Pained intake of breath
Hot air against my cheeks
You’re wrapping white cloth over my arms
I’m watching red seep in like ink bleeds

Faintly, behind a splotch of black
I see your eyes grow wet
And though I am barely holding on
I can feel the tremble in your fingers
And an echo of a voice
Calling my name

You’re desperately trying to push paper into the wound
And I’m feeling myself bleed out despite your efforts
You take me to a doctor but still I leak
Transfuse your own red into me
But it just leaves through my eyes and makes me feel weak

“What have you done to yourself?!” you cry
And I sigh through a fit of tears
You’re trying to take the pain out of me
And i'm disappointing you with every breath I take

Just like you cannot will another moon into existence
You cannot love someone out of an illness

a small teaspoon
of sweet brown sugar
sprinkled on her nose

her brown hair cascaded
down her back
her dark blue eyes gleamed
in generosity and beauty.

they grew,
beginning to splotch
everywhere upon her face.
some called her ugly,
despite her vibrant eyes
her long wavy hair,
others,
her mum, to be specific,
said she was amazing
and looked fantastic
and who wouldn’t want
‘beautiful’ freckles?

the insults didn’t stop,
they flew
at the girl with freckles
like peter pan
charging through the air
at top speeds.

as the girl with freckles
grew up,
she and they started to
accept the fact that
the shining sun created
gifted,
granted
her with
brown-sugar
freckles.

When I think back to the past, my memories seem to blur together as if I have spent twenty one years on a non-stop merry-go-round. Ups and downs, too much to take in at once, the people you love only a splotch in your spinning, ever-changing field of vision. You wonder how long they’ll stay, leaning over the metal railing separating them from you; you wonder if they’ll call out to you until they become hoarse…but no one stays for long.
You think it’s fun and harmless until the carousel stops and you realize you’re the only one left. You clamber off the platform in a drunken stagger and wait for your mind, still caught up in the whimsical whir of charisma and carelessness, to catch up with reality. Eventually your thoughts slow and your vision steadies. Everything comes into focus. It seems eerily quiet compared to the cacophony of conversation and carnival music that was swirling and intertwining in the air just minutes ago.
Now there’s silence and you’re left to contemplate your past…and your future. This is the reality check, the wakeup call that sends so many adolescents into a panic; an early mid-life crisis if you will. Twenty one years spent so quickly, so carelessly…only eighty more to go.
And you can only wonder, “How will I waste those?”

There was once a rich and powerful man, known throughout the globe
for his accomplishments, for his wealth, for his power and his vision
He built his empire from sand and dust, with blood and bone

One day he desired to become immortalized in a fine painting

He wanted it to be the finest painting ever conceived -- painted by the hand of a god
He wanted people to look upon the work with tears in their eyes, staring at the beauty
that they beheld

He scoured the nation, looking for the artist that would create his masterpiece
day after day, lines formed at his estate as he took each one in
and sampled their artwork, and their sketches.

Weeks passed

None impressed him.  He became distraught

"Is there no man in this world who can possibly create the wonder that I desire?  Is there no man who can immortalize me in such a way that words could not describe the perfection?"

A voice crackled behind him.

"Well...no MAN can.  I, however, am not a man"

He turned to see a short creature behind him.  It was short with blue skin and orange eyes.  It's sharp teeth gleened as it smiled.

"What on earth are you?  Why are you here?"
"What I am is no matter, though you can call me Velnard. What I'm here to do is paint you"

The man frowned

"What is your cost?"

"I only ask that you never leave the painting that I've created"
"I would never leave it anywhere!  If it's as wonderful as I hope it to be, it would stay with me for eternity!"

Velnard smiled.

"Then we have an agreement!"
The man smiled and extended his hand, which was grasped firmly by a claw

Suddenly, a large canvas was hanging from the ceiling

The man looked around

"Where would you like me to stand?  Have you no paint?"
"Ah!  You can just stand there for a moment.  The paint will be ready shortly"

The man stood, regarding the small creature.  His hand was itching after shaking on the deal.  Minutes passed.  Neither party moved.  The man became impatient.

"Are you going to start?  I have other things to attend to today."
"I think you'll find that this is more important"
"Well then get to it already!"
"I already have"
"You've done nothing the entire time we've stood here!"
"No, the paint is nearly ready"

The man had lost his patience.  "This is ridiculous", he spat, as he derisively flicked his hand at the creature, motioning him to begone.  He heard a splatter on the floor and looked down.  On the ground, a foot or so in front of him was a droplet of pinkish-brown paint.  He looked around for the source, to no avail.  He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked at the creature.

"What are you playing at, Velnard?"

Only then did he notice something was odd.

His chin felt wet.  He pulled his handkerchief and wiped it off and when he looked down, the white cloth was covered in a similar pigment as what was on the floor.  He looked at his hand to see it was covered in paint.

"What trickery is this!?"

He wiped it away, only to find more.  He frantically wiped more to see the pinkish tint turn to red.

Velnard piped in

"It would do you well to stop that.  That's blood.  Well, actually it's paint...but it was blood."

The man was livid.  "What have you done to me!?"

"I'm painting" was the curt, rather emotionless response.

The man felt the oozing moving up his arm and to his chest and looked down to see his clothes starting to drip, no longer as fine cloth.  He lifted his leg, and it made a sickening sound as it peeled from the ground, leaving a black imprint on the ground.  The rest of his body was beginning to look like the Sagrada Familia.

He tried to yell, but his teeth and tongue were becoming more malleable by the second.

"WHAT HARVE YRU DORNE TER MEER"

"I'm immortalizing you, my dear friend!  You're just about ready!"

"THRSRSNORTWHRTIWRNTD"

Velnard cackled.  "Perhaps not what you wanted, but what you agreed to.  One should always read the contract before shaking hands with a strange creature."

