Des singes dans un bois jouaient à la main chaude ;
Certaine guenon moricaude,
Assise gravement, tenait sur ses genoux
La tête de celui qui, courbant son échine,
Sur sa main recevait les coups.
On frappait fort, et puis devine !
Il ne devinait point ; c'était alors des ris,
Des sauts, des gambades, des cris.
Attiré par le bruit du fond de sa tanière,
Un jeune léopard, prince assez débonnaire,
Se présente au milieu de nos singes joyeux.
Tout tremble à son aspect. Continuez vos jeux,
Leur dit le léopard, je n'en veux à personne :
Rassurez-vous, j'ai l'âme bonne ;
Et je viens même ici, comme particulier,
À vos plaisirs m'associer.
Jouons, je suis de la partie.
Ah ! Monseigneur, quelle bonté !
Quoi ! Votre altesse veut, quittant sa dignité,
Descendre jusqu'à nous ! - Oui, c'est ma fantaisie.
Mon altesse eut toujours de la philosophie,
Et sait que tous les animaux
Sont égaux.
Jouons donc, mes amis ; jouons, je vous en prie.
Les singes enchantés crurent à ce discours,
Comme l'on y croira toujours.
Toute la troupe joviale
Se remet à jouer : l'un d'entre eux tend la main,
Le léopard frappe, et soudain
On voit couler du sang sous la griffe royale.
Le singe cette fois devina qui frappait ;
Mais il s'en alla sans le dire.
Ses compagnons faisaient semblant de rire,
Et le léopard seul riait.
Bientôt chacun s'excuse et s'échappe à la hâte
En se disant entre leurs dents :
Ne jouons point avec les grands,
Le plus doux a toujours des griffes à la patte.

While you were away,
My words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Unvoiced mutterings that fall out in droves,
Burning rants swallowed back in singes and sears...

While you were away,
Time was stagnant; a viscous puddle.
Hours only stretched longer,
The second hand jabbing its ferocious needle...

While you were away,
The clock drove me insane.
Ticking my life away in literal seconds.
Losing sand grain by grain...

While you were away,
And when it's all quiet and dark,
I could hear my heartbeat...
Awaiting the new day to make its mark.

While you were away,
My words seem to have lost their meaning...
As if they were stuck in limbo,
Unanswered calls that keep on ringing...

While you were away,*
I am but a little lost foal...
Because whenever you're away,
I am never whole...

Dear Vamika,
of a long and a
short
time away. Of the
future, when
your ******* are fuller
and you can finally speak
French fluently.

I hope you are a woman.

I know you
have not changed the world.
I didn’t write you that way.
I’m still
not writing you that way.
For my cheap gel pen
has none of that spark
of Fitzgerald’s and Nabokov’s,
who could bewitch the imagination with
such timeless giants
as ****** and Daisy.

So remember:
you’ll be brilliant
but absent
from any history books.
But still.
You are enough, exquisitely enough,
for the literature
I inhabit.

Hence, I fill pages with your inky
outlines, shade in the spaces
slowly
with hopes and wishes and poetry and dreams.
For you, of you.
I note
all that you are
composed of, so that
even the marginalia
laughs out your lipstick,
your clothes drawers,
your reading habits.

I am writing you as a woman.

I am writing you
as Music. Here is your laughter,
a little smokier now,
unspooling like a work of
Debussy’s. Here are your
fingers, lighter now, like meringues
or dandelions, as they dance
on your silver flute,
better, better, better than ever,
in shiny theatres far
grander than you imagined.
And here are your tiny
scrawled music notes, that with a few touched
keys, echo as tumbling stars
in the ears of thousands
and then plenty.

I hope you are a woman.
So play, compose, laugh and sing; be
Music ‘til your dying day.

I am writing you
as Ambition. It is calmer
than the fire that currently
singes my hands. Yet it’s still as
constant
as the flame you
light, every night before bed,
in front of the Goddess Durga
you pray to.
Your heart still
salivates for hard-boiled
surprises, for lucky pennies
found on pavements, for the
metallic sweetness of, yes,
success.

I hope you are a woman.
So strive, and strive again,
‘til you’re nothing but ash.

I am writing you, too,
as Success.
Surprise!
Those words unhooked
from the crevices of your mind,
are now bound in
paperbacks.
You are a poet, sleeker than
the 17-year-old fledgling
in her dim bedroom.
You are a journalist,
pouring morning stories
like hot tea, and sighing
with honey glee at
your name in
print.
You are a writer;
you fill even more pages, and
you now have a
gleaming, expensive
pen.

I hope you are a woman.
So write, ‘til you have lost
all breath.

I am writing you
as Compassion. How could I not
let you share words (your  personal magic) with
countless sparking children?
And not fill your hands with
gifts of maths, English,
science and art that you can
give and give and
give to them?
An education is as precious and
priceless as Picasso, you say.
A human right, all the same.
A human right.

I hope you are a woman.
So be kind. That’s it.
Always.
I have not forgotten  
to write you as
Justice.
Go out and support,
wave flags and placards,
sign petitions, join many
campaigns, scream out ‘til
your throat can’t bear such
honesty, such
indignation.
Keep fighting.
Never stop. The world is unfixable,
imperfect and
unhappy.
Help it.

