Words swathe me in calm,
Sentences, paragraphs that soothe.

Viridian verbs burst through the grey,
Taunting me into action-
Seducing me into a delicious dance-
Gypsy girl, swing your sentences my way!

Turquoise adjectives wrap around my wounds,
Embracing my flaws and perfections.
Rough olive skin; somber caesious eyes-
Gypsy girl, with amaranthine scars.

I drape myself over sienna nouns,
Steadfast, supporting me proper, improper, always.
Paper, songs, tree, sky, love, Jami Lee-
Gypsy girl, use your words correctly!

Each turn of a page lures me deeper-
Each spoken rhyme embraces me close-

Jami Lee, sweet little girl, get your head out of the clouds,
And your nose out of a book!

Lay rest your flashing glaze of wishes
Down received for a moment
Breathy bow lifts to hold
and waver across few measures
Sienna and topaz
Sienna and topaz
Singe and simmer
Shine and glimmer against
All the thoughts born and dead

What makes you eager to rise
If it is not sensing gone away stories
or nursing the aches that lunge through anywhere else but here
While you replay and delay all creation
the blossoming goes unseen

She, the maiden is reigning
Une palais à remplir
Une palais à remplir
where she is her own queen
Her oceans made of no time channel open mouths
flooding its spill

She waded into The archer
Downed in his own vessel he mistook himself the pilot of

He, marooned in the surrender of damp and fertile places
where in Death he is still recovering
Soldiering and sullen
Soldiering and sullen
He is choking, and can not stop to see or savor the blossoms rising from his own till

ACT I: Collecting Jigsaw Puzzles

My life has been a series of jigsaw puzzles, the first as pretty a picture as you could wish to see.  It never occurred to anyone that anything could mar the image of a bonny baby in all her glorious honey-hued, gurgling perfection.  

They never found out who crept into the playroom and stole the first piece. It was only one little piece – the size of a sixpence on the baby’s left ankle.  Hardly noticeable. A pity though that such a pretty puzzle should be incomplete.

The next piece to vanish left a leaf-shaped hole in the baby’s back. Did someone accidentally knock over the board? Perhaps the lost pieces are on the floor or down the back of the sofa.

But if that is so, why could they find no trace?  Surely it had to be the work of a thief because it did not end there.

The next puzzle was a toddler.  How strange that the same pieces were missing here too.  Not only that, but a third and fourth piece had gone – the other ankle this time and now a tiny gap at one corner of the child’s mouth.  Why would anyone want to remove random pieces of the puzzle? And how did they do it without getting caught?

No one had any answers.

Successive puzzles depicting a panda-eyed schoolgirl, a shy adolescent, a carefully groomed young woman – all plundered by unseen hands – revealed more and more of the blank surface beneath and ever less of the subject herself.

One day I opened a new box and asked myself “Is this puzzle half here or half gone?”

There comes a point when a puzzle ceases to be a picture with gaps and becomes a blank space strewn with fragments like the excavated remnants of an ancient mosaic.

Would some archaeologist dig me up and fill in the blanks to show posterity what I once looked like?

The jigsaw of a woman in her 40s would have been quick to complete, since so few of the pieces actually connected. Scattered across the board, it was impossible to decide if they, or the space between them, were the real object of the exercise.

I suppose it all depends on how you look at it.

Over the course of 50 years my unplanned jigsaw collection progressed from Bonny-Baby to Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet? What would the next puzzle be called… The-Invisible-Woman perhaps?

If you think jigsaws are frustrating, try my next hobby…

ACT II: Painting by Numbers

Number 1 was the original skin tone, a light golden beige, my favourite pigment.


Number 2 was the colour of nettle rash, mottled and roughly textured.


This was closely followed by number 3, a stark white, applied almost symmetrically in random patterns, some clearly delineated, others splashed carelessly across the canvas like spilt milk. (No sense in crying over it. There is no cure. It won't **** you.)

There’s nothing quite like summer for bringing out the colours of a painting.  A hat and long sleeves were no match for the persistent sun and by the time the picture was finished, the numbered paints ranged from 1 to 20 with a different abstract brush stroke to go with each one. My canvas contained a tortoiseshell patchwork of shades from brilliant white to violet, golden ochre, burnt sienna, chestnut and scarlet.

And yet this was the height of my blue period.

