Octavian Octopus
lives In the sea
with eight long tentacles
to hug you and me

He spends his days
with Seahorse Sabrina
who dreams longingly
of being a ballerina

Octavian wants so much
to be like his crony
but sadly, all of his
dance moves are bologna.

Still he felt that
he needed to impress
his funky fresh pal
in the pretty pink dress

so for hours, Octavian
practiced his spins and his twirls
he even got a costume
with glittery frills


So came the day
of the big talent show
He could show old Sabrina
that he too, was a pro

But alas,
half way through his act
his big squirmy arms
got caught in a crack

He tripped and he stumbled
and fell off the platform
tears started to fall
and away, he started to storm

"Stop!" a voice shouted at him
and he turned around to see
his best friend Sabrina
giggling with glee

"the very best dancer,
you don't need to be
if you really want to
be friends with me"

He smiled and she laughed
"you're very cool, you silly-old-goof,
but just be yourself,
not a stumbling doof"

Two fictional characters
walk into a bar

in Malta
( * Marsaxlokk - to be precise ).

"To...be....tooo beee. . ."
stammers Hamlet.

"Oh fer Gawd's sake...two beers!"
J. Alfred Prufrock snaps.

"You really milk that
"To be or not..." thingy."
J.A.P. scolds Hamlet.

"Tsk...tsk!" Hamlet tsk tsks.
( sticking his tongue out ).

Two Cisks are plonked
down before them.

"No...I am not Prince Hamlet or
was meant to be..!"
J.A.P. quotes him self.

"Awww fer Jaysus sake...loooook
just for the fun of it...the gas of it

we swop
texts!"

Hamlet interrupts Prufrock's
protestations.

"Ohhhh....o.....K?"
Prufrock ponders somewhat doubtfully.

And, so:
Hamlet the Dane

( for yea it is indeed he)
dares

(1) to eat a peach (2) wear the bottoms of his white
flannel trousers rolled (3) parts his hair behind even

(4) dares
to aks

the overwhelming question

"( Oh, do not ask, what is it! )"

Oh & (5) gets to hear
( ** ** ** )

"...the mermaids singing...."

Prufrock "Hum...."
kills the king.

Becomes the king.

Beds.
Weds
Ophelia.

" Buzz buzz...come come..go...go!"

"It's a very foreshortened
Hamlet...I know

but - what the heck!

"See..? slurps Hammy
". . . now, that wasn't so bad...was it?"

"Another Cisk?"
"Naw...I'll have a Becks!"

"Jaysus Prufrock now
...what's up?"

"Don't know..."mutters J.A.P.
wearing a frothy beer moustache.

"HURRY UP PLEASE...IT'S TIME!"
roars the barman in Maltese.

"I can connect nothing
with...nothing!"
Prufrock almost sobs.

"Like that time
on Margate sands..."

Hamlet cuts him curtly off.

"Don't even go...there!"

"But I still get that squirmy
...you know...feeling

we are just
fragments of

the imagination of
some *long haired Irish poet

sunning himself by
the waters of

the shimmering waters of
a Sliema hotel pool

...up up in the clouds!

Hamlet sighs.

"Yeah, me too
spooky...innit?"

Hamlet looks behind him
checking for what isn't

there. . .

"Ahhhh well, never mind eh?"

Prufrock attempts an attempt
at being cheerful.

Fails miserably.

"Let us go, then
you and I...

when the evening is spread out
against the sky..."

Like a patient etherised upon a table!
they both sing outta time and outta tune

stumbling one
into the other.

A long hair Irish poet
smiles as he watches them

go.

"Għaġġel fil-għoli...wasal iż-żmien JEKK JOGĦĠBOK!"
the barman roars.

NOTES

Pronounced MAR SA SCHLOCK. Those Maltese Xs being really SHs in disguise.

* Pronounced CHISK but the new barman is obviously new to the language and pronounces it TSK which makes him think that is what our two fictional characters are ordering.

Not to be confused with mobile texting but rather the literary texts of which both of them owe their existence.

* The play bounded in a nutshell as it were.

One Donall Gearld Oliver Denis Dempsey is a good example of this sort.

* The No. 1 song all over Heaven...beating Sparks THE NO. 1 SONG ALL OVER HEAVEN  to the top spot.

