Your birthday is July 10th
Your zodiac sign is cancer
Your favorite colors are purple, yellow, and orange
Your favorite thing in the world are unicorns
You have a pretty complicated family, kind of like me
You are shy but you are outgoing
You love potato chips with cottage cheese
You hate your little sister
Your little sister has the biggest, most impressive collection of squishes that I have ever seen
You're very insecure even though you're the most beautiful girl in the world
You're really good at volleyball
You can sing but you've never sang in front of me
You want to go back to Texas
You are going back to Texas in four months
I wish you wouldn't leave me

“The sound that pours from the fingertips awakens clouds of cells far inside the body”
Robert Bly  1926-

You could say that the sound that tips deep cells are waking      
                                                                                                
                                                                                                   heralds with bugles divine revolution

You could say that the sound that echoes from spirals                
                                                                                                
                                                                                                  gossamers emeralds’  scintillant light

You could say that the sound that squishes from mangoes            
                                                                                                
                                                                                                   is luscious and opulent tripping with pearls
          
You could say that the sound that slumbers in harp strings          
                                                                                            
                                                                                                   howls round the polar bear’s tumaceous couch  

You could say that  the sound that tremors  from tadpoles        
                                                                                                
                                                                                                   triggers eruptions of undersea mountains

You could say that the sound that sits on the windowsill              
                                                                                              
                                                                                                   on Arcturus flickers as icicle fire
      
      You could say that the sound that bounces off drumskins            
                                                                                                    
                                                                                                          loosens the shackles of acuate cacti

You could say that the sound that shivers off rainbows                
                                                                                              
                                                                                                   silkens red poppies at sunstrike unpacking

You could say that the sound that rumbles round moonrocks        
                                                                                              
                                                                                                    passes on purple to stillness of shadows

You could say that the sound that echoes cicadas                      
                                                                                              
                                                                                                    crackles through canyons of memory rising

You could say that the sound that gallops through nightmares
                                                                                            
                                                                                                    shrinks in the face of the falcons glissade

You could say that the sound that is diatomaceous

                                                                                                     tangles up synapses  sparking at random

You could say that the sound of deep cells awakening                      
                                                                                        &n

I grab a shoe
        a shoe
        a shoe
Because everyone wears shoes
Because everyone needs shoes

I grab a shoe
         and I shove my foot
    straight in
              Because that's what everyone does
Because my foot wasn't good enough
            as is.
    Despite,
                 supporting my weight
and keeping me afloat.
My foot needs more, to be complete.
Because all feet get cold, I guess.

But this shoe annoys,
          it suffocates
          it squishes my toes
that just want to wriggle free

        And I'll have to wear it,
as uncomfortable as it is,
           until I wear it down
     But soon after that,
this one
                             will have given up on me.

And I'll just have to get a new one,
               and go through the whole thing,
   Because everyone needs shoes
                 All their lives

But even after I have
          shoved this foot into
that shoe
the ordeal isn't yet over.
    a shoe needs effort to work right
you've got to tie it up to keep it on.

So I grab this lace,
         and I scoop up that lace
and I pull like I've seen others do,
    the grip on my foot gets tighter,
But this shoe's not going anywhere either.

So I start crisscrossing
and looping
and more pulling
and stretching
and soon,
           I've got a finger
    or two
          stuck.

Frustrated,
                          I yank them out.
and the whole thing unravels.
                         and I've got to start again.

But to no avail;
with no point

                      Because

even when I slow down,
                           I get distracted,
Even when I focus,
                   I fail

But I spend hours
and hours
          trying to knot these **** laces
trying to tie this **** shoe

                         Because everyone wears shoes.
They make it look so easy,
They make it look so fun,
          
But my foot just wants free.
To roam without constraints.

But bare-feet aren't the norm,
So I'll keep sitting here,
Slowly learning to tie my shoe.

She squishes the pill bug
with the tip of her shoe
giving it a nice twist at the end
to be sure the deed was done.

She stares for a long while
at what must have looked like a Rorschach test
speckled with bits of recognizable body parts -
legs and guts as such-
as if searching for the bigger picture
it must have been hiding.