I had to paint by numbers for 50 summers before I could enjoy my third (and final?) pastime…

ACT III: Joining the Dots

By sheer fluke, at the age of 51, I discovered the secret of the missing jigsaw puzzle pieces. They were there all along – just not visible to the naked eye.  


They had been starved into transparency but, as I began to feed them, atoms of them materialised like specks of golden ink on blotting paper.  Tiny dots like pixels on a grainy satellite image, jostling, overlapping and joining together until they looked something like the missing jigsaw pieces - if a little mottled with mildew.  

And gradually the mildew has faded - along with the sense of loss - to reveal glorious, even colour.

Of all the activities I ever found in the playroom of my life, the most cherished, the most miraculous, the most deeply longed-for and appreciated has been this game of Join the Dots - an unremarkable pastime, you may think (if you have never walked in my shoes), but one which has brought me on a return journey along a jigsaw road from
Almost-Invisible
via Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet?
past Half-Here-Or-Half-Gone?
by way of A-Pity-That-It’s-Incomplete
and finally – if not quite back to Bonny-Baby – then at least back home to a grateful woman of a certain age who can look in the mirror and smile to see her whole self.


   Vitiligo: A Play(room) in 3 Acts © August 2013 Vitiligo Protocol

The after life part 9


Today Cronus was even more busier than ever sending people to their next lives and his latest person was 14 year old beryl stone with her two sisters Harriet and sienna who were on their way to get ice cream when a drunk driver came out of nowhere and hit them and killed all 3 of them together and Cronus said beryl, Harriet and sienna, who do you want to be in your next life, do you want to be together or seperate and you will lose everything in your next life and sienna said I want to be with beryl and Harriet but if it can’t be done we want to be together as best friends and Cronus said ok, is there anywhere you will want to go in the world and Harriet said, not in Australia, that’s for sure because people say it is the lucky country but we weren’t lucky in that car, I like to go to the USA, where we could have anything we want, and beryl and sienna said yes, USA for us but beryl said in different families because I want to meet one of them and marry them and Cronus said well I can’t guarantee that but that is something you must work towards doing and sienna said, what is going to happen to the crazy drunk driver and Cronus said well I can’t do much there but I will guarantee he will get what is coming to him and then Cronus sent beryl and Harriet and sienna to Athena for a soul check and after that they went to Saturn for a methane ice cream spider and then travelled around the universe hoping they can have a forfilled life and then Cronus saw famous horse trainer Tom Barclay and said who do you want to be in your next life and Tom said I want to be a racehorse so I could win races and be cared for by the next generation of little girls and boys and make my jockey win a lot of races and my fans win a lot of money and Cronus said yes but we are supposed to mend each blade of grass by helping people, you seem to encourage gambling and Tom said yes, I know but it was hard to be a human, especially after I got sick and had to get away from the horses and if I was a horse I will be around horses all the time, and I can mend heaps of blades of grass that way, I won’t live as long as a horse, maybe I will want to be another person after that and Cronus said, what could you offer people as a horse, I could ride children and adults around and I could keep horses from not going extinct and Cronus said that is mending blades of grass so he sent him to Athena for a soul check and Tom went to Saturn to ride dinosaurs high on methane and then Cronus had Kenny Harrison who was a volunteer fireman who died tackling the south coast fires and Cronus said what do you want to be in your next life and Kenny said I want to make a difference in people’s lives by helping people to rebuild their lives from natural disasters and Cronus said yes but I can’t give you much there except give you the helping people spirit abs put you in a family who wants to make a difference as well, so you could learn when your next life becomes an adult and Kenny said ok I will hopefully won’t get bullied into helping people by them though, I want to make a difference in what my calling is, and Cronus said ok no worries and sent him to Athena for a soul check and then to Buddha to get a helping people spirit and then Kenny went to Jupiter to help stop evil spirits from causing hurricanes and Cronus said it is great that he wants to mend each blade of grass

Today I wrote to you. I haven’t seen you in seven months and sixteen days, as of 10 AM this morning. Only two weeks left. It seems unreal… It also seems that to write to you is all I have. So this morning I sat at my desk, and I opened my mind to all the things I could have said to you, but never thought to.

Do you remember the first day we met? It was in the café on Franklin Blvd. You were wearing your grey Fedora, a Hurley shirt, and those burnt sienna penny loafers we’d make so much fun of later.