The man started to cry, but his tears only served to smudge his eyeballs, making it difficult to see.

"Oh dear, you're going to smear your colors if you keep that up.  Anyway, we're at the moment of truth!  The canvas is ready"

The man struggled to stay upright as his knees slowly were softening.  His breathing became ragged as his insides started melting.

"You have a choice, my friend.  You can either stand here and melt into a puddle of you-colored paint, or you can use the last of your strength and jump into my canvas.  You will be immortalized and people will gaze upon your beauty and cry tears of joy.  Is that not what you wanted?"

The man's mouth was drooping as if he had heard some rather shocking news, his body now looked like a failed attempt at pottery.  He knew another minute and he wouldn't be able to move the few feet to the canvas.

"Tick tock" chimed Velnard

The man, in despair, willed his goopy muscles to make one more movement.  He dove towards the canvas, splattering himself across it.  A giant human-shaped splotch mark was all that was left.  The room became quiet.

Velnard walked up to the canvas and touched it.  The ink shifted and splayed until it became the man.  

He was glorious.  He was immortal.

Just as he was promised.

What stories could journals tell?
What we forget
is that they are not just repositories of words
but also of thoughts,
feelings,
emotions

They are places in and of themselves
Saving these emotions,
stashing them away
so they can be discovered
at a later time.

But the true beauty of these journals
lies within discovery itself

A droplet of water will fall
further
down a curved surface
taking a pale tan color
like its surroundings
It will fall off the surface
Onto the fibers of the page below
Leaving a darkened splotch

More droplets will follow
More tears will follow
As twenty years from now
A thirty-five year old woman rediscovers
the girl she once was.

Pride os a strong  word
So many people use it
They have pride in their clithes
Their appearance
Their hair
Their homes.
However for me
Pride comes in some unusual forms.
Pride comes from text on a page,
And ugly ink splotch on a stark white dress
Pride comes from poetry
The elegant ways it dances from the poets mind as it plays its way across their lips or to their finger tips
Pride comes from new words
Never seen before combinations
New ideas and new arrangements
And endless sea with no boundaries but your own.

Pride comes from within me.
Pride in my poetry.

Her fingers were covered in corn.
the corn after chewing, broken
pierced, churned- it could spread as butter
thick on stale toast, if needed
"it's fine, don't you worry, we'll get you all cleaned up"
she stared indifferently

Strings dangled from her mouth, unswept
full of necessary greens ---"mhm there there, this will give
you so much energy" --- drags of breath,
half inhale half choke. nothing to look forward to,
not the next soaking glob, not the cursing woman
in the bathroom, not the spill of light to her eyes

Where are the ladles, Did you check on it? The key? Just moved, most the suitcases aren't there yet. Remember to bring the Did you check on it? pay attention. Have you seen my grand kids?
who are you?

Sunday's are for the active ones
The games down the hall are  too far. Why worry with legs, if she could just adjust to the left
the world could sag into an ongoing dream- No demands, no games, no movement.

The nurses hair net had more presence than the splotch of gray against her peeling itchy scalp. Drool leaked from leather lips, dampening the collar of her two month sticky blouse.  Arms curled and locked,displaying under the wax skin cranberry patches-
she never wiped them off. Always the soft murmer of
a snore, always the smell of unbrushed teeth and hampers.

"Did you touch those where don't touch me scott scott scott leave my things alone thevenin I need a stop lying I want to go scott, scott? scott.     I            can't              remember                       any"

I said my name four times before she heard me, knew me
I fixed her pillow and my sister marked off the day on the calendar.
We told her about school, the marching band, each word
filled with forced enthusiasm. She bobbed  her head in circles, lazily
rolling her eyes, the curtain shading the empty space. We spent 30 minutes precisely.

She was more than I realized.
I never knew she had horseback riding, violin playing days. She traveled and  hiked. We could have been close. Unraveling with the mystery, I felt the lateness of my curiosity.
It was 30 minutes precisely, always.

We acted as strangers, reciting routine and wishing each other a happy day and a quiet love you

I arrived--
though I needn't a formal invite,
for you and I, we are two old friends.
Companions walking along
a similar trail.
The leaves distort and distress the
yellow and gleaming light of the
victorious Sun, who has once again
conquered Night and all
her iniquities.
Scents and colors fill the air,
pinks and reds and greens mix and match
and blend together, forming
a rich atmosphere of synesthetic remarkableness.
Each atom and molecule
of the wind
shivers and shakes atop their
invisible chariots,
perhaps the true location of Atlas
and those great, big hunks of
shoulders;
"Man, what a man."
Take it because you know you like it--
we are social creatures,
creatures of logic
of habit
creatures of horribly idiosyncratic and idle instinct,
rulers of fleshy bodies
which we hardly understand.
The Sun grimaces as it
retreats back to the negative air,
once again,
not to poke its radiant face out until
the next morning.
The Moon came shimmering out,
smiling furtively and compactly,
looking down like
my oldest confidante.
After all,
who else but our fair
Luna atop the stars
is the keeper of all our deepest
and most primal
secrets?
In the cover of her noxy cloak
we sin and hide,
pushing every secret under and between
the cracks in her space,
patching up time and
keeping dark and brooding Atlas
good company.
"You're one of the few great guys."
Oh, my fat and failing Atlas,
lover for the Night and
of my night,
you are a temporary stop on
my trail,
a brief twilight in my
life's journey.
The Sun creeps its
spindly, golden fingers under
the cloak of the Moon,
Night: the stitchings and
sewings of the sins of mortal men.
Playfully, the light stretches out,
first dancing along the stage of the horizon,
then inching closer,
desperate for living contact,
for the greatest warmth of
over 2 billion hearts
all beating at once--
perfectly,
in time.
Our world is a note on
this Cosmic sheet music;
you are barely a splotch on the sheet.
Our existence is the single beat
out of infinite others,
without a beginning but
possibly and end.
I know that
there will be twists in my path,
bending and curving to avoid the
stars' wrath and the Suns'
might,
but,
might it be
that our two trails
are simply
not meant to meet?