She jumps back into her self
when she recognizes the voice of a little boy
calling from the swing set nearby.

She looks exhausted
like she's spent all day carrying the world
and this is a rare moment
when the universe allows her to sit down.

She reluctantly rises from her semi-comfortable bench.
and shuffles toward the impatient child
who is now screaming wordlessly for her.

She's been dealing with this behavior for a long time
you can tell because the pterodactyl screeches he's emitting
that send the nearby blind man's dog into fits
don't phase her at all.

She grabs the metal ropes of the swing,
pulling him back to the highest point of the pendulum,
and lets go.

The little siren boy falls immediately silent
his eyes slowly shut
His face melts into what can only be described
as the untarnished bliss we all misplaced,
or packed away somewhere in the attic
with all those old picturebooks,
long ago.

He's flying.
For the first time all day,
she doesn't have to fake a smile.

I want a day with a morning mist
that burns off
as the sun finds its way
through the thin trunks of Loblolly pines
along the river.

I want to *****
over logs and through bogs
and find my way around the bend
among whatever crawls, digs and hunts
along the river.

I want to feel like the first person
to sink my heels into untrammeled riverbank
and discover what raccoon and ****** know;
there is promise here
along the river.

I want to blaze a ****** path
and hear cracks, snaps, and squishes play a song
with each step of my boot
along the river.

I want to see what is
beyond the bend  
along the river.

darting eyes seek recognition
as strange color patterns
give the sky an eerie green glow
what should be cloud bodies
look more like 3rd grade
geometry projects –
noiseless ground squishes underfoot
resembling a velvet trampoline
with crystalline structures jutting up
lacking gravity, they start small
then expand and branch out
looking like manicured Arborvitae’s
flipped upside down,
planted,
and painted with black glitter –
a low meandering whistle
travels near my ear canal
causing a Pavlovian right turn
strained neck muscles bring attention
to the fact I have been motionlessly staring
for what seems an eternity…
in an instant I see something
through the atmosphere;
an oddly familiar object
of the slightest faintest blue –
My eyes snap open
and the clock reads 2:57 a.m.
again
….am I being abducted? –

sand squishes between my toes
as ocean waves wash over them,
coming and going.

my thoughts come and go
with them—
i try hard not to
hold on too tight

but i just love the way it feels.

no longer a true human being, not really
a tangled web of hurt and anger and
confusion and physical pain and
depression and fear
lost, useless, paralyzed
doped like a drunken dog
doped with careless disregard
a bundle of nerves held together with
tissue paper, tearing slowly
the pressure increases steadily daily
it squishes my brain and
squashes my heart, already close to broken
slipping hands scrape and beg for a tether
they used to be strong, steady
now they are willowy, cracked
barely there
there is no back-up; there is no safety net
just me, tearing at the seams
ready to implode
a dying star inhaling
its last breath
ready to disappear

nothing left
just a small, glowing ball of matter
the remnants of my soul

Here's an ant
a friend,
a little lithe selfless ******
and not a bother
for, brother, you must know
the ant is born to be
a weary worker,
quiet and solemn but free.
And he listens
till he bites to feel
a real emotional squeal
from you, who loves and cares and knows and such
and squishes
to let the ant, the friend, be the friend, the speck.
A flying speck.

Heavy gray clouds battle for control of the supple trees,

which bend under the will of the wind,

leaves whipping and flickering their bright undersides,

like the dresses of frantic Spanish dancers;

pale pulp squishes between her toes,

the grapes bursting under the weight of

eighteen-year-old feet - both the fruit

and the flesh are soft and ripe

and smell of sugar in the sun;

the gray sea licks wildly at the gravelly shore,

while her fire-red locks twist and tangle in the wind.

Silliest bristle came over me, like a yearn to wear a negligee to church, or eat ants. I can't remember who first gave me pause in an earnest sense of how to live life justly or fully. Not sure which one I'd want more. Doesn't matter, I suppose. My morals keep becoming reconfigured. It's difficult knowing who might be heroic, or who might be manipulating mass appeal in order to boost book sales. I think I just want some new exotic flavor, that rush of tasting avocado for the first time. That really happened to me, you know. I never knew the taste of avocado until I was nineteen and moved to California. It was not common at the time in New Jersey, or at least I had never had it. Never even heard of it, really.