I hope you fight for other women.
I hope you fight for other humans.

I am also writing you
as Resilience. So you’re able
to face yourself in that
mirror, even though
your stomach has a stubborn bulge, still,
and you haven’t yet learned
to smile at your nose.
Still.
And I’m reminding you that you do,
yes, you do,
have the strength to cry alone, then
get over it,
to have panic attacks, then
get over it,
to pick yourself up from
life’s many disintegrations and
start again.
You can. You’ve already done it.
I hope you always will.

I know that you are a woman.
So never give up, as
cliché as it sounds. Go ahead and
die trying.

Now, as the cadenza
of this rather sentimental piece,
which I’ve spun as
sweet
as stolen sugar
and the romantic comedies at which
you secretly weep,
I am writing you as
Tenderness.
See, I decided that Love and
Romance are but
bombs. And you and I both
believe in non-violence.
Therefore, you are
a hugger now, with lips
which kiss your husband,
scold your children
and sing
lullabies to the whole silly lot of them.
Your heart is always
swimming
with a good bit of warm wine,  so don’t
question its fullness.
Take care of yourself.

This.
This, above, is all I hope for you
to stay and have and be
until the symphony’s final note, your
final breath.

You are a woman.
Flawed, intelligent, beautiful, cracked, strong, kind, stubborn, soft, honest.
Real.

You are a woman.
So stay like this,
but be just a little more wiser, a little more grown
each passing year.

A woman.
Vamika, that’s all I ever want you to be.

red stains, fading, cracked, scented

     if i kissed your prints, would they kiss me back?

sighs, thoughts, spaces between prints

     spaces between words, between parted lips and floating thoughts the world! is so crowded with space but yours is the one i want to fill .

     but where are the lines? lines of loss, lines of lawns, lines of ink and rips and more stains and letters, in the hands and on the pavement

where are the lines?

why won't you go there?

why do you hover in these foul, indomitable spaces? why do you seek that which you should not?

     if the shadow of lines slinks in your quiet expression, then why are you still here?

     if the echo of your soft face lingers in my hands, if the whisper of your breath and the heat of your skin still singes my own, then why do you disappear?

lovely wraith, lovely memory of a thing that once was, why do you sit so alone?

because i am coming to your space, and if you can see me, of shadow and fog, then i will meet you there,

     on a line of our own.

>because it's a death premeditated and i can see it unfolding,

     sharp wounding painful

and the discourse in the sky is telling me so, yet why do i keep walking west?

I played with fire once;
Ashes on my lips,
Singes on my back,
And I'm still burning

I'm a whirl of smoke;
Waiting for your flame,
Hovering above,
The match that you are.

Part One

Mercury is in retrograde.
And people who do not believe in astrology
Quake in their collective boots.
Mercury enters the living room and kicks the dog,
Flops onto your couch and tells you to get them whatever they need.
You listen, Mercury is, after all, in retrograde.
They will travel across the sky backwards,
Throwing off your life in all of their
Roman god of thieves glory,
Until you give them what they want.
Mercury switches between burning loved ones and freezing them,
With a sunrise and sunset sense of reliability.
With no atmosphere to keep themselves warm.
They don sweaters in July to hide their withering orbit
And even if mercury is in retrograde,
It seems they are not moving.

Part Two

Eris rotates the sun,
Brings an apple to a wedding party
She was never invited to
The apple reads, “To The Prettiest One”
And starts the first war among men.
And Eris claims she meant no harm.
Cries on her mother’s lap,
Aging a year every 88 days.
Her mother covers her in a cloak dark as night.
Her mother is the night.
Eris rotates, stares at Mercury,
Breathes Cigarette smoke deep into her own lungs,
Blows it in Mercury’s face.
Mercury is trying to quit
Eris does not care.
Eris wants to see Chaos.
Wonders why no one asked her who the stupid apple was for.
She thinks humans are stupid.
We are, she’s never wrong.
She dresses herself in her best to come see you at work
Every Sunday like a religion.
Baggy jeans, and a not so clean t-shirt,
Makes Mercury mad that she forgets the wig every time.
Mercury does not want to see the hair Eris has pulled out after every cigarette
Like a body count.

Part Three

Mars was born from pretty.
Yet he seems to be anything but pretty.
He’s going to war with everyone,
He burned a boys shoes once,
A boy who dared to love the solar system,
To accept the sun, and every planet and satellite
Like siblings.
Mars is fighting the stars,
He wants to land among them, and shoot all of them out like light bulbs.
Mars wants to protect his solar system from the stars,
From every boy.
To keep the sun burning for eternity.
Eris reminds him the sun will burn out, eventually,
And Mercury hides behind your couch.
Mars lashes out with the sun,
Breaks the sun’s knuckles off eris’s face,
Sets your carpet on fire.
Mercury starts to cry, notices the bruising on the sun,
Tries to patch it’s sunspots.