beholding
the tipping
Big Dipper,
with its
dangling
handle,
traverse a
midwinter
northern sky
rising
in concert
with a
steadfast
sword
wielding
Orion,
mooring
the southern
firmament,
I stand
atop a
splotch
of black
macadam,
straddling the
equidistant
expanse of
all
ascending
celestial
spheres

Music Selection
Charlie Parker
Estrellita

Oakland
1/23/15
jbm

Inspiration fails me,
my pen refuses to move from
its place on the page,
leaving a splotch the
size of the
thoughts I wish to write.
I wish I could fill
ten notebookes with my
sociopolitical nonsense
and whinings of every
trivial romance in my
young life.
I want to dry up pen after
pen, wake up
hungover from writing late
the night before,
cover each and every slip of
paper in alliterations
and onamonapias.
If only I could be a
real artist, one who
carries her notebook and
pen to libraries, coffee shops,
and movie theaters,
finding inspiration in ever
face and street corner.
But no.
I'm just sitting here,
pen in midair,
staring at a blank page.

In this elastic world,
everyone gives up on this
curse undone.
some are tired looking for their
regular stone and mud.
While some tell the stories
of their possible lives
but, in the end,its all the same
desire that cries.

oh yea, you're born of love,
born of a sea,of thousand miles.
oh the stark truth, the tiny  splotch,
the undone curse.
oh when it comes,
i wanna know, when does it rehearse.

The shining faces of a million reflections,
The Lacerations of the minds not so free,
peeking from below, the city.
The song from the tree, has distracted her,
of a curios form of life,
has made its presence known.
oh she craves to look,
for that song unknown.


oh yea, you're born of love,
born of a sea,of thousand miles.
oh the stark truth, the tiny  splotch,
the undone curse.
oh when it comes,
i wanna know, when does it rehearse.

The tiny raindrops that falls
over the city, will bring  
a valentine ,and make everything fine.
oh, this is love,
a feel thats  all divine

Thank you. For everything.

Cecilia touched the red splotch on my polo shirt, removed it with her finger, and wriggled her nose, as the overhead light brightened with a hazy blue. She licked her finger. I was just glad when she pulled out a chair, sat down, moved closer to me, as I poured myself a ***** cran. Cecilia clapped her hands once, and then clapped them again, as the ceiling slowly morphed into a blanket of green smoke. I guess it looked more like the planet, as the smoke turned into small pockets of water blue.

She closed her fingers over my wrist and choose to look at the floor. "What happened to the carpet?" Cecilia asked, her eyes raising. "What do you mean?" I asked, looking down at my feet that were drenched in honey and chocolate. The TV crackled to life and a picture of Joey Biden appeared and he was writing in a diary. He wore a tennis hoodie, sweatpants, and Birkenstocks.

“What do you think he’s writing?” Cecilia asked, as she munched on a pineapple.

Joey put his pencil down on the desk, then walked over to the window on the right-hand side, opened it, and took a green **** sitting on his nightstand, ripped it, letting out a plume of smoke.

I shrugged and took a large bite out of of the pineapple.

“Something funny? Something serious?” Cecilia asked again, not seeming to notice the green smoke filling up the living room.

“You want my honest opinion?” I asked. The walls trembled from the hammers beating against them. A baby grand piano was being played somewhere upstairs. Outside, stray dogs were barking up a rainstorm. I tossed the pineapple over my shoulder and pulled a candy bar sticking out of the couch cushions. I felt the years of decay and melted caramel apple coating my palm, as I hunched forward, and tossed the candy bar out the windows. The dogs howled gratefully and crooned an old jazz bebop tune.

Cecilia laughed, clicking her heels together. “No, lie to me like you do when I ask you, ‘does this dress make me look fat,” she said, as Joey reached up to his bookcase and inserted his diary in between a history text book and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. He sighed, closed his eyes, and began to talk in Portuguese.

“He’s writing something about ****. Probably because he just got high,” I said, as I put my hand over my mouth and yawned.

Joey stopped talking in Portuguese and then he got up, walked over the TV screen, touched a button. The screen went black.

Cecilia’s face was shrouded in green smoke, green as crinkled dollar bills. “Do you want to go to sleep?” she asked, stepping over the passed-out brown bear laying in a puddle of honey and chocolate.

“It’s our anniversary,” I said, moving my finger gently over a plush red box. I turned and looked at Cecilia who was grabbing my face and kissing it. The box fell into the honey and chocolate, sticking to the floor.

I bent down, picked up the box, and opened it. A paper airplane floated out and unfolded itself, landing neatly in Cecilia’s hands. She began to read it, “Dear President Obama. Thank you. For everything…”

I closed my eyes and listened to an old Louie Armstrong record playing on a turntable a foot away in the kitchen. The needle scratched. Then, the volume lowered down.

The curtains closed.

And the TV buzzed as the dogs burned each house in the neighborhood.

I try to explain the world--
the deeper meanings to my mumblings
all of it a frustrating mess,
an artist canvas splashed with too many colors--
that it becomes impossible to depict which is what.
Is that blue or is that aqua, I don't even know anymore.

When it comes to understanding my thoughts,
it becomes a psychotic break from reality--
where I imagine my fingernails scraping
chunks of flesh from my neck.
I plead for my hands to place themselves around my throat,
"Please suffocate yourself please just let me out"

Begging for someone to understand the mess,
that the khaki colored object actually means something.
Each splotch a representation of myself
every detail aligned to explain a greater idea.

As arguments end, they scribble deep within
a sketch book of sickening black ink;
Marks its place in the drippings of my thoughts,
making those colors lost in translation
so not even the painter knows how they feel.