** "Għaġġel fil-għoli...wasal iż-żmien JEKK JOGĦĠBOK!" Once again the new Irish barman hasn't got his tonsils around the Maltese lingo and comes out with this terrible mish mash of the typical barman's cry.

Today, from class I was walking
On the phone with my boyfriend,
I was talking,
When between my feet I felt
A squishy, squirmy wormy,
Who's brain,
I mushed, stomped,
Smashed and smushed,
amidst the evening rain.

I cried out "why!?"
For his little brown eye,
Stared deep into my soul.
It looked so sad,
Because it was a dad,
To other squirmy wormys
I couldn't see.

As I was walking,
Still on the phone, talking
To my boyfriend,
who could not see,
The death of the wormy,
No longer so squirmy,
And I considered
What is life to be.

sometimes you sit next to me,
and golly, gee, good gosh - i get all old fashioned,
and squirmy and quiet and corny,
you'll have to forgive me, it's just that oh man,
your big book on computers and your orchestra t-shirt
and how your hair's all ruffled and curly - these things thrill me
and how you're always so **** collected and relaxed and not drowsy
not even at nine in the morning when i forgot coffee and look like tim burton designed me

you make me want to look good - i've taken to staring at my wardrobe
waiting for nice summer clothes to appear out of nowhere,
waiting for a genie to make me a prince, to throw a parade where i'm the
star, all eyes on me, because maybe aladdin was a fake
but it's better than what i've got.

You've even got cute teeth, how are teeth cute, that's too much, stop it -
no don't, please, ever, geez - my brain forgets to talk to my limbs and my lungs and
so i just get kind of quiet and silly, and
excuse me teacher but are you expecting me to learn like this?
but i do learn and you learn and we learn, we're so cool we say,
we know this language, we can just move to this country right now,
let's go, you and me, let's pack our bags and say who we are loud and proud,
because that's really all we know, but it's awesome, and this is awesome
and so different from that awful plan with buses and begging and stupid. *******. decisions.
this is joking at its purest, and you understand that - you're so
rational, wow, and that is something i think i've been craving for a
long
****
time.
so hey,
your seat's open -

oh.

except
except, wait -
it's not.
sometimes it's not.
sometimes some big, brutish boy who doesn't give two *****
flops into your seat, hunched over to laugh with his stupid friend in front,
and you come it, a little later than usual, and pause when you see that *******
- and that pause, oh that pause -
maybe i'm reading too much into it, like a **** up in a literature class,
but i hope not, because gosh, it'd be great if we could get coffee,
or see the new documentary at that independent place tucked away just for us,
or even go to a game and sweat away in the seats for five hours,
and maybe that pause is telling me that could happen, maybe?
I hope so.

I’m not myself, I’m all out of sorts
I could sure use a bottle, or one good snort

I’m edgy and squirmy
Not a feeling I like
Don’t know how to shake it
I should go fly a kite

I really think I’ve lost my mind
Have you seen it?
It’s one of a kind

I’m just overtired
That’s it, I’m sure
I’ll feel better tomorrow
Reach down to my core

Good night my friends
This isn’t the end
At least that’s my hope
I’m not that crazy, I’m just a big dope

Ever-after wishing
for magical

transformations, and
one to follow

closely by the book,
she rolls up lace sleeves,

plunging icy hands
down into pond's brown

murk, with a talent
for fetching out.

Finger-wrapped, fearing
pursed leather lips,

her slime-green captive
gives its squirmy croak:

"What would a frog
want to do with you?"

