Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.

Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
        lovelifedeath
grip.

And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.                                

I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.

Ah perfectionism,  my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
      frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.

Phosphenes
those  bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
             make it out
             fix it all
             come out from under
             breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
  in short

has my bright patch of colour had its day?

I can't
face it.

a letter to myself:
(a reminder, rather),
I know it feels as though you are now in the trenches
the mud clinging between your toes,
the walls too inevitably high to scale,
the rain beating and pouring down on your body,
and you see everyone above the surface hovering,
watching you as you try and clasp the sides of this hollow grave, frantically trying to escape
and you want to just lie in the mud and have the rain drown you until you are nothing
but you must remember this:
you will be fine.
And I know it feels as though you have been butchered, gutted and cleaned
ready to be thrown on the grill by he who so carefully flayed you open over time and space
only to have all your guts and bones trailing behind you, and thrown into a stock *** to boil away
and I know you miss his furrowed brow
and his incessant organization
and his frigid room
and you want him to call and say
"go to where we met and I will hold you and not say anything more than I'm sorry and I want you and you're all I see"
but remember this:
you will be fine.
And right now, I know you want to cover yourself in paint
all colours, but especially red; Tabasco to be certain
and slather it on until all the marks and scuffs disappear
until you disappear
and you want to refuse to let it dry; apply layer upon layer of every shade of blue from sky to navy;
from lime to forest green,
from sunshine to mustard yellow
and all variations of pink,
and your brush becomes heavy because this paint is caking your skin,
a cast of plaster holding your true self in
until you are as frigid as a statue; you are clad in stone
immovable and impenetrable;
your shield
but please remember this:
you will be fine.
One day someone will see your statue in a square or a park,
the sunlight beaming off your sheen,
and will see past that paint:
the layers of Tabasco
and emerald
and ocean
and canary
and pink
and see you
because you are a light
you are the last piece of pie that you know you shouldn't have, but take anyway
you are a phosphene that never disappears, even when their eyes are open
and he or she will approach your statue,
in a stance of utter uncertainty and self-doubt
shoulders hunched, spine pulled in and face blank and wanting
and will see you
and will take a chisel to your stone
and break off the layers
reduce them to dust, surrounding your pedestal
brush, blow and wipe it clean
and they will suffer from the heat and labour
but they will see you
and they will chip until finally you emerge
that light
and all will be gathered in that square or park
and as you look around you realize that they are the people you love the most
and the person who has broken your mould, your shell
is the one you love most of all: you.
Because you look in the mirror and you love you
you want you
you need you
and I know it's dark
and I know there are drills and hammers and saws
and I know when you sleep you are erased
but remember this:
you will be fine.
you are alive.
you are here.
you are better.
you will rise.

Sometimes when you look at something hard
enough you can see its pixels,
when you spend to long focused and color starts to fade
and light becomes a blending tool.
Looking but not seeing.
When shape defines what you see,
and color is a first thought,
... and you've seen everything, or nothing.

the cloth is cut
and you’ve been absent
from my dreams of late
phosphene, ever-burning
like a wretched mask
moth-eaten in the night

dearest, am i just the fount
of unsettled dust?
there is something in your eyes
that i cannot place
all this golden blood in me
is a harvest giving way
to the sickle and the blade
rich with rust

the lava-blended departure of the sun is not metaphysics,
but a pinpoint target into human hearts,
both empirical and whimsical,
both light out of my ultraviolet perspective and the asphalt hurricanes of my cortex

~


bursting to the window,
it BUCKLED.

she battled the nimbostratus with 7.4 billion souls on her solar-flaring side;

I sat idly by, desperately attempting to cool my tea and fight the demons on my shoulder.
The battle was a chainsaw pitted against a watermelon,
a senseless,
lopsided conflict.