It's acold misty morning
The large grey cobblestones creating valleys by themselves
The old black lampposts casting the imaginings of light
The buildings shuffle between dark grey and black as if they were a depressed Chameleon
A man walks along this pathway
His dark black Brioni suit covered by the enveloping arms of his coat
The buttons undone as the coat ***** dramatically in the wind that isn't there
The outfit is completed with a black fedora which he wears upon his head
He walks down the pathway and passes a small man
With ragged clothes and a baggy hat
He barely notices the painter as he Iis consumed with his Own demons
The painter holds a brush in his right hand
An old thing with paint and chips on the wooden handle
The bristles are long
Not imacculate
But well used
In his left hand he holds his pallette
It has every colour imaginable
But only a small splotch of it
The painter walks behind the man with the fedora
And he painted
He painted galaxies on the cobblestones and valleys separating them
He painted patterns into the sidewalk and stories into the bricks
His style a rough painterly style
Jagged geometric lines creating organic spirals and waves
A Van Gogh style
Painfully wild strokes
That seem to contain the souls of suffering and pain
His flat yellows contrast to his vivid reds
Powerful imagery created by nothing but contrast
Emotions toyed with by jagged currants and swirls
The painter painted
Trying to catch up to the man with the fedora
Painting eruptions of beauty from the lampposts
And birds and flowers floating upon the air
As the fedora man's heels lifted paint was laid down in insane yellow
Driven insane by trying to catch up to this man
Driven insane by trying to show the man beauty
The painter ran out of paint
A masterpiece a mile long
Seen and admired by all who walked behind
But the artist had failed
His face Contorted as his emotional suffering manifested physically
His heart broke again as he realized that this man with the fedora wouldn't stop
He would live his whole life
Without seeing beauty
The painter was put in a nice jacket and a white padded room to live the rest of hus days
Forced to live in his misey....
His  emotion....
His failure...

You're special. All my life I considered myself to be a multicolored iridescent stroke of art in this world of pastels shades and fine lines. I knew right from the start that I wasn't a masterpiece presented by Picasso or Kahlo. I was a pretty splotch of sunny hues and velvety blues cleverly spilled over the black canvas.
To find me beautiful, it required a keen eye that was ready to overlook the dainty presentation of the works of Van Gogh. There exists a story of pain and insanity behind each work of his creativity. I am and will always be the scribbled I ink across the sheet. There is a piece of poetry within me, for the person who is patient enough to look through my messy facade. And to pick up the pen and write a sonnet across my heart.
Even with the multicolored spots I bleed the words of love and loss. The two most basic emotions that are often left unexplored.
My soul hummed the old school love songs that no one could ever recognize. Until the day I met you. Even in a room full of exquisite wonders you chose me. You whispered the lyrics to my favorite song and left me spellbound. With a lopsided smile you held out your hand and asked me for a dance, without any conscious effort I floated and there I was; held securely in the arms of the man who owns my heart.

Don't call me a fool
just because I don't fit your bill.
I am made of mistakes
and ugly laughter.
I am a before,
a right now,
and a happy little after.

I am gritted teeth
and burnt roast beef
and tired eyes
and skinny lies
and bloated bellies
and tiny tellies.

I am shattered hearts
and missing parts
and miniskirts
and false new starts.

I am that one channel
your parents don't let you watch,
or a giant, messy void
called a black ink splotch.
I am peer pressure,
irresponsibility,
and midnight crises
pushed into a fleshbag
to walk around the world.

Don't control my life
just because you can't control
your own.
I have my own place in this world-
-a place called the throne.

Hello Pigment.
I missed your squish-
your fingers staining my favorite picture books.

I need your oily claws
your head-mashing whiff
the way you smile with toothy indifference

you climb over
all walls I orchestrate
and sit turgid
with bright Grandiose on my blanched skin.

my life is your palette,
you have moved in like a sloppy roommate
and your haphazard possessions drape the cabinets,
the chair,
the sink.
I love it.

you inhabit every vacancy
-a bulky mass of
magical “art”
and
no matter how much I mix your
complementary colors,
you appear
ever so bright.  

please… don’t leave me open canvased.  
splotch to me left and right
taint any negative space
barge in without
pusillanimous footsteps.
whip your camel hair bristles
all over my pages.
color me, pigment!
                  
             Splatter, Paint.

rest in peace, armadillo pancake.
you died swiftly, thank goodness
at the hand of my left wheel
tail still attached
the plates of your back folded into you like wings.

farewell, my ridged armadillo splotch.
i think of you every time i dodge your smudge of color
and every time one of your brothers wanders by
walking clueless into the same predicament
stunned into pancake-hood forever.

alas.
rest in peace, my flat friend.
you will not be forgotten.

After the matter, he said he saw it like an old black-n-white
because I had said I loved Cary Grant films.
But I know now that he couldn’t have possibly
because he told me he hated classics.
We stood three baby steps away from each other
on that beautifully manicured stretch of green.
He smiled so widely and wildly,
seeing as if through a sleeping gas dream haze,
I, ever cautious, looked with clear, hard blue eyes
and scrutinized and analyzed until
the grass was jaded green and the blue sky
was smudged with laundry grey clouds.
He told me excitedly, in what he assumed
was a lover’s pur, that he had something for me.
I thought the tone was an aggressive command
and I snapped my eyes back from the splotch
of mud from my boots, and was horrified to find
that I was now a mile away from him.
How’d I end up here, and why didn’t he notice
I wasn’t where he was? When I asked after the matter,
he said with venom that he assumed I would follow,
like I always did.

He had pulled from his pocket a beating pink heart
and stretched his arm out to me, but I shook my head.
I can’t reach it from here, I really tried to let him hear.
I am no where ready to take that!
But he smirked with older superiority,
a grin I had come to loathe,
and brought his arm back behind his head,
like a veteran pitcher at the mound, and followed through.
But he was never in baseball, he was a speech kid in high school,
he didn’t know how to throw, and the wind picked up
that little pink heart like a paper plane.