Loony warbles creeping like a shark bite tucked into the night
I saute the solution of aghast has-been epigones filibustered brunt and brittle by hemlock aspirations of curated fright
Temulentia recognizes the sane from the inane and tragedy from travesty
Flowder imaginary crackjaw Samson skulls of donkeys dissuaded by varnished agony
Skipping through punctuated times the sheepish will profane me with beleaguered notions of time
Blind to the orbit of the eccentric zeitgeist of hopscotch chockablock cohorts deliverance finds no crime
Goose noose Howard Hughes wooden stilts of the gargantuan swerve
Only the alpenglow of hijacked jujitsu spar against redintegration of adversaries with penniless nerve
Sifting through the silt
I barnstorm the ire of glistened tribunes plagued with insipid promenades of set-up still-frame guilt
Enemies became friends deranged like roosters fleecing hens of henpecked anomaly grafted and built
The wasms of moribund prose absconding with latticework of lacrosse in vogue
Temperatures sweltering the quaky schleps of Maverick moons never more rogue
Flashbang grimace parched with slivers of an acclimated post-modern ******
Intimates the intimacy of the flock decorates bolted balderdash too winsome to deprive an earnest plea for peace and please
I conquer the wallbaggers of novantique with the temulentia of mystique
Rarely remanded by the cul-de-sacs of Giants demolishing social rust with a deteriorated sweep
Trip the jostled rhymes of confluency of rhapsody and rapture consummated by nickel gambols by design
Ridiculing the contumely of ragged turgid Reservoir Dogs canine to the itch of foggy moonshine
Yet I dance to the rhythm of a jockey mechanical when devoured by incarceration flimsy with attrition
Lurid livid welters sparkle in damsel jokes of remission against Back to Mine sequence counting Dracula by division
Outtatime in this march of Thriller sublime
Cornered by the otiose Chipotle of musty mangers of egalitarian grime
Blandished by shattered paradigm parallax in circumlocution by mirrored irony
Livid are tepid latticeworks of rax and sedition frozen by limpid “Teachers” piracy
Never was once forever in the dormant daydream
Seamstresses waltzed in autumn woods knowing Hoffa firebrands of wasted Scream
Bloodshot swank is a rackrent of cineaste rakes of dominions of half-baked dishes of disco zenkidu double-take
Limbering languidly through the procession of sectarians seceding from agitprop monopoly
Boarding the Ticket to Ride train authentic never squirmy with illusions of the fake
Slackened Eels slapstick the brackish bracket of appeasement in appeals
Confluence of formula endangered by euphoria that Limerick question is a grubbed dicey deal
Fortunate summit dreaded nadir
All that resides in throbbing hearts tethered like Four Squares littered with boondoggles of fear
Showcase the Shakespeare flown through rickets of balderdash as Bald Eagles the mascot of frisk and wretch
Time to own the Pony Show charade of a mimicry of dilettantes brave in the cradles of antiquity knowing rarely the mummification of symbolism of thirty years of slavery to hallow one veranda upon a kissed by an ***** rose starvation grave
Looted by the pernicious bootstraps of those computed
We ring true the epitaphs of Pine City Stage on the rundles of the marginalia that overflows with Ire refuted embarked on solid cremation for sagacity in tatters of rage denuded
Punctilious liars edgy in facetious gambols in Joker menace flushing hygiene for starlet screen
Malingering on quaffs of sedate aplomb yet to preen
Scrabble superlunary bastions of gabble and garb
The gawsy preternatural séance rather nimble to Duck the Badgers weaponized barb
Fustilugs congregate around ashen rot of cacophony marveling at temerity in contortion for epiphany
Episodic marvel of two lynched paragons of sweltered margins ribald at witwanton persiflage in a campaign for suffrage.
Defected fire crackling with the joy of cacophony
Relishing every maskirovka pedigree of rackrent sovereignty
Slipshod fustilugs burrow bilkey in doctored Hubbard hubs smoking gun for dwarfed sins of blinded light staring Poison Ivy Appetite for Destruction mainlined by profligate amphigory a splintered shard
Complexion fulminates AIM with scourges of backtrack upon backwater miracles of Lake Placid confusion
Envoys to scuttled aliens marauding like they own my street in distinct slender confection even as the odd berates my diffuse dissuaded cineaste direction
