Isn't it awfully nice to have a *****?
Isn't it frightfully good to have a ****?
It's swell to have a ******.
It's divine to own a ****,
From the tiniest little tadger
To the world's biggest *****.
So, three cheers for your ***** or John Thomas.
Hooray for your one-eyed trouser snake,
Your piece of pork, your wife's best friend,
Your Percy, or your ****.
You can wrap it up in ribbons.
You can slip it in your sock,
But don't take it out in public,
Or they will stick you in the dock,
And you won't come back.

I know that there is a table
in a Catholic high school in my local town
with an etch of the letter "G"
next to boredom-inspired vandal,
jagged lines, circles,
perhaps a few ******* shapes
as silly high school boys
are prone to draw.

An Advanced Maths textbook sits on a shelf
with a little doodle
of a peace sign next to an emo smiley
from a time where I was caught
between two phases,
tight black jeans and a flowing turquoise shirt.

Tobacco stains smeared
over the wood of a sealed off door
just outside my bedroom,
evidence of the first time
I tried a cigarette, seven years old,
and then panicked and tried to
flush it down the toilet,
only to have to fish it out and stuff it
in a little crevice, to be hidden and
remain there for seven years.

We leave all these little marks
and stains
in places we've been.
Spilled food, spilled ink, spilled drink,
tobacco stains and pools of blood.
"The marks humans leave are
too often scars."

I have scars.
Left forearm. Right calf. Right wrist bone. Both kneecaps.

A scar across my ribs and chest I was
so desperate to be rid of,
I bathed myself in oils and it was
the first scab I
never picked at; but a couple of weeks ago
I dreamt it was there again, fresh.
It tore open in front of everyone, bled out,
and I woke up gasping, drowning in my fear,
agonised, clutching at a wound that'd long since faded
convinced I could feel it splitting me apart again.

I have evidence all over my body
and more buried deep within the recesses of my mind,
scars so jagged they put knives to shame,
shining, pale, like diamonds in moonlight
not half as precious
but still invaluable.
Evidence of the marks humans leave behind.

I'm not innocent.
I don't pretend like I am.
I know there is a man out there
who gained another scar to add to his collection
when he was fourteen years old.
I know my hands carved it into his skin.
I know I used to use my fists
when others used their words to hurt me.

When I die, I know that I will leave
pieces of myself
everywhere
I've ever been. Whether people know it
or not, whether they
remember me
or not. There are ink stains
and coffee spills. My blood
is still on the floor of his house.
The high school cafeteria
has a circle of red
from a nosebleed I didn't realise I was having.
There are parks wearing my graffiti
and children donning my old clothes, and people overseas
still alive because of me

(or that's what they'll tell me, but
all I did was talk.
Give yourself the credit you guys deserve,
you're the ones who chose to listen.
You're the ones who had the strength to
pick your head up and carry on)

There are exes who still think of me
and friends who will one day
come across some article of clothing
or a piece of technology
I left behind after a sleepover.
Teachers who will remember
that smart, sarcastic student
who had panic attacks in their classrooms
and drank coffee in the mentoring hub with Mrs. Hume
whilst buttering bagels and functioning on no sleep.

Maybe our place in the universe is
insignificant. Or maybe it's the
most significant thing
of all.
Maybe the Buddhists are right.
Maybe we are the universe, together
as one. I sure think it makes sense.

Streams of consciousness
and spirits that need healing.
We work the sun
without even realising we're doing it.
We destroy it, too,
which is perhaps why we
are so self destructive in turn.

Maybe we're
smaller than specs of dust
but that's okay.
You don't have anything
without the particles required
to make things up.
Everything is a collection of atoms:
the tiniest things of all
yet they're the centre of everything,
the beginning of everything.

So when the end comes and
we burst back into the sky,
stardust and souls and
blinking little lights,
we'll have left our marks on the earth
regardless of who remembers
and we'll still be there, twinkling,
a collection of atoms that came from a supernova
essential to the makeup of galaxies
and life itself.
What could be more beautiful than that?