I tried, I really did. I ran until my lungs ignited
with blood, pumped my legs until the muscles
fell off, strained my hands and fingers forward until they were as long
as red oaks in an ancient forest.
But it wasn’t enough. I was still thousands of feet
away from catching the weak little ball of emotion,
because I hadn’t played ball since I was fifteen.

The delicate little heart landed in this thick brown mud puddle.
On such a lovingly cared for lawn, why was there
a huge-*** mud pond?!
I frantically waded in to try to and help it.
When I found it, the heart was contentedly
sitting in the mud as if it had landed in
a warm kettle of chocolate.
I was sad to see it so easily mislead, and knew I had to return
because I knew I couldn’t clean this little bruised ******.

As gently as I knew how, I eased it out of the mud,
and stoically walked back to the boy
who had so carelessly thrown his heart.
Unfortunately, the grass was slicker than i thought,
and the sun was in my eyes, and I guess
I’m just clumsier than I thought, so about five steps away
I tripped and dropped the fragile little heart.
As the tender pink thing landed, finally it
and he noticed the state everything was in.
He looked down at the banged, muddy heart
and I watched in fear as his eyes filled up.
With quiet misunderstanding he asked
how could this happen? Why did you do this?

I must admit, I just can’t do displays of emotion,
so I told him I was sorrier than words could say
and as iron bars of guilt began to pile along my shoulders,
I turned 180 degrees away from him.
I felt his hand reach for me, but all he could grasp
was my rustling skirt, and I couldn’t bare to see him,
so I sprinted forward and let my dress rip to flowing shreds.

The air from his screams helped pushed me into a flight.
The sooner I disappeared, the sooner he’d take notice of his heart,
I kept telling myself this, praying for this.
After the matter, when I asked what he saw,
all he said was a pretty girl that dropped his heart at his feet,
and step on it, smeared it with her ***** boots.
I deserved the harsh words, I do know that.
This is no plea for the girl that broke your heart,
but did you ever think she might have really tried,
and it isn’t completely her fault? Sometimes she’s
afraid to see your name on her phone
because she can’t bare to see the beaten heart
she just couldn’t save.

As I looked upon the mirror and noticed its mimicking, I found a splotch of dirt where a shirt pocket should have been.
I dabbed a cloth in suds, I'm told its substance is the best
but no amount of vigorous scrubbing
could have removed the splotch.

The night you told me I didn’t put stars in your eyes anymore was the night
I didn’t see any stars myself. I thought we were written in constellations but that was more hopes
of my own then fate. Yes, I was upset. But I wasn’t in love. And that’s why it didn’t hurt.
I never lied when I said there was a moment when I thought we were some type of forever.
Do you remember the time when you were out by the lake of New Hampshire with the most gorgeous sunrise,
and you told me all you could think about was how much better it’d be if I was there to see it too?
I told you it didn’t matter but when I woke up the next morning, I felt detached from where I was.
There’s a part of me that wishes I saw that sunrise too.
But that’s just how it is.
All I have is stories of “has been”s and “could’ve been”s. A collection of “almost” and never seen sunrises—
the memories carefully stacked on top of each other, organized and filed away, collecting dust.
Somewhere I still think we exist though, an eternal splotch of sunshine and mutual caring, some place where our love didn’t hurt.
Somewhere there’s a lace wedding veil and a matching tux that were actually worn. Somewhere there’s the unfinished scrapbook I put together that has more pages added to it. Somewhere there’s a collection of passports from all the road trips we should’ve taken.
Somewhere out there, we are the type of forever I intended us to be.
Somewhere, in a little cabin in New Hampshire, surrounded by evergreens and daffodils,
there’s a little girl with the same name as my favorite movie character
with your hazel eyes and my dark hair.

A living skin, a skein of green briars
where a half-hinged door is wagged by the wind

Good-natured god, decay’s stigmata-stained spires
nettles paint the stairs splotch patterned, olive skinned

Glass window shards grab a slip of silk curtain
pick-pocket beetles engrave brute luck broadside

Chimney thrushes cabined in ash are certain
cynicism’s growing sums are rectified

Blue jays opine time’s cuckoo clock mocking
worms ply enormous copses, scrawl casts of clay

Autumn gusts and rains whirl detritus stocking
flung colors Pollocked, clutter’s chaos array

Hours dissolve the acorns and soft seeds scatter
as grasses grown tall have turned light yellow

architecture’s flourishes are picked off
crumbled valuables filched and turned to dirt

tumult’s passages dug the driveway’s trough
carrion feeders pull black quills from their shirt

slugs smear a rainbow trail and mice scurry
collapsed walls fall to the slush of leaf slurry

Long and endless nights,
Of blood, sweat, tears, and charcoal.
Melting into smile.

Haven't slept in days,
If I could I'm sure I would,
Cigarettes will do.

Paradox in hand,
I form an open window,
Illusive, by fLaw.

Golden lights are on,
Check. Chronic aches and pains. Check.
Perfectionism...

Check. Coffee is my blood,
A running joke amongst us slaves,
We might die without.

Humor's important
Now, because I'm already
Two-far and long-gone.

Far-along the shores
Of distant kingdoms wreckage.
Lost within again,

Shattered and washed up
Into mountains of peril,
And treasures turned dust,

Aftermath beheld
In retrospect, I should have,
Could have would have dones.

All within a shape.
I finish my drink and sit,
Dusty nose n ****.

I want to give up,
Whispering Sith Professor,
Harks of homeworks past.

Birds in the distance,
Crickets lost within the night,
Still life in mid-flight.

Still life is my life,
Satan is the only way,
Jazz is close second.

Fellow holograms,
This is not an SOS,
This is a farmhouse.

