Chapter 1

There was a woman. The cost to love her was your life. No other payment but a sending off, a revolver cocked to your temple’s side.
There was no spite in your death, just business.
Hell of a business to run.

I was protecting someone. Never been one to stick around, but this drag had carried for the past year. That gang-owned joint lay but two doors and a cold alley away. Popular place, maybe not the classiest but it had its patrons. Packed with your essentials: pool tables, dirt-licked walls and chairs, mean folk mixed in with the nice. Old fashioned joint with a history. You could almost feel it when you walked in. That small pressure when it’s about to rain? Felt like that had been building up for a decade there.
Some Madonna owned it. Names elude me, but she was just another front; as was the barkeep, the hired bouncers and those mean-eyed slingers that spoke loud in company, silent alone. Heh, almost like an old-fashioned saloon. Who the hell am I in this tale of cowboys and crooks?
I was holed up in that apartment block for the winter. Stiff drapes covering a stiff cold that seeped through the cracks anyway. Cold chills to wake to, and the whiskey don’t warm a **** thing. Maybe it was the ache of a past flame that led me to her. That old touch had languished and misted away in the night of some long dead memory, leaving an old kiss from a young lover on my shivering body. It grew faint with every year’s passing. I struggle to remember this keepsake.
Every night.
I was a no name protector protecting a no name ghost of a man. Yeah we knew each other. I’m no stranger to keep past talking terms . . . but, hell if I remember his name, how we got into this **** situation and why. Mind’s a little off. Been like that for years.

It was a stumble through the wrong door at the wrong time. Some spiteful voices in the back of the joint or the back of my mind telling me I’m headed for hell and ain’t coming back. See, every day is a crossroad, and I happened upon the worst one yet.
I remember that flaking paint; grime-covered white on a moulding door **** near off its hinges. That suited me, and I hated it. Maybe I grew sick of wandering the same way and turned my life on its spinning head. Spun me all the ways I couldn’t face. Saw a glimmer that fate had readied for me. Don’t think I’ve looked at anything with such eyes since; nor have they looked back at me.
The room was a cramped, dilapidated hellhole like every other room, but with her laying on that bed of hers . . . she was the only clean thing in the whole of this cursed city. Save, she wasn’t clean. No such thing exists; no such thing as clean since your adolescent innocence, and even that went up in flames. Hell, in a city like this I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeletons we kept so tightly locked in our closets outnumbered us ten to one.
Should have remembered that when I saw her, but my mind lay a blank canvas and I couldn’t help but fill it with all the details of this pretty bird. Even those that weren’t there.
No Name yanked me out quick. Never seen him so pale, ghosting further and further from a human being. He’d been running so long I don’t think he even knew what he was running from anymore. His past? Some cop chase from years back, ending with blood stains and shaky hands? A dead kid in the arms of a suicidal wife? Maybe he’s running from himself. Fear in the capacity we contain, and fear in the ways we unleash it around loved ones. I don’t blame him for running. If I was a worse man I’d run from him as well.
Now No Name has it all figured out, even if he won’t let on; and that bird in there ain’t part of the plan. Cash cash, first train out to some no name city for this no name man. In this together, he keeps repeating, like some broke down record player that only plays one song. Well I guess we share more similarities than I’d like to think so.

