She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green,
And an off-white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams,
Like leather, like elderly skin, like a crossword puzzle with half the letters filled in,
She sat by me and spilt her sentences and her tea:

She claimed her husband had been killed by a cabal of spiritualists,
Killed by a bull elephant in the streets of Nepal,
Killed by the seven plagues,
And never killed at all,

That he was once a number
Somehow both perfect and prime,
That he was Prime minister of the sea,
And independent of time,

That his bones were cracked marbles
Bought from a widow in Tennessee,
That his name continued to escape her,
But that he looked something like me,

Leaving I saw her wings drag her heavenward,
I saw her terrible wings,
As I stumbled and veered from concrete to tarmac
I heard the pavements start to sing:

“I was once a flowerbed,
My father was a field,
My mother was a source of light,
Before which all the people kneeled.”

Then lost in the eye of daytime and night,
Drawn to the moustache of a Spanish racketeer,
He was once abandoned by his books and his babies
In the boot of a broke-down cavalier,

His pasts and ideas caught up to him,
And gripped him by his belt and his teeth,
His pasts gripped him in quiet of his nightmares,
And slashed his arms in the street,

Visions shook me by the bleeding palm,
Her terrible wings now pinpricks for the moon,
Visions shook me as deities died,
With eyes like a card-trick and fingers like doom,

Then stuck in the endless space between words;
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green;
Stuck in the endless space between words;
And an off white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams...

Pinpricks on my arm
Tiny pinches making me want to turn
I know they're there
And I know what I'll find
But I don't want to find anything
I want everything to stay how it is.
It can't

The pinpricks on my arm
Are getting stronger.
They're piercing now.
Urgent.
Still
I stare at you
Smiling,
Taking in your beautiful face
Knowing it's not so beautiful on the inside
I pretend I don't know
And so do you

The pinpricks aren't pinpricks anymore
They're knives stabbing me
How much pain will I go through to live my wishful reality?
Finally, I can't bare the pain anymore
I turn to see the problem
Face the facts
Find the truth

You were a lie
The way I knew you were
The pinpricks were warnings
Subtle harmonies
Hiding within the melodies
This harmony was an ugly one
Dissonant.
And then the melody wore off
And the harmony was the only thing left.

So I left
The world is full of melodies;
We are all our own.
But everyone is someone's harmony
Either creating
Ugly
Flat
Out of key
Songs
Or creating music
Mocking Beethoven
And doing a good job of it.

You weren't my harmony
Nor I yours
I take my heart and leave.

The heat,
The way it ripples from the steel handlebars
And burns my hands,
The way the clunking of the chain feels
As each pedal propels me forward
Beneath the sun.
The sky is blue,
The air is crisp and leaves pinpricks
On my skin,
Soothed by the tenderness
Of sun rays that fall like curtains
Upon the concrete.

It smells of rubber,
A lingering scent of nostalgia
That fills my lungs like tar
And fills my heart with youthful
Thoughts.
As the wrinkles emerge,
And the delicate cracks begin to show,
I realize that my bike
Is the last memento that
Resonates through my aging ways.

Let's take a final spin down the boulevard,
Before the sun goes down
And my bones ache once more.

when a boy shows you his hands
bare except for the dust
he’s begging you to look past
take them in yours.
squeeze them once.
twice.
say without speaking
that you understand that the valleys
in his palms were meant to cradle
shooting star wishes
that he’s allowed to still hope for.
when a boy shows you his eyes
of milk and crimson and melanin
a bloodshot vein for every night he can’t sleep
let him shut his eyelids.
say without speaking
that you understand that the black hole pinpricks
of his irises hold more than the universe
should allow.
when a boy shows you his soul
shivering but still working toward friction
iced over but still working toward melting
let him come to rest next to yours.
say without speaking
that you understand that he is lonely
and that his silence speaks volumes
and that you kept his treasure close
because you love him.
when a boy shows you his hands
show him your hands.
when a boy shows you his eyes
show him your eyes.
when a boy shows you his soul
show him that
this is a comfortable place to rest it.
when a boy shows you the hardness that shaped him
show him the softness
that you have in store.

