No man is as attentive to stoplights as the one who must leave his loved ones.

Crossing over the train tracks
to get to where you were
it wasn't that hard.

I never realized all the other obstacles I had to endure
until it was too late
until I stopped coming over.
A bridge, our high school, some shopping centers.
And stoplights. So many stoplights.

Sometimes, I still hear the train whistle from inside the depths of my room late at night.
I wonder if you hear it too, at 10:38 p.m. on Sundays,
and I wonder if you think of me.
But I never go that route anymore.

The silent street erupted around me the moment I sat down,
a thunder rumbles in the distance
but only reveals a passing truck.

The white swan drifts past
without elegance.

I watch the youths drive by on fish lane
as the silent score of stoplights
play to an impersonal audience-
tonight the pizzicato is on time.

----

The air is dense with quiet conversation
of nighthawks
and the splash  of luck
on a steel  tray.

Elegant servants of style remove the unwanted things.

12:30
The air has cleared,
alone again
with two fat asians.

When did boring become stylish?

GET ME OUT  OF HERE!!

"It is truly a free nation that offers pancakes 24/7"

----

Normally, the solitude of wandering a sleeping city would elicit poetry.
Tonight only nothing comes out.

Not the people nor the smells or secret music. Only the flicker  of a dying neon sun assuring me,
that the parking is open.

----

1:00 am.

A woman in a pink burkha enters a white car, only to be driven off into the night, followed by two taxis.

There are ancient trees twisting their tops through the modern facade. For eras, much like fashion are discarded by finicky time.

They have stood as silent sentinels for longer than I have breathed, and with any hope, they will stand as soldiers long after I  come to pass. These reminders of the ravages of time.

I loved a girl who lived  here once.
She lived in an apartment that overlooked the city
and had  ******* like two soft moons
that tasted like honey.

1:40 am.

Other nighthawks wander as wastrels through the quiet Autumn night,
with a slow, soft  gait one never see's in the rush of day.
If all evenings carried a beat, it would be thus:
a slow jazz drum.

"...psssssh-bop! pssssh-bop! pssssh-bop!...."
would sound the echo of every evening heart
throbbing slow with power.
"...psssssh-bop! pssssh-bop!..."

The car's carry  white  blood cells to  the  suburban arteries.
Taxi's are cancer.

I walk
northbound.

----

Cold beer at 2am.

Faintly lit menagerie
an open cage containing
nighthawks.

Well spoken Eastern girls
corporate white boys
two old tradesmen,
one on a smartphone with a rosary around his soft large neck.
The antique street curves away toward the river,
sloping up
then down
I follow it with my eyes.


And run them back
to the fairylights.
They hang like glowworms
or constellations.

Glowworms hang like constellations, the inside of their cave  is the same fleeting feeling of being alone with the universe, it being caressed by your eyes.
For you are its lover and its mirror.
Inside the glowworm cave, I felt like the universe and everything reflected  itself in miniature. That to look upon their hanging, blue stars you saw everything else.

Halt our shallow breaths--
         staccato fogs at the stoplights
Cling precarious in cold
like the frost on the stop signs.
The streetlights keep on winking
Winter's late but, now, it's sinking
                                       into bones
clawing coats
         shut. Clutching
                  wool to swollen throats

I swore I'd never stand here again
           at December's ******* doorstep--
ring the bell every weekend.
I always circle back every year
when
I take the same old punches
and wince when I hit play-back.

Halt my raising glass
        and analyze my afflictions:
28, alone and broke
so cop to addictions, now.
It's freezing--getting dressed
you've question marks in your brown eyes
It's hailing, breathing out
Carry my bags of old goodbyes
The walls just keep on shrinking
But the outside's gonna swallow me
                                    Eaten whole
even bones.
     Spit me out back on Mydland road

I know I'll wind up back here again.
         at December's ******* deathbed
sleeping in every weekend
Held all chips, played hands, drank a year
then
I pulled my vacant pockets,
defrosted my losing bets

Mea culpa. So long. Stay friends.