I slummock with the slurvian alveolate bonism of prized poverty for Pine City Stages a delope of antelopes torn asunder by the athletes of formidable retention
Minute Mayday MaiDEN curls the forelock of a tucked hedged blush of no greater stupidity than a furrow of piglets in the pews of lyrical surgery
Slowpoke in acerbic flavor I countermand the denizens of urged regency decapitated by orbit if not by ******
Consummated on every brain that God himself believes that liberation can entrust
Enthusiastic chameleon of Mojo Grooves for the languid auditorium of a Revered time behooved to the gallops of threshed figurative sloppy slush
Funded by killjoys emaciated by slippery lies on craven deposits of sedimentary inertia quelled by amusement, grounded into Orange Crush
Urbacity is the usucaption of illegitimate ******* filigrees Armed to the Teeth but respecting the Tree
Winsome is obligatory for a Winslet flippant elder quorums contemn as a malapropism for syndicated armory in chuckling White Broncos evading a Houston test in the gricers of Autumn Heaven lingering with germane plight only reserved for luxury at its best
Aborning sidereal alpine brevity is a scry of evidentiary might of totemic dissolution alchemy so bright
That the chalkboard erasure is a confabulation against simultagnosia in acidic Phuture Bound sight
Because Mission Impossible cavorts with the exotic frictions of the nefarious Biocyte
Trailblazing heydays memorializing an Alpha Bet for September 2004 maydays
Of the scriptural series of mishaps and misadventures for barley grain in deadstock Indiana Jones wayward wayspays
Time to count the Dracula of venom drenched from the aceldama of gritty Gurley lies of a city yet loved because too many oases are despised
But Westwood becomes Eastwood with ******* Grotto as the centripetal but monogamous prize
Hot Tub Time Machine soaring among the cognoscenti of burlesque organized ***** crimes of lullaby Manzarek disguise
So toast to the dead captain of the psychedelic fountain pen of revolution Lorraine Baines fields arise
Time is an adventure that blinks only secondary of truce rather than guarded sheepish mustache of panmixia in genocide widely guillotined without scruple for newsy folksy prejudice on gallywow pride
Yet the sentinels of dirigisme anoint the Caesar of Nostradamus infamy of a Deep Impact symphony
Heard by asteroids and asterisks lurking with Thriller to the end of time known only as enumerated infinity
But enough petty battles squandered on sinking U-Boats torpedoed like ransacked crambazzles from Tucker belligerent with a “War” burnt heated calentures of scorching torches of rigged Scarface cockroach
Because there is no elementary Zion that is chosen to emerge in the barnstorm of flukenhague fluke
Time to rest my laurels on the depredation of safety
Reminding with a glower that saving our city is not an Autopilot of Buccaneer Brady
For the Grand Master Architect is princely in Jerusalem but heralded in Mecca because for too many storks all they want is another baby.
And my answer is that my Terrier Bonds are shaken and stirred by many a yes, probably and maybe in that order of illusion shaken into cocktails of cobblestone gravy
The Soy Sauce livid on mistake exerts a dementia on attrition to enthuse Kansas City joy all too crazy
Swimming in an ocean of Carly Ray Jepsen "Calling Your Name" Queen of Highways' Titanic fortress of Armada music beating the Village People silly over their gabbles against Navy
Born and Raised in a Colorado Springs cage I am snake eyes without crafty disguise  in authenticity to a Patriot Point Break Heist  of the probable doubt of the Zany Billy Zane entrapment of prestige gone madcap with Raiders of never the ambitious but always the lazy
So meditate on my word crimes as I elude detection as Hawthorne Nevada alights with 200 earthquakes in two days in Gray design
Wow what a marvel it is to always know that  you are always Stayin' Alive as the splinter of time capitalizing on sensual crestfallen vibes of a pendulum tsunami "Us and Them" saw wavy
And to the 1776 practical joke that gouges Samson even when thousands of Philistines get crushed in delope
Consider this a declaration of war against your pathetic screwball maze of fog to make a sane man livid with a blushed bravery too fraternal to old craven owls of cruelty beyond the maze of convolution of Istanbul collectively shrouded by lies no stomached demise would appreciate for being gatekeepers of terminus exorbitantly hazy