I got a tattoo last night
Did it myself, all needles and ink
Sterile like the bathroom floor
And wet rags dyed black and pink

It was a little picture of a house
Sitting on top of my left hip
Pinpricks of ink pushed into my skin
And not once did I let the needle slip

There is a cool breeze in my bone
The inky night closes in
The wolves curse in the blackness
With their wordsless whispers
That settle in my bones like winter"s warmth
The wovles groan and whimper to the dead moon
With her pale sunken face
She calms the world with white
And all is silent
Except for the tiny pinpricks
Who speeak volumes
But can only be heard by few
The escape of the light is effortless
As the breeze blows them away
And a single pinprick remains
Then that too is silenced

I sat by the window and gazed out
at the rain falling down
in torrents and sheets.
The night was black as ink, save the stars;
barely visible behind thick storm clouds,
pinpricks of silver in the ebony scape,
as the rain continued to fall.

I thought of you, of the deliberation in your face
etched into every feature a painful, wavering resolve.
The decision before you:
two fates, the ending, or the prolonging of the time before the terminal predetermined.

I grieved as I remembered the pain in your eyes.
I know you too well. I have seen too much of you
for you to hide this from me. I broke
-a silent cry of realization, collapsing my furrowed brow into a contorted countenance
as I realized that you were gone
not just for now, but for good.

And so there I sat that night,
after I removed the gold chain you rested around my neck
after I scrubbed away the makeup
after I traded my lipsticked smile for a mourning countenance
-I sat, alone in the dark, and gazed out the window into the rain.
I wondered where things had gone wrong.

And so, May showers
drove away April's flowers.
It was all I could do to cry quietly,
face soaked with the saline of sadness
that dripped now on my chest.

Now, I sit again at the window
and the same song plays that had consoled me before
'you'll feel better when you wake up'
And I did.
The sadness stayed safely at the bay
while I tried to channel it again
But this time it wasn't the same.
Though I duplicated the mood down to the clothes I wore,
the heartache was no longer fresh
and my face remained dry.

Sure, I felt sad. But it was not from you.
It was not from a heartbreak or a brokenness.
It was inorganic sadness, brought on by my own need for closure,
the thirst for a goodbye that burned my throat in agony and sorrow
that my parched lips would never find.

You see scars where I see healing
wounds worn out long ago
this skin knows what it is doing
its been doing it from way back
and all the cuts of emotion ravishing
a mind made for peace are but pinpricks
when compared to an eternity of love

I was at a party the other day
I don't usually go to parties
I don't like crowds
I don't like gatherings
I don't like, new people.
But I'm here as a favour to a friend,
And so I stand in this hovel
That looks like the dodgy part of *****
Or the ganglands of Gomorrah,
Pathetically clutching my long empty beer bottle
And breathing in air that's more smoke than oxygen.
Desperately hoping
That if I pretend to be drunk enough
I wont have to meet anybody new.

But as luck would often have it
As luck and I do not get on
My friend beckons me from a darkened corner
Surrounded by people I don't know.
She's confident, enigmatic and wants me to come over.
And because I owe her a favour I cant say no
And so I trudge towards her with all the enthusiasm
Of an arthritic Labrador, dragging my hind legs
Across the sweat stained carpet
Bracing myself for someone new.

And as I place one foot in front of the other
I can practically see the outline of the gallows.
And I notice that the walls really are an especially ugly colour
And that boy surely isn't old enough to be drinking without permission from his mother.
And someone please tell those guys not to put the owners dog in the oven.
And I wonder if I should break up those limb tangled lovers
Because I hear that that one, who's dating that one, gave that one chlamydia
and suddenly the air is too thick
And too hot
But my feet will not stop.
Because I owe my friend a favour.
But this hideous carpet might as well be an ocean
Because believe me, I'm drowning, adrift.
This feels like I've left my stomach
Somewhere four feet behind me
And I've always been so used to listening to my gut.

This is not fear, this is anxiety
The two are so easily confused, but
Unfortunately by now I know the difference
More intimately than many people do.
Fear is a cold steel
Sharp knife, with smooth un-serrated edges
That drives into your chest or your head or your belly
And it takes what it wants from you, and then is wrenched back out
And its painful, but its usually there for a reason.
Fear can be conquered
Don't laugh I've seen it
Fear grapples with the human spirit in the eyes of every
Soldier still fighting
No matter what the battlefield.
Be it desert or office or kitchen or playground.