One night, about a month after settling in that old apartment, I hear raised voices. Not uncommon, but something about this still night woke some fear inside me. A fear I needed to meet with my eyes, a score to settle with myself. Sounded like some ******* outside was hoping to bring down the sky with volume alone. No type of gentleman, just a no ***** kid who doesn’t know the difference between command and screaming like a babe.
One gets you respect. Now, the other. . . .
I open those stiff drapes with stiffer fingers. Brush that layer of frozen breath and mist to find some mid-twenty good for nothing punk holding a struggling figure. The apartment ain’t exactly ground floor but even up here I can spot the difference between a gent and a sally. Some broad was in trouble.
Grab that six shooter, old man. The holster smooth from years of wear, small frays on the weathered jacket rubbing against goose-pricked skin. Comfort clothing that never really brings comfort. Not anymore. Guess I’m as bad as No Name. I’m just repeating routine.
Out the hall, no doors left in this apartment block. Stolen, broken, ain’t exactly your family fun lifestyle we’re living. No Name’s holed up in this fortress of upturned furniture and dresser-barred doorways. Lights flicker from between the cracks. The devil ain’t gonna bother with the door, I tell him. He doesn’t reply. Maybe he’s a religious man with one too many sins above his head.
There’s another yell and I feel my blood rise, hairs picking up static, a storm brewing inside that clenched stomach of mine. Take a tumble down the stairs in my haste. **** crooked balsa wood. Those stairs are gonna end me one day, I swear.
Ground floor. I slam that kitchen door and it cracks against the brick wall outside. ****. No Name’s gonna burst an artery. Call out for that ******* punk but he’s already eyeing me up. Only a few steps away and I can see the white in his eyes. No . . . those are his pupils. Wide, all cloud-like, he’s ******* dusted up. . . . Almost like looking into the past. Thrice-cursed ****. I’m in trouble.
This ain’t some lover’s quarrel, some twisted ****’s thought of a good way to end the night. This is a dusthead addict and I’m out of my league. His mid-snarl distorts and stretches past his cheeks and that devil grin sends an electric jolt from the wires of my brain to my heart.
This six shooter is as good as a pea gun against a Smiley.
He’s spouting some glossolalia drifts, layering it like an abominable duet. The coked-up boy in me yearns to understand again, but stiff joints and washed-out dreams have made me a cynic. Ain’t no beauty when you’re tearing things apart to see it. ******* Smiley’s on the edge and he’s ready to pounce right off. If that broad’s sobbing didn’t **** at those heart strings of mine I’d be running for my ******* life.
I lift that pea shooter and aim it straight at that devil smile.
He howls. Glass shatters from above. Some black monstrous thing comes speeding at me. I leap through that apartment doorway in time to see ******* Smiley consumed by it. All sharp, all solid that beast slams into Smiley, screaming loud enough to wake this dead city twice over. Smiley thrashes, he splays out to the ground, the beast’s seared flesh erupting in front of me. A piece slices past my cheek and I’m on the ground in tears. I hear No Name scream an incomprehensible curse above. I’m bawling now. Through my tears I spot that chunk of flesh. ******* balsa wood. Thrice-cursed balsa wood.
No Name had thrown a piano out that barricaded window of his. Tears of pure comedy, that’s what left my face. A Smiley taken out by No Name, I’ll never live this down. His mangled body lies under polished wood. Someone’s yearly worth gone in a second of frantic panic, reduced to twisted wires and cracked ivory. To see something so beautiful destroyed in seconds makes me wonder if the Smiley had gotten the better of us after all.
That broad’s in shock. Splinters covered every inch of ground save that around her; looked like a comet, trailing emptiness behind.  Should have noticed it then that something wasn’t right with that scene. Perfectly unscathed beauty sitting there with not a single scratch nor splinter on her, but I was too **** amazed I was alive. Knelt close to her and caught a whiff of some exotic scent on her skin. Some flower. Saw her face and it added another colour to that filling canvas of mine. This pretty bird from the joint. The one men died for. At least No Name had saved one life worth saving, funny it happened to be the one who could take yours in a night.
Names elude me, but the way I remember her . . . the way I remember her is Blossom, for when she came into my life she gave colours to my black and white memory, colours I didn’t know existed, and my black and white morals took a turn down some dawning grey-blurred alley.
So I’m a ******* gentleman and I walk Blossom home while No Name shifts furniture above us. Scrapes of hard wood against wood, filling that void in his once impenetrable bastion. I told you No Name’s got it all planned out already. Guess I’m just here for the ride.

.               "Peter Look at me." Lexi whispers moving closer to him, The hot spray from the shower head scalding her back. Peter had his back flushed against the back of the shower, his eyes, the red of an Alpha wolf, wild with pure animistic rage. He's lost his humanity, she thinks, I have to bring it back, Peter Snarls and lunges for her. Lexi just holds out her palm and water tentacles from the streaming water behind her snake out and wrap themselves around his wrists and ankles, locking him in places, vicious snarls escaping him, his eyes burning red. Anger wells up in her chest making her own eyes Flash violet, her powers rising inside her. She closes her palms and the water restraints tighten cruelly against him, a small whimper coming from him. She looks him in the eyes and steps even closer, leaving the comfort of the water. "Peter please, come back to me my love." She whispers moving closer still until she was standing right in front of him, his breathing echoing off the shower tiles. She stretches her hand out and touches the hard muscles of his stomach, making him flinch violently, struggling against his restraints as he tries to move away. Lexi thinks back to the time when he would have done anything just to feel her touch, now with his humanity lost,  and the wherewolf taking hold he couldn't bare it. She splays her hand across his abs, tracing the hard muscles, trying not to wince as sounds of pure distress came from him. Looking back up into his eyes she searches for the Peter she had fallen in love with, imprinted with, and found nothing but a cruel cold hearted Animal staring back at her. She takes her hands away and sees the distress turn quickly back into a murderous glare as he pulls against the restraints trying grab her, his claws glistening with spray from the water. With a flick of her wrist the tentacles pull at his arms until they are spread out, far from touching her, another viscous growl, more tugging against them. "Peter I know you can hear me,try to fight this I know you can." She says pleading to any shred of humanity that might still be lurking within his soul. For a split second his eyes lose some of the bloodlust as her words penetrate the wolf that was rising, his face twists in concentration