The anonymous connection,
a sort of social disconnect.
A freedom of speech,
though not socially correct.

Able to find out
half the world across.
The broadest topics,
the tiniest loss

Images and moving pictures,
Different kinds of art.
Differing opinions,
pulling all apart

Learning all the facts,
the tiny and the small.
Putting it out there
visible to all.

His Funeral was today.  Well, his wake rather.  It was in his old colonial home on Elm Street, a bought of irony that Paolo would never get.  Anyway, it was an odd set up at his house. Family and friends downstairs in the living room, acquaintances and honorable mentions meandering through the hallways clearly more interested in the intricate little floral patterns that adorned the wallpaper than how his family was holding up.  The company of the house was split, everyone either legitimately full of sorrow, or completely full of ****.  In everyone’s grasp either handkerchiefs or hand grenades it was as if the invitation read “Come see it to believe it!” In the study across the hall a small memorial was set up.  Big cards, tons of photos, some flowers, anyone who actually cared stayed there and stared at his once happy face, who knew what it looks like now.  
He had died of some sort of overdose, one that destroyed his heart, so he would have looked fine in an open casket.  The doctors say it was *******.  I don’t believe them.  Paolo had his fun in college, ***, *****, sure, but coke?  There’s no way.    The services weren’t to take place for another two hours, so his family rolled him onto the second floor balcony.  It was actually his dad’s decision, something about a “disgrace” and not wanting to look at his face.
Apparently his mom had felt bad letting her dead son chill on the porch for a few hours, so she rolled him across the hallway to his own room him and kind of laid him out on the bed, as if letting her baby boy take his eternal sleep where he’d have had most of his shorter ones.  
Picturing him lying up there was the first negative connotation I ever had with the image of him on that bed.  He had that kind of headboard that when we started getting at it the bed would hit the wall with each rhythmic movement.  Steady and almost tribal as our bodies danced to the ever increasing beat of a talking drum.  Our clothes off and our skin glazed with sweat it was like my own personal method for getting high. Now don’t get the impression that our relationship was based purely on a physical connection, we’d been dating for three and a half years, the love was there all right.  
We had met in the strangest of ways, through a mutual friend that I was kind of, almost, sort of, but not really having a “thing” with, you know?  Cisco was his name.  So we were together one day and he, being the adorable spaz that he was, had forgotten that his own birthday party was that same night.  He asked if I didn’t mind tagging along, it was a celebration for him and two friends whose birthdays followed his in sequence.  
This had been going on for several weeks, and I know we weren’t dating but I still had a feigning interest in the guy.  So we arrive to this girl, Cristina’s, house and I noticed this other boy almost immediately.  In a backwards cap and pair of boot cut jeans he was jumping around, tossing his arms, right in the middle of reciting some hilarious anecdote to any of his friends who hadn’t heard it yet; even those who had seemed riveted.  He was so full of charisma and with such assurance.  Besides that he was kind of cute so, though pathetically, I tried flirting with him for the rest of the night; he didn’t really catch on.  We left that night without having exchanged more than ten words between each other, I thought I’d never see him again, turns out I was wrong.  
“Broadway CAREols.  Show others that you care by enjoying a night of with your favorite blend of Christmas ditties and Broadway biddies” And before you ask, Yes, I did come up with that title, I think it was great and it was at the top of each flyer in big red and green letters and if you asked me “If you could do it again…” I would do it the same each and every time don’t judge me.
It was a show I had to direct for a community service project and of all people he played the piano for my show.  Only me and several other girls made up the cast, and I knew how easy it was to mistake a positive attitude for flirtation when it comes from a handsome young man.  He ran the music over three or four times individually with each cast member before the night of the show, but when Paolo and I worked that night he stopped me and just sang. For me.  
Each night after rehearsal I had to give him a ride home, I was a year older and thus had my license a year sooner.  I’d never mind allowing myself more time to bask in the glow of his perfectly understated confidence, so I was happy to oblige.  Technically Connecticut state imposed a law forbidding new drivers under the age of 18 to be on the roads past 11 at night.  My mom, being a government employee, really stressed this one.  His house was a solid ten minutes drive from our rehearsal spot, and my mom often warned me to allow myself enough time to get back home before 11.  What started as me beginning to drive faster and faster during the trip home ended as a routine each night, where I would finally allow him to step out of my car just as the clock read 11:00 PM.  
Our first kiss was in that car, my first uncontrollable breakdown was in the car, hell the first time he told me he loved me was in that car…right at the lip of the driveway.  I learned to ride my brakes perfectly to the point where I could park just beyond the edge of the sidewalk yet just before the point where the porch light would flash on, reminding his mother that his son is out past ten on a school night.  It was so warm.  I’ll never forget the cadence of his laughter as it trailed off, seamlessly merging with that next statement “Anna, I love you”.  I could have sworn the porch light went on.  