But anxiety is fears younger cousin
and it is a wire sponge against your chest
Like the ones they use on cleaning dishes.
And it grates at you until you're raw
And scrubs at every inch of skin
There's hardly a moment when you're not itchingly pink
Until it feels as though your ribs are utterly exposed
And every eye is fixed on what you hide within.
But that's not the worst thing about it.
That's not what drives you every second, mad.
I can handle the razor winged moths that make a home in my stomach
The worst, is the irrational nature of this relative of fear.

I should not be afraid to open my mouth
To be seen, and immediately judged
Even though I know in reality
The most important people won't reckon me
On the first impression, first look, first word.
But I still am
I am scared, and that is terrifying.
And I know that this might just pass
It could be teenage angst
My lack of self confidence holding me back.
But whatever it is.
Right now, it is Everest.
So don't you dare tell me just to get over it.

But as I sidle up beside my best friend, I know she doesn't understand
And I hope she never does.
One, Two, Three.
Three people who are new,
Three epinephrine shots of irrational anxiety pumping through my blood.
And she smiles so encouragingly,
All yellow and marmoset eager.
And I take one, two, three deep breaths of smoky air,
And let my mind play marionette to the corners of my mouth,
Tugging them into a smile that's somewhat believable.
And the first word that tumbles out of my mouth is a hideously unimaginative,
“Hey.”
But they don't seem to mind.

This small talk we're making, that for me is colossal
Gradually settles the pinpricks of venom beneath my skin
Into something entirely more manageable.
And by the end of the night
Two of those three people are no longer somebody new.
And I feel as though I've made the progress of a few meters
In climbing my Everest.
But there's still miles and miles to go.  
But the thing to remember...
What I must remember,
No matter what mountain anxiety builds for you,
Be it Atlas or Snowdon,
Be it at a school, or an office or at home,
Every step that we make, on our own or pushed forward by friends
Is another meter or mile, on this arduous road
That will eventually lead to a summit, ten times more beautiful
Than the valley we just left below.

December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?
I am an addict, not a poet.

i've been building sentences
for you, because there are
too many words to keep them
stagnant and docile.

oh, words on melancholy smiles,
chipped porcelain and
sunlight dappled through your hair
like the sun herself had
kissed the crown of your head.

i've been writing you letters
inside of my head. little golden
pinpricks of love
seeping through my cells
because my body cannot hold
the very idea of loving you.

in those moments, i am liminal,
held tight by the arch of your spine,
the pads of your fingers,
the way that you held my name
in your mouth before
it rolled off of your tongue and
the smell of your skin
in a dark room, with only
the moon watching us
woefully, sweetly.

words like saccharine and
your name, slow like honey,
taste sweet enough
to make me cry.

i've been stuck on the idea
of loving you, loving me
and wringing my hands
over bad luck, mon petite chou.

and still, you close your eyes,
clasp your hands over your ears
and brush off my words like
dust or snowflakes or
unrequited love.

~
Lift the veil from a grayscale morning. Vividly imagistic. An odalisque no more.

Her shape beneath the gown is a foreign land, a series of quiet revelations. Its pattern manifests as pinpricks of light perforating the shirred fabric of his heart.

The preponderance of dream in her eyes becomes a call and response evoking purely imaginary spaces. The contained chemistry is beautifully insular, monochromatic.

And there her lips. Into claustrophobic kiss. This lower register of love comes in unadorned, subtle colorings like the darkest part of night.

One thousand shades of gray.
One single light of white.
And everything merges in the night.
~

we call these stars.
white strips of clarity bursting through pinpricks
spotlights through feather falling dandruff

thunder buckles the plexiglass sheet with it's shoulder
crackles little eggshell triangles past the dancing dandruff
pale veins spread like ink in fabric
thin burnt parchment
holding back thudding pulses from the Amniotic sun

We call this a sunrise
when the Sun hurls the final flaming shoulder into day.

