the pillow hearts me redder than you do,
      crowns my dreams regal over murky lands,
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

into her clasp, my wingless wishes skew,
      as her cuddle bids two ears to my demands,
oh, the pillow hearts me redder than you do;

she seethes my mind, till dreams vapor thru’
          the sky, bodies pitching, wings for hands,
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

they gnaw unto the moon, shave its bare into
     mirrors, reflecting the truth, so I understand
that the pillow hearts me redder than you do;

in her cradle, dismal storms I can't subdue
      so she showers the sorrow out of my glands
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

and when my barrels empty, floods issue
   upon her, but she stems peace from her sands
for the pillow hearts me redder than you do,
from somber realms to the wake of blue.

It’s her job to clean up
after Things Go Wrong.
The mattress where he soundly slept,
twisted up in the blue and grey sheets,
the lace-ends frayed and tied together.
Holes by the toes
that defied any needle and thread
rest his red shoes,
scrunched between the fabric ,
searching for air,
screaming redder and redder
for relief from the static stench.
The red does fade,
but newer drops of a deeper shade reside.
Where did he go?
He needs these shoes, she thinks as she sweeps
Where did they put him
after Things Went Wrong.

They didn't know what Diversity was...
The kids, that is.
Since the kids didn't know it,
the teacher coined it as "“black” visibility".
She wasn't sure if she could make that call
so she nodded her head, looking for approval.
The interviewer asked in what direction did the teacher see Diversity
As if Diversity was a one-way street.
Let me just refresh your memory...
"“black” visibility"
As if decades of progress in the schools were undone,
The kids voted on Performances and Projects for “black” History Month.
How shocking!... Kids of every shape, size, ability and race studying a time in history...
Sounds racist to me.
They wanted a Gospel Choir that is clearly only for “black” students
Because I'm the student Director for the Fordham University's Rhythm of Praise Gospel Chior for the fourth year running...
Maybe I'm missing something...
MAYBE I'm “black”... Maybe if I close my eyes really tight...
Nope, I'm still “white”.
Olive brown perhaps?
Only in the summer.
Anyway, I digress like Sophia Patrilo from the Goldren Girls
Who was Italian by the way.
Just advertising for Diversity.
Let's debate about "Music Debates" for a moment.
Maybe you call it Debates because Hip Hop is debatable, and by the way only for “black” students.
When I could argue for days upon days
About how Reggaeton didn't come from Salsa
but I know **** well that Salsa came first.
The kids wanted to Stomp the Yard and battle it out.
I do believe rap battles take place around the world
And one of the best rappers I know is an English teacher in Harlem
Whose hair is redder than a leprechaun.
Talent Shows that showcase every student's ability
Whether it be singing, dancing, performing their poetry,
But still apparently that's not Diversity.
Neither is an International Day
Where International ways are celebrated.
And finally, a Diversity Day,
That clearly means diversity is separated.
"They wanted a lot of things"
Yeah. They asked for a whole lot... of everything BUT diversity.
That's right, because they don't know what it means
The Kids, that is...
Then tell me please:
Define Diversity.
Is it seeing a “black” horse with “white” stripes
Or a “white” horse with “black” stripes?
Why is it between “black” and “white”?
Why not between “white”, “black” brown, yellow, orange, brick red...
Let's get it out of our head
That teachers can't learn anything from their students,
Because it sounds to me,
Like they had a pretty good start to the meaning of Diversity.
And if it turns out they didn't,
That's what teachers are there for:
Make a **** lesson about it.

Planes streak across the wide October sky–
The sun is setting–
Contrails stream behind them,
glowing scars of the evening.


The highest ones, they exhale the day’s gold,
pure and sharp
like fields of August wheat,
dusty and late-summer charred.

Redder and lower ones hug the skyline,
No cloud to catch them,
Fall like meteorites,
the slow burn of a dwarf star

Memories never print so vividly,
slow burn sees fast death,
Reds, golds and what's between,
A brain is all catch-and-release


So afterwards what should be left of this?
Not but an umbra,
Impressionist beauty,

A mere relief of its source?


Beauty’s slow fade is not the tragedy,
–rather the reverse–
That we fade to beauty,
To never hold it in full.

When Dona died
The spring grasses yellowed,
Our cheeks ashen.  Her hair became a little redder
In our minds.  The boy and the man strained

Under the constraints
Of communication.  What was the sign
For "everything will be alright"?  "Fine,"
Yes, you should say, "Fine."  That is better.

Better than just, "okay".

Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.

The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.

The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.

The art major sighs and
stirs.

She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.

It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.

Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.

Hear me, Lord of the Stars!
For thee I have worshipped ever
With stains and sorrows and scars,
With joyful, joyful endeavour.
Hear me, O lily-white goat!
O crisp as a thicket of thorns,
With a collar of gold for Thy throat,
A scarlet bow for Thy horns!

Here, in the dusty air,
I build Thee a shrine of yew.
All green is the garland I wear,
But I feed it with blood for dew!
After the orange bars
That ribbed the green west dying
Are dead, O Lord of the Stars,
I come to Thee, come to Thee crying.

The ambrosial moon that arose
With ******* slow heaving in splendour
Drops wine from her infinite snows.
Ineffably, utterly, tender.
O moon! ambrosial moon!
Arise on my desert of sorrow
That the Magical eyes of me swoon
With lust of rain to-morrow!

Ages and ages ago
I stood on the bank of a river
Holy and Holy and holy, I know,
For ever and ever and ever!
A priest in the mystical shrine
I muttered a redeless rune,
Till the waters were redder than wine
In the blush of the harlot moon.