Part Four

Venus tries to mediate.
In all of her fifties house wife,
Goddess of beauty perfection.
She tries to keep the meteors from hitting all her sun-mates.
She is tired.
She wants to live in a kitchen in front of her bay windows
With her favorite book,
Watching the sea foam and hoping it with birth her a companion.
She can not handle having Eris burning the sun’s lungs,
Or Mercury wanting to die.
Or Mars being angry,
Much longer.
They set her Sunday best on fire.
A dress with petticoats and flowers.
Her white shoes she keeps perfectly polished for tea with her mother.
Venus dresses the sun in a matching dress made of silk,
And rubs rouge on its cheeks,
Like her own little baby doll
And cries over her own infertility.
Mercury consoles her,
tells her she might not meet her purpose
Of love, and ***, and motherhood,
But that they will love her at least.
Eris tells her “Who needs that crap?”
And flicks a cigarette out on her own arm.
Mars gets angry at her crying.
Slaps her with the sun.
Singes her perfectly smooth cheek.
She cries more.

Part Five

Mars storms out, burns your shoes again.
Eris lights up cigarettes like birthdays and lovers
Off of Mar’s fires,
Venus tries to put them out with her tears,
Her bay-window-kitchen-room-favorite-book-dreams
And her battered, childless body,
And Mercury falls further into retrograde.

Cast it aside I…
Can the world be so…
Is anything actually…
Where does it go?

Promises they kept
Lifted from the well.
Hurt me just a little longer…
And I will never tell.

Basically, the chains they…
Craftiness all ensnared…
Turned round to face the…
Was it ever there?

Sever my motives
What does it matter?
Emptiness concepts…
Meaning’s in tatters.

Legs wrapped tight on…
Hardly notice the…
Singes the backside…
Looks so good, huh?

                         Push me to action.
                         Call me a fake.
                         Hurt me with venom.
                         Lies from the snake.

Nobody knows that…
So much of knowing it…
Is there a knowing such…
Yet, how we commit.

The pain sets it free now.
The blisters remind us.
Sifts through unknowing…
Blood, guts, and ****.

Will it ever be, I…
Where is the voice of…
Searching for aching…

And finding love.

Chop down the city lights of Paranoia.
Cathartic beads of sweat roll
off the horrors of your back
under the saggy breast lamps

in the pitched dreams where the nightmare kids
come to watch you sleep.
           Somersaulting walls made of human tissue,
the love of your life overseas, and everything you say
comes out as water torture on hollow centers of hope.

                        poetry is dead.
                                                  Liars smoke ten packs a day,
social criminals stroll in marathons of perdition
across the rot of post-modern vices,
their feet stomp closer to watching faces under the bed.
                                      'This is a story. A dream!'
Everyone sees the fire under the bed.
Watch-fires earthbound by every word
before it is said,
gagged in envy--brought to glow by spineless atoms.

        Every sexless sun has a beard, a saved flirtation that singes
          the vacuum of today's soul,
                             a dead dream because you didn't pull it from the brink.
No one has a name in poetry. A task. A point. An exit.
                                                  One bed-room apartments locked with pearls
                                                     visible only to soloist dogs.
No sorry for vagueness or shut-mouth or bleeding upwards. The meter is running....
to the pharmacy
because it could be pregnant with all the possibilities.
And the whole amphitheater wants to hear one line, the life changer you brought
--here it is: Forget your name.

Sometimes,
words hit like bolts
of yellow and blue lightning.
Erupting from their
bottled container,
spattering bits of
charred glass
and gore of the
words that have been contained for far too long.
Reckless in their nonconformity
with what is expected,
what is,
and what needs
to be said.
When they spill
out of painted or chapped lips
like liquid fire.
Fire and lightning
that burns and singes
and electrifies
everything they touch.
Almost as painful
as the real thing.

To this body
Death does as it should,
Consigns the shell
To the firewood
And sets the spirit free.

Close to the fire
the heat singes me.

I know it's only the prelude
to the fiery furnace
licking my skin with flaming tongues
reducing me to powdered ashes
disappearing and in no time fading
what was me but in an instant
dusts in urns and upon wall
and years after maybe one's
untimely rains of dusty memories.

The heat singes my fingers as the strength leaves my legs
The sweetness hits my nose as I blow worry out of my mouth
I think it's hesitation but it's peace that slows down my hand
Peace is the mini smoke stack that churns stress and life to a smiling cough
I'm not clear but I'd rather be blind then look in my minds eye
I like the discord, the order has grown to heavy to handle