               "Lexi- I can't Save yourself" He gasps through clenched teeth, His eyes begging her to run before he closes them. She steps near, her heart soaring with hope that she might be able to save him. When he opens his eyes again though all hope she just had shatters as the cruel animal returns. With renewed strength He lets out a harsh howl and yanks his arms, the water tentacles turning to puddles, slipping down the drain with the rest of the water, in the small space of the shower he lunges toward her. Fear ripples through her but she quickly shakes it off and once again lifts her palm stronger tentacles obeying her command wrap themselves around him just in time, as his sharpened fangs came three inches from her face. His body is slammed back against the shower wall, his head bouncing painfully off the tiles. As he trashes and pulls at the restraints Lexi moves back close to him, shutting her eyes in concentration. "His ego cuffs concatenata bestiam, relaxare scintillis humanitas seen, With these cuffs I chain the beast, only loosen with sparks of Humanity seen." The Latin words falling easily from her lips as she casts her spell on the water, knowing they would hold and only lessen their grip when the Peter she knew and loved came back. Her strength leaves her as the spell takes hold and she sags against the other wall, seeking its help to keep her upright. She leans her forehead onto the water slicked tiles and breaths in the steamy air, her eyes drift close. Knowing she was safe from anymore escape tempts she turns her back toward the beast that wore Peters face and steps back into the scalding water of the shower, letting the heat seep into her cold riddled body, and washing away any remaining fear as she lifts her face to the spray. Anger toward herself bubbles up inside her, how can she be afraid of the man she loves? whimpers fro behind her make her sigh and step out of the comforting spray. Turning around, she opens her eyes which were flashing Violet with her rejuvenated powers, she once again faces the love of her life. Hope once against swells inside her as she faces her task of Being Back Peter's humanity.

               "Peter I know you are still in there, I'm going to touch you now." She says with confidence as she steps closer once more. Hot spittle flies from his mouth as a deadly snarl comes from deep within, his fangs fully elongated, his claws at full length, clawing wilding at the air trying to tear her apart. She ignores the snarls and the beast and focuses souly on her task, She reaches out and touches his chest, right above his pounding heart. Moving her hand upward she runs her hands up his muscled well toned arms and with her left hand she places it carefully on his cheek, keeping away from his deadly venom coated fangs, knowing that one bite would have her transforming into a werewolf like him. The terrified whimpers he made makes her heart squeeze, knowing that the touch of a human in his wolf fill brain was torture for him. She looks in his eyes and silently pleads for this to work, knowing that with each touch the Peter she loved would have a fighting chance to break through and once again take hold of his body. She steps closer and kicking his feet apart she presses flush against him, the roughness of his soaked jeans rubbing against her naked body, his shirtless upper half smooth against her own chest. A strangled growl leaves him as he tries to shrink away from the closeness. She takes her hands and places them on either side of his face yanking it back to look at her. "Peter come on love FIGHT THIS!" She hisses pressing herself closer to him. The blood lust fades slightly, his arms sagging slightly as the restrains register a spark of his humanity. Her eyes shine with joy when she realizes it was working. She takes her hands away from his face and wraps them around his neck, stretching up on her toes to reach his mouth with hers. She kisses his mouth, not afraid of the snapping teeth, and feels the growls dissipating in his throat, as his arms continue to sag with the loosing cuffs. She watches as his eyes close and feels his lips returning the pressure to hers. A small gasps escapes her as she feels his arms finally wrapping around her body crushing her to him.

               "Lexi Stop, I can't fight this for long," he pleads against her lips, and on Que his arms are softly yanked from around her as the restraints sense the animal rising again. Going against her intuition she lifts her hand and the spell is broken letting his arms sag fully to his sides, giving him full use of them. He growls "That was a mistake, Lexi AH" He chokes out shutting his eyes and shrinking away from her half turning his body, trying to keep himself from slipping away. She moves, easily deflecting his feeble attempts to push her away, she takes hold of his arm and turns him to face her again and softly pushes him up against the wall which they had started to stray from, pressing herself firmly against him.

               "You can fight this Peter," She whispers in his ear before claiming his mouth again. It was her mistake. He kisses her with desperation trying to fight back the Wolf that was clawing it way through him. IN a split second He looses control and the beast takes hold. Giving off a murderous howl he sinks his claws deep within her back, Her scream tears through her, echoing off the tiles. She sags against his claws, making them sink in deeper as whimpers of agony spill from her kiss swollen lips.  With a grunt he rips his claws out and watches as she crumples to the ground, her strength deserting her. She splashes in the water built up in the tub , barely noticing the sting as her knees and hands hit the porcelain. Her arms wobble as she tries to keep herself up, her eyes cast down as she stares at his bare feet, the hem of his jeans dark with the water sloshing around him. "Pe-Peter Fight, pl-please" she mumbles as a fog starts to creep into her mind. Her arms fail her and she splashes face first into the ***** water. The water was tinged red and tasted like cooper with her life's blood as it oozed out of the ten claw marks on her back. Her breath quickens as it become shallow, the fog creeper faster, her vision starting to unfocused. Tears spill down her face and mix with the ****** water as she realizes she was going to die, and without saving Peter.