**** it.
**** me,
To say you're sorry.
To make me glad
After an argument that's made me mad.
Hold my hips
And pull my hair,
Stick your hand in my underwear.
Mouth on mouth
Muffled moans
Hand on mouth
And squirmy toes.

Forget the flowers,
I want a kiss.

why it gets more solemn around ten at night
the busy people are not around, how
so many different reasons and sights
get roiled around turned over upside now
turned over and studied like squirmy things
by a botanist in a lab or in
my brain dissected like a lab rat prone
flat on my back my tail taut my ears
droop, right then, take a specimen and find
to find it all is how the time is then
too early or late or  impossible

You saw me in yourself.
Only the part you can't command cant quite understand,
the squirmy bit you never quiet .... pinned.
so
just tell me i'm worthless
so you can deny the empty space in your chest,
where missing me used to reside.
You think i'm to ashamed to say a thing,
but i think you really know
im just afraid to be your echo
be your echo
be your echo.
You grow louder,
you step closer while i blink against your breath.
Tears fall
letting all the words you quip whip against me,
slip under my skin and send
my head swimming ,
giving away every feeling..
I always give away what i'm feeling
letting you know every nerve you hit
while tint bits
of your spittle spray across my face.
I force my feelings burning at you toward myself,
let my gaze drift to dust moats distressed
by your immense bellows,
occupying the distance between our being
while suddenly  seeming
as fragile as me .
each syllable in your enunciation
violently shaking,
the tiny particles making
the atoms in my being
vibrate.In time with your percussion
aimed at conquering my space
dominating the way i think
my name.
never hesitation toward making your exterior imply im inferior.

you fight in sharp words.
believe me when I say I have always heard you

-----------silence-----------------
my silence always fallows the words you hurl around like blunt objects.
Does my silence startle you?
Is my vulnerability upsetting ?
or is it the vast distance i place between us to protect my well being?
You always told me by action intimidation is how you conquer space to grow,
while everyone else would have me know
its my obligation to shrink out of existence.
so i let my persistence gather just beneath my surface
so i will remember i'm not worth more
and sure as hell not worth-less
I will expend every breath i take
on taking as much space as person of my mass requires,
remembering to allot room for my beautiful mind,
all the bit of me you encouraged I leave behind,
consider the gravitational force of like energy.
listen to me,
..................................................
why is it you are afraid of my lack of statement?
especially when i refuse to aim it..
like a weapon.
...
just listen..
to the silence...
because it can provide so much more than i can string into statements,
it will give you answers when you let it.
self reflection frees me,
maybe that's why i'm not scared so easily
over silly phrases like "i'm sorry."
and all i keep on thinking is
you have to answer to yourself
someday when theirs no one else to listen....
i can't demand a thing from you when
you still cling to static thinking if you
keep your heart racing
words following
you wont get trapped thinking over the words you were just throwing
knowing you set out to hurt me,
to hurt my feelings
to afraid of yourself to manage
your own silence,
so you just keep screaming.
while i don't say a word,
just keep thinking
i wish you would do the same.
Because i tried
to tell you everything .
and now all i have to give you .....
is silence....
and you still don't hear..
anything.

For some odd reason I am atuned to rain.
I might be sleeping, working,  in a windowless room,
But some how I just know when it's about to rain,
I can smell it in the air, the dampness,
The aroma of moisture building up in the clouds,
Mounting up to one big expenditure as rain,
I can sense it. The rain is tangeble, yes, but to me,
The smell just before is tangable as well.
I smell worms on the sidewalks, squirmy and slimy,
I smell the mossy trees and the wet ferns,
Just before the first drops splash down upon them.
I get a whiff of the preluding aroma and it's entrancing.
The smells bring images of rain and storms, and with it,
A sense of happiness and calmness.
Rain washes away the filth and the grime,
It allows the Earth to be reborn again.
That whiff is all it takes,
To bring a smile to my face.

It begins as a tingling in my legs,
unpleasant like something squirmy trying to get out, something huger than my skin, wriggling, bursting to get free.

Without ceremony it spreads, bulging in my chest, prickles poking through my shoulder blades. Suppressing only makes it worse, I need to run, to fly, to breathe-

"What's wrong?" you ask.

I cannot answer, it is taking all my
willpower not to scream, or punch an
innocent bystander. Would I? Whether I would or not I've never found out,

I just leave.

"I love you," you say. I still cannot reply, the tears have been melting my face, but now they trickle down shiny scales.

External sensations have become
insensible, overpowered by the
overwhelming rage of barely managed fire within. The sharpness of my teeth meets an unfeeling leathery lip.

I go downstairs and leave the building. I don’t know if I remembered my keys.

I run
just as reptilian wings free themselves from my back, they flutter, stretch out wide at last.

I'm free,

but I still want this thing inside me, this thing that now is me, to leave. I am ashamed of it, afraid of its newness and my inability to control it.

It's happier now--
in the open air where it can thrash about without restraint. I let it, no longer worried it will lash out at something or someone breakable.

We fly far and long, my arms and lungs ache, but still the fire burns in my whole body waiting to be unleashed.