Now I know it may seem like I don’t care for his being dead right now, but the thing is, I did something.  I did something really bad.

You see, I had mentioned that he was up in his room, right?  Still, stiff, simply waiting to be brought down in a few hours as the catalyst to another round of tears.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did my share of crying the night before.  He’d been in the hospital for only a few days and when they told us he was dead…God, he was just so young, two years into college, the friend you have who was chasing his dreams down with a brand new pair of sneakers.  That kid the whole town knew because of the multitude of silly town functions he attended.  He would always insist.  Every other weekend was one silly thing or another “Oh you’re gonna love this.  Two words – ‘Poetry showdown’.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t stay in the kitchen”
The day of the funeral I just had to see him.  I snuck up the two floors to his room on the third floor.  As I neared his door at the top of that final flight of stairs each creak of the floorboard seemed to resonate through the house, followed by the hollow silence of my stillness.  I paused with each step as if stepping in larger spans of time would make what I was doing seem less suspicious, should someone hear me.  Upon touching his doorknob I felt an immediate chill. I couldn’t tell whether it was some ghostly feeling of being in the presence of a dead person, or the fact that the thermostat had been turned down to keep his body prime for viewing.
I held my breath as I opened the door, and blinked a couple times when I saw him.  He was wearing what everyone else was in downstairs, black tuxedo and a dark tie.  I know he would have scowled had he known he was going to be buried in a constricting penguin suit.  We had a conversation about it, you know?  Out on Academy Hill, right in the middle of a picnic. We were in enough shade that his transition lenses were only half tinted, and when he sat up, it was abruptly.  Pushing my head off his chest he kind of leaned in to the cemetery in the distance and pointed out how sad it is that no one really ever gets the chance to choose how they want to spend the rest of eternity dressed in.  He would have preferred his puma sneakers, still white after seven months, his striped green and blue socks, his only pair of ripped designer jeans and that express shirt he loved so much because it showed off his natural physique.  
I moved closer, inching toward him at first, then quicker as I broke through a place where I just relaxed, and for a moment he wasn’t dead.  For a moment he was just sleeping, all ready in his fancy get up simply waiting for me to wake him up.  I found myself sitting next to him, my eyes cast downward, half expecting his gaze to meet mine, and while stroking his hair I got an idea.  It happened quickly, and I kind of have a problem with acting upon my impulses, it’s something he used to criticize me on that and I never really improved.  Without thinking I threw open his drawer and pulled out what I knew he’d have wanted to be dressed in, should he have gotten the chance to create a will concerning his death-wear.  As I pulled of his starchy shirt my hand brushed against his chest, chilled as the room was, eerie as nothing else.  I finally got him down past his pants and saw, of all abominations, that he was outfitted in a fresh pair of tighty whities.  God, it’s as if the funeral home was asking to be haunted by his tormented soul.  I found his single pair of silk boxers and reassembled him in the way I knew he’d have wanted to be.
So great, now everyone will think I’m a loon for having desecrated his body.  Well what do they know; I’m the only one who ever really knew him! But how the hell would I explain it to his parents when the pallbearers march in and there he is, laying face up in his street clothes?  