               "I failed you Peter, I'm sorry, Forgive me," She whispers unable to lift her head to look at the beast that claimed him. " I- I love You" She manages to sputter out before the fog took hold of her, rendering her unconscious.

               Those three words reached the beast, traveling down to Peter who was growing weaker by the minute LEXI! he screams mentally and pushes past the beast. He throws his head back, letting out a tortuous howl, as his eyes go from blood red to the Ice blue some Beta wherewolves posses, his original state. The beast retreats, never fully gone, just hibernating until the next best moment to strike. Peter looks down at the naked girl at his feet, and he drops to his knees in the red waters.

               "Lexi My love" He whispers his voice full of agony. He lifts her limp body out of the water and cradles her in his arms, He wipes away the hair that was plastered to her face and rests his hand against her cheek. "Open your eyes my love, you didn't fail me, you saved me, I'm right here, just open your eyes." He says, his voice choked with unshed tears. When she doesn't respond he cries out , placing his head on her chest, taking his hand away to wrap around her body in a tight grief stricken embrace, his blond hair making a curtain around his face as his grief pours out of him unchecked. A strangled Gasp makes her chest rise and he wipes his head up to find her eyes fluttering open, focusing weakly on him.

               "Peter, you're-" her words fade away as her strength seeps out of her. she lifts her hand and he quickly grasps it in his lifting it to his mouth kissing the fragile pale skin before putting his face in her hand, trapping it between his face and his hand.

               "Yes Lexi I'm me, I'm here, Don't give up" He says smiling through his tears. A faint smile spreads across her bloodless lips as she closes her eyes, her breathing was struggled but she clinged to the last bites of life in her as she pulls her power in, drawing strength from the water around them, the air that fought it's way to her lungs, the Fire from the small candle she had lit in the bathroom earlier for strength, the minuet grands of dirt that always managed to find their way in the house. But most of all she Draws on the Spiritual world the one that swirled around every living creature. She draws all this power inside her and wills her body to heal itself, Fighting for her life. Her power pulls and a soft warm glow fills her body as the wounds slowly pull themselves closed healing themselves. Her breathing becomes easier and she gulps huge mouth fulls, coughing as she takes too much in. Peter tighten's his hold on her and stares at her in wonder as she pulls her broken battered body together. "Oh Lexi," he gushes as color returns to her body, making it flush a pale pink, her eyes going from their crystal green to the purple as she works her magic. Finally the wounds were sealed shut, and her eyes return to their crystal green, her body sagging in exhaustion in his arms.

               "You're you, you're really you." She whispers, happiness ringing in her soft sleepy voice. Peter smiles at her and strokes her cheek, his fangs had vanishes and his claws had retracted.

               "Yes Lexi I'm really me."

               "I thought you're humanity was lost,"

               Peter just shakes his head at her, tightening his hold on her he stands up, carrying her bride style he steps out of the shower, not bothering to shut off the water. Holding her close to his body she rests her head against his bare chest and sighs as she hears his heart thumping at a normal pace. Leaving the bathroom he pads down the hall to their room. Once inside, with one hand he pulls back the covers on their king sized bed and gently deposit her onto it. going to his side of the bed he quickly strips out of his wet clothing and slides under the covers with her, drawing her close to his body, skin to skin. Lifting her eyes to his he smiles at her.

               "NO Lexi, I don't think I can ever lose my humanity again, want to know why?" He says, his eyes hypnotizing her. She snuggles closer to him, her legs tangling with his,

               "Why?"

               "Because YOU are my humanity." He says as his lips crush her in a passion filled kiss.

I
Hear the story of our oil –
Hail to oil!
From the glory days of Drake well we recoil,
To see seabirds flap and shudder,
Dolphins, turtles flop and sputter
With collective dying groan.
Hear our population moan
When the gasoline price geysers to the sky.
Still we drive, drive, drive,
To keep consumer binge alive,
Amid a maritime disaster fast evolving from the spoil
Of the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the gushing and the oozing of the oil.

II
Smell the ancient dark crude oil
Stinking oil!
Engulf the products made refining from a boil:
Guzzle gasoline flambé,
Drive-through fast food every day,
Raise our carbonated toast to Arctic roast…
Then drill more oil!
GM corn and corn-fed beef --
Both born of oil,
The shaving cream I slather on my face is made from oil,
Toothpaste, vitamins and lipstick,
Tires, everlasting plastic,
Come from oil;
All American affliction
Petrolopium addiction –
Truth is stranger now than fiction
And it does not set us free;
We are prisoners of oil,
And as slaves to OPEC pricing we all toil,
For the tapping and the lapping
Of the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the drilling and the swilling of the oil.