I landed a job as a prep cook and dishwasher at a little mom and pop joint that catered to a mostly lunch crowd from the county court house. It was a quaint little town in the Sierra Nevadas. Townsfolk consisted of artists, musicians, gold miners, hippie marijuana propagators, and lumberjacks. Mostly, at that time, there were the good old boys, Republicans who held most political offices and police positions, and the newbies, attracted to the area by some new age communes, a Democrat influx. I fit into the newbie category, though it was a girl I followed there, not a guru. And of all the outstanding romances had, through the twenty five some years spent in California, none have lasted as long as my love affair with the avocado. It's a certain jolt I feel when guacamole passes through my lips, squishes around my mouth, and lands within an empty belly. I was beside myself in wonder, that very first day such a taste hit me. Now, being back in New Jersey, but not devoid of such illustrious fruit, I wonder where it is I stand on more matters of what it is to live justly or fully? Where is after here? I even see one of those new age communes has moved in down the street. Though I have my guacamole, I'm feeling less fulfilled.

Wet ground all around
Squishes all around my feet
Smells just like decay

The List:
carrot, eggplant, arbi,
capsicum, green peas -
press one for more options -
apples, new list apps
applesauce and ketchup
not Heinz but the cheaper one,
a new pressure cooker because the whistle doesn’t work
And with each tweak it tizzles out more,
theek nahi hai, yaar  
no matter how many times you take it in,
it’s just jugaad again,
a permanent temporary fix,
so we need a new one, stainless
steel and big, bara
to cook all of your dreams.
grand total rages against your wallet,
paper thin but it’s digital,
anyway,
your eyes glaze, blaze
as the bag boy, too tired, too hassled,
too underpaid squishes the eggs
beneath the cooker
the shells quake in your eardrums
the smell of something rotten
beneath all those discounts.

To be honest, overtime i look in the mirror I see someone different.

There's this girl.

She looks the same at a glance; black hair, brown skin, brown eyes. The same mold, but every now and again as I look closer, she’s not the same girl from yesterday.

Sometimes her hair is straight with a slight bounce on the bottom, or curly and ruffled. Sometimes her hair is streaked with rouge red fire, sometimes it’s an abyss of dark swirls amidst a sea of black.

Her skin fluctuates between light brown chilled ice cafe or sultry dark caramel freshly baked by the sun.

This girl has a rounded nose that squishes. Her eye brows are sometimes bushy, sometimes thin, or sometimes heaven sent from a model (or just a really good wax). Plump lips which have seen every shade of color in the rainbow from seductive red to party pink, even the occasional midnight black. These lips can speak words of encouragement and wisdom, spit sass, throw shade, pout to get their way. They can tremble, but they can also smile.

I see her face every day. When I look into her eyes, it’s the eyes. Each time I gaze into them, they’re different. I must stress the fact that they’re never the same as the day before.

Sometimes, when I look into the mirror and watch her eyes I can see that there’s morning. It’s a bright sunny good morning. Not just in the time of day, but in her heart. I can see them glisten with excitement. The brown eyes are bright, excited.

They say, “I am confident. I am going to grab the day and kiss it as hard as I can with all that I am. Adventure awaits me in every step I take, around every corner. I will rise. I will conquer. I am fearless!”

The brown is like a sweet sugar, like fudge. ****. So full of energy and sunlight. Nothing can go wrong. The energy reaches from her eyes down to the corners of her lips pulling them up to her eyes. This energy wants to share itself with her whole being… She is smiling.

Sometimes when I look into the mirror and gaze into her eyes, they’re warm. Oooooh, and soft, like a gentle summer breeze. Mmm. they’re comforting like a cup of hot cocoa on a sharp winter night. Loving. Right down to the bones. They could hug any cold feeling way and melt you down like butter in a low heated pan, slow, gentle, calm. I listen to these eyes, with comfort, “Sure not everything is where you want it, love, but it’s okay. Everything is gonna be all right. We’re gonna make it.” Simple words is all it takes to reach out the meaning from these eyes. They reach past the smile and melt into the heart. Slow and comforting. Tender. Maternal. Loving.