Not the giggling gums of a baby faced Tele-tubby sun
not the serenade of "goodnight moon, and goodnight you"

My sunrise is A dragon-glass egg,
pulsing to the drumbeat of a feathered heart

A tea-light spider spinning webs into an inferno shoulder
flexing flamesilk muscles through each pinprick star

lamp posts hum a prismatic prayer
Grassy fields catch light with their fireflies
old country porch lights attract moths
dust hung in stasis
starts feather falling when light catches

tubes of Mercury fashioned into bar-signs
flicker as ghosts hum on the gas
poets flick cigarette ashes
call in stardust for the wind to carry
up
to Gatsby it up in the pin ******
there is nothing more beautiful and warm
then stardust Dancing rich in the suns desperate pinpricks

Watching the Debut of struggling birth
throwing itself against confinement
shedding light, on the tiniest flurry of dandruff
before filling each vein of the broken sky with fire.

I love to watch gasoline soaked parchment
curl in on itself like an old handwritten letter.
I call this the night sky.

Catch the falling ashes on my tongue like snowflakes.
If I swallow enough of them
a tiny pheonix fire in my belly can hurl it's little shoulder against my rib cage.
Pounding until it bursts out through all these pinpricks.

I will call out to the mothsdust, dandruff and fireflies
invite them to dance in the combustion.

If I am anything like a starlit night.
I will buckle before I burst

Thunderclap an invitation
Shatter the street lamps and mercury tubes
with the winding bass drop.
direct the audiences attention to dust hung gentle in a cold still sky.
feather falling in silence
A blossoming caged sun.
No one expects a gentle sunrise

To you i would give the passion of the sun
and the shine provoked from simmered grass
and if the moonlight was not safe from your eye,
it's buttermilk glow i would surely pluck down.
To you i would give the midnight chimney smoke
that sillouette on the sky putting cobbles underfoot.
Take my taste of salt as sea white mer-men come
a breeze in the laughter of workmen's homecoming.
I give the feeling when swallowed by field flax
pinpricks of cotton, i'd lay you down bare-skinned.
You empty the film on my flesh camera,
I keep the removal cuts.

The words I speak don't matter
to those who don't listen.

Screaming air to those who
don't care.

They think my lips spill poison
and would rather sew them shut.
And would rather mute my voice
to their locked ears.

I breathe fire
baked from years and years
of pressure from all around.

All the little sparks and scars
added up for so long
until I can no longer hold it in
my mind and heart.

You may believe me to be overreacting
to childish play
or teasing words

but what do you know?
Do you care?
Do you know what it's like in my shoes?

Can you take all those pinpricks of pain from over the years
and still stay sane?

They'd rather have me stay quiet.
Silent
Don't start a ruckus or
Complain.

Out of the way and never
bothering the
structure of our world
with my pain.

And why?
is maintaining a lie more important
than my voice?

The tiny problems looming large
wrapped up in a few chosen words;
I give to the vast Universe.
Like shaman I let all go;
fly from my outstretched hands.
She will take them in her stride
absorb them; mere pinpricks if at all.

at first when you take off
the world just looks small

a dollhouse, a miniature world
an amusing punchline to an old joke
a fantasy tinged with g-force and sprite in clear cups

but as the sky darkens and the plane lifts higher

the world seems to drown in blackness
an inky clarity of night not confused by clouds
and suddenly it is as if you are at the top on an ocean
looking at a far away ocean floor
crawling with foreign creatures with all of their bones lit up
over coral reefs of light and movement
parking lots like stationary jelly fish and highways like currents
of neon veins pumping lights and cars

all of the world's exoskeleton is illuminated
and it is beautiful and movable  
it is nature's patterns played out in electricity

but the farther out you go
the more the sharpness and geometry of the roads and cities
attack the eye

and the coral reefs turn to computer motherboards
all of man's ingenuity and beauty no longer draping the world
but ordering it

into squares and jagged lines
into distant pixel pinpricks
into maps

until you're not traveling through the world
but over it

waking
newly human
strange and soft;
pinpricks, feelings -
the crawlings around inside you
shiver as your skin becomes real

a nightlight for daytime sleeplessness
carry the seas inside yourself
like people:
walking barefoot
drinking sunstreams
and braving the dark red nights

hark, choir voices, still
slurring miss you discrepancies
howls in empty skies
wolves die

a misunderstanding of your insides
bones
more sand than rock
crumble at a press too hard

on this,
last day of your first life
hung on a boy’s fingers
the edge of a cliff
taste the water in your nerve endings dragging you home
you splinter,
and you rise -

when the bruise blooms, you shine

and you’ll see the moon,

reflecting off the light of the sun.