I and my brother priests
Worshipped a wonderful woman
With a body lithe as a beast's
Subtly, horribly human.
Deep in the pit of her eyes
I saw the image of death,
And I drew the water of sighs
From the well of her lullaby breath.

She sitteth veiled for ever
Brooding over the waste.
She hath stirred or spoken never.
She is fiercely, manly chaste!
What madness made me awake
From the silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
That her poisonous body held?

By night I ravished a maid
From her father's camp to the cave.
I bared the beautiful blade;
I dipped her thrice i' the wave;
I slit her throat as a lamb's,
That the fount of blood leapt high
With my clamorous dithyrambs
Like a stain on the shield of the sky.

With blood and censer and song
I rent the mysterious veil:
My eyes gaze long and long
On the deep of that blissful bale.
My cold grey kisses awake
From the silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
That her beautiful body held.

But --- God! I was not content
With the blasphemous secret of years;
The veil is hardly rent
While the eyes rain stones for tears.
So I clung to the lips and laughed
As the storms of death abated,
The storms of the grevious graft
By the swing of her soul unsated.

Wherefore reborn as I am
By a stream profane and foul
In the reign of a Tortured Lamb,
In the realm of a sexless Owl,
I am set apart from the rest
By meed of the mystic rune
That reads in peril and pest
The ambrosial moon --- the moon!

For under the tawny star
That shines in the Bull above
I can rein the riotous car
Of galloping, galloping Love;
And straight to the steady ray
Of the Lion-heart Lord I career,
Pointing my flaming way
With the spasm of night for a spear!

O moon! O secret sweet!
Chalcedony clouds of caresses
About the flame of our feet,
The night of our terrible tresses!
Is it a wonder, then,
If the people are mad with blindness,
And nothing is stranger to men
Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness?

Nay! let him fashion an arrow
Whose heart is sober and stout!
Let him pierce his God to the marrow!
Let the soul of his God flow out!
Whether a snake or a sun
In his horoscope Heaven hath cast,
It is nothing; every one
Shall win to the moon at last.

The mage hath wrought by his art
A billion shapes in the sun.
Look through to the heart of his heart,
And the many are shapes of one!
An end to the art of the mage,
And the cold grey blank of the prison!
An end to the adamant age!
The ambrosial moon is arisen.

I have bought a lily-white goat
For the price of a crown of thorns,
A collar of gold for its throat,
A scarlet bow for its horns.
I have bought a lark in the lift
For the price of a **** of sherry:
With these, and God for a gift,
It needs no wine to be merry!

I have bought for a wafer of bread
A garden of poppies and clover;
For a water bitter and dead
A foam of fire flowing over.
From the Lamb and his prison fare
And the owl's blind stupor, arise
Be ye wise, and strong, and fair,
And the nectar afloat in your eyes!

Arise, O ambrosial moon
By the strong immemorial spell,
By the subtle veridical rune
That is mighty in heaven and hell!
Drip thy mystical dews
On the tongues of the tender fauns
In the shade of initiate yews
Remote from the desert dawns!

Satyrs and Fauns, I call.
Bring your beauty to man!
I am the mate for ye all'
I am the passionate Pan.
Come, O come to the dance
Leaping with wonderful whips,
Life on the stroke of a glance,
Death in the stroke of the lips!

I am hidden beyond,
Shed in a secret sinew
Smitten through by the fond
Folly of wisdom in you!
Come, while the moon (the moon!)
Sheds her ambrosial splendour,
Reels in the redeless rune
Ineffably, utterly, tender!
Hark! the appealing cry
Of deadly hurt in the hollow: ---
Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Ay!
Smitten to death by Apollo.
Swift, O maiden moon,
Send thy ray-dews after;
Turn the dolorous tune
To soft ambiguous laughter!

Mourn, O Maenads, mourn!
Surely your comfort is over:
All we laugh at you lorn.
Ours are the poppies and clover!
O that mouth and eyes,
Mischevious, male, alluring!
O that twitch of the thighs
Dorian past enduring!

Where is wisdom now?
Where the sage and his doubt?
Surely the sweat of the brow
Hath driven the demon out.
Surely the scented sleep
That crowns the equal war
Is wiser than only to weep ---
To weep for evermore!

Now, at the crown of the year,
The decadent days of October,
I come to thee, God, without fear;
Pious, chaste, and sober.
I solemnly sacrifice
This first-fruit flower of wine
For a vehicle of thy vice
As I am Thine to be mine.

For five in the year gone by
I pray Thee give to me one;
A love stronger than I,
A moon to swallow the sun!
May he be like a lily-white goat
Crisp as a thicket of thorns,
With a collar of gold for his throat,
A scarlet bow for his horns!

Backstory: A Memoir

For Vicki

By AT

5

While I was downstairs, folding laundry in the basement, I heard my sister Vicki stomping upstairs to the room that used to be mine, slamming the door, and locking it shut.

I was a ****** older brother. And Vicki learned that action from me.
Then, I heard more footsteps. Louder stomping. And I knew, with certainty, it was Mom coming after her.

I'm not an omniscient narrator, so I don't know what Vicki does when the door is locked.

But I do imagine she is reading. Vicki’s been using her Kindle that Mom got her for Christmas. She adores Gillian Flynn and Suzanne Collins. She's starting to get into Philip Pullman which is swagger. I remember reading His Dark Materials when I was in elementary school.

The Golden Compass ***** you into that world, like during June when you're hitting a bowl for the first time and you're 17, late at night on Bethany beach with your childhood best friend, and the surf is curling against your toes, and the smoke is trailing away from the cherry, and you begin to realize that life isn't all about living in NOVA forever, because the world is more than NOVA, because life is bigger than this hole, that to some people believe is whole, and that's fine, that's fine because many of our parents came here from other small towns, and they wanted to do what we wanted to do, which is to pack up our stuff into the trunk of our presumably Asian branded car, and drive, drive, until they reach a destination that doesn't remind them of the good memories and the bad memories, until memory is mixed in with nostalgia, and nostalgia is mixed in with the past.