But every now again, the sunny skies in her eyes will fade as dark clouds roll in.

I try to stare in the mirror, grasping for the pretty girl who once stood there, but she’s gone. The more I stare, the more something in my aches and I look away. There would be no make up. No smiles. An abundance of red but not a passionate fiery rouge, or a warm hearted maroon.
She had red in her skin, on her nose, in the eyes. Her face was flushed. Her shoulders were heaving up and down. Part of me wished it were from laughter, but part of me knew. Part of me knew the jagged up and down heaving and huffing, moved her body like a boat lost on a stormy sea. Dark ominous clouds dug into her skin, just beneath her eyes like bruises. Her jaw was tight, teeth clenched. The longer I tried to stare at her, the more I lost the girl with the curly hair, fiery lips, adventure in her steps, mischief in her gaze. The longer I searched in her skin, in her eyes, the girl with the tender smile like hugs, the girl whose words were like a warm hearth, she was lost.

The girl with the broken heart stood before me. Heavy. Sinking. Drowning. Begrudgingly, she picked up a brush and began to paint a facade over the darkness. She picked up the concealer, dabbed on the foundation, winged her eyeliner, and covered each bruise, each red splotch, each tear until there was no trace of the internal battle she faced. No sadness, no tears, all calamity covered by a blanket of cosmetics, a mask in plain sight.

But if you stare hard enough, stare into her eyes, reach past the blush, the picture perfect lipstick, under the perfect curl mascara, above the eyeliner, right into whatever is left of her soul, it makes you wonder if the girl with the rouge streaked hair ever existed? if there was really hot cocoa or just left out cold bitter coffee? Was there really such a person who craved adventure? Was there ever such a girl who loved so tenderly? Was she always like this? Was she always wearing broken pieces of shattered mirrors for a mask? Was she just reflecting what might’ve been, what could’ve been…

But never was?

There is something making movement,
in my hand.
It is very warm, it inhales then expands
Thick liquid drips down my fingers to the floor
Thumping sounds like steps coming to a lonely door.
The soft top layer squishes when I squeeze.
Though strong, very strong indeed.
This thing I can tell is very much alive and i feel my fear creep up inside.
For I know that though it's as big as my fist, it will falter at the tiniest, misunderstood risk.
So delicate and fragile, it's a lot to handle
It's not a toy, nor something to take
for granted would be a huge mistake
Because to somebody else, this heart does belong
and they have held mine too, all along.

~
reeds jut skyward
like spears in the hands of marching soldiers
below, rank mud squishes underfoot
we creep as near to silent as possible

crossing rusted strands of barbed wire
we enter private and protected ponds
with ninja stealth we take position
crouched in bramble
we cast thin line delicately into the void

slight tremors find my eager fingertips
as insomniac bass feel for tasty treats
slimy lips extend and inhale
******* worm and hook deep inside

my father snaps his fingers twice
the sound of a job well done
I feel his strong hand grip my shoulder
and look back to see his toothy grin
shine in the moonlight  /

Someone took a pair of shears
and chopped down all the buildings.
Now I must turn my head
to see the whole sky,
splotched with wisps of white
like an old man’s stubble.

Barren hills swell up like blisters
on the smooth flat land,
their windmills slicing the sky
like blunt razors.

My foot squishes over a rejected nectarine.
I kick it as I walk, watching it roll unevenly
on the pavement
until it plunges down a gaping storm drain.

Silken sweet is the sycamore's song,
where robins roost and raise their young,
and smooth smells of chrysanthemums run
to see the sordid spring.

The shiny sheen of nature's skein is too delicate
for my Velcro eyes, which tear and wrench
the tranquil strands into a tangle of rough satin;
be my sandpaper soul that skins salamander to
brawny bones and bores raucous cores like
maggots and ****.

Raw sewage seeps, creeps carefully into
the spaces of Her starry quilt
until squelching squishes escape
my hoarse rasping whispers
and see the calloused corpse that casts its rueful shadow
into bright days, silver nights
to a twilight that will not end.

