i told my therapist about you,
while your lips were still slathered alllll over my body.
i showed her the places we had been,
and all the things we had seen.
i told her what lies underneath that pretty
                                              pretty
skin of yours,
and i told her how i knew.
i spelt out your name as she scribbled it on her cute little clipboard,
i told her about the   first     night
and the      second
and the   fourth
and that time in the closet.
i told her everything,
i really just wanted to   get
                                                  you
                                      out  
of my brain,
it didn't matter if saying these things put me in  sososo  much pain.
because you've  moved   on  so why can't i?
i told my therapist about you,
but i still can't tell you
                                           goodbye.  
i know i'm  s t u p i d,
for holding on this l
                               o
                                n
                             ­    g,
i know it's useless,
for wishing you weren't                              gone.
but my words carry on like a heartbeat
s     l      o      w
steady
                          fast
u   s   e   d
  n    t   a   y
i   keep   keep   keep  breaking and breaking and breaking and
i told my therapist about you.

Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.

Paints of dark twilight hues,
Slathered across in blunt strokes.
Blend with deft hands,
Cajole gently with jabs and pokes.

Backdrop begging for a few others.
Longing to hold in infinite embrace.
Friends of earth and midnight sky.
Worthy of a doe-eyed lovers' gaze.

Cascading moonbeam...
Drenching all in silvery white.
Restless twinkling stars...
Singing their mismatched might.

Silhouetted landscape as horizon,
Darkened oils of plateaued ridges.
Finest brush could only manage,
To close the gap, I build bridges.

Nearing completion, this stint on canvas.
Nuances of dawn for what I've begun,
Usher the arrival of a brand new day.
All I need now is a few drops of sun.

The ocean,
oh it looked so blue,
shades of colour swimming around like clouds around the moon,

The water,
oh it looked so clean,
but it was just the sun's reflection making it clear,

Underneath the waves lay a graveyard,
a promise of death,
a promise of extinction,

Tombs made of plastic,
slathered in oil,
steaming with toxic waste,
and all the people know,

The damage is unfolding faster than we are evolving,

The turtles are ingesting plastic as if it were their only meal,
begging for their fins to just be free,
so they can dive through the sea,

The seals are tangled in nets, lines and lures,
plastic bags and packing bands,
till they're tied to their grave as if life were just a brief phase,

The seabirds skim the ocean waves for fish and squid,
yet plastic is their only catch of the day,
leaving them broken inside and out,
and dead on the beaches we claim are our own,

The whales are submerged beneath the sea,
eating most things that they see,
plastic, plastic everywhere beneath,
not giving them much time before they can no longer breathe,

The dolphins are gliding through the sea,
taking what they can to eat,
plastic as their only meal,
tearing them apart from within,
leaving them starving for weeks,
till the grave is the only thing they see,

Us humans are so weak,
we can’t see how deep the pain seeps,
but when nothing is left for us to eat,
and the rich have nothing left to steal,
we’ll end in the same graves as all the lives we could have healed.

It smells like first love
Says the perfume bottle
Smells like true love
Says the bath bomb

What does first love smell like?
First love smells like rain
The heavy scent of the air
Before a thunderstorm

True love smells like cookies
Baking in the background
And a rich *** of coffee
Brewing from fresh beans

And of cinnamon in hot chocolate
And lavender, like my lotion
And spice, like his deodorant

First love smells lightly of sweat
Because you're nervous
True love smells like tears
Because it's never a dry-eyed affair

It smells like the flowers
Of the wedding bouquet
And the crimson and white
Christmas flower display

First love smells like body spray
Slathered on to hide the sweat
True love smells natural
Bad breath in the morning
And yet fine
Because it's theirs.

First love turns to sweet summers' air
Vanished with August's last week
True love kisses the scents
Both foul and fair
That break upon my cheek.

Father checks if I'm sleeping; I wake up, and see
little tinctures of nothing night-sky poetic, I see
blandness slathered in a huge speck. Where was
that spirit and excitement and everything that life offered
not too long ago? Who wakes up to do their homework
at midnight?