I was at the table by the window, and I couldn’t help but notice you. Three of your fingernails were painted yellow, and you wore a bunch of beaded hemp bracelets on your right wrist. They looked Bohemian to me, but one day you explained the difference in that and Jamaican. You were singing a little tune while waiting in line. Later, you’d call it your “little ditty,” and you’d sing it all the time. You always said things like that, & I always fell in love with you more.

You ordered a vanilla cappuccino and a plain English muffin. I looked down at the same half-eaten muffin and cold cappuccino in front of me. I wondered why it seemed that I knew you already.

You sat down at a table a few feet away from me. You took off your penny loafers and took a handheld game of Yahtzee out of your pocket to accompany your breakfast. I was perplexed that you hadn’t noticed me staring yet.

Ah, there it was. You looked over at me. You must have sensed me by then. Immediately you smiled that half-smile you would always do, a mix between a condescending smirk and a boyishly cute pride. It was altogether endearing. You raised your eyebrows and nodded, as if we’d known each other for years. I admired your charmingly playful introduction. I would soon call you sweet pea.

………………

It was eight months ago today that you told me you were leaving. Your large brown eyes were full of promise and sorrow. I dropped my half-full coffee mug, and it spilled all over the carpet. The cat ran to lick it up, and was disappointed when the taste was utterly bitter. In other circumstances, I would have laughed and pointed it out to you, and we’d admire the cat’s zealous naïveté.

However, the cat had but a split-second of my stolid attention before my eyes met yours again, and I felt paralyzed. I asked what you meant, and you repeated yourself.

You told me of Jacob and all he meant to you. I cried when you told me how God and all his goodness took a sixteen year-old boy and his giant heart away from this world, away from his brother. You also told me how you’d avoided him for over three years before his death.

I was in disbelief that you’d never told me of him. You just looked down and said you’d had no room in your selfish green world for his coal-black sickness. Then you told me of his letter before he passed, asking one thing from each person he cared about. To help the world in a way they never would have done before, to somehow leave a legacy in his name.

My stomach felt sick. My baked-apple oatmeal felt at the tip of my tongue. How could this be happening to you? I instantaneously let go of any would-be grudge against you for being kept from the cruelly and sickeningly beautiful reality attacking your heart.

For I could see in your eyes that you were tearing your soul to shreds. You explained how in your peaceful aura had been a mask, a denial of the sickness slowly claiming your brother, waiting it out. For he couldn’t die. He would simply be better one day, and you were waiting for that. But, he did die. And you already knew what your mission would be.

You were leaving in two weeks from that day. You were flying to Africa with the church your brother had been devoted to since the diagnosis four years before this day. You’d spend eight months with the church members in Africa, working with children in a third-world country. Anything you donated would be in the name of Jacob Meyers.

You had talked about this with your family, and they agreed it would please Jacob and the legacy he had asked for. I at once stated that I was going too. My belittled heart broke cleanly in two when you told me how you had to go alone, that Jacob wanted a noble mission.

He had explained that he wanted someone to do selfless work in his name. How in order to give truly, you must give all. I knew you felt that you had to give the largest part, for you’d been the most selfish to avoid him. I let you keep your dignity and, broken, I accepted what you were doing. If anything, I loved you so much more for it.

Sorrowfully and dutifully we packed bags to attend his funeral. I never told you this, but I read four novels on sibling death. I wanted to take your hand in mine and feel what you were going to feel when you saw him laying there.

………………

In two weeks I will see you again. I will travel to the airport and pick you up and time will move once again. I often wonder how spectacularly, or marginally, you will have changed.

I have your loafers, your fedora, and your faded Hurley shirt ready to wear to the café where we met when you come back.




To my faux Jamaican sweet pea,
I miss you.