A pack of hyenas, we howl in a frenzy.
Set off by naught,
A twitter or flick and all is lost
To laughter in the night,
Engulfing us all.
Sides aching, my body keeps quaking
Free as a warbler, Screeching and Heaving
As the fire dies, I open my eyes
In a tent, we lay sprawled
Worship almighty Party Mix
Now ravenous lions, or kindergarten children
We claw and shove and dig into the loot
Faces full, stomachs pounding, eyes heavy,
Fingers sticky with snacky crumbs,
A sugary tantalizing coating.
Hounds we are, gluttonous fiends
Living for twenty dollars of sweetly goods
Bought from an otter.
All is forgotten as we sit down to feast
"Spare the jerky, we'll need it later!"
"You devil, its all gone!"
Oh well, no worries of food now
Sufficiently satiated we snuggle into sleeping sacks
Shadows play on the walls
Dancing as jubilantly as shadows may to the music we play
****** stories, crude jokes now met with sheepish sniggers
A fifth giggle is heard from our party of four
Unseen, yet someone is there
A screaming spirit, a lost loner,
A wily wizard, a carnivorous ******,
A balefully babbling banshee,
A sambaing Spanish sandman,
A dopaminergic, diamond-eyed dragon?!
Dare we ask what he be
As his wisdom calmed our carousing
We journeyed through eternity
Visions of it all so overwhelming
Our minds explode
Great kaleidoscopal mortars on a warm eve in july
Visions of dank alleyways, bums and drums
Pastoral sights with floral delights
Emaciated emigrants, there faces so slum
Whimsical unicorns cavort through clouds
Young boys in green turned pincushions by hot flashing iron
Jovial faces devour whole hams by candlelight
Hopeless faces cry and starve by moonlight
Weary we are as the rooster caw-caws for dawn
Wet with dew and naked we slip out
Crazed and dazed we walk in a haze
To witness diurnal beginnings
Pink tinges and orange singes
Streaming above the horize
Time now to sleep
In the crystalline shimmering meadow
Short morning naps
To ease madness since midnight
Dreams foggily drift in and out
Sun's rays fry the flesh
As we awaken to sickening reality
Had it all been psychedlic delusions
Surely it'd just been us four

The flame engulfs us into physical bliss
Energy so powerful it knocks me to the ground like a ragdoll.
With every thought and hope for you to be happy and content
Another lick of fire singes my heart and soul.

When things are going your way,
Your smile can melt a snowman
And your eyes magically draw me to you
Like a moth to a flame.

But when the wind is gusty,
Your heart grows cold and hardens
The ugliness of the ice freeze me away from you.
While my fire is burning out of control just wanting you.

This flame I speak of is our energy merging as one.
The ice and cold comes from distrust, suspicion and rage.
A fire that consumes every molecule of my oxygen
Pushing me farther and farther away, being burnt bit by bit.

My heart is shattered with emotions I didn’t realize were possible,
Yet you react aggressively, without care of the consequence of your action
I pray you will never endure the utter destruction of a spirit of love
But maybe, you can have a chance at your next possibility of true love.

Unfortunately, I was the best you will ever have.
My love for you was pure and true.
The pain will subside over time, I pray
Hope others reading have the strength to leave someone they love
to heal their hearts and love another who deserves it.

a tiny woman
has hips
with a thousand mouths to feed.

her little feet
are
acetylane-based
and her philosophy
is
a
by-product
of a lack of faith.

"It's going to be a good night, for a little while,
but let's not spoil a night
by thinking about it,"
her hips
say
to your fingers.

The thousand tongues
lap at your fingerprints.

Her tongues
make rollers
of passion,
and bury love
deep beneath the ruined sand
of a nimbus-warped beach
blackened by pain,
x-rayed by fingernails of lightning.

She makes you think
of such a beach.

The tiny woman
wraps her long, lean
arms
around your tiny
hairless neck.

Her breath singes
your uncovered Adam's apple.

Little man,
she calls you,
this old cougar
with rat teeth
and **** eyes.

"Little man,"
she says,
"I know how men
get down these days,"

Her body is verve,
electric skin
and loose, vibrating fabric.

Her legs are muscle
only,
as tight as a horse's quad,
you can see all the veins
and their tributaries
in her thighs,
and how they wiggle
against olive muscle.

"Little man,"
she says,
beer like a Titan
on her breath,
"I'm hungry."

And you are too,
and she will lead you,
holding your arm
by the drunken,
half-holding,
half-forgotten
vice
of her fingers
and you and her
will eat at Waffle House.

At 2 a.m.

She will dry out,
and become salty.

You will dry out and finally be hungry.

Eat,
Little Man,
she thinks,
because you're walking home
tonight.

Do you know the bird?

Of course not. each
   updraft a soaring appreciation for
worldly things, textbook happiness
drowning distraction in a pond plump with water
lilies and tadpoles, sinking down to the
       dirt, belly raw on dizzy ground, feet
scrabbling for a safe touchdown, sure this day there
must be a rock or a tree trunk, some natural end to the in-
between where a bitter desperate aftertaste singes the mouth, certain
   nothing else will be known, that this sour tang is only to
remain on this tongue forever, no

asking you if you can relate is like expecting the sun to
rain down and openly weep itself out, quite
   impossible, come on - remember, you
must see clearly - here

comes the lift again, fondest flying above, fully
forgotten panic until winds falter once more

I know the bird.

Impatient breath
Hands erasing, smoothing all ridges.
Skin to skin becomes just...skin.

You cover me and discover me
Your fire singes any thought I may have had
And all that is left is you
And me
And your hands on me.

As my desperation grows your movements slow
Until desire is all there is.

This is more than you and me.
This is us as one.