The pizza took her place in bed. It slathered itself all over her.
The pizza objectified my body.
It slid between her *******, leaving traces of red sauce and strands of hot, almost liquid cheese in the nook of her cleavage.

It slowly dripped off of her ******* as she spread its residue across her *****.
From there, the succulent, almost watery juices rolled off of her teet and onto her folded legs as she knelt there in the store window.
Everyone could see her.
But as long as those who were most enthralled came inside to purchase a pie or two, no one seemed to care.

Every day the sun stretched over the songbird’s ivory tower.
Nighttime ivy ringlets caught and pulled, like taffy,
sunshine tendrils into rocky satellite white.
She swung sunbeams into starlight
And I thought it'd drone on forever.
//
Every dawn the sun stretched over the songbird’s ivory tower.
Nighttime ivy ringlets caught sunshine tendrils,
pulled them into rocky satellite white, like taffy.
She swung sunbeams into starlight,
And I thought it'd drone on forever until

I realized that sprinkled sugar cookies made hands numb flammable,
that you can't feel them again until they leave the powder blue locker room,
until they're in the car, worried they might melt the steering wheel, when they’re left to figure out why.

Now streetlights gassed with Canadian lypophrenia
make snowflakes float like stardust,
while splintered lilac fingertips trace meaningless constellations,
as they ponder whether daisies can tell
if someone loves you,
                                       or not.

With firefly breath, I wished on dandelion dust
for December's cruel weather to warm,
so we could sleep forever on the concrete floor
and it'd feel like Pennsylvania moss and twigged leaves.
We’d swing dance in the sidewalk cracks
drowning in footsteps and manhole steam.
Saturn would bloom to petal dust in your wake
and you would never feel small.

And I thought cocoa butter was our solace,
that you'd be drenched in chocolate wishes
that turn ribboned skin to soft smile scars.
The Earth would lay enveloped and confessed-
a dripping orb of love and light thrown against
the burning oblivion of the universe.
I pull in the horizon like a great fish net
So much life in its meshes!
I call in your soul to come and see.

With the spring equinox, four-leaf clovers withered and died,
still-lit birthday candles melted into oceans
and heads-up pennies piled into roadway castles,
unwanted, unneeded by someone who forgot who she was.
I thought, for a moment, that I'd been wrong.

Within that rim of rose, there is ungravity and life on Mars.
But this world is a rememory of drought and oil spills,
drowning you in a warm, sweet, malignant blanket
of braided brown hair and tokyo tickets.
To you, my whispering lips screamed for palmers-
for 13 ounces of memories that were never mine,
and still, you slathered it on.

Our streetlights set and the sun flickered out,
the pennies I never reached for, someone else had picked up,
and the clovers I ignored, I now ached for with all my heart.
Eyes streaming, I reached for a shooting star,
but the night does end, dawn always rises,
and my precious last chance melted in my desperate hands

because i fall in love with everyone
and my lips are never chapped
  so now i eat cinnamon toast
   and I paint the sun
    with blackberry juice

In apple-killing cold, stars fade in the amber glow of tiger's eyes,
gray clouds are still bursting with starlight,
willow trees will forever weep diamonds,
and daylilies still steal away sleep.

I am the shy man
you see at 6 AM in Starbucks
umbrella cocked under my left arm like a guidon,
formless and murky as the latte in my cup,
neufchatel slathered on the bageled
cusp of a new day, one bus token removed
from yesterday's office, aspiring
toward tomorrow's and the next day's sunrise,
convinced of nothing printed
in splashy headlines of USA Today.

I am the strong man
who smiles at the concept
of growing *******, watching women
surrender their eggs, take on new testicles.
I would eagerly belly
your child, assume your burden,
let you envelope me with velvet
***, dream submissive destiny
in the absence of Bodhisattva's caress,
if delicious debauchery empowers you.

I am a Boy Toy on the half-shell,
a nascent embryo filled with dread
of wombs which recently had bound me.
You offer deliverance. I am seed
in your fertile loam-brown soil.
I germinate sinking roots in your mind,
fully conscious I will flower,
a stubborn hybrid planted for your pleasure.
I am a pilgrim without a rock,
the twilight sky beneath your periwinkled heavens.