III
Soak in news of spilling oil –
Offshore oil!
In grim images of damage that the television splays;
First blow-out slimed in sixty-nine at Santa Barbara Bay
Then ten years next blew Ixtoc
In the Gulf of Mexico,
Two-ninety day gush tick tock
Slick slopped thousand miles away
To Texas shores!
In Alaska’s Prince William Sound
Exxon Valdez ran aground in eighty-nine;
Full tanker load erupted,
Left the rocky coast corrupted –
Prudhoe crude!
Seals and otters stuck in goo
Seabirds suffered coatings too,
Cruising tourists supped in view
Of the oil, oil, oil,
Thickened slick encrusted oil
On the shore!
How it clings and clogs and covers;
All aquatic life it smothers
Marsh and beach are left in cataclysmic mire!
Still we “drill baby drill,”
All our gas tanks gotta fill,
We must shop, shop, shop,
Lest our wasteful lifestyle stop,
So we run, run, run,
Take our car vacation fun --
At the beach…
See the sheen -- how it shines!
Pretty rainbow-colored lines
From the oil!
We love our oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For economy cachinging in the oil!

IV
Hear the praise of offshore oil,
Miles deep oil!
For the goal of independence on our oceans now we toil,
Till ungraceful conflagration
Twenty April rocked the nation
On the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
Eleven lives were lost in blast
As the deep crude spewed out fast,
Gushing Hell!
Couldn’t stop it with top ****,
Junk shot, golf *****, caps wouldn’t still
Gushing well,
And the spreading, spreading, spreading
In a steady surging crawl,
Gulf coast residents all dreading
That their livelihoods might stall,
Now the fish and shrimp are ill,
Tourist business will be nil,
And still oil spews…
We must thank God that there’s *****,
For there’s nothing but bad news
And the ooze, ooze, ooze
Oily ooze.
Who will pay, who will pay?
Who will make this go away?
Who’s to blame? Who’s to shame?
Many pointy fingers aim –
Lefty points to rich BP,
Righty points to rock Obama,
And there’s six sticks pointing back at you and me!
We will pay, pay, pay,
At the gas pumps we will pay,
So we can drive, drive, drive,
And keep America alive;
Despite the grim disaster that arises from the spill,
The way we live and spend won’t easily end;
So we’ll still say “drill baby drill,”
Each time our gas tanks get a fill,
And we will shop, shop, shop
To do our patriotic duty --
Spend our *****, *****, *****
For the oil.
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil,
For the gushing and the oozing of the oil!

Drafted 6/8/10, revised 6/14/10

I watched you in your savage beauty
wild and untamed
You sprang from here to there to here
your garments rent
in splays of silk
trailing like wings behind you.
Your talon hands
they grabbed for mine
digging in deep and drawing blood.
I was no longer watching you
I was with you,
in this savage beauty.
Ignored pain drove through my hand
as you guided me through
your dance macabre.
How I loved you as I bled
my hands about your waist
You kissed me with the kiss of death
And dead you fell within my arms
My deadly, lovely, savage thing
with splays of silk
enveloping you.

Don’t write about the dark things they said

Don’t hide from the truth I replied

Well, part of the truth anyway

Which, any which way you look at it has two sides

A sun which hides its shadow

But even the sun must sleep sometimes

Then creeps and slides the oozy woozy darkness

Of drunks and floozies and drug addicts

Thugs and gangsters, hatchet men and fixers

These nefarious predators and scavengers of the night

Shuttered sight eating victims of urban decay

Never sated in their bloodlust and greed

That need that is so deep 

You could feed it without sleep

Forever and never fill it up

This is reality in our **** city

Where effluent flows down footpaths between bars

Climbs out of cars in high heels or collared shirts

“Sorry mate, not in those shoes"

Drunken harlots beckon rapists and sadists

Transfixed in the ever-pressing lusts of the flesh

Without joy or connection

Or even satisfaction, most of the time

Am I right? Ladies, am I right?

Another wine to fill the soul’s great hole

Another devastating moment when the sun gets in

To find you weeping in your make up

Black streaks down cheeks of bloodless faces

All because nobody told you what was possible

They simply told you what not to do

Which of course you did anyway

Over and over again with the same results

That part isn’t your fault, it’s society’s

It’s religion and propriety’s

It’s dogma and denial’s

The cultural hangover of the morning after the decades before

The holier-than-thou edicts of our preachers and teachers

And leaders without leadership

We’ve cut the slip

Caught the rip

Been flipped so many times we can hardly tell what is useful anymore

The answers you seek are inside yourself

It’s like Rafiki said: “Look harder"

It’s like Sigmund said: “Unexpressed emotions will never die.

They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”

Our society reflects repressed attitudes to ***

And brings them forth in uglier ways

Like rapes and splays of legs to the most persistent bidder

Soulless sexuality

Stuffing ya pork sword into a drunken receptacle

Such a spectacle

You might swap names in the morning

It’s *** on a tray like a TV dinner

Forget the word “sinner"

It’s the lack of nutritional content that ills

That kills the real deal for these counterfeit thrills

This isn’t some moral crusade

There’s no need to drink the kool-aid

Throw out the gimmicks

But pay attention to the limericks

Be open, be honest

Be Eros, be Adonis

Be Venus, in furs / **** resplendence

Take lovers my dear

Make love and not fear

Turn empty lust in transcendence

I find you in the margins of old school books,
in the cupboard where I keep my old notepads,
in the stories I’ve forgotten I’ve written.
It’s all scraps of myself in rounded letters,
uncanny because it looks like me,
sounds like me,
but it’s you and it is you
but it’s like me too.