Maybe I'm dwelling on backstory, maybe you don't need to hear the backstory.

But I think you do.

Life isn't an eternity,
what I'm telling you is already known, known since there was a spider crawling up the staircase and your dad took the heel of his black dress shoe and dug his heel into that bug. And maybe I'm buggin’, but that bugged me, and now I'm trying to be healthier eating carrots like Bugs. Kale, red onions, and quinoa, as well. Because I want to be there for my sister, Vicki my sister. All we got is a wrapped up box made from God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

Soon, I heard Vicki’s door handle being cranked down and up, up and down.

Mom raised her voice from a quiet storm to a deafening concerto.  
Then, there was silence, followed by a door slamming shut.

Welcome to our life.
Later on that night, Vicki sped out of our cul-de-sac in her silver Honda Accord—a gift from Mom to keep her rooted in Nova—and even from the front porch of my house, I felt a distance from her that was deep and immovable.

I sank deeper into my lawn chair and lit a jack, but instead of inhaling like I usually did, I held it out in front of me and watched the smoke billow out from the cherry.

I always smoked jacks when she was not there, because I didn’t want her to see me knowingly do this to myself, even as I was making huge changes to my life. It’s the one vice I have left, and it’s terrible for me, but I don’t know if she understands that I know both things. Maybe instead of caring about what jacks do to my body, I should care about what she thinks about what I’m doing to myself. This should be obvious to me, but sometimes things aren’t that obvious.

4

As we grew older Vicki and I forged a dialogue, an understanding. She confided in me and I confided in her, sharing secrets, details about our lives that were personal and private, as if we were two CIA agents working together to defeat a totalitarian government—our tiger mom.

But seriously our mom was and still is swagger as ****—rocks Michael Kors and flannel Pajama pants (If I told you that last article of clothing she'd probably pinch my cheek and call me a chipmunk. Don't worry I'm fine with a moderation of self-deprecation).

The other day Mom talked to me about Vicki and explained that she was upset and irritated with Vicki because of her attitude. I thought that was interesting, because I used to have the same exact attitude when I was my sister’s age and I got away with a lot more ****, being that I'm a guy and the first-born. I understood why she would shut the front door, exit our red brick bungalow, and speed away in her Honda Accord, going towards Clarendon, or Adams Morgan, spending her time with her extensive circle of friends on the weekdays and weekends.

Because being inside our house, life could get suffocating and depressing.
Our Grandparents live with us. Grandpa had a stroke and is trying to recover. Grandma has Alzheimer’s and agitates my mom for rides to a Vietnamese Church. Besides the caretakers, Mom, Dad, Vicki, and I are the only ones taking care of my grandparents.

Mom told me that she believes that Vicki uses the house as a hotel. Mom didn't remind me of a landlord, and I believe that Vicki doesn’t see her as that either.

I didn't believe Vicki was doing anything necessarily wrong.

She had her own life.

I had my own life.

Dad had his own life.

Mom had her own life.

I understood why she wanted to go out and party and hang out with her friends. Maybe she was like me when I was 21 and perceived living at home as a prison, wanting to have autonomy and freedom from Mom because she was attempting to make me conform to her controlled system with restraints. But as Vicki and I both grow older I believe that we see Mom not as an authority figure; but, just as Mom.

Vicky and Mom clash and clash and clash with each other, more than the Archer Queens of The Hero Troops clash with the witches of the Dark Elixir Troops.

They act like they were from different clans, but they're both on the same side in reality.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree wants to hang onto the apple on the tip of its rough, and yet leafy bough.
Because the tree is rooted in experience and has been around for much longer than the apple.

But the apple is looking for more water than the tree can give it. So the apple dreams about a summer rain-shower that will give it a chance to have its own experience. A similar, but different one, to the darker apple that hangs from a higher bough, an apple that has been spoiled from having too much sun and water.

3

During Winter Break, Vicki scored me tickets to a game between the Wizards and the Bucks. From court side to the nosebleeds, the audience at the Verizon Center was chanting in cacophony and in tempo. Wall was injured. But Gortat crashed the boards, Nene' drained mid-range shots, and Beal drove up the lane like Ginsberg reading Howl.

Vicki and I both tried to talk to each other as much as we could; unfortunately, Voldemort—my ex-gf—sat in between us and was gossiping about the latest scoop with the Kardashians.

Nevertheless, Vicki and I still managed to drink and have an outstanding time. But I should have given her more attention and spent less time on my smartphone. I was spending bread on Papa John's Pizza and chain-smoking jacks during half-time, and even when there were time outs. When I would come back and sink into my plastic chair, I'd feel bloated and dizzy.
And I'd look over at Vicki and either she was talking to Voldemort, or typing away on her smartphone. I didn't mind it at the time, but now I wished I had been less of a concessions barbarian/used-car salesman chain-smoker, and more of an older brother. I should have asked her about her day and her friends and her interests.

But I didn't.

Because I was so concerned about indulging in my vices like eating slices of pepperoni pizza and drinking overpriced beer. There's nothing wrong with pizza or beer. But as we all know the old saying goes, everything is about moderation.

Vicki scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes when I would lean forward and try to maneuver around Voldemort, trying to talk to her about the game and the players in it. I imagine that when she smelled the cigarette smoke leaking away from my lips, that she believed I was inconsiderate and not self-aware.

After the game, we went to a bar across the street from the Verizon Center, and bought mixed drinks. Voldemort was D.D., so Vicki and I drank until our Asian faces got redder than women and men who go up on stage for public speaking for the first time.