This wasn’t right.  He didn’t belong here, he needed to be somewhere comfortable, someplace he enjoyed, not sitting upstairs in a suit with the lights off and the air blasting.  He hated the cold!  Certainly he would have hated a hundred people staring at his dead and lifeless shell, and he would, without a doubt, hate being six feet under, pushing daises at the Nichols Road cemetery.
I wrapped my arms around him, and as the building adrenaline made my breaths deepen I inhaled several moments of ecstasy off his clothes that still clung to his musty scent.  I lowered him gently to the floor and took care as I dragged him across the carpet to his door.  After fumbling, for what felt like several minutes, on his door handle I got him onto the awning introducing the stairs.  I even made it down the first flight of stairs without freezing up at the tiniest creak when I heard someone coming my way.  ******, they must need to use the bathroom, why couldn’t they just use the one downstairs like any normal person?  Without hesitation I throw open up the window near bottom of the stairs, heaving myself and him, sending us tumbling onto the garage roof.  Ignoring my probable bruises I spring up and slam the window behind me while taking special care to hide us both as far away from the bathroom window as possible.
Sitting up there, my heart racing, I felt his hand in mine and it was probably because my palms had gone clammy but I swear for a span of time he was alive again.  I closed my eyes and felt the breeze in my hair and was transported to a place where I spent a single moment in each day we ever shared.  Each beach side sandcastle, each afternoon spent cloud gazing, those same afternoons turning into evenings of star gazing, each and every night spent utterly and irrevocably lost with this silly boy that chose to love me.  
I was torn from my oasis as I heard the bathroom’s occupant exit and continue downstairs.   Knowing that my van was parked on the other side of the street I pushed his body as close to the edge of the roof as I could without his falling off and let him be. I hopped back inside and ran downstairs, but not before flying through the doors of the memorial and interrupting his mothers eulogy.  In an act of sheer brilliance I mustered a few tears and tore out the back door.  Everyone figured I was just so taken away by his death that I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.  Who knew anxiety could be mistook for remorse so easily?
I ran down the driveway, losing the grace I had composed in my dress in high heels the moment I slammed that door.  I jumped into Emmet, my van, because only crazy people drive around in un-named vehicles.  
I pulled out of my spot, nearly ruining the paint job on both my and his Uncle Ed’s car.  I flew my trunk door open and set the third row down, the general idea being his landing securely in my back seat.  I reversed up the driveway with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a leopard right back to the edge of the garage where I had tossed his body.  I jumped out of my car nearly forgetting to put it into park before I shut off the engine.  I barely got halfway around my car before becoming transfixed on his hand, hanging off the gutter as if reaching for mine to grab hold and pull him to sweet salvation.  I jumped up a few times, unsuccessfully before I took off my shoes and got a good running start.  I flew up, grabbed his arm and ****** towards the car in a sideways downward motion.  He nearly cracked his head on the pavement coming down, he would have too if it wasn’t for my body breaking his fall.  I got up, too distracted by the sheer volume of my own heart to realize the pain I felt.  I shoved him into my back seat, slammed the trunk, stumbled into the car, stuck it in reverse and stepped on gas without even putting my shoes back on.

I told you I had done something bad.

Our words have power. Our story is important. I think it's important to remember that, and I know people forget it sometimes (I certainly did), and some people don't believe it at all, but I believe that even if nobody is listening, even if there's no-one to tell your story to; it is still important.