…....


Jk, pls send help.
I fear if I keep going,
I may never stop.

I may not want to...
These are my last words before
I return to dust;

If anyone has
The heart to come and unwind,
Brains from my behind.

A cuppa tea, or,
A splotch of green to withhold
Things from coming apart,

If anyone wants
To comfort such who in
Nothingness departs,

I'm with Descartes,
In storms of bleeding hearts, a
Pupil of Fine Arts.

If the ceilings dripped
liquid metal
and the scratchy rose-print sheets
bit out for our bodies,
we wouldn't know a thing.

If God jumped into bed
and tried to cram in between us,
there wouldn't be enough room.

In the deep night,
all the stars could come down shattering into knife light,
It would be perfect.

All the asteroids
could warp the earth into a bowl
of milk, and splotch
the solar system into a giant cow,
but we could not join in the teet-mashing mayhem;
there's nothing pure here,
and our fingers hunger for bad places,
instead of ushering in the good.

I do not know what we will do,
but the world is falling apart.

A small splotch of ink,
Staining pristine white paper,
Describing beauty.

I wonder how long it will take me to be whole.

You might think that this sounds odd or possibly vain, but it is a thought that torments me constantly as I am driving home in the wee hours of the morning.

I'm tired of being captured by the picture that others have of me, as I am more than a nervous disposition and a small frame.

Everyday I go through the motions, yet everyone I experience seems to see right through me. I am only a temporary splotch of paint that will be covered up on their canvas of convenience.

I finally reached my breaking point, and as I stood there with tears leaking through my closed eyes, you asked me if I was okay and at first I didn't even hear your voice.

I try to keep my emotions under control, but I have come to accept the fact that humans can only hold in so many different feelings before they explode.

You saw the small crumble of my body and mind, watched all of my colors pour out of me, and yet you stayed.

I am entirely grateful.

There’s something about the bleeding of
a pen through paper and on to
the other side
It gives me
a sense of permanency
Trying hard to stay put
it bleeds for its home

A mother hoping so much
to hold on. Leaves a
mark on their children
A tattoo of trauma
Leaves a mark on your
children

A love so sweet it’s tattoo
permanent mark my skin
with your presence on my
shoulder; permanent
A hope so sweet, I hope it’s
permanent

Bleed through my skin, leave a
splotch like pen to a paper
marking home reminding
you of its permanence

I’m counting the freckles on my skin.
I’m tracing the coffee-splotch birthmark on my stomach.
I’m biting my nails and cracking my knuckles and
thinking about the Old House.

I think it’s sort of funny how in an entire life,
with all its seconds and all its moments, and
all its memories, only some things really stick.

There used to be a time where I prided myself
on my apparently “flawless” memory; I forget
things all the time.  Like
        my mother’s voice
        my father’s face
        my grandmother’s eye color.

I fear that I’ve forgotten the most
important parts of my childhood.

I remember daddy’s race cars,
mommy’s wine, the time my sister
slammed the van door on my head, and the
time I kicked the bathroom entrance.

Last week I opened the photo albums from
under my mother’s bed and I’ve
already forgotten all the things that I
finally figured out that I forgot.  
Sitting on the floor, surrounded by one-hour
Walgreens prints, I started to pick open a
wound that I did not even know was there.

My dog’s ashes are still hidden, a copy
of my mother’s Will is still missing, and last
year my step father found prepackaged
“emergency escape bags” in our basement
along with $250 cash inside the
cogs of our whirlpool.

I’ve heard stories of how my mother
kept documented journals of my father, but I’ve
never had the guts to ask for them.

I’m beginning to wonder what kind of people
my parents really were.  I’m beginning to wonder
just how much of my childhood
I’ve forgotten
                           and how much of it
         I’ve lost.

A four line poem for my 8th grade teacher
an A for my efforts and a weekly pamphlet feature
'Blue' by Sam a tale of: spilled ink
of an endless ocean; the whole blue kitchen sink

19. 4 stanzas for a professor of mine
a little splotch of blood or maybe red wine
an A for the reference to Bukowski at the end
but I guess he didn't know the bluebird too, was my friend

Blue was it's name, it was almost the same
as the one hanging in my lounge in a frame
this time it talked of the ocean of endlessness
and was penned like the spill it referenced

A mark for my friendless existence
with lark he congratulated my sedulous recklessness
an Aeschylus with a reflective tragic fecklessness
driven to or destined for the precipice

so I hoped when
I hung beside my poem
the professor did know then
not all doors should be opened

I have a bruise to mark each memory
faded experiences, my tie-died vessels heal
hurriedly as a huddled leaf chasing a stream.

I have a bruise to mark moving
hip-forward, greeting our kitchen counter
first thing after threshold.

I have a bruise from stubbornness
we wrestled like chimps, my head
finding first impressions with tacky tiles,
your floor. You won our primitive match.

A bruise to mark the midnight hike,
I fell into the chaparral.
One to many beers, and a spin-tingling
fear of fallowing you up the mountain.
I slapped you for leaving me behind.

I have a bruise to mark our night,
when anger awoke arousal
Your thumb, your teeth, the main
suspects to my man made splotch.
A shower stinging stain trickled itself away
A fleshy fading peace sign.

I have a bruise from your discovery.
In a constructed pile of soil
You laid me down too *****
Stripping me of theatrical ties, temporary faces.
I willingly wove the canvas, for you
brave adventurer uncovered bruises.
The maps you didn't mark,
blacks and Blues you didn't write.
Paints that I lose so frequently,
like a child in a department store
that I can't forget my human fear,
Being Found.

But though you paint me purple,
break my veins like glow sticks,
leave me in the dark, and wrestle me
like a man,
You heal Me,
like rain to the grasses.
To feel again.

You crumpled contracted walls
surrounding my ability in
obtaining adventure, and your
Happy Bruises.