I remember this older Asian guy was trying to hit on her.
I took in short breaths. Inhaled. Exhaled. I cracked my shoulder blades to push my chest forward.  

And then, I patted him on the back and grinned. The Asian guy got the message. You don’t **** with the bodyguard.

Vicki had and still has a great boyfriend named Matt.

I guided Vicki back to our table and laughed about the awkward situation with her.

The Asian guy craned his head toward me and did a short wave. And then he bought us coronas. Either, you’re still hitting on my sister, or it’s a kind gesture. She and I better not get... Or am I overthinking it?

But seriously, I wished I had been the one to spend money on her first—she had bought the first round of drinks. Because at the time, my job was challenging and low-paying. Or maybe I just wasn't being frugal enough and partying way too often.

I still remember the picture that a cool rando took of us, drinking the Coronas, and how I was happy to be a part of her life again. Our eyes were so Asian. I had my lanky arm around her small shoulders, like a proud Father. She had her cheek propped up by her fist, her smile, gigantic and beaming, as though she had just won Wimbledon for the first time.
I was wearing a white and blue Oxford shirt that she had gotten me for Christmas with a D.C. Rising hat. She had on a cotton scarf that resembles a tan striped tail of a powerful cat.

My face was chubby from the pizza. Her face was just right like the one house in Goldilocks. The limes in the Coronas were sitting just below the throat of the bottles, like old memories resurfacing the brain, to make the self recall, to make the self remember how to treat his family.
Or maybe this is just a brand new Corona ad geared towards the rising second-generation Asian American demographic? I'm playing around.
But end of commercial break.

Vicki pats me on the back and we clink bottles together. Voldemort is lurking in the background, as if she's about to photobomb the next picture. Sometimes I don't know if there's going to be a next picture.
Either we live in these moments, or make memories of them with our phones. And like sheep following an untrustworthy shepherd, we went back to our phones. She made emails and texts. I went on twitter in search of the latest news story.

2

Before Vicki and I opened each other's presents, I remember I blew up at Mom and Dad, and criticized everyone in the family room including Vicki. It was over something stupid and trivial, but it was also something that made me feel insecure and small. I was the black sheep and she was the sheep-dog.

I screamed. Vicki took in a deep breath and looked away from my glare, looked away to a spot on the hardwood floor that was filled with a fine blanket of dust and lint. I chattered. She rubbed her fingers around the lens of her black camera and shook her head in a manner that suggested annoyance and disappointment. I scoffed. She set the camera down on the coffee table and pressed the flat of her hand against her cheek, and glanced out the window into the backyard that was blanketed with slush and snow.
Drops of snow were plunging from the branches of the evergreen trees and plopping onto the patches of the ground, plunging, as though they were little toddlers cannonballing off of a high-dive.

She turned back and looked at me straight in the eye, so straight I thought she was searching for the answer to my own stupidity.

I cleared my throat and said, “I need a breath of fresh air.”

Vicki bit her bottom lip, sat down, and put her arms on her knees, a deep, contemplative look appearing on her face.

I stormed into the narrow hallway, slammed the front door back against its rusty hinges, and trundled down my front driveway, the cold from the ice and the snow dampening the soles of my tarnished boots. I lit a jack at the far end of the cul-de-sac and counted to ten. I watched the cigarette smoke rise, as the ashes fell on the snow, blemishing its purity and calmness. I inhaled. I exhaled. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach that Vicki knew I was having a jack to reduce my stress, stress that I had cause all by myself. I ground the jack against the snowy concrete, feeling the cold begin to numb my fingers that were shaking from the nicotine, shaking from the winter that had wrapped itself around me and my sister.

When I came back inside of the house, I told Mom and Dad I was being an idiot and that I didn’t mean to be such an *******. I turned to Vicki and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled weakly, telling her that I didn’t mean to upset her.

She nodded and said, “It’s okay bro.”

But her soft and icy tone made me feel skeptical; she didn’t believe me. I didn’t know if I believed my apology. Minutes later, I gave my present to her.

Her face brightened up with a smile. It was a gradual and cautious smile, a little too gradual and a little too cautious. She hugged me tightly, as though my earlier outburst hadn’t happened.

She opened the bank envelope and inside was a fat stack of cleanly, pressed bills that totaled a hundred. Being an arrogant, noob car salesman at the time, I thought it was going to be a pretty clever present. I could have given her a Benjamin, but I thought this would make her happier, because it showed my creative side in a different form.

I remember seeing her spread the dollar bills out, as if the bills were a Japanese Paper fan. Vicki told me not to post the picture I had taken on insta or Facebook. I smiled faintly and nodded, stuffing my smartphone back into my sweatpants pocket. I understood what she wanted, and I listened to her, respecting her wishes. But I also wasn't sure if she was embarrassed and ashamed of me. And maybe I was overthinking it. But again, maybe I wasn’t overthinking it. Social Media, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. And in that moment, I actually wanted social media to display this a single story in our lives. I wanted to show people that Vicki was the most important person—besides my parents—in my life. Because I was so concerned with how people viewed me and because I lacked confidence, lacked security, and lacked respect for myself

Vicki's present to me was a sleek and blue tie, a box set of mini colognes, and refreezable-ice-cubes. I think she called it the car salesperson kit. But I knew and still know she was trying to turn me into an honest and non-sketchy car salesman. And you know what, I was genuine, but I also couldn't retain any information about the cars features—to reiterate my Grandma has Alzheimer's, my mom writes down constant notes to remember everything, and I forget my journal almost every time I leave the house.