(is the deck stacked or
are my shoulders only temporarily
disfigured?)

despite cinder block extremities,
my skin is still more mesh than concrete;
these summer nights were meant for picket signs
and bare feet.

as to perceive image without light,
I swam against a salty, magnificent current.

like some jealous future self,
my writer's clock balks at this moment with you,
i can't explain, so i give up listening. (i have an app for that)

the writing only stops as degustation ends ~
thank you, though ~ i'd like you to hear
regardless of the meanings lent ~
the gymnolexical fear
appearing ornamental far and near.

google files us away, omniscient
acumen of o's and ones ~
words sing to me their luring promise of a lasting hold,
but less and less
as plastic griming fingers sync
with what it seems to be,
a new world search-
-engine culling info freely
do i still    believe    in order?
striving for the fitted words,
a love imprinted input thus on crystal pixel page,
your effect on me distilled--
refracted throng associational
fantastic server metacomfort
for an audience
                     swimming past into this,
now always
ever-new you appear, bursting
at the seams my vision churning
...effluent sourcing, blurry self of others ~
heart-charming river-nymphs!
bolt-hurling sky-satyrs! reeling nations are subtended by your words
that walk, trod, swim across what poetry,
dance with this ever-blooming techne-earth
as i mark your plasmic eyes
we flow and let flow,
we dance our farmer's mud
into the beryl-winding paths
of othernets and cyberplay,
the restful ends reborn bright white
lacing lattice-scopic fibrous
scatters of another wi-fi interlife ~
we stream and let stream,
river-tress girl, your eyes summon
a great coalescence in me,
we dance into the channeled
delta of spring beauty here across the keyboard;
it cascades a slow attentive phosphene
striking pointed notes of color,
ring beneath and through the
green, sylvan silicon throw of mossy html
so that even rocks and sprawling
tree-trunks sing within the disembodied
vortexes of arrowed imagery to browse
my virtual belongings to you,
alone in your sorrow-joy fighting
free love in an all-world-breath
before the screen

Despise the way absence become routine,
Ritualized thoughts.
The aroma of a meal,
One I have had before,
One I had before with you.
Stopped drinking.
Your songs are much softer when sung in sobriety.
I can look at other men.
I can flirt again.
I can be silly.
Best with you.
Here has been ten rounds of four weeks and all of those nights
Not one where you have not become phosphene,
A hallucination.
The kisses on the foreheads were the worst.
Dreamt of most.
Means something.
And!
I'm trying to find the key,
And I'm trying to unwind these binds
And I'm trying to release your chain
And I'm trying to fight the same fight.
And you aren't here to help me,
But you are also so present.

And I know you do not want me anymore,
Foolish poor tainted heart o' mine still cheers on time.
A ****** shame.

I stepped outside and all I see is the air you left behind
The candy bars we used to eat

I close my eyes and all I see are phosphene colors
The feelings broken down in a kaleidoscope

fierce and infinite
cracked fractals
color by avidity

Beauty
lost in pyroxenes
and phosphene dreams.

Half-life glows
and the quark forgets to spin.

I was made to be milk glass—
  Lately, I've been more of
a scattering of light,
  a technicolor oil spill,
effervescent kerosene,
  a phosphene
in a running eye,
  fluorescent aerosol
going cumulonimbus
  in a green sky;
a variegated skin rash
  caused by shining neon bile
all festering and iridescent;
  a tattered road map
on the wall of a food court,
  bearing incandescent roads
twisting like snakes
  eating their own tails;
a human being in the form of a
  kaleidoscopic feedback loop
passed back and forth
  between the mouth and the ear
and the mouth and the ear forevermore,
  burning the tongue, the finger tips
and teetering on the edge
  of glittering, glorious incendium—
After the smoke has cleared,
  I can go back
to sleeping on the shelf.

There’s too little time.
To think that
by halving and halving and
halving again
this can be drawn out.
Somehow be avoided.

Death is no holographic dream.
It’s as real as circuitous
firing triggers of phosphene.
I see light suspended
in this final moment.

The tugging burin
etches away at the
last things it can shape.

she reaches deep inside me
with her whisperings
sometimes when I feel her presence
I close my eyes to watch her phosphene light show
an electric ultramarine grid against a black field
capturing glowing molecules floating in the sea inside my eyelids
like a cast out fishnet catching tiny bright blue fire flies
perhaps blue is the color of her music
change overcomes me
calmness and clarity
free from fear and pain
I arrive at joy and creativity
moved to play flute, write poems
or work on paintings or collages
enjoying the stillness of the earth
realizing the oneness of existence
at times I’ve wondered where she was
quaking in abandonment's corner
growing older, I’ve come to understand
she never leaves me
I just need to listen for her subtle voice
and close my eyes and see