Such solidarity we created
On the hilltop with the cows

Discussing sassafras,
Our Chakras,
Summer-berry wine.

Per aspera ad astra
But without inhaling tar
We have come.

The cornbread with anise and wheat berries
Cruncy and sweet
Slathered with strawberry jam
Was such a luxurious meal
For us two tired wanderers.

We're left over from the '60s
Living in the past but in the moment
Listening to Mama Tried (well, she did!)
And crying over Wharf Rat
We model turtles, Celtic knots, a moose
Dream of yesterday and tomorrow
Say what we mean
Take a misguided turn driving home
And our minds meander to slumber and internal illusions.

Adamant, nocturnal dalliance
Egregious, insidious, velvet ambiance

An unyielding, dark but brief love affair
The flagrant, seductive and comely au pair

The Eclectic, unmatched, Androgynous Circus
Red devils, black sheep and felines in service

Contortionists, gypsies, and malevolent magicians
All twisting to a dance played by faceless musicians

A night in Tunisia or a place above the Siene
Where else but all in the shadows of dreams?

Enchanted, redolent wonder of festive illumination    
Her eyes absorbed, glimmering in the lush captivation

Enveloping, engulfing silk around our bodies
Days, nights measured by tragic commodities

Arpeggios, rippling across glistening string inventions
Bowing cellos; cellists bowing with audience permission

Masks, costumes, carnivals and the golden mirror
Cerulean dripping limbs that slither while near her

The alabaster piano played by a three-armed puppet
The statues turn and welcome us for a crumpet

Maria Callus sings Ave Maria backwards then stops
The statues and demons laugh while playing with props

“This requiem for the living, begins with a kiss”
The statues said in a tone of voice I could not resist.

“Our overture shall be a ******, a nail in the coffin; a death.
All while you swallow the nectar on your lover’s last breath.”


Needles protruded my head
And I watched as my love was torn
Limb from limb
While the jackals and ballroom guests
Fornicated on the spilled blood and guts
I cried and they cheered as the lights dimmed
For All I could see was the sight of them leave
Into the darkness.
But the noises were as loud as ever as hands
And digits groped my body.
Moaning voices and rhythmic thrusting
And tongues in my ear
And teeth gnawing on my neck
Pain felt, endured, experienced
Then
I was released into the middle of the scarlet draped room
When the phlegm of ****** fluids whipped into a dried crust

A sharp edge stabbed me in the back of the neck
Running along my back, through my spine, down my skin and ending in my ******.
Mechanical hands ripped apart my skin  
I slid out of my flesh like a serpentine ******.
I stood there
shaking from the excruciating, unfathomable pain
the grid and design of my muscular system bare and seen.  

From the pieces of my departed lover,
the master with the many mechanical hands
slathered the slips
and sleeves of her skin onto my own.

Needles and thread went to work.
The puppet master sewed.
The healing plasma
the drying blood
the encapsulating tears lubricated my whole

Once he was finished, I was dunked into a pool of clear gelatin.

For hours I soaked and became whole again.
Then I rose and I was dressed
the finest garments, from across the globe.
I sat once again at the table where the statues invited me.
The musicians, the magicians, the demons, gypsies, masks and serpents
Watched and gleamed
while I sipped my tea

I out spread my fingers.

Layers of skin and stitches

No more hair.
No more nails.
Not just a regular face
but one all shall remember.