Titanic barnstorms the Tennessee plain through jet powered airplane
As though the Lusitania New York City could hardly proffer a contradictory profane
Nevertheless the intricacies of gamboling and gambling garble too many dice
Listerine rinses a whitewashed flaw until it singes gravity sawed twice
Three pieces of would form a tripartite could, that can’t because beggars are mute and rude
That beggars whisper the hymns of an immemorial festivity churlish upon listless attitude
So we hearken the classics and drop the ink quill upon that pile of effluvium and molasses
We invent friction just to pass a fall’s worth of failed jack-*****
“No more” he exclaimed just as the leaky faucet marginally contained
“Know more reason and you will be fully redeemed”
So I cannot pinpoint the provenance of despair among discrete colonies with barter too unfair
With ***** dens conflagration’s dead blank stare
The pit of the useful and the heap of the useless sorted into neat piles on either side of the River Nile
And each pottery keepsake is a husk of a land long ago defiled
But the hunters that talismans comfort shadowed into a grave crypt
They marooned a contact with pedigree to become flimsy with vogue equipped
So they lament on an August morning, lugubrious in toil and minatory in warning
The darkest nights yet seen by sirs yet sheen rollicking in mourning
We skedaddle the limited spectrum of shallow rust becoming hard work’s dross
Draining the swamp of career politicians that prefer the aroma of cod over the swagger of skunks with high sunk costs
Filch me a new coast Bill the Butcher and secure my passage for bonanzas of wealth
A fool’s card is now the traipsed parliament of one world stealth
Among the aristocracy an impediment to change locks all race in internecine game
Racecar palindromes offered as sacrifice to winsome but momentary glares aglow with disdain
Neuter the profligate, neutralize the builder’s set, stain the chastity of the Marmoset
Suddenly the zero-sum game adds up to twenty
With every dime and dozen going to infinity beyond debt with prosperity aplenty
As the laggards play dominoes on quaint tables frittering at the surface
Foment the disregarded rage and wrangled page into a classic Ace of Base
But who really is Walter White?
Does he live in camouflaged tents next to trees daring an alien but mutual fright?
Is he the kind of Wizard that never had consanguinity with alarmist rite and expeditious lies that aleatory fate is somehow too proximal to become in lambent sight?
Questions answer themselves over time with droned litanies of every conceivable tome
Forgotten in an ash heap in Alexandria more so than Rome
Supersonic flight that hedges prizes qualified kites
Encyclopedias of knowledge won’t even decode ghastly ghoulish capes of an off-color might
Now we simper at the glowering ignorance of menial men
Swimming with sharks and synchronized with the obnoxious hen
They won’t learn nearly as much from the Sun as warmth as they would the Moon for guidance
They won’t plaster Paris with the vandalism as counseling for pilfered tridents
So maybe the Anglophones have a menagerie yet seen
Maybe the game was introduced so early the royalty knows explicitly of beatific beams.
All is lost can never be forgiven in the land before time
In the land before precise minutes, seconds and momentary fragrance of threadbare design
So horology is horrific, when the jaws of the aliens in time thresh galloping headless horsemen Revered in this part of town
The imperial switchboard was stocked to the brim
The counterbalance of a Washington winter was equally grim
Embittered by the bellicose autonomy of fledgling families with endless land but limited prosperity
The dragooned riposte resounded among church bells with alarmism in sincerity
But the attrition of winter and the conditions of every primordial printer
Staged the coup that led to the walloped whimper
As the world shrank and wealth enlarged
As the shark tank of time plowed through shares like an ice threshing barge
We found that history is the caretaker of fringe reason becoming indomitable arbitrage
And for ever space that exists from now to the beginning of time there has always been space that begins with a luxurious spa and thereafter credit charged.

someone once asked me what
love is like and my breath
ripped against my throat and
it took me three and one fourth seconds
too long to construct some
well-thought answer, and i
said the one syllable i could
manage would fill in the lost
puzzle piece for the question:

fire

and god, love is a fire
which singes the insides of your
unromanticized stomach and it
lilts and dances and flares in
orange-yellows and red-blues
and somehow the self-intoxication
of the high from the burning
feels so right. at some point,

the flames begin to engrave
acidic holes in your skin, circular
cigarette burns in your lungs,
lick the linings of your throat
with its fire and it hurts so bad
you throw the cure on top of it:
water, and the forest fire dies
with you. and at
some point you light up
another match, let the flames
erupt again. but

for now, there's only
ash and dust and exhausted
eyes and bones with singes
in the cracks and puddles from
quenched flames and
i'd wonder why the fire stopped
burning

except i'm glad it did.

Intangible computer guy

The one you trick yourself into feeling closest to,

When in reality he is the farthest away.

Hell, an entire ocean separates the two of you.

But none the less,

He has gained importance.

Your life has become so lack luster

That more and more you find anticipation rising

As you near your PC.

It practically singes your fingertips

As you reach for the keyboard

And paw at the mouse.

Your body is

Taken over by an infestation of cyber butterflies;

Flapping their steel bolted wings

So hard,

That they thin your breath in anticipation of his next paragraph

Of small talk words;

Adorned with innocent courtesies

And make-shift smiley faces of semi-colons and parentheses.


Perhaps you’re eager because of the complement he threw in near the end of his last message?

As you scroll slowly down the page,

You see that he has not replied

Even though it has been two days.

In that instant

you realize that “intangible computer guy”

Is only so intangible to you;

For on the other side of the Atlantic,

He lives a life that is real.

Maybe it is you who is intangible?

Your shell of a life has been a bit depressing as of late.

For you,

A 20 year old

Who should be having flings and going to parties,

Has only been kissed once and never been touched;

Stuck living a life not your own.