"Twenty-*******-five to one,
                      my gambling days are done.
I bet on a horse called The Bottle of Smoke,
                     and my horse..." (Finer/MacGowan)

the thick frames surrounding
my prescription perspective,
are the curtains to the ceaseless show.


the same charade everyday.


it's a 4-15 minute drive from my apartment to the campus.
4 minutes if the dark-humored, aliens that control stoplights are kind,
15 if they are looking for a laugh.


my feet hit parking concrete outside of classrooms.
it's rhythmic yet mundane.
but it's a game we all play.


i fall into line, the slow parade of apathy,
that leads us to lectures each day.


the professors project views of wicked youth,
we like white, pull-down sheets,
sport whatever image they insist,
so easily.


it's branded boys
and
tanning bed-inspired girls.
it's blind acceptance and
weightless regret.


i want to change lenses.
pull the curtain,
and start all over again.

sometimes my parents will ask me
"are you really going down that road again"
with such disdain and bitterness
and it just makes me so angry
because they do not realize that depression
is not a road one chooses to go down
and it is not a road one can easily exit
it is an unpaved road riddled with cracks and potholes
with no street signs or stoplights to guide us safely home
and to accuse someone of willingly taking that road?
well, that is how some of us end up there in the first place
-

Driving around the metro
mindlessly going through
stoplights
and traffic
and intersections.

We said we didn't really accomplish much work -
just a single package claimed and delivered amidst the 7-hour drive-
but the endless laughter
until we were on tears,
the teasing,
the pinching and tickling til one gets hurt
were enough
to brighten my day.

And not to mention
that stolen kiss
and interlocking of fingers
-it was a moment but I knew we wanted it-
that made my day
into a blur
of coloured swirls and sparkles and magic.

You are always loved, Anne. I am just and still here waiting. :)

Yours and always yours,
Mims

"And 7-hours through the traffic - through endless stoplights, intersections and cop chases - there was a stolen kiss... And the whole metro blurred into a swirl of red lights and car horns and whispered wishes that the stoplight would never turn go." :)

Its like a broken
    stop light Flashing
      red          And    
    blue,           My heart
    won't        make up my
             mind.
       Yes           and no
   Stop.              Go.
      Like            A comet
     coming much too
               fast,
  I can't            wait for it to
  come               crashing in.
   Part of          me is terrified
           of the lasts,

But another can't wait
    for all the new firsts.
          Excruciatingly Terrified,
               Substantially ecstatic.

I make trips to the corner store, at 12 in the morning.

Calling all cars to get the **** out of the road,
I'm swerving.

Calling all lights,
blink and be gone. Streetlights,
stoplights, lamps, lighters,
blunt tips, cigarette butts,
all lights be gone.

Dear Earth, get low in the darkness.

On my first trip,
I was accosted by rabid dogs who drooled shoelaces
and I could tell they were being hounded
by the kilter of their angry maws
and sawed-off minds.

They barked like guns.

And they saw me--completely irrelevant---
popping caps off Lokos
taking sips that could **** up an Orca,
completely swimming.

I had to kick them home.

At work today,
Someone got caught stealing five pesos worth of food,
and got threatened with a felony,
but they've got some lint in their pocket,
and knew how to keep it cool.

My girlfriend operates in ideas.

I've been at work for so long,
that I yell and walk around,
like I'm in the shower.

There were two packs of Pyramid Reds,
three packs of Marlboro 100s,
a trendy girl's white knitted cap with a zebra print bow attached,
and a banana flavored ****** scattered across Drew's dashboard.
I met him at Delta,
the restaurant where he worked,
which was more nursing home than modern sock hop.
He lit up,
told me we were bringing denim jackets back,
and then dragged me to pick up a bird feeder for his mom.
"How is um-****, what's her name, rahhh...Rachel?
he asked two stoplights into our journey,

"She's really good, man. Things are just going swimmingly."

"She wants my nuts."
Drew thought every girl wanted his nuts.
It had become a regular catch phrase.
While it was his ritual to begin our talks
inquiring about my girlfriend,
it was mine to ask what the number
of ladies he had slept with was up to.

"Oh, I'm not for sure, baby. Let's see, there were twelve
at the restaurant so far this year-"

"Twelve?"

"Yeah," he said grinning,"my ******* managers had to give me a
talk."

"They gave you a talk for having a bomb *** life?"

"Not exactly. They were telling me to lay off the underage ones.
Lawsuits and **** like that."

"Awesome."
Just then some hefty white woman
with her hair in a bun ran a stop sign and
cut in front of Drew,
he didn't swear,
nor did the jackassery interrupt his flow,
he simply threw up a hard *******,
and continued forward.

"The total is definitely over thirty. Thirty, thirty-five,
somewhere in there."