I've decided that I'm sick
of *******

specifically
the kind with
long(ish)
scruffy(ish)
blond(ish)
hair and blueblue eyes
and a face
that makes my heart rise up
and beat in my throat
and my words catch
and stumble over themselves

because it's dawned on me that
being beautiful is not enough
and though some would argue
that he's not beautiful at all
sometimes I agree
sometimes not

like the day his braces came off and
suddenly I couldn't look
anywhere but his lips
and I couldn't think of anything but
french kissing
even though I've never really
kissed anyone
outside my head

or the day we were running
the worst hill
the hill of hills
over and over and over
and I noticed that
he has this splotch
below his ribs
which is darker than his skin
a birthmark
which somehow made my lips
curl in a small smile to myself
an imperfection within perfection
is perfection
in a way

but then he opens his mouth
and ruins it
and I'm sick of being disappointed
(although it's my fault too)

and so with that
I say
I'm sick of *******
because

kindness is striking
when you're used to loving someone
who isn't kind

when you've accepted
the carelessness
as if nothing matters
as if your heart doesn't matter  
as if you won't determine your own self worth
upon his interaction with you
you forget

but I'm done with that

this is not the end
but it is the beginning of it
and I'm glad because
I think it's best
for us both

and who knows
maybe someday
he'll figure out
how to be
something other than *******

You may not want to hear this from me, I understand.
But I'm going to allow the words to escape.
Fair-warning.

I'm sorry things aren't going smoothly in California. A lot has changed, I'm sure everyone just needs time to adjust.
They care, I'm sure they just don't know how to help.
I'm sorry you're trying to find ways to fill the emptiness and it's leaving you bored. Boredom can be dangerous.
I bet you feel like Milo, stuck inside on a rainy day.
I hope you wake up one morning and without realizing it, you are filled with peace, joy, and curiosity as you discover your new surroundings.
I really do.
And I assure you, you've not been forgotten.
Not by me, not by anyone here.
I'm not sure of their reasoning, but I've kept my distance so you could walk the streets of San Diego without feeling the weight of the people missing you back home.
Also, because I can't shake the thought of not meaning **** to you anymore-- why would you care to hear from me?
It's shrug-worthy, but you are thought of every single day.

I read your poem and it resonated with me until the lines about emotional abuse in regards to our relationship past.
I am sorry you feel as though you were emotionally abused while we were together.
Your feelings are valid, your thoughts are valid, but from the bottom of my heart, I can't agree.
I am adding vinegar to this story caked in mold.
Forgive the smell.

During our relationship, I would end things because I thought I was doing what was best for the both of us.
Though my intentions were pure, it was undeniably impulsive of me
and I am truly sorry for being so **** fickle.
I left because of the red flags I saw-- a defense mechanism used by trauma survivors of abuse-- I left to protect myself from someone who I loved deeply but was indifferent, manipulative, and passive aggressive at times.
I went back because of how much good I know that I know there was and still is in you.
Your faults do not define you.
I loved you at your worst. At your best. Especially on the days you couldn't describe how you were feeling.
You didn't need to tell me because I understood.

I left to protect my heart and so you could find someone who would make your eyes light up just from walking into the room, because I knew I couldn't.
Seeing you smile at everyone and seeing my smile met with your bored eyes, I'll admit it kept me up at night. I'll admit it kept me silently crying from room to room.
The rejection I'd feel from someone who would make it clear he wanted me only when he would **** me.
Lights out, keep my distance, repeat again tomorrow.
It seemed there wasn't an end to the lonely nights spent by your side.

It was my choice to stay in such an environment for the time that I did, and I don't regret it.
I stayed for the days we were in-sync. The days we would look across the room at each other with a knowing glance. The days we would walk for miles and laugh along the way. The nights we would drink and get so dizzy as the room spun
with nothing to keep us grounded but our lips pressed against one another. The nights we would undress and lie in bed, talking, sharing stories, kissing one another's skin.

****, now I'm remembering too much.

The point is
I put you first.
Forget my own mental health, yours mattered more to me then.
You didn't ask me to, I wanted to. I wanted you. I wanted to be your friend.
If that is emotional abuse on my end, please enlighten me as to how.
Because I'm still feeling the neglect yet still hold you lightly in my head.

I left to pursue someone who I thought deserved a second chance.
I was convinced you were bored and didn't really care who I ended up with, that you were with me out of convenience.
I felt unwanted.
Later on, after we got back together, you said if I ever went back to him, that would be it.
I understood.
After we broke up, I hooked up with him.
The same night you slept with someone else.
I didn't hold it over your head; we weren't together. But you held it over mine.
To be honest, I think it's ****.
I think it's unfair.
For me to forgive you for going even further than I did and for you to not reciprocate.
Your drunkenness is not an excuse, my dear.

You slept with someone else and I forgave you.

I don't need your forgiveness, in truth, I did you no wrong-- we weren't together when we ventured out to different people-- but it would be nice to move forward without this ink splotch mucking up the clarity of things.

Once I'm convinced of something, it's hard to unwind the coils, unbend the metal, and begin again, you may be similar, only you'd know.
But I think you'd learn a lot from this if you took a step back and slipped into my shoes for a moment. Really reviewed our time together with a fine-toothed comb.

My error was in not taking care of myself, trying to take care of someone else, and doing a **** job at both.
This year was one of the most exhausting 12 months of my life. My physical and mental health took quite a beating.
I wasn't in a place to tend to the issues I kept ignoring that I'm digging up now for my own sanity.
I feel better now,
and I hope once things settle down and this depression fades, you will too.

I want to humbly and sincerely apologize from the depths of my being for ever hurting you.
I am sorry for the times I woke up in a bad mood from not sleeping well the night before.
I am so sorry for not just walking away when I was irritable so you wouldn't have to remember it.
It is over and done with and I am pouring water over the embers of what we used to be,
but still, I am sorry.
I forgive you-- even if you aren't sorry.