I was born as one

Then made from many

In the imminence of zealous devils in my wake
Of the attrition I have forsake

Now as the curtain rose and the spider-silk strings hoisted me up on stage
The master showcased my story to all whoever wished to engage

“Adamant, nocturnal dalliance
Egregious, insidious, velvet ambiance

An unyielding, dark but brief love affair
The flagrant, seductive and comely au pair

The Eclectic, unmatched, Androgynous Circus
Red devils, black sheep and felines in service

I am Vincent Andromeda
Your Strangelove phenomena.”

i. descend

i've lost weight since we last met
we fit differently from before-
bird-thin, the both of us-
but this hollow in your feathered chest is
still where i feel most at home-
your jade eyes
a nest, to cultivate my happiness

i've been betrothed to the birds
you stayed back, earthbound
i fell, a cataract, from the red cliffs
you watched me sink, earthbound
i was ripped to shreds in the tundra
freezing and thirsty
and you listened instead to the flowers,
drowning me out as i whispered for help

they told you sunlight stories
when i was trapped in dusk
i was an inch from the edge of night
and you fled
so as to not be consumed.

ii. unpend

i know what i told myself-
i said i shed my mourning veil-
but i still weep for the morning lark,
your lightening song
haunting my brittle nightingale

i write you letters every night
with a fountain pen slathered in red ink
saying what i never could,
spilling my regret on the page

(wake up with ****** hands)

i should have known
you were no one to trust
you're just a fledgling

we're all so naïve.

iii. the end

i take flight, for brave is the man
who would leap from the bluff
to prove his worth;
for i can take action now-
i can say this now,
where before i sat on the sidelines

i will not wilt
in your arms
just for a moment
i will hold you tight
my prisoner

thank you for keeping me alive
i don't need that anymore
thank you for staying by my side
when i had eyes set to ****

thank you for helping me to ascertain
that i’m no phoenix
thank you for participating in
my stupid guessing games

you were the match
to ignite my nicotine habits
but now i'm the one who's
decided to spark and fade

green-eyes,
i've made a decision
and this time i'll stick with it-
featherlight now,
i will make my escape

Nine years later
I still feel everything.
Potent ****** reaction.
Guilt has caused
Riverbed cheeks.

This single image
That I've kept buried
In an attempt to leave behind
Is seared into my mind.

It plays out:
My mother is there;
up against the wall.
Pig-tailed braids
And slender in overalls.

Cowering
In hyperventilation
And sobs
Looking so child-like,
Cornered
By 3 betrayals in human form.

Voices raised in accusation
Ripping into her
In my bedroom.

Feeling ill and lost
I lie face down on the bed,
Covering my ears,
Screaming.

Blocking out
The family fight
Chaotic and ferocious,
Like worlds end
Crumbling my foundation

Only feet away
Words like daggers
Slathered in anger,
Hate, and distrust.

I couldn't handle
Seeing my mom like that;
Bullied, scared,
And broken down.

Hated and attacked
By a husband
Who vowed to love and protect her;
By a son-in-law
Who was meant to respect her;
By my sister
Who was first-born to her.

All because a misunderstanding,
A rumor,
A lie.

And I,
Too young to understand
What this meant,
But who knew the truth,
Didn't come to her rescue.

And now she
Is outcasted and alone
And I
Can't wash myself
Of this searing recollection.

21 years old
I still find myself
Lying face down,
Covering my ears,
Screaming.

****** girl, nice woman
***** boy tough guy.
slathered butter toast of rye
i swear that i may die tonight.

I spent Thanksgiving
this year
not in the blue-collar comfort
of my aunt’s house,
nestled somewhere
within a well-buried suburb
of a quaint, but un-noteworthy neighborhood
with walls decorated with Budweiser signs
juxtaposed against portraits of the ****** Mary,
where a football announcer’s voice plays like
conservative talk radio
in the background.

Instead, to save the labor
of my weary immigrant grandmother,
we dressed in Sunday best
and drove ourselves in
three well-packed mini vans
to some elegant hotel restaurant,
ideal for people-watching
from the gaudy, art-deco staircase
while pretending to be in the Great Gatsby.

It didn’t feel natural, though,
that beside a modest turkey breast
with cranberry dressing, sat a beautiful
cut of prime rib, carefully ladled
with truffle au juis–
nor beside a humble dollop
of mashed potatoes and gravy,
should there be salmon to die for,
and berries slathered with brie.