Maybe “intangible computer guy” is so real

That your pathetic life can’t fathom the fact that he has one too.

You realize this as the mild depression

That has been like an infestation of maggots,

Gnaws at your senses;

Causing your eyes to burn, redden and cry.

Yes.

You realize that with Mr. Computer Guy

You get the chance to be charming

And talk about yourself,

When in reality you can barely get a word in edgewise;

Too busy living for others

That you,

In a sense,

Have begun to fade.

Becoming almost…

Intangible.

Shes been French kissing death
I can smell it on the scent of her breath
It singes my eyelashes
Each time I take a breath
I feel like I'm flirting with death
Kissing death stained her teeth
Turned them brown
Rotten her breath
Killing me
When she smiles I can she hairs
From whatever animal crawled up there and died
Does she know whenever she inhales
The riptide of chemicals that shouldn't be
Is the cause of her putrid breath  
Even when I she's gone away
It lingers
And stays
Polluting the airwaves

Her mind is as loud as a whistle blow
I can see it in her smirk
As we talk over dinner

I hear her silent sarcasm
I’m not psychic
But her wheels turn quickly enough
That I know to be ready to dive into the dirt
And out of her path

I hear her train comin’
See the coals burn in her eyes
The way her eyelashes flicker flakes of cinder away

I feel one fall on my arm
It singes my arm hair
It smells like the square-root of burning bodies to an over exaggerator

This feels like

People who have prayed in silence
And caught fire
Because they were begging for the answers
Before the bomb went off

They are souls who have been told
Praying is a waste of time
Wondering is a waste of time
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them

Sometimes you’re lied to

Souls who have to learn to accept
The helpless agenda of living

Whatever happens was supposed to happen
If it wasn’t
We wouldn’t be here

Ready for the fire
Ready for the whistle blow
Ready for the hog-tie train track love she has to offer

I ask
Do you still love me?

She picks up her glass of wine
Sips it
Leaves a stain of lipstick on the rim

She says
I do

She says
I do

The vibrations of dreaded expectations shake the sleep off before it can even hold me
Your cigarettes have burned holes in me and your bottles have shattered in my eyes, leaving my blind and screaming
but for you I swallow those screams and wipe the blood off my scared face
I will say the red that stains my hands is from digging into my chest and that look on my face is born from the realization that my heart dying and red in front your eyes is better than the sight of singed arms

i am far too flammable to be playing with matches like this but i like the way your hands burn and i like the singes on my dress, my hair, my skin and i know i shouldn’t but burning feels more alive than freezing and my body has been shaking from the cold for months now and even if this hurts just as much it’s so nice to just feel something, something different, something at all. cold eats you from the inside out, the ice spreading from your stomach to your throat before it appears on your lips and cold feels like nothing. you lose the sensation of touch and you lose your breath and it happens so slowly you don’t realize it at first. this is what my life has been like: slowly freezing me solid, deep freeze through to my heart, until my flesh can’t remember what it’s like to be flushed and warm and alive. fire is different; the flames dance on your skin and scorch you before your nerves register the feeling, before you realize the danger, and this is what you feel like. i want to commit small acts of arson with you and i want us to burn down the house i grew up in and we can kiss with the flames reflected in our eyes. you are my original sin, you are my Morningstar turned lucifer, you are mine.

Push away, push away,
I'm just residue of cosmic rays.
Aurora leaks through magnetic cracks,
riding backs of solar winds.
Poke holes in the cellophane,
**** in the sunny dust;
universe can fill me up
but it's never quite enough.
My skin is bored and leaves me,
my insides throb without their shell
my mind's a traitor and defeats me
dressed like a heart, grey matter swells.

Plasma swimming, again
aimless, still seeking; charging
pent-up venom, radiation
singes the surface as my fingers explore.
If I can't feel your magnetic field
pressed against me, like the moon
I will bury pieces below your surface,
little pockets of cancer,
warm and unflinching.
Then I'm gone again,
gone to lay dormant
in the interplanetary medium:
undulating electricity,
sparks of stars to cauterize me to you.

Because of you, everything I touch,
Bleeds and turns to dust
I want to **** you first,
Because a broken blade singes, feels good with a ******

Against my wrist.

Your German tongue, I can't bare
Not a single word without a snare
Your Aryan sly,
Your black gutted soul.

Go away, I say
Go away,

You come as swiftly as you stay,
You bruited, withered man
I tried to burry you in the sand
With the Pacific ocean, we found sacred

Ah, to crush your brittle skull with my fair hands

The empty vessel that lies,
My brother's fears, my mother's tears
My sister's sorrow
Her disposition that fallows

Go away, I say
Go away, you shadow of a man

Your skin is already cankered
Your hair thin and gray
Spitting tobacco out the window
Passing by your old church


Your God you hold so sacred,
Hates what he sees naked.
How ironic,
As you fill your stomach, with gin and tonics


Your only son,  drenched in your malice
His confused identity, at your callus
Your worst fear, your biggest secret
I see what you left behind, in his tender cries

Your drunk is merely a symptom.

My mother's wisdom
Trying to gather strength to circulate the essence
Of her household kingdom,
Yet, destroyed at the presence

You left her, pavement scratched.