After Christmas I wore the tie to work a few times, but the mini colognes and ice-cubes never got used by me. They stayed in the trunk of my Toyota Avalon. I should have used the colognes and the ice-cubes, but I was too careless, too self-involved, and too ungrateful.

1

Back in the 90’s, when we were around 3 and 6 years old, Vicki and I shared the same room on the far left end of the hallway in our house. She had a small bed, and I had a bigger bed, obviously, because at 6 foot 1, I was a genetic freak for a Vietnamese guy. I read Harry Potter and Redwall like crazy growing up, and I would try to invent my own stories to entertain her. Every night she would listen to me tell my yarn, and it made me feel that my voice was significant and strong, even though many times I felt my voice was weak and soft, lacking in inflection, or intonation.

I had a speech impediment and I had to take classes at Canterbury Woods to fix my perceived problem. I wanted to fit in, blend in, and have friends.
Back then Vicki was not only my sister, but my best friend. She used to have short, black bangs; chubby cheeks, and a dot-sized nose—don't worry she didn't get ****** into the grocery tabloids and get rhinoplasty. She wore her red pajamas with a tank top over it, so she looked like a mini-red ranger, and her slippers

Making love in the sun, in the morning sun
in a hotel room
above the alley
where poor men poke for bottles;
making love in the sun
making love by a carpet redder than our blood,
making love while the boys sell headlines
and Cadillacs,
making love by a photograph of Paris
and an open pack of Chesterfields,
making love while other men- poor folks-
work.
That moment- to this. . .
may be years in the way they measure,
but it's only one sentence back in my mind-
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.
I pass the hotel at 8
and at 5; there are cats in the alleys
and bottles and bums,
and I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops.

a whisper
   a tiny little sound
       fell from her lips
          and proceeded to drown
             down went her dreams
                up came her fears
                  out came the screams
                     in stayed the tears
                        "crazy" they mocked
                            "weird" they teased
                                 in a corner she rocked
                                     holding her knees
                                        one by one, redder than red
                                            bad ideas filled her little head
                                              and within a week they marked her
                                                             ­            **dead

I'll be completely honest but not completely true 
I'll be true to my heart but not always true to you

some of my words will reflect much of what I feel
while you'll find that other lines are more contrived to conceal

you see a poet can use their words to bear their deepest feeling
but look again and you may see something deeper redder bleeding

read again between the lines of the fresher tender cuts
and you'll brush a slower finger over old wounds long untouched 

you may disturb my untold stories seeping through the pages
and find a heart much like yours where an older passion rages

The room was dank and dreary
The past hung in the air
There was a scent of mildew
A smell of history was there
The paint was old and faded
With stains all dark and brown
The wallpaper too was dated
And it needed to come down
It was a home for 50 years
That stood so strong and proud
It comforted all of our fears
Far from the madding crowd
We stripped away the paper first
Each layer a strip in time
It showed the old room at her worst
It really seemed a crime
To tear it down, and think of when
Each layer was first  applied
The walls that seemed so tall again
I just stood there and cried
I thought about the birthdays
Celebrated in this room
Of getting covered all in glaze
That we cleaned  off with a broom
The roses were much redder
Than I remembered them to be
In fact it now looked better
Than it did when I was three
I remembered Mother loved this
And of how it made her smile
And she gave Father a light kiss
After toiling all the while
The next layer though was not as nice
"Twas beige and a sort of lime
It made the room feel cold like ice
It spoke of another, somber time
I looked at the wall and I noticed the lines
Marking our heights as we grew
This was on a paper all covered in vines
Mom loved this one, we knew
It seemed  surreal that Mom was not here
To see these passages pass
But we knew in our hearts that she was stil near
As we looked at paper covered with Bass
That was from when Unlcle Jim came to stay
And our folks gave up their room
To help out a brother who I still love to this day
One who can always help  brighten my gloom
They changed the wall just for him
To make it seem more like it was his
They put their life on hold for Jim
And the wallpaper choice was his
The years pass by more quickly now
The paper doesn't change too much
Jim moved out and that is how
The paper changed just a touch
Mom got sick and Dad quit work
He did the room in flowers for our mom
It was at this time we noticed the rooms quirk
One of those things that made you go hmmm
Far up in one corner behind a section of curtain
Dad had left a small square showing the years
worth of papers we were certain
It was to help mom with her tears
Now as we finished we looked to the man
Sitting alone in the old corner chair
He smiled at us as best as he can
But I don't think he knew we were there
I handed him some paper and I looked in his eyes
He stared clear on through me
And then he started to cry
This was the last of this paper he'd see
Dad and the house now have gone into dust
The years get short and  have tapered
But to go back in time I know all I must
Do, is look at my small square of paper.

It was 4am and Bill bit me
My two arms soar and itchy,
I awoke in discomfort which quickly turned into anxiety and anger
Scratching to ease my pain which temporary ceased
Thoughts of my life, work and my insecurities burned to my attention
******* Bill! I sighed, he's awaked my anxieties too early
Seething now, feeling redder and redder I wondered why Bill didn't let me be
Id had enough and got up to apply some lotion
Slowly my pain began to soothe and I drifted away
Awake now at 9am
Somewhat calmer, my insecurities still present but other thoughts present too
I ponder on what lotions I can use

What can you say about Pennsylvania
in regard to New England except that
it is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
or rather that the rocks are different?
Redder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
whether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
is not easy to tell, so quickly
are human efforts bundled back into nature.

In fall, the trees turn yellower-
hard maple, hickory, and oak
give way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
and locust. The woods are overgrown
with wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
spreading its low net of anxious small claws.
In warm November, the mulching forest floor
smells like a rotting animal.

A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
is soft with haze and paper-gray
even as the sun shines, and the rain
falls soft on the shoulders of farmers
while the children keep on playing,
their heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
A deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
whose people palaver in prolonged vowels.