The food I nibbled
with bites of nervous guilt,
as the impeccably dressed waiter
exhaustedly refilled our water glasses,
nodding his head reflexively
to my mouse squeaks of “thank you’s”

What monsters are we,
letting these people work on Thanksgiving Day?
Grandma said, calmly, that some people
are just happy to be paid,
recounting
her impoverished childhood
in war-torn Germany—
that to simply muffle
the aggressive rumbling
of a days-empty stomach,
she and her brother
would ****** a handful of
potatoes from a government farm,
not many, but just enough
as she grimaced
at the ever-so-slight mealiness
of her rosemary-infused pork chop—
the woman who couldn’t afford ham
until she became a citizen.

We nodded quietly and
swallowed our privileged guilt,
washed down with
politely cut bites
of perfectly cooked salmon.

From what glorious kingdom
Will my armored warrior hail
That for my small hand
On slathered horse
Journey roads of heaven and hell

Riding stone covered ground
Of long black waiting shadows
To return to my lost soul
Stolen waiting tomorrows

On the quest to my heart
Slay the crimson dragon pain
His jeweled reward but one
Eternal love to gain

Written when my thoughts are not tainted with Poe
This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby  Dec. 29, 2013

Tingly under the daisies;
   Glassy-eyed, glazed, greasy;
   Shaking, shivering, shuddering,
   Wishing, wandering, whimpering,
   Westernizing—
   Romanizing—
   Constitutionalizing—
   Institutionalizing—
   Perpetually searching
   And dying
   And living,
   Watching Death survive
   And scythe the frolickers,
   The prancers,
   The rompers,
   The merrymakers.
   A rose clamped between his
   Grinning teeth glistens brightly,
   And he dances so joyously.
   “Yes!” say the naysayers,
   Confused are the soothsayers,
   Lost are the cartographers.
   Oh, Utopia!
   The monks are extravagant;
   The meditations are a farce!
   The preachers are beggars
   And swindlers and chargers,
   And Machiavelli fulfills his wishes!
   Babies are stillborn, stabbed, and
   Ritualistically sacrificed,
   And their blood is spilled, drunk,
   Slathered over the ***** man.
   The evangelists scream and lie:
   “You are all predestined to die!”
   Oh, hail Utopia!
   Wedded are the girls to the girls;
   Wedded are the boys to the boys;
   Wedded is Death to Death,
   Life to Life,
   And Life to Death.
   Wedded are the living to the existent.
   And the milking babes are slaughtered
   Ceremoniously,
   Surreptitiously,
   Ostentatiously.
   Oh, hail great Utopia!
   We are all dead and unintelligent:
   Laugh, laugh, Einstein, at your
   Stupidity.
   Laugh, laugh, Temple Grandin at
   Your retardation.
   Laugh, laugh, laugh!
   Look at the sluggard, thou ant;
   Look at the boy, sobbing wolf;
   Aesop was drunk,
   Aristotle was delusional,
   Michelangelo was blind,
   Beethoven could hear,
   Poe was sane.
   And I can't read.
   They ramble,
   I watch.
   They sleep,
   I watch.
   They dream,
   I watch.
   They sleep-talk,
   I watch.
   They scream,
   I watch.
   They choke,
   I watch.
   They suffocate,
   I watch.
   Stone-faced, I stare;
   Raspingly, I breathe;
   Uncontrollably, I twitch;
   Inwardly, I rage.
   I hope you die, I hope you die.
   I hope you bleed, I hope you die.
   I want you begging and crying,
   I want you blubbering at my feet,
   I want you gnashing at my ankles,
   I want you writhing in pain,
   I want your arm twisted off,
   Cracking with the snapping sinews, I want your beating heart in my hands, I want your genitals uprooted and stuffed in your throat, I want your stomach so I can eat the still-digesting food, I want your shrunken head and I want to force my thumbs into your unblinking eyes and I want to tear your face in two and I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die.

it's not even noon, but
my thoughts are drenched with
***, bound and gagged.
you're dancing around the kitchen, clad
only in a pair of
lace ******* you paid
too much for at Victoria's
Secret liaisons by the
seaside, sand sieving through your hair:
all forms of metal-backed currency taste
like ***** on your fingertips stuffed
roughly in my mouth,
call me a ****
pretty please?
promethazine slathered over
watermelon sherbert and
soaked in Sprite; put a lid on it and
shake vigorously until well mixed.
Xanax exacerbated migraines mean
naptime for me, and I forgot to tell you
the Gatorade is spiked with *****
(or maybe tequila; I've well and truly
forgotten) and all of this
is just another means of
replacing you.
you're wrapped in an
ecru trench coat,
cinched at the waist over
concealed weaponry:
unlicensed pistol and wet coral *****
constrained by a black leather holster and
cobalt cotton.
you kissed me with
******* in your nostrils and
nosebleed on your lips;
you killed me with
contempt in your mouth and
venom on your nails.