Sometimes it's all we're left with and we have to cling to it with all our might. We're lucky enough to be main characters in a lot of other peoples stories and that's a hell of an achievement. We get the chance to influence other peoples stories,and they in turn influence even more peoples stories. Without us, everyone elses stories get shortened and there ends up being less variation in the story-telling world. If we don't add to the storytelling process then the whole world slows down.
Every single relationship we establish with someone gives them more of a story to tell. Even if you don't make a story of your own you're still a vessel for other peoples stories to travel through, and that's amazing in itself.

The tiniest detail can change everything - the memory of holding a hand, a snippet of information, recommending a favourite ice-cream, falling over in a hilarious manner - it travels through other peoples stories, and without you that story doesn't get told, or gets told at a later time by someone else, by which time the person you could've shared your story with has missed out on the chance to pass that story on to a whole host of other people. That changes the whole storytelling world. Every future chain of events in which you could have, but didn't, tell your story becomes different - there's less of a story, it's not as full as it could have been, and everyone, albeit unknowingly, suffers a little more for it.

Most of us aren't wise enough or powerful enough to be the true "wise man" that our speices name **** sapians implies, changing the world in a dramatic way in one fell swoop with a single action or in the course of our lifetime, but we're certainly capable of being pans narrans (story-telling apes) and injecting a bit more variety in the lives of others. I can't think of a better reason to exist other than mattering so much that the whole future of the world becomes less varied, and slightly less impressive, if we simply cease to be.

Every moment of joy, every moment of anger, rage, suffering, jealousy, euphoria and even numbness contributes to the stories we end up telling other people, even if we're not talking about those moments specifically. We learn from them, we change because of them, and the stories we tell evolve with each new experience.

You don't even need to write yourself, sooner or later, somewhere down the line, someone will write something that never would have been written if you had not existed, and their work will be all the more glorious for the stories you helped to pass on. You are literally part of a bunch of great works yet to be written. You are a poem. You are a play. You are the beginning, middle and end of several bestselling novels. You are the first sentence in a book that grabs a publishers attention and the last in one that spawns a whole franchise. You are important and without you the whole literary world loses a masterpiece that would make a whole bunch of people feel like they weren't alone in the universe. You are their comfort as they lie awake at night with nothing but a book, and the inspiration that causes a child to believe in themselves. I can't think of anything more important than your words, your thoughts and the story you have to tell, but I know that, without them, the world never becomes as glorious as it could have been.

I love you, I know that others love you as well, and I'm certain that a part of the love that people feel for you will travel throughout the stories they tell, eventually end up in a famous book, song, or an artists brushstrokes and cause someone else to love that piece of a story you helped create.

And then they'll pass it on...

Simple flex of a muscle
Lift up
Relax
One rep at a time
Getting stronger.

Now part the lips
just a little
Pinch the corners of your eyes
the tiniest bit
to convince them it's real.
Convince them it's real.

All you have to do
Is convince them it's real.

she didn't know..
until she knew
what a curve of learning!


1.
both college-students and real good-friends
he was a science-and-botany buff
            *and the mountain would get a taste of his cells
and she, student of philosophy and languages
            would hear the latent-message from a dozen sources


2.
they shared confidences to the other
things they never told a soul
            he also discussed his theories and science-experiments and projects and stuff
            she told him how slightly-uphill her lectures in Russian proved to be
they'd meet there every Monday.. under the campus-trees
with two hellish-strong espressos
        he remembered her chewy-doughnuts without any snow-sprinkles
        'cause she was given to these silly coughing-fits
        when eating peanuts and pulses
he teased her endless and ragged all her idiosyncrasies
they seemed closer than kin

yet he seemed to remain aloof when she tried to get closer
      he brushed off her advances
      and told her to get lost
then ran off with Lilian on Tuesday
then Zita next Tuesday
then Sumaya the following Wednesday
and Tarryn on Thursday after that
and so it went on for a whole while
the whole academic-year, in fact

yet still
      they studied together
      and swore in debates
      and met every Monday
oh, that was the one day he never dated