you’ll see the blushing sunset,

dancing around the skirt of the night canvas.

you’ll see the pinpricks of stars,

dead for years yet shining just for us.

you’ll see the one spot in the sky,

where the artist never finished painting

the galaxy around the planets.

the milky way runs patterns across your eyes,

and dyes your shadow a silvery glow.

we’re all looking up at the sky,

searching.

for what, we don’t know.

don’t worry,

I’m looking too.

Dear friends,

Outward we go, outward to the vast infinity, the great mother ship of all entities, past present and future.
Outward to the cold reality of limitless space where pinpricks of light reflect time which began a million years past.

The great unknown where for eons, since man descended from the trees, his very hopes dreams and prayers have been directed.

Beyond the maelstrom of the sun's living cauldron, beyond the titanic violence of coronal outforce, there lies a false calm. A vacuum of seeming emptiness which harbours a promise of galactic peacefulness but delivers the potential likelihood of eternal, calamitous catastrophe.

This is the realm where God's and Devil's reside.
This is the realm of unimaginable forces and stupendous violence.
This is, at once, our hope and our damnation...
THIS IS THE UNIVERSE.

This is the realm where man has sought communication as long as he has been able.... With utter futility.
For all of his advances in technology, his network of huge radio telescopes, his continuous Asceti transmissions, the development of the World Wide Web, the orbiting space station, the wonderful Hubbard telescope and his advances in space exploration and travel....THERE HAS BEEN NO REPONSE FROM OUT THERE.
SO WHY IS IT THAT MAN HAS HAD NO COMMUNICATION FROM SPACE?

And of time..eternal time ....anticipated as tomorrow. Retrieved as the now and dispensed to the yesterday. Are all three interpretations valid as manifestations of time or are the tones of future and past merely renditions of the actuality...the present?  If that is so how can the light of the stars, emitted so many eons ago, be seen right now as a reflection of the actuality of real time? Has time stretched or are the factors of space distance and time linked entities?

Is eternity a factor of time and space or is there another spectrum. Another source creating equilibrium in the quantum flux? Is size a factor... Is our solar system a submicroscopic nutrino attached to an atom on the **** of an incredibly slow living, gargantuan, multi universe sized ant?
.
..and if this is so...There's no wonder that there have been no replies to our efforts to communicate
...We are infintesimal.....Nobody can find us!

Serenely in the morning air, magnificence defies
Predictions of catastrophe from those whose word implies
That chance, that willing player, who skirts around the scene,
Would show her cards, calamitously, to render doom obscene.
....But for now the peacefulness and order everywhere
Has lovers in the lane ways and laughter in the air,
Has Autumn leaves cascading and white caps on the bay
With balmy clouds in blue skies to reflect this perfect day.

(Though....Forever now humanity could decry me as a brute
For I have, inadvertantly, crushed that ant beneath my boot!)


Marshalg
Looking up through the cold clear night air at 'Foxglove', through the myriad of crystal stars...and beyond.
27 January 2013

A word of explanation: The poem in italics depicts a scene of normality in the big picture, the megamacro world out there, where, like us, they have their own insecurities, their own great unknowns....and like our world, way down here, it is a place where accidents can happen!
Mg.

A Good Set of Bicycle Lights

Strap white to the handle bar
                             red to the seat post

of your worrisome bicycle
                            a fixed gear nightmare, these nighttime

streets lay in wait while I lay waiting to be pierced
           by the call that never comes
       with a bit of luck.

Old light from distant stars
                       at the edge of my
                            galaxy of fear

arrives as pinpricks a reminder
                       your new orbit free
                                of my nettlesome gravity.