Let the teeth rot from my skull,
And drop like culls
From a rack that's too old,
The house is cold
So failing, full
Of mold,
Let me go
Please,
It's just one request,
Only one
Chance to
Emulsify my best
Efforts
And fill your glass
With inadequate
Drops
Of a hard rain
That's difficult
To swallow,
Follow me outside,
Let's walk among
The silhouetted
Sunset trees,
The storms
Of gnats
And mosquitoes
That hover
Over gravel
Paths,
And remark,
As if we don't know,
"Unmarked graves
Where flowers grow."
And watch
As ghosts of
Shuffled feet
Fill the air
With clouds of dust,
Still glistening
With the heat of the day,
Please,
Just please stay,
Stay with me, marionette,
Till the wolves come and play,
They'll hide as we seek
And whisper
While we speak
Of whiskey dreams
And the reasons
We have to keep
Digging in sand,
Scooping handfulls
Of teeth,
Filling the gaps
In between
With phosphene
Screams.

a phosphene vase

draws itself--with

a pastel outline of:

violet purple/jade green/

ochre orange.

Venus' long fuchsia legs

kicking out from its lip.

as she takes root--headfirst.

This is a lie, in that,
it is likened with the first thought -
blindfold for a day and daydream.

Sridala Swami caught a boy
who didn't wake up, odd hour
to let phosphene thoughts flow,
confused, like drunken drive on,
a footpath. This is likened to
a poem written wide awake,
could I ever really not see?

This has happened before -

The grass bristles ricocheting finger strokes,
pampered, like mother seeking refuge,
in the smiles mimicry of forgotten childhood emanates,
eyed closed, given in to the gut stretch fever
after retching and vomiting like a cartoon character.

One can't talk to grass otherwise.

In the purple faint of school assembly
hands reaching out to a thud
a concert crowd ready to catch
but delayed reflexes in play.
I felt the hands of strangers,
finger prints etched with water sprinkles
on my face, singing "Wake Up!"

One can't listen to hands otherwise.

Running on an unknown bridge
eyes blinded by sweat and tears
of shock sadness and watch dogs' stares,
of separation, disgust and anger over words
and intentions behind other's mistakes,
eyes closed under an idol unnoticed
a beggar's hand over the head in prayer

One can't sense an unseen person otherwise.

Inside out folding of your mind
impressions washed out, dried
on the wires of gratitude
unequivocal, irrevocable and unsolicited
in the summer sun,
feeling like a toilet flushed after years
I wonder if angels long for it too.

One can't hear silence within, so loudly otherwise.

the sunlight spills through the windows
like honey
creeping into my duvet covers and inside
my fortress of darkness
touches my closed eyelids. and

there

that day

in my dream

i dreamt of stars

Rub your sleepy eyes ---
   Hues that pushed their way through gritty snow
   Reminding her that spring was coming back again
--- Blinded by sugary light.

Blink away the phosphene ---
   That blurred orbs of kelp on the shore
   Freckled with splinters of driftwood in a bonfire
--- Until you see her.

Reach out your arms ---
   Sore from the bed space you gladly surrendered
   Dangle an arm over her draped, silken body
   The surface of her pristine white, form-fitting
   Nightgown that pooled around her like liquid silk
   Caressing her skin like a cool autumn breeze
--- Hold your precious girl.

It's true that she ---
   Snored when she was exhausted, especially after dancing
   Her parted lips hushed sounds of deep slumber
   A noise ever so pure, graceful, and mellifluous
   In her dream, she steps into a field
   Of beautiful flora that accentuated her azure eyes
   Captivating the untouched, dark corners of your heart
   And licked them until sparks crackled with adoration
   This curious wanderer that chased butterflies and prose
--- Never knew your worth.

The splendor of magnitude gripped in a moment,
now is bursting at the seams,
the thread of steady logic unravels as
the sheets of sensation unveil the
silky boundlessness of time,
the paradox of infinite finitude, of finite infinity—

We exhale into the liminality between (un)certainties.
We find our rhythm to the music of experience
and we fall into ourselves, finding home between our ribs,
nestling into the cavity of being, we trip into each other,
fall in embrace, and rise in ecstasy of laughter.

Folding loving into aching,
Tasting euphonic resonance—
We are copper rays of light, exuberant !
flitting between the morning maple leaves,
we dance with the frolicsome tails of grass,
we hum in deep synchrony till the moon reflects our lily cheeks,
we taste the immanent stars and dive into
the phosphene galaxies behind our eyes.

The construct of measured days recedes
and there is only this brimming space to inhale
between certainties of light and dark
and we inhabit it with a bold stomp and a wild laugh.