3.
on the first day of each month
he'd give her a beautiful clutch-pencil
its casing bled entirely in translucent-fuchsin
and told her to guard well context over content
she never understood this cryptic-crap
       but smilingly accepted each one
she thought them too pretty to use
       and kept them in a special-box
       yet her heart broke each time
he took out a new flavour-of-girl
and shared his tongue with
     Sally and Margaret and Lisbeth and Anne..
     some lasted days, others short-weeks
but they all fizzled out
like the pop that they swallowed
and she wondered if he would ever
              favour her with affection
              give to her what those lucky-gals got
              look into her eyes like that
              whisper sweet-nothings to her
why didn't he want her?

but he was brusque with her and abrupt as discordant-chords
he scolded her like uneven-bricks tumbling down
and yet, it was to her that he played
               his own alternate-ballads on his banjo
               i n t r i c a t e - b e a u t y like living-pearls on those strings
      he couldn't look at her, then
      too caught-up in sweet-delivery of song
and with his eyes closed, her imagination took high-flight
as she was able to stare at him, without fear
                           in wonder
                           in enchantment
and marvel at the mesmerising co-ordination of those busy-fingers..

others passed by, but he did not care.. so giving
she felt so unique
'cause she got what they did not
           unbreakable-bond of
            music and.. talk and.. those clutch-pencil gifts
and for his birthday, she gave him a two-tone pelargonium, potted in cream
left him wordless..


4.
it was near the end of November
(just like now:)
and he casually mentioned of going away
            a week-long hike in December
            with a girl in a group that he'd met, some Sarah or other
and something in her flared and she broke down..
                                                                ­went off the rails

he looked on aghast, in total silence.. half-perplexed, half-squinting
     which disquietened her far more than any outburst could have
he stood there before her, on that Monday
       in the beautiful mid-morning sun
she remembered, to the moment.. how the light caught his eyes
       seemed to be looking right t-h-r-o-u-g-h her
       and almost, she saw the tiniest-trace of something...
       struck by a touch of liquid-vulnerability in his being
but hooded-eyes quick again, typical-hider!

he reached into his backpack
****** her a clutch-pencil
which she almost rejected
but she calmed herself down
and he looked at her once
            turned on heel
and walked to his Beetle
rode off the campus
without looking back

and she kept on wondering what it was all about
       that silent intense-look


5.
news came of a group of hikers who succumbed
from high up
some slipped and
her acrid-tears were not the only to fall
upon learning......


6.
she ran back to her dorm
reached for his gifts.. in full-remorse
and clutching a pencil in each hand
she squeezed and accidentally pressed on the flick-top
and then...............
               (it came out)
i t . . . c a m e . . . o u t . . . ! !

never in her life would she be as stunned
as they repeated their message
     over and over
     in tandem audio-confusion
in all the tongues she had studied
she learns now
of the time he took to delve into her crap to relay his truth through his amazing-invention!


7.
at the interment, she couldn't speak
displacement dipped too deep
she took up one clutch-pencil
      and pressed on the top
      message loud and clear
custom-made brilliance direct from heaven's fingertips

the pall-bearers lifted him up
                 and
out of her life

now this roundabout-present lies in the velours-box
like he does in his



students of learning..
in book.. and in heart








S T - 25 nov 2013

Seriously? Positive? You’ve got to be joking me.
Optimism at it’s finest could only be realism at it’s worst.
Mesmerized by this thought, enchanted by it’s cold hard consistency
Enthralled was I to mock “positive”, and keep my lips pursed.
Then it hit me. No, it literally hit me.
If I just pound this podium a few times
Maybe I’ll channel some of doc’s “positivity”  pound podium
Ehh, guess that wasn’t a symptom; merely a sign
So what is this “battle plan”, and who really cares about mine?

I’ll tell you who, and it
Took until now for me to understand
Simply smiling is like positive quicksand

Little did I know, nor did I comprehend
Even the tiniest grin is a god-send
The mirror first, then a friend
Tomorrow is uncertain, so I recommend
Investing one in the nearest stranger
Never underestimate the smile, this game changer
Gets some through the day

Give the gift of smiles
Others need this Holiday.