The thing is, you can’t ignore that graceful lament-
The teal heaving of your chest-
The wash of questions in your head
That exquisitely hold pinpricks of the future.

There’s a brand of groan you know well
That belongs to feeling unresolved.
That noise you make when you’re a painting without a face,
When you’re two lines of a song that’s lost to the breeze,
When you’re a cup of water dribbling through careless hands,
That noise is the growl of restless dreaming.

There is a struggle to unpin yourself
From the avalanche of time
That has pooled thickly around your legs.
You try to kick, but it moves like molasses.
Slower than a hard thwack to a non-newtonian fluid.
Pointless as collecting antique doorknobs.

There is an urge to catch a destiny by the tail
Like you’re somehow prepared right now,
Like there’s nothing left to learn.
How fortunate you are that perceived linear realities
Can curve the hubris of your linear fantasies.

And yet there’s that gnawing need,
A craving that demands surrender,
That all too graceful lament,
Of being forced to take the smallest of steps
on the greatest of adventures.

Please stars,
.      Explain to me the reason for my respiration
✦.        soft mortal brains cannot comprehend the situation        
.  .    .     our fleeting existence comes with certain annihilation
    ✦    .    trapped in this dimension
       .    ✦ dragged along time
✦  .     .   racing through the now
   .   .     capable of only mental exploration.
  .✦ .   but for the false belief of divine creation
    .   Sooner come death than an explanation
✦.
     .

A smattering of stars
     Strewn across the sky
Little pinpricks of light
     Blinking in the soft night air

Planets and Moons
     Suns and Stars
Constellations and Galaxies
     Clustering together
Against the darkness between them

Light from far-off worlds
     Light visible to us
          Light visible to each other
     Light the language of the universe
Light the conversation in the multiverse

And yet we stand here
     Human Beings on this our planet Earth
Contemplating in the soft night air

Feeling large and powerful and in charge
     Our hand is larger than those pinpricks of light
We hold up our hands and block out the light
     And darkness swallows the night

Feeling small and insignificant and adrift
     We are programmed to seek the light
And in this seeking we come ever closer
     To understanding the true nature
          Of the conversation of the multiverse

the nagging pinpricks that flower in my chest
every time i hold my tongue
when i could take a stand
exhaust me.
some days i wish i were not stirred
by every minor injustice,
by every casual -ism.
i am not all angles and shards.
some days i am soft lines and rounded edges,
some days i am petal-small and twice as fragile,
some days i am tired.
some days the inevitable backlash
of speaking my mind
can send me reeling.
the accumulation of anger and dismissal and mockery
piles upon my shoulders
and seems sometimes too heavy to carry.

but even on these days,
these quiet, glass-***** lows,
i know why i am fighting, and
i know to the core of my being that
i
will
never
stop.

I find everything absolutely breathtaking.

How can you not think your murky yet sparkling brown eyes aren't the most intriguing things? They are powerful enough to give me nervous butterflies.

Why can't you see the way the clouds capture the sun, making, if only for a second, the perfect bittersweet scene. The suns finally goodbye makes a masterpiece that is impossible to recreate.  

It is a mystery to me how you do not pay attention to the damp smell of the rainy earth, or the tingling pinpricks of snowflakes resting on your exposed skin.

Why haven't you taken time to get as close as you can to the galaxies that construct the roof above you and explore them? They are fascinating at night when each star becomes luminous against the black of night.

Darling, everything around you thrives with beauty.

Misery haunts me like a vengeful lover’s phantom
Grey clouds of solitude drench me with the rain of cold silence.
The thunder startles my vision with its sudden piercing vibrancy,
but the accompanying sound is inaudible to my ears.
Perhaps the deafening screams of my soul have rendered them useless.

Misery bites into my flesh like a famished Hellhound
the crimson of unrequited love bathes it mercilessly.
Its dagger like fangs bite into my calf,
but the accompanying feeling of pain on my skin is nonexistent.
Perhaps the innumerable pinpricks inflicted by words have rendered it numb.