I’m opening you (and me) back up and I hate you.
I hate you, but here we are,
in the mirror maze,
all these mes and yous
in the endless tunnel of mirrors,
back to back, side to side,
caught in ourselves at every angle.
We’re all the same: We’re all so different.
None of us are good.

I hate you.

I hate you at every age,

Then reality splays, sprawls flat out in front of me, exams, money, work, decisions, tight nooses that bind me to life. Get your head out of the clouds, girl  *(2012)

at every stage,

Big smiles, A stars, clever girl, the anomaly, dry compliments, sand paper against my skin. Locked in, not a word, just a mind gone grey, a growing mass of dust that swallows the light and only allows for glasses poured half empty* (2014)

at every moment,

I don’t fit in, never have done, never will. I’m always one step ahead or one step behind. I’m never quite there. But no one understands. They say they do but they don’t. I’m different and I don’t like it but I don’t want to change because this is who I am and whatever happens, I have to put up with it (2012)

all your hatred, you happiness, your ignorance and your sadness

The scab peels and leaks. Too soon to heal, too late to undo the fall. Tomorrow, you’ll trip again and your skin will bleed but this time you’ll know where to find the first aid kit. (2013)

You make me sick.

The world was blue today, a metaphorical wish wash of tears and a meagre ocean. Ice cream dripped in depression, picnic blankets snagged on pebbles and the kite committed suicide on the telephone lines. (2013)

I hate the scraps you’ve left behind

I put bits of you in the bin. I put you out for recycling.
I donate you to charity shops and so you live on and I can’t get rid of you.
There’s no way out of this mirror maze,
no way to avoid the mirrors at angles,
no way for me to escape you or for you to escape me.

There are so many of you and I literally want to beat you all to death.
Oh, I hate you. I hate you.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than I hate you.
I hate the tone of your words,
I hate your stupid sadness.
I hate your happiness.
I hate your hope.
I hate the memories of your laughter.
I hate the memories of your fun.
I hate you for all the things you’ve done and
never had time to feel bad for.
I hate you in the photographs,
in the words, in the schoolbooks,
in the poems that I’ve shared,
I hate, I hate, I hate.

I wish I could smash up this maze of mirrors and you,
but then I’d only be left with myself
and I hate her too.

His ******* angel wings can no longer lift him high enough. His silhouette
stands against the Morning Glory sky. He has not worn cologne
until this day. Now, the perfume of kerosene coats him. His
matchstick countdown has just hit zero,
ignition.

In flames, he launches off the edge of that crisp concrete line. He falls
ten stories, what was once a man, now an effigy not of stone
or wood, but flame which, wind-washed,
splays out as Ringed Plover wings,
ash feathers blown back.

With a crash of bone and pavement, his Chinese Lantern skin the color
of burnt-sienna, the blaze snuffs out. Through yellow plastic paper,
the creamy skinned women rush to his side. Mother,
Sister, Wife, cradle him, the fingers catch skin
which sloughs off in
flakes of
carbon.

Some things in life are free, some things will take a banana from your chest drawers.
However many miles a road is that men walk down must,
at the end I hope there is a crew of construction workers
that all they really need is ice cream with chocolate syrup, all they’ve ever needed.  
They realize the waves of sound in the air are made out of ice cream
and the swinging of their arm splays out chocolate syrup like rainbows.  
This would happen in the latent way that apples happen, sprouting slowly from the root
and the secret’s on the inside blooming with a star
but meanwhile forming a hide that’s either crisp or chewy.

Biting down on air is a maddening sensation
and the upper and lower jaw blame each other;
contact every time is a betrayal.
They have no one else to blame but whom they meet on the other side of the empty room.
My jaw speaks and clicks in jerks. I do not understand but it is ok.
I like to be a woman of mystery.
I like to be a woman of mystery even when I can’t understand myself;
it is ok.

Knock well on wood as you enter but
Know knuckles lend their skin for flood
Of the risk of entrapment eternal?
Well, few find their bodies stuck and
What's worth its weight in blood
Splays on the lit altar face

It can be warm
Only if you touch
If you touch first
You speak your secret
Farewell

Read through the words you spent sinner our
Real lines lie under thinner lace
Your constant wore hiding the venom crawl
Held below bidding inlay here
Half craving finger's trace
Specters bid sweet interlace

It can be warm
Only if you touch
If you touch first
You speak your secret
Farewell

Empty ones warn walls
Before little embraces
Creating lethal snares
Come
Catching worlds unaware
Come
"Empty ones," All say
(Come speak your secrets)
"I'm fine."