There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
the eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply-
a suet of consolation fetched straight
from the slaughterhouse and hung out
for chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
where the husks of sunflower seeds
and the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
the snow that barely masks the still-green grass.

I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
The death-defying secret-it rises
toward me like a dog's gaze, loving
but bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
slumped between its two polluted rivers,
warmth's shadow leans close to the wall
and gets the cement to deliver a kiss.

My old great-aunt Elaine with her withered hands gave me $200 and beaded handbag
"This your mad money," she told me, as we sat on that nursing home couch, "And it ain't for your purse. This goes in your shirt, where only you know you got it."
The assisted-living nurse chuckled to herself. They got along, my great-aunt and her.
"Why?"
"Cuz if you get angry," she said, in that Marlboro-raspy voice of hers, "And you gotta go, you walk out on your date and you leave 'is ***. And then you got your money for a strong drink. And your cab."
The nurse laughed
My aunt re-situated herself on the nursing home couch. Elaine Dauterive. Her mind was going, and so was her health, but she was as regal as a queen on her throne in that moment
her fire-red hair, ungrayed, was her crown
No cape as royal as that sleeping gown.
"Don't you think for once second I can't take care of you, honey," she said in that creole drawl, and I knew what she meant
Because even after she'd gone I would have that mad money
All stuffed in my bra for when I needed it
Because she was older than time, for me, seeing things like
The Great Depression, World War II
What I read in history books
I'd be ****** if I took what she said with even one grain of salt because Auntie-Lane, I'll be ****** if I don't love you
And I know you're on your way out and
I'll buy you whiskey in the afterlife with some of that $200 cash that you busted your *** scrounging up for me
Southern hospitality at its finest
And those liver spots redder than wine adorn you like badges of honor for all of the years you've endured
My elder - creole woman, with a soul as fire-red as her hair, breathing more smoke than air
My old dragon
On a pile of gold: her mad money

There was once a girl with a fear of mirrors.
A fear so frightening,
it followed her round wherever she went.
Zombie films were fine
and spiders didn't bother her,
she would have happily seen a ghost
and the dark was her best friend.
But the mirror haunted her.
"Look at yourself..."
it would whisper,
"Fat,
ugly,
baby face,
crooked teeth..."
Even in bed,
when night veiled it's reflection,
it spoke.
The duvet over her head wasn't much of a shield,
the voice taunting her,
ringing in her ears,
until she woke up,
a sticky, writhing mass in the middle of the matress.
"Good Morning."
The day time was no better.
Shop windows acted as put-me-up mirrors,
cutlery in cafes the same.
There was a solution to walking in the day time,
head down,
head down,
head down,
don't make eye contact,
head down,
but a rogue puddle could stop her in her tracks.
Her watercolour reflection swam menacingly on it's surface,
the voice rising dreamily from it like a mermaid speaking under water.
But she'd take a whole city of puddles
if she could avoid the carnival of horrors that was shopping for clothes.
There,
no matter where she stepped,
mirrors of all shapes and sizes would spring from corners,
the reflections getting redder
and uglier
and sweatier
and more pathetic
each time she span into a new one,
pretty,
thin,
popular girls preened themselves in the corner of her eyes,
friends with the mirrors.
She could hear the voice speaking to them,
but it's words were kind and friendly.
Looking down made no difference as mirrors adorned the floors,
up the same,
the ceiling a funfair nightmare of crazy mirrors,
the whole shop a kaleidoscope of her disgusting,
repulsive,
loathsome face.
She couldn't even cry.
The fear was so great,
that she couldn't risk seeing a reflection in one of the tears.
Even her sorrows mocked her.
The only way was to bottle it up,
to smile,
act like nothing was wrong,
look in her bag when her friends were looking in the mirror,
close her eyes at the hairdressers,
throw a sheet over her own, hateful mirror.
Throw a sheet over herself.
Nobody could hurt her if she didn't let them in.
One day,
the girl smashed the mirror in her room.
She grabbed a shoe and struck it with such force,
that the awful face before her splintered
and crashed to the floor in a thousand pieces.
When she looked down,
hundreds of dark eyes blinked back at her.
It's shell still remained hanging on the wall,
a black rectangle that looked like it could be a portal to another world.
She could still see herself in it.
She shut her eyes and squeezed them hard,
but the mirrors were behind her eyelids,
printed onto her brain,
painted onto her pupils.
The mirror was inside her.
The girl was now a looking glass of self-loathing.
The voice whispered inside her head.
"Just look at yourself.
Look at yourself,
look at yourself,
look at yourself,
LOOK."
She realised she would never be able to escape the mirrors.
She realised that she would smash herself into nothing but broken glass if she didn't just
look.
So she did.
As each day went by,
with every new mirror that crept up on her,
she looked inside it,
looked at herself.
The first time sweat beaded and dripped down her neck
and her hands shook.
She thought she would faint,
thought she was going to run,
thought she wouldn't do it,
but she did.
She looked.
She kept looking for a long time,
scrutinsing her every feature until she realised,
it wasn't that bad.
She looked,
until eventually,
as time passed by,
she managed to smile.
Until eventually,
whenever she closed her eyes,
the mirrors on her lids nodded "You'll be okay.".
Until eventually,
the fear wasn't so scary anymore.
Until,
eventually,
she let herself cry.
And she wanted to see herself in the tears.
There was a once a girl who liked mirrors.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had ****** aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

It makes me feel
Lightheaded and fluffy
And makes my cheeks
Turn bright red
To think of my hand
In yours.

It's such a unique gesture,
Holding hands.
So intimate
Yet innocent.