Misery paints me like a mournful artist,
into the monochromatic shades of abandonment.
The slicing strokes of his brushes, highlight crimson suffering,
but the accompanying cries of bitter pain are not possessed by my throat.
Perhaps the incessant demands of respite made by it have rendered it sore for an eternity.

Misery slithers inside my nostrils like a toxic repulsive snake.
Trails of blue betrayal are left by its slimy flesh while it travels to my lungs.
Its venom covers my nerves in the burning sensation of ridicule,
But the accompanying smell of approaching death seems absent
Perhaps the putrid smell of my burning conscience has rendered my senses immune.

I should apologize for the days I am withdrawn. This is not what you signed up for. I should apologize for when I don't want to speak or communicate with touch or when I want to be without you but also do not. My indecisiveness is appalling: and I should apologize for that. But today I do not want words. I do not want to be felt because I feel you grabbing and pulling instead of caressing and comforting. You have not done anything wrong. I am just mean. I am just inside myself today and when you want to know what is up I want you to accept that I say the sky instead of pressing for more. My thoughts are poison right now. You shake me like a magic eight ball and I keep thinking try again later but saying not likely. I have the capacity to be kind but my words are pinpricks in your chest and every time I claw you with my numbness I inwardly cringe because I don't mean it, I am sorry, and I should apologize. But I can't. I can not bring myself to vocalize that I am not okay because you'll want to help and I don't want to be okay. Not yet. I want to hide in my closet and cry without company. I want time to myself today. But I don't want to hurt you. I am sorry. You are no burden. I am withdrawing. Not from you, but from me. I don't want to be kind, or resilient, or strong today. I just want to fold into myself, I want to be small and insignificant. I am tired of being fun and happy, it's tiring work. I need time to be low without an interrogation. I just want to be empty for a moment. And I should apologize.

All day
it’s been like this since Friday night
Like little pinpricks
short stabs of adrenaline
giving me an increasing amount of jitters and pain
with no beautiful passion or art to show for all the hormone fireworks
I’m not depressed
I’m not anxious
but I’m suffering directionless excitement
My journey of healing has brought me to this mountain and commanded that I climb
So I climb
I have no choice but to rise
Reaching up with bruised and blistered fingers
it’s the only way to leave my ruined body behind

The passion infused plucking
like each note has a soul of its own

The high notes like pinpricks
Low notes like a loud heartbeat

The sound of content loneliness that taught me happiness

The tempo slows like water shying away from the shore

Peace born out of urgency
Love born out of technicality

The hours given to the tone, timing and tempo
The effort in perfectly letting go

Perfectly unique every time
just close enough to be the same

The beauty in form
The form in beauty

Honey Hopesapper hanged on an oak.
The wind caressed her.
The birds sang as normal.

The sky turned a little darker,
But no one came; no one saw.
Honey doped herself high.

Honey knew grief.
Knew the pinpricks of other’s indifference.
Honey had pinpricks scars.

She knew **** and cold nights.
Her daddy grieved her mom;
Her mom grieved her.

All grieved at death’s door, as if awaiting wolves.

Orange and yellow
Exploding with memories like pinpricks and broken glass
"Tiger Lilly's, that's your flower"
"Why tiger Lilly's?"
"Bright and lovely, they suit you. You know you deserve better than what you give yourself. You're more than this drug fiend you say you are"
He drank seven beers at breakfast, the waitress looks over disapprovingly
"Talk to me tell me how you have been, I worry about you."
I eye the empty beers and say nothing
Worried about me while his own addiction flourishes in front of me
His worry for me was a distraction from his own crumbling
"You taste like ashes, everything tastes like ashes"
"I trust you"
Letting go of you with every breath
Goodbye friend
I miss you

Your pupils were
Pinpricks
Last Wednesday
And I swear your words
Were slurred
Just a bit

Your mouth was in a
Constant frown
And you warned me
To stay
Away

But I didn't want to

Instead
I asked you what it
Was like
To breathe fire
And swallow glass

I was oh so curious
About the
Syringe
Cemented into your
Left arm

I needed to know
Why you felt the
Need
To inject yourself
With such
Addictive poison

You claimed that it was
All about the
Rush
And the way it made you feel
Alive

But I stood there
Confused
Because I couldn't possibly
Comprehend
How the drug that's killing you
Is somehow
Helping you live

I paused
And chose my words
Carefully

"You know,
Any addiction at all
Is just a
Hopeless reach for
Happiness.."