We soar, sore and angry until suddenly I'm alone again.

I look down but I don't need to look to know the scales are gone. My lip feels soft again beneath my rounded teeth. The wings still flap but gentler now, quietly bringing me back to the ground then softly folding and
painlessly absorbing back into my
shoulders.

I head home.

Dig down deep where the squirmy worms go.
Feel the decay of ancient sunlight within forgotten leaves.
Smell the dark, rich soil aching with fertility.
Plunge the seed within and wait.

It will grow.

"I look like a melting gargoyle when I cry."

She laughed, like wind-chimes in sunlight, soothing and warm. She replied, "You don't have to show me."

"Will this really work? I feel silly."

"Well you won't know unless you try, now will you?" She smiled.

"Okay, okay. Like this?" I asked, crossing my hands over my chest.

"Kinda," She reached out and adjusted my hands slightly, "Like that, gently, like you're holding a baby bird against your heart."

She let go of my hands and floated backwards a pace, watching me encouragingly.

Still feeling silly, I tried to clear my mind, while remembering her instructions;

Focus, stay relaxed...

OK.

Think of hope, I told myself, and as I did I began to bring my cupped hands down away from my chest and hold them facing the sky.

"*******!" She exclaimed, leaning in, her face alight with - something.  

I started to lower my hands, thinking as I do, that she was poking fun.

Her face fell, and her hands shot out like lightning, gently bracing my hands and preventing me from lowering them. "Don't be shy," she smiled softly.

I looked up into her eyes, wary, but her face showed only concern.  I looked down again, ashamed of my reaction, and she ducked her head to maintain eye contact.  "You're a squirmy one, aren'cha?"

I felt my face flush, but I laughed, despite my anxiety.

She nodded towards my hands, "Don'cha wanna know what I see?"

I saw nothing. "Sure," I said, trying not to sound skeptical.

Apparently I failed because she let out another peal of chiming laughter.  She seemed to sober a bit, without losing her carefree smile and leaned in a bit more closely.  She peered into the bowl formed by my cupped hands like it was filled with stars instead of empty air.

She remained like that for what seemed an eternity.  I held as still as I could, awaiting her judgment.  She straightened and looked at me, very seriously.  Her face was not hard, exactly, it was like a waterfall that had just stopped falling, all trace of humor was gone.

"Why are you ashamed of me?" She asked softly, no anger or hurt, just concern.

"I..." I didn't actually know how to answer.  I thought for a moment, the both of us standing there, with her holding my hands like a fortune teller.

"I think I have just been convinced, over and over, that I should be." I said somberly.

"Silly boy," she replied, her face once again alive with that same ephemeral light.  "Don't you know?  People will tell themselves all kinds of things when they're hurting.  Don't you go and let hurt steal your hope, your light!"  

I hung my head a bit, somewhere, deep down, I did know.

She shook her head slightly, and smiling a bemused little smirk, she glided closer.  With her left hand she began to push my hands back up towards my chest, and brought her right hand around to cup the back of my neck, simultaneously drawing our foreheads together.

Her eyes drifted nearly closed, as if she was falling into a trance, and as my hands reached my chest she whispered something I could not quite understand.

I saw it first in her eyes, a faint glow, and as she finished her short silent prayer the tiny glow flared into uproarious brilliance!  The blinding light suffused us, filling my vision with blue/white fire.  

Hope's warm countenance floated before me now in the heart of a star, and just before I awoke, I realized that the light was coming not from her eyes, but from beneath my cradled hands.

When I think of you
my insides get very squirmy
                       like a barrel of live fishes.
                                                   I do not know if I like it or not.
It sometimes seems as if maybe I am full of you
                                               and there is no room left for me
                                 or my thoughts.
                 I think I’m okay with that part of it.
There is no shortage of thoughts to be thought,
                                                                ­         I am sure.

I find your way of being in the world
           **** and soothing.
Your mind smells very comforting to me
                                and the smell sticks in my soul
            for what feels like ages.
It smells like a room made of great dark wooden shelves
          full of books
                     and a big leather chair
                            next to a tall window
                                  open to a view of the woods
                                           and the rain.
                   Maybe a hint of
                               bourbon and cigar smoke
                                                   hang in the air.
I would love nothing more than to curl up in this room
                and lose myself.