We stopped at one of those breakfast chains,
that synthesize the ancient all-night diners
of American mythos.
Two for the smoking section,
and we were placed in a corner,
across from a burnt out
workingman,
who smelled of **** and aggression.
Drew chain smoked,
while we both burned through cup
after cup of coffee.
Drew had ****** two of the waitresses
that were on duty,
one came by and chitty-chatted with him.
Her name was Beth.
Someone broke her nose when she was seven,
she had a fella who was a waiter there as well,
both talked to Drew like he was a cousin or
an old high school friend.
Our waitress had blonde hair.
She was twenty-four,
but raising her sister's ******* child,
and supporting her mother on
tips was cutting lines into her
tiny face.
Drew was talking smooth to her,
no doubt he slept with her before the
end of the week.
When she left he said,
"Isn't she sweet?
She's a ******* sweetheart.
Do you think I gotta chance with her?"

"Yeah, man. You're being a real pro."

"I thought so," he said as he took a deep inhale,
then let the smoke glide between his smiling teeth.

Drew waged a political war that lasted 10 cups of coffee
and one pack of cigarettes.
The first casualty was the ******* that drive 350s and don't
have a hitch.
The second was the wealthy.
Glen Beck.
Capitalism.
American ignorance mistaken as patriotism.
Needless to say,
we got along wonderfully.

We talked of old times,
like a couple of old guys,
and I was surprised at how distance
had shaped our views so similarly.

"You're lucky, man. You got yourself a nice girl, all settled n' ****.
All I got is ******. I just **** them, they fall in love,
and I put 'em in their place and go to the next one.
It's ******* sad."

"It's not sad, you just haven't found the right lady, I suppose," I said trying to make him feel lighter.

"Nah, I probably already met her, and just ****** her.
I don't even respect the girls I sleep with enough to
take them back to my place. Most of them I **** behind Delta,
a couple of times by that Walgreens off Kickapoo, Wal-Mart,
Denny's, um **** even behind that Petopia store."

"Behind Petopia? That needs to be the name of your book."

Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.

2:35am. You say,
“Lets go for a drive
through the galaxy.”
Your car turns into a spacecraft
as we fly through the blackness.
You take me on a journey among the stars.
The streetlamps and stoplights
become colorful particles of our galaxy,
and the cars around us
transform into the UFO’s
we can only read about.
You show me the best-kept secrets
that our vast ocean in the sky holds,
from the eyes in envy.
Your kiss
sends me into the mysteries of black holes
and the awe of a supernova.
3:12am I whisper,
“Can we sleep upon the radiance of the moon?”
and you respond,
“Yes, and tomorrow after breakfast
I will take you to swim in the turquoise blue of the sea.”
You take me everywhere
and back again with the simplest of actions.
You do this to me…

whilst they chase us,
and murmur hymns 'neath swollen wings,
they guide us,
with beckon words.

for the birds of baby eyes,
and elderly minds,
they wish for and dream just as much as we,
and ask many questions 'neath--therein--night.

who are you?
who are we?
who are they?
who is may?

simplicity within sliver tongues,
and nocturne in starry eyes,
we learn,
and grow,
listening to the native tongues from the birds of age.

for they speak in rhyme,
and rhythm--you see,
and bless us with the ability.

highlighter eyes blind we,
our neon stoplights, we see,
our teacher--our father--our mentor,
that wishes we move as he does.

for he feeds us rats!
and breaks his very neck for our arrival,
'my child--my pupil--my daughter--my son--welcome'
ever he always,
'mind you--mind you--your eyes beg wonder--sleep waits not for the lazy!'
and with a hardy laugh he bellows, the wind whips its hair as pompously, and only then his feet grabs for our shirts as we soar.

with darkly snoozes,
and sickly snores,
our teacher--our father--our mentor,
cares for us dozens!

for our wings dance lots--dance lots!--midst the rocky blue sun,
and our hearts shriek with candy teeth,
at the earth swimming below our dusty feet,
and clouds preach hello in wonder.

for the twilight knows of many bodies,
of many hands,
of many feet,
of many faces,
for they look up and see moving paintbrushes 'ganist canvas!
and wish for many easels.

and the earth knows of many tired bodies,
that the night has sickened,
with drooping eyes,
and legs a-limpin',
for they become the elder too,
as they play it and earned it well.

and the night sky argues and blinks many,
and births a new globe all and of its own!
as the olden wings guide us,
and our beings ache the part,
with sliver tongues,
and nocturnal starry eyes,
whom sweeps us into Forevermore.