You laughed in my face
And promised me
That you were not
Addicted
To the drug
Or the high

But simply addicted
To the feeling
Of being alive

And again I was baffled
Because
I feel alive
Every time I fly towards the sky
On a swing set

And I feel alive
When I'm holding a child's hand
As she spins around

And I feel alive
When the Autumn breeze whips
My porcelain face

And I feel alive
When I etch my shattered heart
Onto paper

And I feel alive
When I hear a song I love
On the radio

And I feel alive
When I'm forced
To watch you die

these last two weeks drag on.
I wash my hair all the time, rinse and repeat rinse and repeat rinse and repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat
slithering out of my follicles and sliding down the drain
toweling my hair dry, and
then you're creeping into my skin
you're creeping in creeping creeping and there's a whole bar of soap, gone.
and I think I'm finally clean and you've etched yourself in the pads of my fingers
that I rub on sandpaper until they bleed, ****** ****** badges of I'm winning!
winning this game with you in my lungs, pushing out with all your hands and your feet;
I can't breathe out, you won't let me, I hold it hold it hold it I touch edges of darkness feel my eyes
clog with pinpricks, stars, explosions and I've suffocated you, let out my breath,
calmed by your soft murmur in my ear, your touch on places we always went together,
I am cleaning cleaning cleaning trying to get you out of my skin and my hair and my thoughts
thoughts like you didn't even care and you don't even think about me anymore and all I do is think about trying to scrape your brains out of my innards.
vivid intakes, passionate obsession, cleaning cleaning cleaning the house the yard my hair (again) the door the mirror you wrote I love you beautiful the car seat you pulled me into the feel of your lips and your hands and your hair when you sweat because I could make you
feel.
and now I look in that mirror where I can't erase your words and I don't see that girl you watched anymore;
all I see is ***** of skin and listless hair and blue purple circles stalking my eyelids and profound sadness and I see so much that isn't even there because the one thing I need to see I can't because it's
you and you're wrapped up in her like a present
and all I got this christmas was coal to match this listless hair and an inability to see reality and a really awful obsession with wanting to cause you pain
pain pain pain pain what is pain, pearl white
what is pain

I wish I could see you in the deeper blue
tangled in strings, caught by your favorite song
pure
I'm afraid of lies, now

You should know after all this time that I bear my feelings very easily
that I'm learning how to close myself up bit by bit
for the things that earn it
too late, after I'm hurt
I'd say you've earned it

And I'm sorry
I don't want to lose you
I'm cold from the dry beatings
low blows
numb mornings

pinpricks away from happiness and I can't feel

pinpricks
the needle
he's cold, hard, and tempting

you're cold in ways I don't understand
with panoramic views
(prime real estate)
you're silver and gold, fighting inside your skin
aren't we all?
I'm tired of humans


This place in my head -
it's the needle ready to puncture my heart
it's the bits of an iced-over creek that are still running,
waiting to pool up, freeze, and crack

the leaf that's falling waiting to be trampled

I wish I could fall away so easily

the inky black ocean watches, silent, as judgement day's unfurled
unaffected by the passing of time, by the anarchy below
in silk soft silence, chaotic is the death of the civilized world

the once calm waters of the void, now are swirled
smothering the fires of armageddon with its inexorable flow
the inky black ocean watches, silent, as judgement day's unfurled

silver pinpricks of light, into the infinite waters, are hurled
and liquid orange pigment leaks forth, ever so slow
in silk soft silence, chaotic is the death of the civilized world

around this blue and green marble, the vast water is curled
undisturbed by the hate and rage humans show
the inky black ocean watches, silent, as judgement day's unfurled

news of paradise's destruction throughout the heavens whirled
obliteration of one another the human race did bestow
in silk soft silence, chaotic is the death of the civilized world

the vast expanse of the ink black ocean is purled
as the earth was torn asunder with its final death blow
the inky black ocean watches, silent, as judgement day's unfurled
in silk soft silence, chaotic is the death of the civilized world