"I don't look like Snooki, do I?" I asked her, grimacing.
"Of course not! You look hot!" She gleamed with pride. This monstrosity on my head was her doing.
My frown deepened and I stared at my red face in the mirror.
"Beileve me, he's gonna love it."
I forced a smile and asked her to go grab me my purse. As soon as she whipped around the corner, I shut the door and wiped off the eyeliner and lipstick slathered on my face. I zipped up the front of my "zip-all-the-way-down-" shirt that she had lent me, just in time for her to open the door.
She smiled at me again. She didn't notice the difference.
I grabbed my purse from her hand and slung it over my shoulder. My Mom called from the stairway
"Girls! It's time to go!"

She beamed at me again and we ran down the hallway, my left hand placed strategically placed on top of my head ****, as to keep it from sliding right off. My Mom threw us a look; we were already late. I ignored her and bounded down the stairs and out the front door.

Straight into the world of love, abandonment and heartbreak. The world that brought me here. Writing a short anecdote about it, with my hair poofed, makeup slathered, ready to go meet another "him."
I hope he likes it.

If you ask me, he lit the match that set the Moon on fire
It’s not a myth; I was there, when I had no home
And I walked in Saturn’s ring rain for so long it sloughed off my skin
I marched, trying to flatten the crater I’d made
Because I was ashamed of it
I was the last meteor to hit his heart; the loudest
But that was so long ago
The quietest revolutions are usually the most violent
If you ask him, I smelled like Genesis and Revelation from the inside
******* insatiable
I slathered honey on my cheeks and boiled my blood
so hot until my arteries turned charred black
I licked my wounds from the impact and discovered just what the hell was poisoning me

If you ask me, I didn’t know him last night and I won’t know him on the last night
But my God, he inspires me

Oh no,
he did it again,
undressed another woman,
as she begged him no,
while her head spun to a different world,
she pushed him away,
her fingernails grasped at his skin,
she whispered,
“please…. stop,”
but he didn’t listen,
not a single soul would listen.

She’s all alone,
stripped of her dignity,
her spirit pushed down the drain,
as he entered inside her,
her heart beat faster,
but her body was numb,
she couldn’t feel her arms,
or her legs,
her fingers lost all touch,
and her voice screeched with pain,
she’d never cried so much yet felt so little,
as her body stopped,
and her soul tried to escape to a better place.

But truth is it doesn’t always happen in this way,
with a firm “No” and attempt to get away.

Sometimes he’s kind and sweet,
or powerful and famous,
he’s your teacher, mentor, or friend,
the love of your life,
or a one night stand,
and you uncomfortably say “No”,
“Maybe not now”,
“I don’t feel like it”,
“Maybe you should go”.

Yes,
sometimes we scream “Please No”,
but other times we drown under the waves in our ears telling us it will end soon,
or
we fall into the sound of our body begging for forgiveness for letting another human take a part of us away.

As he touches you,
and you pull away,
after the hundredth time you’re so weak,
so violated,
caving like a prisoner pushed to the edge,
laying numb and senselessly wishing for your last breath,
as your body is fumbled,
and your heart tumbles,
your honor and morality thrown to the floor,
stomped and spit on as your words become worthless to another person's soul.

Drugged or drunk,
sober or young,
you’re futile,
as your body becomes his,
and what once belonged to you is stripped,
and slathered in pain,
then thrown aside like a bad book and never looked at the same,
but his life doesn’t change,
and all the things you used to love become a reminder of what once was.