A boy in jeans,
A boy in trousers,
A boy in braces,
A boy in blouses,
A girl who smells like summer sweat,
A girl whose makeup hasn’t set,
A boy who swears,
A boy who doesn’t,
A girl’s shoulder,
A second cousin,
A girl who smells of **** and beer,
A tattooed boy with a silver sneer,
A skinny girl who’s got T.B,
A boy who daintily sips his tea,
A girl’s left leg – bare or stockinged,
A boy so cold his knees are knocking,
A nasty ****,
A suede-head killer,
Kate Moss,
Sienna Miller,
Vivienne Westwood’s crazy teeth,
Bow-legged loons on Hampstead Heath,
Blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, green,
Cold eyes, big eyes, sad eyes, mean,
Darling sweethearts in flirty skirts,
City-Boy ******* in well-pressed shirts,
Elbows, throat, wrists, knees,
A consumptive girl’s chainsmoking wheeze,
Blonde girls with their hair in plaits,
Skinny boys, short boys, muscular, fat –
Girls with pink lipstick like strawberry frosting,
I’m telling you man,
It’s ******* exhausting.

We lie amidst Ripe mountain herbs,
The nightingale has just begun its summer trill,
This hymn for golden vocal cords
Composed no owner of a writing quill

So sweet were melodies produced
That I mistook the front row lady’s cheap perfume
For blossoms, above which haunting hornets mused;
For an aroma of our Shakespeare love in bloom.

The serenading cardboard creatures –
Those thieve their voice from birds with no address.
Meanwhile a glass raised in a playhouse features
But colored water, as red as gipsy’s dress.

When the last spectator goes,
Having not found at least one genuine sun,
As actors, we recede into descending roles;
Electric blood in lamps’ capillaries feels numb.  

A lovely ladybug, I doubt, I will ever catch,
A lifelike flower, dipped in a painting fusion:
All this, fine artists tenderly attach  
To lifeless decorations, for aid they do us in a willful staged illusion.

Three burnt sienna pearls run down your spine
Yet after a big round of applause
These jewels are no longer signs of the divine,
But witches’ marks or, rather, unalluring flaws.

After the play I went to buy a notebook from my shopping list
To store the overgrowing verses, such as these;
A sheet of paper guarantees
To treat them like extinguishing bees

Cashiers ****** the change into my hand,
You purchased hothouse roses with;
And up those pretty useless beauties stand
In someone’s vase, whose name remains a myth.

They give me back those polished dimes
You traded for a pair of shoes.
I’ve seen you marshal through onstage lifetimes,
Yet to disclose personas’ traces the theater walls refuse.

Your chocolate hair has just fallen from the hairdresser’s hand,–
That’s how I know the summer’s coming to a bitter end.

I had run about, and my feet hurt,
all I could think of, is let me make it end today
and I did it, signing off with a secretary, as she left with her friends

I carried the small burden of a year of persecution
the worst job I ever had,
and he was there, in the cement quad,
talking, saying goodbye

What horrible things he had said to me this year
I wasn't even suited for this profession since I was so anxious
in his presence, since he is all knowing
And when it was too much, I cried, and of course
I shouldn't do that, but that made things ten times
more offensive, I felt like I had a target on me
so I made up a labor attorney I had in my corner
and when he was on the attack, I brought her up
and he fell silent and was more careful

And I saw who he'd promoted, as chief rooster of the English department
since it is a hen house, and he gets too lonely just as a vice principal
that he has meddle and control and pick and decide and ogle
and pretend he's not and revel in so many women in one room,
and he has power over us all

And just that day, he strolled through a Paris City Park
Tree lined, in Spring, with dappled shade on the ground from tall
trees, and metal fences, and people sitting on benches
having fascinating and illuminating intellectual conversations
and well employed and turned out people
strolling along, perhaps some even dressed in nineteenth century clothes
everything in two dimensions,
He the gentleman, her the lady, an impressionist painting
colorful and imprecise, more a dream than reality
of the good life, and harmony, all with a slight Sienna tint, in two D
it was, in reality,  in the gum stained quad in the blazing sun
and she was married to someone else
but she had that perfect English teacher look, blonde
and bland, with giant blue eyes and a bun,
and a dress that cut just below the knee
and blew gently in the hot breeze, flaring out and revealing nothing
but the middle class acceptability of the fabric
and I dashed, really ran by holding my charger, to the computer I turned in
and through the scene, tore a wave of three D, and the Sienna tone
had a trail cut through it of true digital color
and he said "wow," as a vision from the 21st century ripped into his world
and I imagined her boring me to death
making my favorite literature as lifeless and dull
as a computer manual, or a endless apartment lease,
and together this lady and gentleman, they were totally in sync and ready
to frighten another generation of students away from reading
forever...