It can be hard to breathe
                           when you are close.
If you do go out of your way to smell nice,
          I would probably miss it.
                       (Because it’s hard to breathe, you know.)
If I didn’t miss it,
             I might pass out
                              from trying to catch my breath.

I told you once that I don’t like it
                                 when you touch me.
               That it makes me crazy.
I have wondered since why I said that
                         when what I really meant was
      that your slightest touch sets my insides off
                                                       like a ******* carnival ride.
I very much do want you to touch me
          I just couldn’t trust
                                        how I felt
                          about all the touching.
I was afraid that when you touched me,
                             however innocently,
             you would feel my soul quiver
                                           and you would recoil.
It seems that you really pluck my strings.
Even if you don’t mean to be doing it.

When you place your body too near mine
                                                                ­                   ‘in my bubble’
          I feel as if I am a little waterfall
and you are putting your fingers in the water
                                                               to see it
                                           interrupt
                     the flow.  
I do not really mind the interruption
                                       but I am wary
                   of letting it become a habit.
I believe that you merely
        explore your environment
                       like a curious child
and will be moving on once satisfied
so I try not to hold on too tight.
                                But I want to devour you completely all the same.

       I know that you have mind bullets,
                                                        ­        even if you don’t.
Thus I am not sure if my impressions are my own    
                                                                ­           psychotic creation
              or if you have somehow gained access
    to my brainspace.
                         Maybe I’m paranoid.
You have certainly spent enough time
                                              on my mind
                         to at least be cordial with the doorman.
                                                        ­  That is an invitation of sorts.
I wonder if you simply accepted the invite
                   or if I have made a hostage of you in my mind.
           Because I’m not sure I believe
                          that you actively sought entrance to this carnival.

Every bit of what falls from your lips
                                        in my direction
     is almost lost in the scramble to decipher the real meaning.
There are so many layers
                                          to human experience.
I have difficulty keeping my awareness
                   on the proper layer
          at the proper time
            and thus I agonize over all that might’ve been meant
                                                        by what was actually said.
I assume you are speaking on more than one level
           at least some of the time,
         but you know what they say about assuming.
Your words often feel heavy with extra meaning,
                   but I never seem to catch on in time
                   or have a clever enough response.
I long to crawl inside your mind
and rummage through
        until I find the section regarding layers of awareness.
                            That would definitely be a conversation
                       worth having.

When you asked if there was anything in your moustache
                                                           and made that sweet face
            I wanted to tell you “Kisses!”
                             but I did not know if you really only meant
                            “Is there something stuck in my moustache?”
Or if you knew that they were there
and wanted assistance
with their removal.
                                                   So I just told you “Nope.”

                   I wish I would’ve said anything else.

My civility and patience
is a burden that
hangs tightly
around my neck,

a constricting cord
that chokes me
till I am raw
with reserved rage.

Tiny tuffs
of black smoke and flames
burn me
from the inside out.

Till the pain of the world
drowns me
in a salty sea
of grief.

While others thrive off greed
profiting from pain and destruction,

I wait for some
sort of civil revolution,
or karmic retribution
that never strikes back;
Biting my tongue
till the red squirmy thing
just jumps right
out of me
and I cannot speak.

— why are you so squirmy?
— because when I get hugged and kissed I get super super happy, and I like squirming around

I wish my brain
would stop being such a squirmy toddler
and just sit still for a moment.
I'm starting to feel tired
like a parent yelling at a tantruming child
In a crowded supermarket.
Will you just tell me
what you want from me?

On second thought
maybe I'm the child.

Forgive me
for my level of
gross insensitivity.

Please pardon
my passing stares,
forgo those old
fierce glares.

I did not mean to
act up and offend you.
Its just that
I like to look at
beautiful things.

I know you think
I am some sort of creep,
but I observe many
lovely things
from flowing waters
foaming up
as they chase the sands,
pulling beach back in
this gorgeous ocean,

or the feline creature
who gracefully moves
at her own leisure,
with her slick black fur streaks
as she sneaks and seeks
something squirmy to eat,
such a predatory work of art,

or the pink flower unfolded,
long before her blooms
are consumed
by time’s terrible decay.

Please allow me this
as a lonely artist,
I am merely appreciating
the art that is
your loveliness.