your friends pity me
i see it in their eyes
but pretend it's
not there

you bring me along regardless
holding hands under the table
laughing alongside them
and we toast to your
oncoming sobriety

and i think they pitied you too
knowing that you and change
were fated mortal enemies
starting from conception.

god buried you in the dirt when he crafted your soul;
and the angels cursed you, turning the earth
to marbled heliotrope:

we met in that dark prison.
you whispered that everyone
had given you up. so i swore
to never leave. to try.
to fight for us. to
love.

you hold my hand for 46 seconds underneath
the sputtering pools of blonde light
after your narcotics anonymous
meeting.

and the angels pitied me as well,
turning their heads at stoplights
and crosswalks like i wasn't even
there.

as if i could forget or pretend
that i've never seen the
eyes underneath
our bed at
night.

Dead heavy eyes stare...
Glued to stoplights lining rain-soaked streets.
An arid tongue placed, no permanently stuck against pink flesh bone
Waiting for when everything doesn’t seem like a dream.
She thinks blinking is a way to clear her seafoam eyes,
But no matter how hard she rubs
The rain falls harder and
Clarity seems like a wish
She dropped in a puddle.

the trees are rustling,
whispering welcome, aerodynamic
flutter shuddering leaves;
there is an insect
traversing my backpack,
up one strap, across,
down the
other; moss covered Buddha
staring serenely at me,
myself returning the favor and
silently scrutinizing him.
it is tranquility, dyed yellow and
dying leaves floating to cobblestone.
birds chirping: sonic reminiscence of
Migos songs played at too-high volume
in your car, riding shotgun,
screaming punchbuggy and
stealing kisses at stoplights.
my legs are folded like
a lotus, albeit less
colorful and more
awkward edges, bamboo
casting shadows beside
me. wait- was that thunder?
are those raindrops?
or perhaps a signal that
talking about you
and photodocumenting my life
aren't going to do any good.

The passenger window was coaxed down
Creating a vacuum
From the outer orb of the car
    Whisping violently to the back seat.
I imagined this accumulated mass of air giving me directions
Just as my mother would.
          “Next left”
Turning my head back to the road
The stoplights were my own private assortment of fireworks, it being so late in the night
I was their sole admirer.  The sound that the wind now made reminded me of the
Shutter of an old camera, looped, repeated, into one single strand of noise.
I was being documented. Perhaps nature is just as fascinated with us as
We
Are
It.
Pulling up to the driveway, the car and I were eaten and digested.
Every living and inanimate thing around me was taking photos.
With their hands over their mouths, politely, like a secret crush.
Fame doesn’t bother blades of grass.

A body like running pavement
and filled with
skidmarks --
broken pictures of sunset sky between trees
power lines--
they fall and rise like waves,
quickly flashing.

A mind like an endless set of highways
there's no map to tell
where anything could end up--
ideas that are
headlights, move with uncontrolled velocity,
bobbing in the darkness, wheels
humming from the engine, throaty engine--
voice that's a radio, projects songs
and thoughts
to the passengers--

it's not a roller coaster, we don't choose to be behind a wheel
but we're all in our vehicles
with horns
and shouting matches and road rage,
swearing, arguing our luck,
gambling the speed limit
to try to get to all our destinations
"on time"
but God only wants you to feel the wind rushing
through your rolled-down windows,
or contemplate on silent journeys, a
seemingly never ending stretch of road,
breathe through the starry summer nights,
sunlight flickering on rooftops,
dirt paths in forests,
trees, lights,
pedestrians,
a hitch hiker,
clouds,
parks,
mountains,
cities,
stoplights,
billboards,
­but all you see is the
pictures fading into a blur--
blurring,
all
blurring,
and sudden--*

                          collision.

Streets as hot as metal
Where bodies turn to ice
Bullets litter cracked sidewalks
That broke the sad stoplights.
Laughs flood through the fences
With shattered slides and dreams
The man passed by this every day
With feelings that tested seams.
Every day, the same old thing
Drugs erupting from the bricks
Graffiti covering an old cafe
Crime makes this city tick.
Another young kid crying
For he hasn't got a home
Another car's been totaled
The wrath road rage has shown.
Another playground built again
Trying to make the town look clean
He can't ignore the orange jumpsuits
That stick around to plant some trees.
Blood stains here and flowers there
Take a stroll down Contrast Street
Ignoring grimy street vendors
Cause he's heard they've got the creeps.
Another gun shot in the air
Another cry for help
Another pretty restaurant
And people trying to convince themselves.
That maybe it's not happening
Someone will come along who cares
Someone else, take care of that!
Me? No, don't you even dare.
So I guess this can just keep happening
These walking contradictories
You're defeating your own purpose
We're losing, don't you see?