Later he stood and he saw me
speed walking away from this world
and he gazed at me, waiting for me
to pause, for there to be a bit of nostalgia
and warm good will between us as we exchanged
niceties that were only the tips of a much deeper affection
and respect between us, and I saw him preparing for this
and my pace didn't slacken
and I felt like he was again in two D on a film screen, I, a steadi cam
smoothly floating past, taking in every detail, in slow motion
And I looked at him as more of an object, not a person,
because I couldn't bear all the feelings and thoughts and anxieties so I left him in two D,
watching him I said "bye"
and I couldn't hear what he said because the camera moved
past very quickly and all the sound was muted,
distorted, impossible to understand except to know
it was sound like what you hear underwater

and it was only later, five blocks away, that I burst into
frustrated, pained, angry tears, and I felt again, three dimensional
and alive and hurting and the sound around me boomed back, in all it's chaotic detail,
cars and people and the radio and my own human pain and I realized
I made it

They say that

Van Gogh ate yellow paint

To put the happiness inside him.

But she, instead, would

Cut out the sadness from her skin

And let the hatred pour out

In gushing streams of red,

Her screams echoing

The injustice of colour.

Her wheat skin looked prettier, she thought,

With the raked furrows of half healed scars

And painful slurs
Etched into the deep ochre of her soul.

She quietly detested her terracotta skin,

Smooth like a polished stone

Picked up from the Ganges.

But here in the pale waters of the Thames

She was a blot of burnt sienna on an otherwise ivory white riverbank.

And every new cut

Would heal bloodless and waxen,

Which made her vow to herself to cut off her skin completely,

Leaving nothing but

The darkened red of her fury

And a frightened echo of a scream

In a room filled with bitter laughs and slurs,

In a room filled with the muffled cries of the oppressed and unheard.

The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.

I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.

"Have you ever sailed across an ocean, Donald? On a sail boat surrounded by sea with no land in sight. Without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come. To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza Del Campo in Sienna. To feel the surge as ten race horses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie in the Place Des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a women in the cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on summits and smoke cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the wall again. Climb the tower. Ride the river. Stare at the frescoes. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that. Just one time. That's why I won't allow that punk out there to get the best of me, let alone the last of me."

Naples yellow
Prussian blue
Burnt umber
Cadmium Red Deep
Napthol Red
Quinacridone
Phtalocionine Blue and Green
Portrait Pink Light
Yellow Oxide
Raw Sienna

Can you make a painting without these?

The woods felt peaceful
Alas, they hung in a rhythm
we breathe
The trees swayed high above
Mighty silhouettes
calling down to me.

My eyes traced
the streaks in the sky
From eastern pink
to the blaze in the west
Earth was blushing rosy cotton
Fierce in her burnt sienna dress.

Earth was me
swirling with the elements
Wind was me
finding the love in the twist
Wells were the arms of melancholy
Fire was the heat
erupting from my chest.

From the Azul sky a diving sparkling speck,
An unmatched beautiful creature without circumspect,
The golden leaves of spring like soldiers on parade,
Dip and make way for this fair winged maid.

I have so much longed to be first bite of this season,
To be touched and blossomed to perfection by your reason,
I grow juicy, soft and ripen as I fall for you.
Tumbling into your soft Cashmere hands on cue.

Salivating, I’m tasty, savour me between your teeth,
Sink deep in without remorse, how delectably indiscrete!
Say my name with a smile it’s so safe in your mouth.
I’m tingling the roof of your brain with my flavours coming out.

Take me away! as we fly, I’m cast about like an enchanted spell,
Moistening your soft syrupy lips of caramel.
I’m drained to sustain the iridescent colours of your gilded wings,
Moved by the high passionate notes as you sing.

Your smooth, probing tongue, my flesh diabetically sweet,
Leaving streaks of sienna nectar on fates smeared cheeks,
Wipe away before staining fabric from our black and white lives.
They keep returning, stubborn like long goodbyes.

Surprise! New emotions enveloping, hypnotic like Night Jasmine,
Mimicking a rainwater spout so bubbly, escaping, and exciting!
Your caught hopeless as a fish fly rod with a glass eyed trout
Choking while love swoops silent from heaven to pluck it out.