Our hands will fit perfectly
Our fingers interlocked
Like the right pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

My heart will beat faster
Your cheeks will turn redder
And we will feel so much closer
To each other.

Your grasp will be so tight
It'll be impossible to let go.
Just like having the world
On my fingertips,
Literally.

They ask me how I feel.
How could I explain this?
The cracks and sizzles beneath my skin when anyone touches me now.
The snapping of my guts being removed from me,
and the empty pit left within.
My skin covered in
layers and layers and layers
of don't look at me.
I'm ashamed.
How could I tell the reasons
why my tears threaten to run away from me,
but I pull them back in.
Holding onto them tight,
so no one knows.
As if the salty water could wash away my front.
How could I make them grasp the fact that everything personal I've had is gone.
Every secret spread across my face.
Every crack and scrape once covered by makeup,
now pulsing redder and hotter than before.
There is no words for how I feel.
There is no script of what to say.
There's only one time I get to feel this way.
And it is the most terrifying thing in the world.

From way up high the world looked so small
From way up high he felt he was above it all
So there way up high he hung looking down all beneath
From up there he felt no one could touch him
Nothing could bring him down
So from up there he enjoyed his view of the world
Unconcerned about anything but himself

But one fateful day something changed
And as he playing in the wind he noticed a change
There on the tip of his leaf the colour began to change
Slowly but surely he began to turn red
At first he was terrified what did this mean
But the redder he got the more proud he got
He was the only red in a sea of green

So there he danced in the wind
Boasting to all that could hear of his new colour change
But then another change began to take place
Where once he felt secure and safe on his branch
He now began to feel like he was somehow slipping
He tried desperately to hold onto that which he knew
But fate had other plans

As the sun rose the next morning a playful gust of wind blew in
The wind blew through the tree that fateful morning
Rustling the leaves all around
The red leaf tried to hold on for dear life
But alas the wind was just too strong
Tugging and pulling at the leaf
Till off he blew with the wind

The leaf cried out in fear
But as he opened his eyes a new world he saw
Through the rollercoaster ride upon the wind
The leaf began to see the world he never knew
He saw a world he never took the time to know
Flying up and down, round and round
He began to see those he had always looked down upon

And as the wind began to die down
The leaf slowly descended back to the ground
From way down there he looked up and longed for his old home
He longed to be playing in the wind again
But there he lay on the ground
His once red colour now gone
He put down his head to rest

There was this man. At the metro station.
He held his head up high
He looked at the sky,
Splitting it up into fractions.

He had bloodstains on his shirt.
He was sure that I wouldn’t see them.
But I saw them. And the more I looked,
The redder they got.

My God.

I didn’t know whose blood was this.
But it was fresh and red like roses,
Like a woman’s kiss on man’s lips.
There was this man. And his chaoses.

His hands were shaking. They were old,
Flawed, wrinkled. Pimples
On his forehead reminded me
That one day he was a boy

And all he had was dreams.
And bloodstains on his jeans:
He broke his knees
While trying to seize

The moment.

He owned it. Now his shoulders
Bend over. His shirt is just as old as he is.
And there are bloodstains, redder then
His cheeks.

So there he is. He sits at the metro station.
Wondering why the sky
The ******* sky
The blue-but-not-red sky
Is splitting up into fractions

And why his hands got redder.
He better
Still be a boy with dreams of joy.
But bloodstains are all

That matter.

I love the burn in my stomach when I give too much life to my newport: never fresh but always filled with light,
a killing spree of my soul.
You are that taste in my toes.
A tingle in my chest that confuses itself with the victim instead of the one that's penetrating my lungs. Purple air kisses you in your gray eyes, turning redder, redder, redder. They remind me of the blood that drained from the sunset when you told me you loved me. The moon might have looked pale that night, but wait three months.
You'll see my face in the blanket above us, in the intimate white stars, and you will never
forget me.
You'll remember my quick breathing whenever you got too loud, hoping
no one would ever find us.
You'll remember my humming along to the radio at 4 am, to all your favorite songs.
You'll remember when my hair was newly blackened with stench from the fire in your backyard, just like your voice in the wintertime. You'll remember me never letting you get too close.
You'll remember that you love me.
You'll remember that you've always have.

165

A Wounded Deer—leaps highest—
I’ve heard the Hunter tell—
’Tis but the Ecstasy of death—
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “you’re hurt” exclaim!