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning**

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes

If you fancy
a cheap thrill,
I suggest you
buy erotica read on CD.

The narrators never disappoint.

Listen to it only in your car.
Be sure to take the route
with one too many stoplights—
teeming with all of
the self-righteous pedestrians
who think they always warrant
the right-of-way.

Roll down
all of your windows.
Turn the volume up
to a number that will
allow you to suitably share.
Employ a smirk of
the most contented caliber,
& bank on making
someone’s ******* day.

*('Cause, no matter how you skin it,
we’re all some kind of human.)

I hate myself
for wanting to be pretty
but even more, I hate the world I live in for
   making me feel like I need to be
pretty
in order to amount to anything
   but it's been etched into my brain
      like the alphabet or "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?"

I guess I ran
out of words
when I stopped believing
   that I needed you to love me back

sometimes I still think of you but only
in the moment between tracks on a CD
or at stoplights
or in the the spaces of light between my fingers
  when I shield my eyes from the sun

but there are a lot of things I
sometimes think about
so maybe
   you're not so special after all
just a speck of static
I clung to
  when I had nothing else to hold
  or when there was no one else
to fill the space around me

stop lights seem to take longer
to turn green
when you're running late
tapping on your steering wheel
you just want to see it change
you just want to get to where you're going
stop lights seem to last a second
when you're kissing the boy you love
with your hand on his neck
and him pulling you closer
you dread hearing the symphony of horns
coming from behind you
he starts to drive
and you start hoping
that the trail of green lights ahead
turn red just as you arrive
because when you're at a stoplight
kissing the boy you love
you don't need to get to where you're going
you're already there

.grace

This wind keeps snapping at our feet
through shoes unravelling.
Gales are hungry.
          Night's abandoned,
               streets have emptied.
Still, we own them--just keep talking.
           Winter's wailing.
           **** the old days.
Clutching coats closed,
                         tread nostalgia
past these sidewalk intersections.
Claimed by rambling conversations,
               often
               we're only
               rehashing
our worst mistakes
                                  and
                 shivering
                our way be-
             -neath stoplights
lit by good memories.

          I've got this notion tonight
          that we'll find our way
                                                  back
         ­ into the warmth found behind
          our locked front doorways.
Ways we've found to always hide
our faces from the cold outside
          have been running dry all night.
So drink down the cold street light
          and we'll make a blur of those green-white street signs.

This cold's still clawing at your face
through scarf unraveling.
Chapped lips smiling.
          Nights like this have
               kept on piling.
Winter owns us. Just keep walking.
           Winter's crying,
           "**** the old days!"
Frostbit footsteps
           slip nostalgia
past these frowning checkpoint questions.
Retouch same old observations.
                Sometimes
                we're only
                 retracing
the same missteps
                                but
                    ­frigid
             friends like us
                are melting
into old habits

          I've got this notion tonight
          that we'll take this route
                                                     for
          one more familiar cold flight
          from here to daybreak.
Say, "let fly those bomb bay doors!"
We've bombed these frozen streets before,
                    and I've got a couple more
          so keep moving 'til we find our front doors.

There I was standing in the stark cold
in New York staring at the fast-paced
traffic breezing past my sight, flashing
bright blurs blinding my eyes, heavy
rising fumes lost in the air from rusty
engines, as I breathed in the loud
vibrations and mixed creations
surrounding my eyesight.  
The towering buildings concaving
around my soul.  The high pitched
trains pounding my brain, steel
scraped railroad tracks sifting
inside broken lanes.  The blinking
stoplights lingering in helpless
shadows.  And as I gazed at the
scarlet stained sidewalks, how
the cigarette butts sunk in
meaningless mazes, screaming
embers disturbed and scorched,
scarred and surrendering,
my heart was against the wall.
I could feel everything around me
moving in accelerating speeds,
scurrying pedestrians clouding
my wild breaking frame, swollen
grayed trees clicking and blazing
in little language, red smashed stop
signs falling in between compromised
worlds, while I struggled to break
from the love that stole my heart
in the nighttime spark.  I could see
his dark twisted eyes in the shadows,
crimson-black designs destroying
my mind, smoke shattered kisses
torturing my dimension, as I
gasp deep heavy breaths,
embracing every single solid
drum shuddering inside my nation.
How was I to know that your love
could burn my flesh, razor flamed
and ******, over flattened and
rammed, a cold unrhymed beat
diminishing my existence in the
blackened skies.