That’s when you look at my seed and you can tell.
I’m good for your ego but as bad as a toadstool’s spell.
So I’m placed in the first mound of mud you come across,
Where you replant me sprinkled with fairy dust.

Don't sleep
Don't sleep
I begin to
Like you
A little bit more
I shift and sigh
Say your name
Fatigue rolls
Somewhere by
But, alert I
Imagine
So many paintings
To make for you

You mumble
Childishly
Your laughter
Is glittery
I wish
For so little
I wish too
Intensely
Dont wipe me
With a stiffened cloth
Soaked
In turpentine
And a hundred hues
Dont stir me
I might be disturbed
Out of skill
Out of thought
Onto a burlap scene
Grotesque
Picturesque
And so, so true

Don't move
Or I might too
I might too
Become a facet
Among the facets
Of your horrors
I might
Become art
Might become
Beautiful
In that strange
Black way
Of art

Dont sleep
Talk to me
Speak to me
Let us be
Normalities
Let us
Hold
Technicalities
Forget
Sentimentality
In the silly blue painting
Of an eyeless pretty
Smooth and porcelain
Perfectly closed

No night
To mourn into
Dissolve into
To stumble,
To tremble into
Don't sleep
I become too much alone
Shrivel, burnt sienna
I cannot move alone
I become the paintings
That I fear to paint
I become the sombre
Debris of your laughter
Cold, blue
Featureless
A moonlit night
Nothing but red
You don't know
That I like you
In my head
Come back
Come back

The crackling fire spits sparks into the night sky
The atmosphere is alive with bright hues of burnt sienna
Lighting your sober face with such pure beauty, that sadness cannot thrive.
As the dawn approaches, our love is more real than anything I've known.

Your eyes, blue as the sky with a hint of a storm cloud approaching.
Your smile is genuine and so sincere, I forget every other lover I've known.
Your physique is so perfectly masculine, every part of my body throbs in anticipation of your touch...............

The first taste of the change in your standard behavior
Left a welt upon my cheek and stung like bee with an addiction to hurt.
Your bitterness eats me alive, when the change of personality occurs....
So much so, I feel buried alive within the ground, slowly suffocating by the dirt thrown into my mouth.

Perfect?  I am certainly far from Jesus and believe me, I do sin.
Its difficult to remain unscathed or without retaliation, Ping-Pong, if you will.
Separation from the pain that scars, is self defense against all I know.
Refusal to be open-minded to the chance you are mistaken stunts the lessons we are to learn from each other.

Beating me into the ground with a shovel..  
Echoes of a tormenting, repetitive thud in a rhythmic balance of treble and bass....
Shakes me from my toes, violently shuddering with anger, sometimes fear.
Sorrow aches within my body from somewhere deep within ..

And as the cycle starts again from sweet to sadistic...
Our hearts break a little more and wicked thoughts invade our purity.
As I lay here alone, I truly wonder if we will be able to withstand our cruelty to each other.

No matter what we want in this relationship of stormy seas...
We can't move on in a healthy direction without some kind of compromise.
No matter how much I love and adore you,
I can't be caged like an endangered species, with wings  that have been clipped for my own protection.

The awareness I possess of my own faults and provocative ways, can't seem to filter through
When intoxication and anger are in control of you, you seem to co-exist with a savage who slowly tortures me.
Your words are like demonic zombies running rampant in a kindergarten yard.
My flesh is being ripped apart as the blurs of a million of them scratch and claw as they furiously circle me and isolate their victim.

As I have declared many times before, I am no innocent.
I do not regard your sensitivity to my crazed, moody outbursts.
So spoiled sometimes, that I forget that my tongue can be the fork that eats you alive.
Used to getting everything I desire, before my mind comprehends the damaging violence....
My requests become demands that poison your view of me,  incinerating any growth we have worked for.

My addiction and your affliction divide us into destructive, savage... yet well-trained soldiers.
As we fight over petty subjects that truly don't need the attention we grant them...  
We both lose a battle we don't even realize is going on within ourselves.
Is it really that important to be right, if it means we are always going to be wrong?   For each other?

Now, as my pen has brought me to see what is the true reality without placing blame...
My question to you : Do you love me enough to see this through, while we both change things that hurt and cause catastrophic damage to a blessing we have been gifted with by God?
I know my love for you is stronger than any bitterness within my heart...