The feeling of his hands on your hips,
imprinted on your skin like a tattoo you can’t laser off,
a lifetime of what should’ve been,
but will never be.

“What can I become when his face is all I see when I think of;
love, lust, or even my own sanity?
Where does the healing begin when my body’s just become an empty limb?
What will my friends and family think?
What can I say when the world won’t even believe the rich who’ve paid the same price of insanity for the man who took their dignity?
It took him just a few minutes for me to feel this pain everyday,
So who’s going to believe me when I say by raping me he took my life away?”

how you defined me is extinct in the wild.
i'm still not sure if you meant that i am the
last of my kind or if i was the only thing you
had left to swallow and with distaste you spit
me out like i was dish washing soap slathered
onto your tongue. even though you were right,
that i am all i will have left in the end, i still
never saw you look upon me like i was special
just because i am going extinct, one day at a time.

- kra

My mother taught me to finish all the food on my plate,
that children in Africa are starving for a taste of it -
and only disrespect leaves crumbs behind
but I never guessed I would be middle-aged at eighteen
         Never thought I’d know exactly what those kids were starving for.

I’m pushing a full plate towards her tight-lipped disgust
slathered in every last drop of stubborn society -
she will always be the epitome of gluttony
in the most frail and forgotten way,
          Always asking for more than I could ever give.

Only those will a full cupboard of snacks
stand before the cool air of refrigerators
discerning the difference between craving and needing
as the hours ticks away like racing dollar bills
I spent every last second stuffing her full with time
          But she told me that her stomach was empty

I am eighteen going on thirty-two
raising a defensive daughter I never gave birth to
and now I know what those kids in Africa starve for -
         Not just food
                    But the taste of having too much
                             Too easy
         so that they can feel hungry again.

at night, i dream of sun-drenched eggshell walls
baking in the morning like yukon gold potatoes
where we wake unbothered by the encroaching light
i’ll meet you in the kitchen to switch on the toaster oven
the coffee ***, pulling our ceramic mugs from the drying rack
carrying our books with bent covers to the balcony
where you set down thick slices of french bread slathered in butter
and a bowl of fresh, cold strawberries on a small round table
that we found at a sunday yard sale two summers ago
we take turns taking crisp bites in between sips of steaming coffee
mine with raw honey and cream, yours black
our oily thumbs staining the corners of thin ivory pages
i listen to the sound of you reading; of the world waking up
birds singing their sunrise songs; and my heart
slow, and buoyant, and irrevocably yours

Sound asleep, dead to the world. Enjoying the best sleep in a long time. Then the alarm goes off and I roll over to turn it off. The blaring sound goes away and I relapse into a peaceful slumber. On my only day off, I find rest to be bliss, but alas life is not perfect and my wife has other plans. The battle is fought once a week, with new and creative ways found to jar me from my sleep, but on this particular day I am determined to not be bothered. So through 3 alarm clocks and innumerable catcalls I snooze on. Only rolling to one side or the other to avoid the harassment that seeks to steal my peaceful sleep. Then as if by design, I begin to have the most elaborate dream. Wrapped in a sheet, I am held fast as my feet slip and slide in the mud. For a moment I feel the ooze beneath my feet. Then at a moments notice, the ooze is replaced by warm water running over my toes. I begin to giggle as the water feels as if it is filled with sand. Then to my stark surprise, I open my eyes to find my feet slathered in peanut butter and my golden retriever licking my feet to relieve me of the ooze of which I had dreamed. Thus once again my wife wins the battle, and rattles me from my slumber with a furry alarm clock and a list of things for me to do today.

I feel somehow that they have mislabelled you

Perhaps just penned you in the wrong ink...

I'm not sure

It seems when I try to describe you, the idea goes sailing away and never anchors home

Slippery one might say...

As the man crawling out from beneath the wreckage of a rolled-over vehicle, slathered face to shins, in blood and *****

And the words that had beckoned to him
Now thoroughly lost...

Nothing more then a few gruelling moments in agony before it was just a memory and a phrase that didn't quite seem to fit...

Unreal. What did that word even mean?

It felt insulting.