Today. I was almost hit by a car,
wearing a scarlet dress
the way I least wanted to die
by the grill of an SUV.
The engine grinned hotly in my face.
the look on his face was priceless
I bet mine was better.
as I gasped, no room in
vocal cords for screaming
held my hands out
as if that would stop the metal from moving
tires screeched.
I don't know why he turned so sharply
I don't know why I put my arms out
or had to walk that way
that particular day
my hands shook  in line
at kinkos, holding back every chemical
mixing violently.
saying please and thank you
for two sheets of paper
that could have mattered less
pulling sunglasses
over my face with a case of the shakes

life just stamped me with an appreciation
for itself
only taught by almost getting hit by an SUV.

life went on around me, the workers in yellow on the corner
got a few moments of thrill.
the folks at Starbucks
the other people grinding their teeth at the stoplights.
a moment excitement.

I am suicide sleeping.
She forgot and took a day off.
So here I am.

I drive wreck-lessly.
windows down. music up.
daring a tire to blow. to lose control.
Stoplights and Speed Limits have become mere suggestions.

I am not invincible.
and I embrace it.
I'll shake hand with death before * I * die.

I am not coasting.
I am beyond your... verbs.
                     Your... adjectival states of being...

Undefined.
Indefinite.

I want to know. not to learn.
I want to see. not to discover.

I needed to be re-built. not demolished.

But I am without foundation.
Faithless.
God-less.

...Simply suicide sleeping.
One russian roulette away...

What if the sky wasn't blue?
The ocean woulnt be reflecting true
What if brand new cars could fly?
We would have stoplights in the sky
What if our dogs did not bark?
It'd be a lot quieter in the dark

What if water was light green?
It would not seem so very clean
What if little boys were girls?
Why they would have long pretty curls

What if little girls were boys?
They would have trucks, Batman ,and muscle toys
What if cash grew on a tree?
Then everything in the world would be free
What if flaming fire was cold?
Then a lit charcoal briquet you could hold
What if , I ask what if once more?
I will always have an answer in store
What's your what if?

At five am this morning
I closed my door, quiet and slow, and
Crept out into the blackness.
It was silent.
Dead silent.
The stoplights were throwing velvety pools of light on the street
And I was drawn to the center of it
I placed my strides between the two yellow lines
And I started walking.
I just went.
I can't say whether five minutes passed, or ten, or twenty,
But eventually I left the road and doubled back
To the little bridge where you first kissed me.
And I sat there in the dark
With my legs dangling over a galaxy of reflected stars
Meteors with tails of mirrored streetlight,
Gold and shimmering,
A shadow cut-out of a person set in a silhouette of black water against a splash of light.
I lay my cheek on the cold metal of the rail,
And let it all seep into me-
The night, the cold, the glow of the stars.
My fingers brushed a little husk at the base of it
And I recognized the flower I'd placed there
Last time I'd walked across that bridge.
I'd been late. Late by a lot. Hurrying.
Rushing.
And I thought, Mikaila you are stupid for stopping to pick this flower.
But I did it anyway.
I always do it.
Every single time I walk over that bridge,
No matter who with,
I pick a flower
And set it at the base of that railing
In the spot where you kissed me.
I never give any explanation.
I just put one there, every time.
The tiny delicate thing crumbled at my touch
And the dust was taken by the wind across the shining water.
There I stayed for a long, long time,
And eventually I lay back and looked up at the stars.
There is a very bright one out this month,
A planet, somebody told me.
It was directly above me, glowing with cold, clear light,
And I told it
That I love you
And just then one of the tiny stars right by it
Dove across the universe
And landed in the lake at my feet.

flowers
daisies in particular
really colourful nice-smelling flower shops
hot jam doughnuts
licking cinnamon off of your lips and skin and fingertips
going on adventures
the feeling when you are so afraid but honestly don't give a ****
driving in the early morning
driving at night
watching you drive
kissing you at the stoplights
kissing you
kissing
you

We take for granted
The sound of nothing;
The gentle touch of velvet
Against our bruised folds of flesh;
The air heavy
With nothing but air,
Making all the more eerie
The stoplights that change,
For cars that aren't there.
How I love
Such sweet midnight air.