The hours that I have been writing this poem, as I wandered the streets aimlessly and without ever finding any peace
......But can you really truly understand that even when you aren't right by my side, my heart belongs to only you?
Can you absorb the words that coincide with my feelings of loving you, unconditionally??
Can we get through this and get to the other side ?  

I can only imagine how strong our bond will be just over the current obstacle put in our path.  
Only together seeking God's guidance and grace, while we both seek support from each other...
Will we be able to see the beautiful rainbow, God's promise given as a sign,
Patiently awaiting  our self-control, discipline and purity of heart to learn the lessons we must learn and incorporate into our lives.

Forgiveness is key, for I know the blame game is too often, played.
I'm not willing to give up.....
            I've felt the bond between us and I know how rare it is.
We can learn so much if we don't let outside influences win and say goodbye.

I'm tired of running in circles,
Aren't you tired of sleeping in your clothes?
Can we muster the strength to truly begin anew without fear of anger and loss?
Or does it matter to you what the peace and love will have conquered or will you only think of what it has cost?

He had his own scent
His own type of aura
It came off like clouds of dust
From within his skin, burnt sienna
He had something shiny there
Some kind of hazy dream
But if I ever asked about it
He'd say it's not what it seems
You see, my daddy was a smoking man
But I didn't know quite yet
The meaning of that phrase
Not to its full extent
I was intrigued with his eyes
And the way he spoke
I would watch forms shape
From thick, grey, and poisonous smoke
He had something earthy there
Wrapped in some tin foil
He would rub it in his hands
And trade cash for his spoils
You see, my daddy was a merchant man
I learned that on a cold night
Sitting alone in his rusty jeep
When the other men wanted to fight
My daddy looked to me
Telling me to look away
Maybe, I should have listened
It was took late anyway
An explosion sounded
It's echo ringing in my ear
My daddy on the ground
Convulsing in fear
Screaming, someone was screaming
I stop to listen
And realize it was me
My feet were moving
And I was there next to him
Trying to stop the blood
That was covering my skin
He had a look on his face
Like he was trying to explain
But every time he tried to speak
He didn't know what to say
He had some kind of waste there
The wind had scattered all around
He was too deep in this world
No way else to fall down
You see, my daddy was a smoking man
Right down to his core
Couldn't see past the nightmares
To get off of the floor
He got lost in his hazy dreams
Somehow the pain would ease
You see, my daddy was a merchant man
But he let himself get burned
He risked everything he had
And got nothing in return
He took chances with gunshot wounds
Had some silly notion he was immune

Sun feigns heat
in a clear slate of blue above;
I gaze upon pale, brown hills and fields
through the smoke of my breath
wishing it would at least snow.

There was talk of cow-tipping
when I was in fifth grade,
but cows would've broken their necks.
Ground covered in frozen grass
is no comfort for fallen cows at 15 Fahrenheit.

Our small lake
transformed into a debating ground for skaters and hockey players,
each vying for control over the weekend's
primary source of entertainment.
(The dreadful alternative: afternoons shopping with parents.)

When it finally snowed, a wonderland was made,
a knee-high, get-out-of-school-free card.
We charted expeditions in corn fields, wooded creeks
and stone-colored barns that were beguiling in the white
of Chadds Ford pastures like untended English castles.

Woods like a Pollack of burnt sienna and white,
their only sound is weight of snow bearing down on limb.
Beyond those whispers, just a roaring silence
when I'm still as ice fingers
trying to touch the ground from the roof.

The cats of Baldwin's Book Barn nap easily within,
as we dig for a pearl amongst makeshift shelves
full of hard-bound reads for snow-bound youth.
These felines, grown, need not the words,
but the pages themselves for fine beds.

A blue-white glow from outside casts a cold light,
illuminating prints of Helga and Christina's World,
a reminder to all who live down the road.
On such a winter day, I didn't care to remember
that soon there would be Spring kittens in the books,
and a lake full of children's swimsuits.

