, passionately bursting ***** behind a protruded rib-cage was not an expiring hourglass,
but that third degree burns could be the infinite list of ambiguous maps i've yet to navigate.

--

with the passage of ambivalent and nebulous suns,
i can now unravel the bloodied, endlessly flawed fabric to the newly optimistic idea of
her favorite peppermint tea,
her January habits of leaning on the sizzling pellet stove with sweatpants slightly too thin,
her perseverance of the books like a Nobel Prize winner.

but so help me,
if your are one more to pour gasoline on my dinner plate,
i will light the match myself before i allow you to complete the unfinished canvas of my curious skin.

I taught her how to handle a
Pellet gun tonight.
Now her eye is black from the
Scope, her fake fingernails chipped
From loading,
And the pine tree nearly stripped from
Cones outside my
Livingroom window, where our
Jägermeister
Cups made little rings on my
Brother's Longfellow hardback
Copy.

The night sky is bright blue this
Time of year in Norway.
Sun never really sets.
I looked up at the brightests spots
Beyond the moon, as she took aim
And fired with a subtle
Psstkh.

"So close," she whispered at the
Unwounded summer evening,
And I smelled her lavender hair
And all the warm outsides
As I thought of satellites and
Discoveries, and how moments
Such as this one would
Always matter
More.

Accretion,
                     Tis I seek!
Permission,
                     Of ones love to keep!
Partition,
                     I gaze for none!
Secretion,
                     Of child play fun!
Direction,
                     To giveth me her hand!
Completion,
                      A wedded band!
Ommision,
                       I want none more!
Suspition,
                       Please close thy store!
Assumption's,
                       I enquireth zilch!
Corruption,
                       Sleeps with filth!
Attention,
                       Wrap me as waddling infant!
Kitchen's,
                       To cook a meal of terrace's far and distant!
Affectation,
                       Of two fallen cherub's!
Alleviation,
                       Of the bug's and scarab's!
Abstraction,
                       I paint as a picture,
Benedictions,
                       Of one pellet, two triggers!
Complications,
                       Of breathing do I feel,
Irrigations,
                       Another deathly pill!
Saturation,
                       Man made queens to beasts!
Irritation,
                       Where art thou? Queen of settled feast?
Obliteration,
                       I lurk the high hilled tops!
Incarceration,
                        Where ghoul's meet thy cops!
Palliation,
                        To make sensual love in darker nights,
Excruciation,
                        Where art thou light?
*******,
                        Of kings and consort souls,
Acceptation,
                        Wilt thou come mine love?

We sat in deck chairs, our feet entrenched in the sand,
as the water crept up the shore
and splashed gently on our toy sailboats.
The fire pit roared and rose with flames
under the moonlight. Our friendship was anchored
in the beach for years, since second grade.
I kept watch on your sailboat,
knowing it would soon cast out into the sea of adulthood.
We spent hours talking about our dreams,
as though the sandman truly existed
apart from
our imagination.

Remember when we dropped our textbooks in the trash compactor?
Because we believed in the Lost Generation and The Beats, and not some phonies from academia.  
We even sprinted away from the security guards after we used our slingshots and shot rocks at the The Verizon Center's Marquee.

Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.

We lounged in the dugout while the sky poured buckets of rain on the baseball diamond, as our lighters ran out of fluid.

*

By accident, you shot me in the mouth with an air-soft gun. The beady plastic pellet zinged through the air, and sawed off half of my front tooth. Frantically, you sprinted inside and came back out with a glass of whole milk. You snagged the chipped up tooth from the lush lawn, and dropped it into glass. The tooth got swallowed up by the milk, leaving a trace of ripples.

But you had pure intentions, only lukewarm aim. On a porch chair, I sat bent over with my upper lip bundled with wet paper towels. There was no blood, no flesh wound; just a clean shot. I dabbed my tender gum gently with the damp towel.

You walked up to me and slapped me on the back. I shook my head, rolled the towel into a paper *** and chucked it at your nose.

You caught the projectile in mid-air and threw the afternoon’s remnants over the pointy picket fence. You turned around and saw my back, as I walked on the neighborhood sidewalk away from your house.

Ten years later, in the summer of 2007, we stretched out our limbs on Rehoboth beach and smoked headies out of a papier-mâché-looking piece; we called her Old Glory. As we toked and held in the gray coughs, we took in the view. Small waves barreled over and flattened out onto the fine sand shore. Our toes were tangled in the snare of the ivy green seaweed.

We didn’t want to let go of this.

This picture frame memory, the wooden frame lacquered with fresh pine comb.

A peace pipe shared between each other to rekindle their friendship. I stared at the bright fire of the lighter, watching as red sparks turn into violent black. Light gray debris collected on my swim trunks. We both looked up at the starless sky, as if we were searching for twilight. The moon glow shrunk the longer an eyeball looks, you said.

I nodded, got up, and walked right into a tall wave. I took the full force of the water, standing my ground with a bird’s nest chest. You laughed and lolled your head back off; you were exhausted.
I walked back up the hilly shore, and treaded my finger along the ridges of my ceramic tooth. A replica embedded in my mouth. I felt the jagged edges, the flaws, and grinned a little.

Just enough, to feel like I was on the verge of epiphany, on the beginning of seeking out the correct approach of life.

We hit the piece again. And the sun began to rise.
Our eyes closed, breaths quiet, and our memories entwined
for days to come.