As though the momentary terror that had consumed your reality was nothing more then a passing storm -- No more then a ghost or a Flying Dutchman...

But could the same not be said for it all?

Is any of this really what we came here for?

The choice alone is too much for me not to waste it and I fear if I leave it for too long that the choice will inevitably make itself...

But perhaps maybe that in turn is the choice

--The freedom to be or not...

I could put it into specifics by describing your toothpaste. No matter how recently you had bought it, that sorry tube was always a mangled mess. Twisted, creased, folded plastic or whatever it was, topped with a messy, half-open, broken-hinged, ineffective cap. Slathered with the blue-and-white residue of rushed mornings and tired nights. Exhausted. Does toothpaste try? It gets the job done, sure. But you probably waste half the toothpaste by destroying the tube like that.

You were like this with many things. Exhausted, a little bit crumpled and always partially wasted. Like toothpaste, I know you were always trying, and you nearly always succeeded at whatever you were doing, you were just often left with something not finished to your own standards. Dissatisfied with your own success. As I'm sure toothpaste is when you have a fine smile but still end up needing a filling again. Toothpaste does a good job, you must understand. We are just sometimes careless, and we sometimes don't have the time we need. We all still end up needing to schedule a dentist's appointment once in awhile.

Nobody likes the dentist. They’re bound to be good people, dentists, but I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t dread the dentist’s throne. Really, we’re supposed to avoid them - the whole goal is to never have reason to see the dentist, right? But we always do. For a regular check-up at least, if we can remember to book the appointment, as much as we may want to get out of it. Something that should be so easy to get out of, had you just brushed your teeth right all the time. So toothpaste is never as effective as you want it to be. But maybe that’s what makes it so satisfying - squeezing the life out of that tube, you can feel like you have power over the inevitable. That’s what you wanted.

I sent it
At three AM
On one of those nights
Where silence gets violent
And I'm alone in my head.

I told you about the
Tiny pink pills
And how
If I took eight
I would sleep forever.
I gushed that
They were hidden
Under the toothpaste slathered
Countertop
In my bathroom.

I told you I loved you
But that
You weren't enough to stop me anymore.

I did actually consider it.
It was one of those nights.
But at some point,
As I laid on top of my comforter
And shivered under the fan,
I realized that
You weren't going to wake up
And convince me out of it.

I also thought
About how my mom was
A light sleeper.
How the floorboards would sound like
Orchestras
And the cabinet
Would be the symbals
To her.

I fell asleep
Numb,
But naturally numb,
And woke up wondering
What you would say.

You didn't say anything.

Through His mercy we have survived.
Wrath sparing
Temple and parthenon,
Synagogue covered
In moss,
Castles ****** but unbowed
For us to
Remember.

Allowed us to keep
Corners of
Eden:

A bedroom wall slathered
In picture frames,
A front porch dusted with snow—

Fragments
We tore away with

Tears clouding our eyes.

A glance
The little black figures
words
lines
of endless text
pass me by
my eyes
seeing nothing
but little
black
lines
shapes
dots
stripes
crosses
...
A stick
slathered in
nutella
chocolate, and hazelnut
the sweet
makes
me
numb
The crunch makes me
succumb
...
The sounds
pelting me
commands
inquiries,
things to do
things to hear
So
Much
Noise
Information
being blown away
in the wind
past my
unresponsive
ears
A lone
buzz takes
over
...
The sprite
gluggs down
my
esophagus
Burns
my lungs
A crinkle
from the now,
empty
bottle
...
The led
****** my fingers the
keys click clikety click as I
tap tapety tap
poke
****
the computer keys the
piano keys
ting
tingety ting
as I push
press
Smooth
that little piece of dirt I
rub rub Rub RUB
scratch SCRATCH
...
The frozen
unbelievable painfully
sweet sweetness
numbs my
tongue
cream
cold as
ice freezes
my brain
My brain
My brai
My bra
My br-
My b-
B-
b-
B-
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
...
...
...
Envelop­ed
in a blanket of
sweetness
my tongue is all I know
as I
Binge
To
Ecstasy