There are places I have found. There are places that I have gone. People give strange looks with laughter in their eyes when a child walks off on her own into where the ground is not covered with cigarette butts and nothing is paved. Because of them, I go more often and I laugh louder. I have many of these places that are just for my brain and me to inhabit for a while. When I find a less temporary escape from the sickening truths of my own humanity, probably in an UFO, I hope to find others like me tagging along with the aliens that comes to destroy us. And we will all be laughing our ***** off; we saw this coming and packed our thoughts in airtight containers. For now, my thoughts are packed in a backpack with music, a hammock, and some seltzer water. I am walking to get out of here. I find myself getting lost in cornfields and peeing in the woods. It’s rejuvenating. Fresh air and headaches are a perfect match.
                    I am sitting, swinging, hanging from the dancing trees of the crack ******* forests. I think about how every time I chase a squirrel it attacks me. They are fluffy and cute but they want to get inside my house; they want to pry away at my poorly assembled pieces. I’m so unused to that attention and curious affection. I think about my subtly strange mannerisms and my lack of cautious paranoia. These things have had a tendency to intimidate, to make people leave the crowbars in the basement and eliminate any sort of prying. My attributes are intimidating to all but the squirrels. They only seem to see them as weakness. I am still swinging, but my hammock is slipping from the branches now, clinging onto them, a child to its mother. The instructions told me it could hold up to four hundred pounds but even I can hardly hold the weight in between my shoulders. Heavy thoughts are pulling me down. Ropes are slipping more and I can already feel my *** getting sore from this drop. But I do not get off. I keep swinging. My brain is telling my legs to move, my heart is screaming “Save me,” but my legs are not replying. I stay on this hammock, praying that my legs will pull me off before I fall to the ground. I am afraid of being even near to this littered ground. I want the heights. I call for help but only a sigh leaves my mouth. There is no one around to save me anyways. I chose a place in the woods; I chose a place that could grant me the illusion of seclusion…an escape from the trivialities taken too seriously. I cannot wait for someone because this slipping will not even wait for me. I will crash if I do not save myself. I try to coast and the swings get shorter and shorter until they have stopped and I am stationary. In moments I will have more broken parts than I can count.
                     I lie there silent, unmoving, not thinking any longer. Only waiting...finally, I hear snaps of the branches falling and breaking. The ground came up fast. It punched me. It crowded me. It abused me like a misguided lover. I do not wish to be in its arms any longer. But the ground is holding on to my bones, pulling me in. I hit it hard. The drop was farther than I expected. I have no feelings anymore. My nerves have shut off. I am scared. Someone take me some place safe, some place sound…no, take me some place wild. Lying on my back, numb and careless, my eyes are glued to the blueness of the sky above me. I am so relaxed. I hear screaming. I see blood, but I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I keep my eyes staring straight up at the view. I ignore everything but the wind-shaped clouds. My mind is gone, lost like all the rest of time. It wore away because I remembered too many times how my father’s hands smelled of sawdust and how they felt like the sandpaper he that used to make it. I try to avoid addressing the situation at hand, things are turning redder. My eyes are filling with blood and it is hard to see. I think about life and the lack of it. All it is really is just memories, without those the only thing that exists is right now. Which doesn’t exist anymore, it’s a different second, and now another. Life is nothing but the time we are losing. Maybe this view of the tree tops framing the sky will be the last thing I see, or maybe I will lay below them again tomorrow. I am glad that everyone must die. It is more beautiful that way.
                          I gulp, a gust of air fills my stomach and it feels like floating. I am still lying down. The smells of illegality, fire, and cut grass fill my ears just like music. Everything mixing together, all into one entity. I am the only thing alone, still lying on my back in the middle of some trees. The same trees I have been crowded by for all of these years, but dug up and replanted on the other side of the country. All of a sudden, I hear something pop. It is the elevation still stuck in my head, the headache I couldn’t defeat. The pain persists and all throughout my head the places and the people that I had made my home were telling me to stay. I am glad that I did not. There is no place or person who could carry my weight. I am my own constant. I am on the ground, just another fallen leaf,  and I am finding a place inside my brain in an attic of ideas where I can peruse the shelves and maintain my insanity. No matter if I am here or elsewhere, I must maintain. They will not make me sane, I won't have it.  Even the pain I feel now, sticks jabbing into my ribs and fear everywhere else, will not be enough to dull me.
                     I had dipped off the path to find myself away from what was familiar and now it pounds in my head, the lack of altitude. Without it my brain doesn’t know what to do. I am worried what I will become when I am alone here. I hear the chapel bells chime in, four rings and then they fade away. I still hear it ringing in my ear, though minutes have passed since it sounded…
                  Ringing…
        Ringing…
Ringing…

“H­ello?”
“Finally you pick up your phone, I’ve left three voicemails today…are you okay?”
“…”

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worm drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening. . . .

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

with one, a tree - short, with leaves of a redder *** than what belong to me,
with another, a road is carried - long, seeming to never end as one step leads to another, tumbling over itself,
with the fortunate, a lantern - hanging from a pole in suspension from the window of my car,
with my unfortunate gnome, a sign - bearing the words I am in a way to force others to Obey the word of my god.

We aren't keepers anymore.
They've stopped taking us home to meet their mothers.
They mask our names with cute little lies in their cell phones.
They take us out, but only after dark,
when we disappear into the walls
and camouflage into the bar stools.
With every drink, our eyes dance darker,
our lashes grow longer,
our lips flush redder,
our hair flies wilder,
our hips swing looser,
our nails dig deeper.
We leave the Madonnas alone in their wicker beds,
fading smaller into the back of their minds,
as we slowly take over.
With our foreheads kissing theirs
and their lips brushing ours,
for the night, the Madonnas are the ones that meant nothing to me, baby.
For the night, they're ours forever.
For the night, they will never let us go.
We almost forget that in the morning,
we aren't keepers anymore.

don’t kiss and tell,

meaning
do kiss, go crazy, let passion rule, give in, take out,
meaning

kiss but don’t tell

yet,
the real telling is in the kissing
where your heart gives way,
avalanches into frenzied chain of signal fires,
smoked, clouded eyes, with only one exception made;

the shining, sheer veil see-through when
the other is on the room and the  green spring coverlet felled,
all to see the glow, see all the the blush,
the pretense, aversion skins natural makeup, a liberty beacon

laughing, how it cannot be hid for what’s inside
climbs so fast, blushes blue blood redder, the inside reaction reagent,
the weakening composure, the intense beating from heart to head,
the joyous tearing, the silent swearing, the stupid grinning,
the step skipping, the happy dance springing  spontaneous,
no control, might as well just let it go biology in chemistry class

all these tells that you have kissed beyond reason,
these hidden kisses might as well be on
billboards on the highway into town,
a P.A. announcement in high school,
a hearty button attached to your backpack,
the incessant text checking, all dogs nighttime barking all day

go ahead kiss and tell
go ahead tell and kiss harder,
in the kisses, a million tellings
every body part red swelling,
the tearing of every body part,
concentric circles extended from a pebbled heart

~