Busted blood vessels, continuous contusions
Led to the comfort of capsules
Trying to mend the thrash
Laying in front of her children on the hard, wooden floors

You demon of destruction
With death in your demise,

How your lover's family feels
As you dragged her heals
Into her watery grave
For you, it's not a worry; you think your God will save

Now it is time.
Take your pride,
The evil you hide.
As your golden ticket to hell

Alas, you’re dead
No fragmented memories shrouding my brain
No more drugs, no more pain
FREE, of the demented ways

I am the murderer now

stomachs churn, insides
twist, anxiety bites
chunks from the swollen
brain. silver glints in the
corner of the eye, quivering
hand snatches metal
weapon, slicesliceslice.
feels warmth ooze from
wounds, thigh catches
fire, singes part of any
remaining self-control when
roses fall from
perfect blood lines.

Find yourself a cliff to swan-dive off of. Somewhere picturesque like the coast of Maine or Ireland. Look down at the water, so much like terrified horses, one hundred feet below where you stand. Feel the wind as it pulls your hair, throws it into your soft, blue eyes. Stormy. Night time. On the edge of this cliff you've made for yourself, with a Surgeon General's warning printed in ten-foot tall letters, black like death, and thus, ignored. Isn't erosion a beautiful thing? The waves eat at the letters of the government-mandated label, warning against use by pregnant women or while driving. The wind blows over the limit of 0.08. Find your cliff and jump, arms outstretched, reaching for the sky that is the sea because you are upside down, with perfect posture. Find your cliff and hurl yourself from it like a rag doll. You never have been able to dive well. Pell mell, racing for the knife's edge where the open-space free-fall consumes everything, each memory and prized, forgotten possessions, and photographs of cats that you chereished, then lost. Yes, find your cliff and jump if you want.
My tongue can only say so much, and my teeth are utterly useless. My fingers can not hold this hand any longer, and it is time for you to jump or not. Wait, what am I saying? You have jumped, and I am just now catching up to the reality, looking over the edge of your cliff, the taste of last night's beer festering in my mouth like the corpse of the awful evening. I am speaking to a dead woman, as she lives those last sceonds before the frightened horses devour her. White stallions, angry and scared. Angry and scared, just like you. Or me for that matter. I am yelling to deaf ears. Over the roar of the ocean, you would not hear me anyway.
My only hope lies within iron skin and bitter determination that I drink like raspberry *****, in the bathroom, taking shots like it's the only thing that can save me. Determination that singes the tongue and releases flames in the stomach. Pure resiliance and dumb luck, for I have seen the depths of that ocean, and know just what monsters dwell there. They have heads like vultures and the teeth of hyenas. They are called monkeys, because they cling to your back as you sink down into the black, where the floor of the ocean is not a floor at all, but a giant mouth full of razors, fire, and sweet oblivion. I felt the fire once, and fought these "monkeys" all the way to the surface, being birthed out of the water with my hair knotted and my eyes filled with horror, stubble on my chin. I have seen the waters you are heading for, but you can still grow wings. There's always that. The "monkeys" are leaping from the water like great whales of despair, or the flying fish in that old Mario game. Biting at the open air only feet below you now, but you can not see them, becuase even though you are falling, you still believe that you are running, and you can't stop looking over your shoulder to try and see the thing that chases you. Your eyes see nothing though. I stand atop the cliff, watching you fall through the rain, writing this poem in blood over the ******* warning label, and you can not see me. You imagined your persuer and now see him everywhere except the only place he really lives, inside your mirror.
It is with a tear and a final drop of blood that I turn from the cliff, and arrest your motion in my mind, taking a photograph just before you passed out of sight, so I can remember what you looked like before breaking the water's already unstable surface. I hear the jaws of "monkeys" snap, but I saw nothing, so nothing happened. Denial. I walk away as the tear falls from my chin where it has rolled down to, mixing with the blood of the poem, which has extended beyond the warning label all the way to where I stand now. I close my eyes for one, long moment, remembering what I knew and what I thought I knew, and what I now know that I did not know.I take one step. Another. Another. I am running from the scene of this death like it was my fault. But really I am simply scared.
If you can swim, swim for your life, friend. I can do nothing more, only be here when and if you make it out from under the surface alive.
I'll be sitting on this rock, under the lightning struck tree trunk that is split open in the middle, branching out in the most unnatural fashion. It looks like electricity itself. I will be sitting on this rock, chain-smoking, lighting the tip of one with the **** of the last, watching the edge of your personal cliff, waiting.
All I can say now is, "Good luck."

If I could express
In the most eloquent way
The need I suppress
To hate you every day

The Simple Alignment
Of pen on paper
A simple consignment
Of words to vapour

My god, the darkness that broils behind this grin
The dark resentment, every present within

But I digress
I smile and whittle away
Accepting the stress
That comes with every day
No matter the anger
That singes me like a lit cigar
No matter the danger
Of that burning to my heart

I smile, grin and bear it so to say
Till one day I snap, and throw it all away
Toss it to the wind, that cold bitter grey
Till its whipping envelops me
Its pressure that of an endless sea
Until the earth connects, and I cease to be
God have mercy, set me free

It's 11:30 PM,
and the steaming hot water
singes my back
as I talk myself out of
throwing my half consumed
bottle of beer
against the
shower wall.
My stomach feels hollow,
my throat feels clogged,
repressed screams,
traveling
from
my
insides
up.