Caustic contaminants cross my veins and cake skin in
corrosive gasps; fumes funneling fingers of pus
pancake pores of porcelain dust to a mortar
of blemished touch.

May I bathe in boredom's ennuinous ***** so that I may emerge
blessed, reborn best as salty caramel springs,
let the day spray sparing tea into me and cleanse
careless cacophony.

Burrow my body,
leave quelled, cool Calvin to play the fool
and be me for the day.

If we were on a canvas;

I. Ocean blue greys in heavy handed strokes,
Bleed into a green of sun lit canopies .

  Burnt umber and soil with quick wristed flecks of something like the yellow of thick honey

  Intermingling over deafening white, the colors collide messily but not unintentionally

  Not oil, not acrylic,  not even water color .

  Rather something made truly of these very things,

  Ocean depths and hurricane hights, black tire marks burnt into cement and the mud that squishes beneath bare feet. The colors of momentary bliss . Unapologetic and unraveling.

II.  Dust collects heavily on a lustrous and listless painting , dimly lit in an empty gallery.
 
   Only my fingertips disturb the sediment of dust and salt, the face of these colors only haunt me .

  And those who remember seeing it look sadly apon me and tell me only; that there are more muses in this world than one.
 

III.   You're somewhere doing something ,
    But no matter what satisfaction is gained
You know there is no recreation of those hughs,
And a piece of you too mourns the capability to finish the art set in place by fate and choice.


If we were on a canvas , we would be hidden in lonely parts of eachother, because whatever we made this of is stained into our skin no matter how hard their loving hands try to cleanse them .
We are the very mess we create.
Unapologetic.
Unraveling.
Undeniably human.

Wanting a thing to hold onto
A piece of a tree a twig
The fur of a cat
The psalms in the air
Wanting

At its best a thirst
Hunger pangs
The mist
A salty sea breeze
On aqua
Cliffs

Selecting a rock
On the beaches
Drifts
So many so
Soft

Hold that thought of
Soft squishes
Standing
An eye
To the
Sky
A hand on a
Rock

A
Breath

If kisses were wishes
puckered lip squishes

bewitching your skin
as they begin

just like a kite
they start to take flight

dancing through skies
on nature's sighs

magic unseen
sweetly convened

into the heavens
wishes now leavened

to enrapture just you
the kisses accrue

Watching the scene with keen blue eyes,
There, rough rocks, hills and mountain rise.
Up, up the firmament he flies.

Forever youthful, fast and strong,
His mighty wings like canvas long;
He squishes his prey with his prong.

Like him, I see the open sky.
The hot air makes my wet eyes dry;
I'm burnt with fire, my thoughts flow by.

The winds below me sweep the sand.
Near the sun o'er a lonely land,
Soaring high, not a single friend.

The sand sinks beneath my feet,
And I feel myself slipping in.
I know what lies bellow me,
Yet still I don’t give in.
Maybe this will be the fall I need,
To snap out of this trance
I have placed myself in.

I watch as earth crashes down bellow me,
I watch as it is dissolved
Into the chasm below me.

My body slips forward,
And I push toward the momentum
Needing to get lost in something,
To feel the sharp snap of fear.

The earth squishes into my sneakers,
And water soaks into my feet,
Earth falls away from me.
I lean in.
And fall.
I Fall into the crevasse
I have opened up before myself.
-ALC November 24, 2017

if i look at the moon
with tears in my
eyes and i
squint
the world squishes
into
kaleidoscopes
and i know
i can learn
to live
through this

Splatter and spray
An explosion on repeat

Chilled and shiver
A barrel on temple

Each piece squishes and sloshes
Fairy dust of the soul between fingers

Gears clicks and Metal grinds,
We lock and load the final pill

It plays and runs
A never ending cycle of death.

Or is it the cycle of life?
A perfect peace in a flash.

Answers never given
From a voice forever silenced

This glitch will haunt me behind
My eyes even in sleep

i hate the flesh
the way it splits
squishes splats its
seafoamy decay
over the bulbous form
bone and meat of the
body

i hate the yellow rot
and purple blood
and oyster tongue and
other organs spilling out
its desperate escape
from that desolate
hole of a tomb