Time unfurls
like a lotus in the hand.
Plant spirits splitting overhead.
The sky unfolds into spiraling stars.

Baptism.

Words in the air
Your mind in your heart
Your eyes to your soul.
Time unfurls
like a lotus in the hand.
Here you are!
Splays of color
Don't be afraid don't keep them in a bottle
Open the top, splatter a pattern.

Just let these feelings
sit inside
and subside
let the tried and true
come to you
through the two
rules of this life
One
there is no rival
for love
Two
there is no love
if you can't face it
embrace it
UPPER CASE IT
because if you can't
give it
than prepare to live
a life
of receiving but not having
and traipse the edge of the knife
sort of like
a tightrope act
walked until cracked
in half complete
on cold concrete
with no one to say
goodbye to.

No-one would even remember you.
Love is the lens we see ourselves through
and it will all, one day, come into focus.
None of this 'meet and greet' hocus pocus,
life is an encounter
that you step up our back down to
but if you can come up,
then you will not go back down, you
are ten seconds of sunshine
in a night where no-one can find
anything,
you are the something,
you are the exception
we connect ourselves by strings
like hearts made of tin
there will be lonely days
when the path ahead
splays out like
a million highways.
But you can be a moonbeam
by which everything that would seem
impassable,
insurmountable
like boot set in dirt
so hard it takes up root
all these things
become moot
when held to your radiance
because there are gradients
in all life's creatures
but the greatest teachers
ever summoned to our side
will be our reflection
in the pond
do not abscond from this sight
you will die...

if you do not fight.



Alright?

Every morning plays over like a silent black-and-white film.
You wake up and somehow you’ve forgotten how to speak.
Your throat feels raw and congested from the disuse of night.
The sunlight strikes your eyelids,
affecting an obliterating blindness,
forcing them apart,
drawing you from the velvety embrace of a dream.

Your feet sink into dirt-smudged sneakers;
they drag across tiles and floors and grains of cement,
across blackened splotches of gum tacked to the streets,
pressing them ever deeper into earth,
into tar.

A young woman in a fitted red pea coat stands near you,
leaning against the steel column by the edge of the tracks.
She is tiny,
her olive skin stretches tight across her bulging cheekbones,
her eyes are pools of grey,
her shoulder-length hair is the color of molasses.

It happens slowly:
the woman in the red pea coat leans further over the ledge,
tilting her head to the side,
searching for life in the roaring darkness.

It happens briefly:
a low rumble beneath your feet,
a glint of light,
a yellow-white rectangle splays across the tracks.
It widens and expands,
oppressing you,
swallowing the woman in the red pea coat,
as she looks up and stares back at the brightness.

The train does not strike her –
it consumes her,
it ***** her up like a vacuum through its sharp metal teeth,
and she vanishes,
or she becomes a refractory beam of light,
or she explodes.

A screech hovers above the crowd,
shrill, high and clear – the rawness of terror.

You cannot help it – you peer into the gap
between the platform and the subway,
absorbing the darkness.

You wonder what moment, precisely,
her life left her body,
or her flailing limbs surrendered to their inevitable consumption.

The paper bag she had been carrying survives,
strayed on the platform,
an afterthought.

Apples sit on branches
all the time that has prospered from the growth that one apple
has been the small window of an unattainable span of seconds and minutes and hours
that has shown the leaves to dance with the wind
the branch to bow
and the roots to grow
the apple ripens into a sharp stain of satin red
to paint the tree with a new color
to illustrate a new beginning
the apple grows heavy
falls
and splatters the ground with love
the grass learns to reach for the sun
the bird grasps the concept of flight
the worm slithers unbothered
but the apple splays the pigment of its love everywhere
the seeds plant
another tree grows
and more apples sit on branches
teaching the leaves to dance with the wind
the branch to bow
and the roots to grow

So here we lay,
in the valley of unrest
Broken, bare, and waiting
in perpetual loneliness

But could it be,
that you're unlike me?
and this soul
is but a distant memory?

That splays open,
my body,
my womb
that darkens my heart,
my cage,
my tomb.

No little script
That I have wrought
Could be so perfect
So tightly fraught
With such tones
and Temperament
With your bones
And subtle inference
Yet there you hum
Whilst I write
To catch a crumb
Of your in-finite
Sing a hallow
Gold, cold refrain
So I may swallow
And remain in-sane
For the aria, my dear
Splays my soul
And such, I fear
Might that, be all

This day
unlike all the other days and yet so
similar in so many ways
splays out before me.
Outside the door
free,
unencumbered except by blessings which
I number one to where they go on
and
under the Sun makes a good change from
being under the gun.

I am being spun into thread,silver and led
to a meet on a street unlike all the other streets and
yet
so similar,
unfamiliar but I've been here before,
peculiar,
but I know well the door where
outside I'm free.