I thought about listing the things you've done, the ways you've hurt me, but pressed backspace instead.
It doesn't matter anymore.
It's forgiven.
It is now forgotten.

I respect that our views of the events that transpired between us clash, I respect that things might not ever be the same again.
But I'll be ****** if I didn't wish that we were given one more chance by the Universe to get it right.

You are still someone I love deeply, someone I would take several bullets for, someone who will be spoken of as a lesson for my future children.
I will tell them of a young man I once knew who revealed to me what it meant to selflessly love someone,
and when to walk away.
I will tell them of the story that you are.
A breathing legend.
My old best friend.

There’s a crimson splotch painted on the side of the road,
Resting amongst the ruins of broken glass,
Such a pop against the black and grey.
This was not meant to be a final resting place.
Someone once cared for this rose,
They plucked the thorns so it couldn’t hurt.
It has been preserved to a perfect crisp.
Its vibrancy turned almost black.
Heat has tapped the liquid.
There is no colour and no life.
It has hung its head down in eternal defeat,
Stubbornly refusing to turn to dust,
It doesn’t even rustle with the breeze,
Or spark against the drops of rain.
It’s just beautiful road ****.

I am a kaleidoscope—shapelessly shifting, and
dominated by colors that I cannot change
without some sort of grandiose outside force
granting me a helping hand.  I might as well be water.

But my reflection insists on creating dissonance.  She
and I, although we look the same, do not coincide
as neatly as
           yin and yang
           Adam and Eve
           my hand in his.                       Perhaps because
thoughts and feelings generally
do not mix like paint.

Human beings are full of hypocrisies; I am merely
one of seven billion.  My doppelganger knows that

I will never be harmonious, and I am but an echo
of Sisyphus, yet still I wonder if she also knows how
sanctimonious I can be at even the best of times; how
wolfish my attitude can turn; how
downright wicked I can become.
                                                        (Perhaps she is overlooking it.)

Oftentimes, I find myself wondering if those ugly,
impulse actions I grudgingly stomach are really my
own choices, or if they are hers.  I am the analytical
one of us, and she, the fervent, the hot-blooded prima donna;
I think of how easily I lay down my neck to her will, how often I
throw my frontal lobe at her, belly up,
as if to say,             “this is my
                                              white flag.”
I allow my duplicate’s hands to twist and turn my paths.

She makes me self-conscious of the
           coffee splotch birthmark on my shin,
           my flummoxed feet that flounder about;
           the mausoleum I keep buried
six-feet-under in my backyard.  Her sentiment
bleeds into me and permanently dyes my bones red
like the red meat I am; she tries to coalesce us.  
                                                        Perhaps it’s idiosyncratic of me to
rip myself in two, but being made of water
makes it hard for oil to blend into place; it makes it
hard for logic to have any room for a
seemingly clairvoyant heart, though

sometimes I wonder if my sophist thoughts could
possibly have any consideration for my twin’s
sibylline yet affectionate disposition.  I
wonder what the
           secret is to being whole, what the
           secret is to ending civil wars, and what the
           secret is to placidity—
I wonder why all my answers are kept under lock and key.

The internal bloodshed within myself might not
be as abnormal as I think it to be, but if it’s not me who
I see when I look into the mirror,
what is it that others see?

When I fell in love with you
It was like the Big Bang
A celestial cataclysm
And the world was no longer blank

And you were a paint brush
And all it took was a small splotch
To fall and color rippled across the page
Ambiguous like Rorschach's ink blots

And you were a match
A catalyst for the spark
You burned the bubble wrap
That was restricting my heart

You were first life
In a cold and barren land  
The bud of a rose
Bursting through the ash

And you were an explosion
The Big Bang which created the cosmos
Before you there was nothing
Until you were all there was

Told at age 18 she's gonna go blind at 26
Wrote it down in her notebook
Tucked it away in a junk drawer
full of glass eyes
one for every outfit
pearl for the wedding
Ebony for Halloween
Nine to five on Saturday
She rents out the left socket to local businesses
sold that part of herself to make a quick buck.
Quickie
Quickly get his fix
sting
Won't feel him in the morning.
doesn't feel anything anymore
Epidural
Gave her spine away too
replaced it for a zipper to better access her marionette ribcage
thought she could cut out the strings
left a scar so big it needed more then buttons and thread
goes by cupcake
puts her frosting on every morning
has to taste sweet
boys like the red dye
dripped into batter
battered
almost without notice.
Nobody will notice
when it goes off
comes out
Red dye blood splotch
the epidural
won't feel anything
doesn't feel anything anymore
sting
a part she can't even feel
the wedding dress she still hasn't picked up
or canceled
paid for
By renting out space.
white with ebony lace
beautiful pearl jewelry
like glass eyes
drawers full of glass eyes
she plucked out so she didn't have to look
watch it grow
the hospital didn't reimburse her for this feeling
they didn't warn her about the ticking clock
screaming mothers
mirage houses with white picket fences
only barren desert wastelands
tumbleweeds taunt her in the worst of nightmares
Screaming churn crying soft
Cribs and cages
Marbles clinked as she pulled out the junk drawer
rolled past the frosting colored pistol
around a notebook
the notebook she wrote every picture she didn't want to see anymore down in.
the notebook she picked up first.

Lord, tell me how each snip of snow
that melds into the glass
can tip-toe by your ear and drum
a low sigh on your lap.

It waltzes to the cracking roof
that guards a drafting barn
where you lay two thousand years before
in mottled swathes of yarn.

A brush against a splintered beam
will splotch its frozen cape
with drops of ruby warmth that blot
the mold of every flake.

Lord, show me how your full, rich blood
can thaw a heart stung stiff
and craft a child all your own
held strong in mercy’s lift.