Anger is an emotion
I rarely feel,
but as the hauntingly true song lyrics
blared out of my laptop and
reverberated against the glass door,
I was barely able to contain
the wrath,
tears of vexation slipping down
my cheeks,
dropping to my chin as I
heaved in
a sharp breath.

I'm tired.
Tired of giving.
Tired of waiting.
Tired of having faith.
Tired of loving.
Tired of losing myself.

Are we supposed to give
and never take?
Wait and keep faith?
Love without feeling
loved back?
Let our dreams, needs,
hopes, wishes...
let our souls go off track?

Empathy is my middle name,
but when will someone empathize with
me?
When will I get
what I want;
be provided with
what I need?
When will the love I relinquish
rebound back to me?

I want give and take;
I want reassurance and faith;
the mate to my soul,
the 50 to my 50;

I want you,
your heart,
your faith,
your soul,
your empathy;

I want you
like you have me.

Tomorrow is a sliver of custom
and today is just tradition seating the young for fairy tales written in Sanskrit.

she sees through the veil, only because the water split by divine intention,
and confusion is left beached and butchered in a slab of brain meat way up there--
trapped in the solstice of carrion baggage and the summer months of mind.

I wonder if she'll forget me
as the morning singes the corners of the earth and crumples whatever idea I had of nothing
and nothing and nothing and nothing

reminds her, exist only in detail, in prose:
so roses are red, violets are blue,
eruptions occur, and the water sees you

the water sees you.

this throbbing in my chest,
it engulfs me.
the delirious assumption of neglect,
that putrid feeling of self pity,
how disgusting.
bone grinds bone in my mouth,
my jaw aches with hatred
until my vision blurs over
with hope of ignorance.
a pathetic waste of life.
i breathe deep but,
it doesnt satiate my thirst,
for that fresh breath of promise.
there is only one end,
to that crippling pain that
crackles through my brain,
like spiderwebs of battered glass.
the sharp horrid sensation
of imploding from the depths of my entrails.
another breath wasted.
a pulsation so strong,
my fingers twitch with the
onrushing river of blood that courses
through me like toxic waste.

oh,
to live again.

the warm salty fluid of loneliness,
rests on my lip before flavoring
my tongue with disdain.
it burns.
what was my purpose?
what do you all want from me?
cheeks flush pink with oncoming denial.
i dont care! i dont care!
my ribcage convulses.
dont think.
...stop it!
a warm rotten gasp escapes
my chafed lips.
i swallow hard.
the need to forget.
i tease my trembling wrist,
with the cold steel of promise.
it's clever charisma creates
a tingling sensation of power
that jolts my nerves.
alarmed hairs stand on edge.
my heart skips a beat with excitement.

oh,
to live again.

i drag the point down my inner arm,
snagging skin as the tip skitters about.
please. forgive me.
i slice down without hesitation.
my eyes swell with shimmers of relief.
blood spills over.
a warm crimson rush of despair
dribbles onto my lap.
my thighs are speckled with the
greatest high of relief.
i laugh at the
bubbling layer of fat that
wiggles from its crater,
like maggots gluttonously feeding
from a rotted carcass left
to shrivel in the heat.
my bottom lip splits with a smile.

oh,
to live again.

a slowing heartbeat.
my shoulders relax.
i inhale sharply.
it singes my lungs with a
wildfire of threat,
but i care not.
awww sweet dopamine.
the sanguine pool clots
around my feet.
i clench my toes in the mess
with childlike hysteria,
sand at the beach,
such polluted thoughts.
feeling faint,
a mind now at complete peace.
my head takes a bow between my knees.
the tips of my hair tickle the last
bit of trouble i've created for you.
the room fogs over.
such a soothing shade of white.
im weightless and floating,
angelic.
i close my weary eyelids.
time no longer to be wasted.
i meant no harm.
the end is inevitable.
useless body of baggage.
woe is me.
exhale.

oh,

to live again.

The million dollar war, and a penniless soul
Become entrapped in an ephemeral state.
Reality is not his father’s cold brewery,
Reality is the burning, fermented sweat
Which singes his eyes.  “Salute” rang
The officer, as the crowd looked on.
Georg fell in line to salute his soul away
To a reality of misconstrued differences.
A moment of bombastic glory rang out in his ears,
As he began to carry what his father had bestowed on him.
He didn’t realize, or did not conceive,
The sound of the months following.
The bombs of the months following did not ring.
The bombs were quiet—
A silent brigade of destruction.

Skin hot to the touch paired with your fiery temper always singes those around. Like a fire you can only blaze higher.

Aloof and cold you never express the workings of your mind. Preferring to freeze me out and give the cold shoulder until I'm begging to be burned by your touch again.

Your so mixed up being hot and cold at the same time. The warmth of your body excites me the frosty voice deters me. Its like winter in summer dealing with you.

I never understood how you can be so warm and cold at the same time and like a fool I get burned over and over again.

Even if you soothe the burn I'll freeze and shatter sooner than later.

Your so hot and cold, a real paradox you know? If only you knew how confusing you really are.