Why the blue
face many reasons over
that chip?
It hurts how long do I have?
No other color to think about
All of the chewing excursions
Blue chip muncher seasons

The summer high-priced
The liaison scoop hot
Her lips dipsy
The different vibe
crispy
That one chip trend all depends
What star shape chip demand
Bow Wow parade
Dressed like
the blue tinted car
chip
  Did you feel the vibe?
Not just any tribe
let's all describe

Blue chip paired
subscription just chew on

Each lip part of
you I liked
Don't block my
chips confidentially

The party consequently
Went chip disappearing
That salsa tortilla chips
What a coincidence
Someone kissed and chewed
her and went pew ugh
Hallelujah honeydew
BMW Chips sigh
So salty talk beamer
Blue chips ahoy to me
Blue sky Sailors high
Drinking blueberry
coffee why?

Sticker Blue Church
group
Don't break the chip
promise
Don't cheat
My lips need and want
someone to kiss
The advertisement
B-Blue C-Clue
K-Kisses **** fishes
Not the Black/Blue
The kickboxing
Chips made the
centerfold
with his boxers
Blue chip tailgating
Debating those keypunches

Venting out with her chip
What was in those chips?
They were
both running
for their lives
Where are our wifes

Terra Cotta, she
dressed Ms. Senorita

Doing Hawaii
hula hoops
kiss motives crunchy
The competition
dipped Men grumpy
The Sienna smile eating
The garden of
  (Eat-In)  

The Gulf of Mexico
Doing the Salsa*
Ms. Eden
One chip was lip
depended
The French kiss
Sleeping beauty
ballerina
No-one really
didn't know
what to do
The back-back
neck kiss

The Robin bird
Changed Blue-breasted
Lower Lip arrested
He's the
sucker for
her  Blue chips_*
Why did the
corn yellow he became
  The blue ***** Jazzy
She's eating chips in
the sunray just chill
They were rubbing
their nose taking in
**** color lips
Simply kissed
balanced

So Co-depended
Or so lip offended
By one best collection
chip
French kiss
the plea is the
kiss of the sea
She is his kiss
Or press the
kiss with his
Blue chip to be his
he is the key

Bed and bite chip
  all new
breakfast tip
Read someones
lip demeanor
regardless so
it's minor
Only the blue-chip
was happening to you
To the very end of
your lip

So cleaned up vacuum kiss
Skinny diet dipping not
over my lip
So chipper I will
meet my Skipper

(Apple Dip) New Yorker
He's the blue-chip tipper
computer chips

Blue chip kisses
It was the biggest
turnover, come over
The Apple jubilee
blue chip kisses
To be called the
lip-sucker Please ladies
calm down
Take one chip

((The Addiction))
Of her garden
of earth, blue-chip birth

i see things in high definition colour, but
july is the only month that fluctuates—
between florida orange and, later, burnt sienna;
everything between the 1st to the 31st
is dipped in a honey-glaze of three things:
1. warm, sticky air
2. the feeling of 6pm
3. bicycles riding through fields of fireflies.

naturally, i spend most of july in my bedroom—
the heat gets to me, makes my allergies flare
and i watch movies; old, 80s, movies (or—tiktok clips
of the same movie, only broken up into thirty-six parts
that i view from my bed with my naked legs spinning vertical circles through the air).

i always forget the feeling of august
until it’s there again. july
overshadows it with the final embers, so i only realise
it's august on maybe the 5th or 6th. almost
a full week into a month that my brain—
which is never wrong about the way things feel—
sees a deep, ocean blue.

i don't write home about august. i don't hurry it up
through winter months, when i begin the countdown
to hot, hazy days. if anything, i view august
as the ending of something, of a summer i wished so hard for.

and every time, it blindsides me with love.

i love things more in august. i love the smell of summer-
rain on the pavement. i love songs i listened to in january.
i love waiting around for halloween. i love my bedroom,
the pause of heat-sick sleep, the blue-sky mornings.

i write love letters to autumn in a time capsule. i text july and ask u up?, and wyd?, and come over?

and still, when summer ends, i will never want to get what i wish for.

I woke up last night
To a star burning bright
Such a feeling of grace
As I pictured your face
Beautiful Angel, Beautiful Girl
Heaven's Child no longer part of this world
How does it feel to be one with the sky
With your gossamer wings what's it like when you fly
Breaking the bonds of the sickness and pain
Way up over the sun and so far from the rain
Child of Heaven, Child of Light
I pray that your Mum knows you're up there tonight
But I have a feeling that you're not very far
And she'll see you each night in the face of a star
All those who love you are bathed in your light
You are home in the arms of the Angels tonight.