Today she texts me, requests my company with her at the Modern Art museum downtown. Shrug on a coat, out into the winter air.

It is biting cold and left unchaperoned, my hands lead themselves to burrow into the down of my jacket pocket, where they fiddle with themselves for heat. The air tucks pale and the sun shirks the southern hills that flank the bay, framing the sky with its misdirected rays, and it makes my shadow long and light.
I think about what she said to me. How she rubbed her eyes when she stared deep into the sun between the trees, how she said it still left its mark in her vision even when we made our ways home.

And yet, why couldn’t I bear to look?

In and out of rowhouse shadows, I watch my own blink between the canopy of flaking, piebald birch trees that line the sidewalk. As I walk it lives and dies between the flickering leaves, tucked behind a natural shade--still, soon guided with my silent sure-step onward into that inanimate skyline, comes scarce to return to itself only in moments of sunny unobstruction—few and far between, the closer I get to downtown. At times I expect it to appear in one place, only to be surprised by its unpredictability—the way it stretches itself in angular relief, with supernatural zeal, to situate itself within the light; beyond any control or command.

Yet beyond the street an army of distorted silhouettes stilt themselves across the glass facades of unknown offices, dancing and flickering, painting the caving walls with unmistakable life. They march obedient to the cacophonous wanderings of city folk, those unspoken kin, an army of unarticulated fuzzy forms smeared across and in the spears of metal thrusting angry, jealous, into the sky—sapping the light, encumbering the grand city with their heavy towering darkness, seeping the day’s illuminating rays of their heat and majesty.

And yet, these floating individuals continue in lock-step, filled with indescribable finality, conveying their dripping, sliding doppelgangers across a foliate of empty reflective facades— with each purposed footfall further submitting their spectral shadow to the naked inundation of light—to exclaim to the sun their own simple, unpopular, infinitesimal form from which they receive their hostage.

Unnoticed, unaware, unknown; I stare up and watch, wonder, thought—my shadow splays itself hidden in the ****-soaked earth, full of trash and discarded waste, not worthy or willing to present itself in the innumerable fold of people—relegates itself to the cool undertone of shadowed street, invisible and diffused rather imperceptively into the homogeneous grey of asphalt.

By the time I reach our meeting place, I naught distinguish my own pendulous shadow from the forest of dead steel spires that propped their long coats across the wintered streets.

rages rearranged
spun splays delayed
faded fates in disarray

balmy balsamic
accumulating cyclonic
ruminative cumulonimbus

wet flecks foretelling
saturate somethings
this way coming

wishywash
rinse, repeat
annoint me

A ghost sits beside him
on the well-worn piano bench.
Black cherry staining holds strong
against years of wear.
His seat engraved -
a small divot carved
from countless hours of diligence.
All where he lay himself
at the mercy of the keys.

Most of the time,
porcelain and ebony fingers
clutched his heart, allowing every beat to
bleed life into the music.

For it’s not him that dictates what he plays,
but what the keys see inside him.
More often than not,
a minor chord reverberates
against the practice room.

From there it’s a dance.

Fingers
     gliding,
           traipsing
up and down the length,
piecing together a melody
that speaks volumes to him alone.

Every note holds a word,
a piece of himself.
An outlet for emotions
shoved inside a shaken bottle,
finally exploding against the refrain.

Mason’s weight creaks beneath the bench.
It’s old, could probably do with replacing,
but he will never own another bench.
Worn in the wood next to him,
a smaller divot keeps him company.

Mason’s fingers leave porcelain
to run over the groove.
A little over a foot wide,
though he remembers her being much smaller.

Memories tug at the corners of his lips as
he splays his palm against the seat.
It’s likely bigger from the squirming
she’d done whilst waiting for his attention.

God, he wishes he’d paid more attention.

But some songs would forever be played in minor keys.

I've found out I find too much beauty in too many people

There is the gentle curve of my sister's mouth, the delicate grasp in my tennis coach's fingers, the a lilt to a boy's voice in my Spanish class that makes me feel alive.

The entire world is alive with this beauty that wracks through our bones in tumultuous waves, lifting us from our feet and tossing us high above the things we should pay attention to.

The way a person's eyes brighten when they speak of their mother or how a pair of legs work in harmony to walk is in itself a small victory to our short humankind.

We live in shadows, our faces cast in a blackness only describes as ignorance.

And something so simple as pulling aside that veil of blissful unknown is how we plunge ourselves into the abyss of loving the small details that our eyes roam over.

The way a child breathes when they are excited, how a grown man cries when he comes back from an eternal war, the seamless laughter of a human dear to your heart.

So fall in love with every blink and every drop of spilled ink that splays across the skin of a hand.

Love the birds that rise with the sun and the dogs that groan with content and happiness.

For they are the embodiment our race and our lives.

We will be known as the century of timeless freedom that allows our minds to feel as if floating through space wasn't such a slippery grasp.

Find the beauty within yourself, for before loving others, your self must feel as if it belongs.