Overall, there’s not even a word you need to say
For a smile is universal in every way.

This was the goal
Here was my contribution to this positive revolution:
Enlighten another soul.

The mirrors we look at every sunrise
Hair tangled, bags beneath the eyes
Internally determining how much this day is going to **** (sighs)
Now, hit rewind and you might be surprised
Getting off to a good start is simply devised:
Smile your warmest, stupidest, squintiest smile: regardless of its size

There is the secret ingredient in the positive pie
Having your hearty morning smile, with eggs on the sunny side
And this idea I vehemently used to deny
Thinking, “smile? In the morning? I’d rather die.”

Heath Ledger once said “Why. So. Serious?”
Ehh, he had a point!
Life can be a joke, especially when we’re delirious
Put the pout to the side, don’t be so furious

Unconditionally accept we all have ups and downs
Smile like an idiot, because aren’t the sounds

Involved with that deep, tear jerking laughter just
Ninety nine times better than a good morning grunt?

All I had to do was send a
Little smile in someone’s direction
Lift their spirits, make a connection

This is who cared about my “battle plan”
Hell, who knows? Maybe I even saved a man.
Ego aside, let’s do the best we can

With others, we can do our best to understand
Right from wrongs done, our own personal brand
Of happiness, that like flames needs to be fanned
Nothing is like that morning smile witnessed firsthand
Give that gift away, make it look easy and unplanned

Why? Because the unexpected gifts are the best
And to this I do attest
Yes, we have all been truly blessed:
Smile at each other and forget all the rest.

I smiled at those who passed, regardless of popular or outcast, and how I’ve seen a change. Doors have opened to relationships and thoughts I never conceived possible for a realist like me, I really was blind but now I see how powerful is this “positivity”. How much have we all grown? These seeds we’ve sown from you, to you, to you, to me, to that kid who sits by himself, to that girl who spilled her iced tea,: these are all the connections we’ve made, and there are more that would and could be if we only smile, say hello (or if we’re really brave) would you go out with me? The morning smile is the first step towards a “yes”, this is my guarantee. A smile is like a master key to all bliss (aaannnnddd maybe even a kiss ;)). Just like a great slam poet once said: “If you’ve got this (head), then you follow this (heart), and if someone ever tries to judge you, you give them this (smile)”.

Wow. Way to go.
You ****** up once again.
You pick the worst timing.
You make everything so dramatic.
You pick at the tiniest things.
Wow. Way to ******* go.

You feel good about yourself?
You think you'll do better next time?
You think you can fix it?
You think it will fix itself?

No.

I'm a **** up.

Can someone please slice me open and let me bleed out, because I'm afraid if I tried, I'd **** up. And the world doesn't need any more **** ups.

The glance she gave me
When we started shifting
Our memories to those we follow.
The seconds we counted
When we started living
For today not depending on tomorrow

Hollow man, she started shouting...
With a silent voice,
That broke every ear's boundary.
She was quite, but sending out
A lot of information ...
Information I started treasuring
For the young to trace and build
A new Generation...

I guess managing to see how
She gets to be nervous when
Saying HI , was miscalculated
Because of the raised eyebrows
With vibrating eyelids .

Heart started pumping blood slower
Disturbing BlooD flow, suddenly she called me Noah....
Was it because I was chilled
Therefore my shoulders were a Lil' bit Lower ...?

Guess one will never understand
The tiniest Details going through a woman's mind ...
Dispite the Struggle
I'm glad I can still call her "Mine"

The root cause

What makes so many
Weep and write,
What is the root cause?

Natty boy, c'mon,
This question, repeatedly,
asked and answered!
Turn the radio on!

No, scorn me not,
My answer sino-complex,
mine too.

Many of our devices
Record waves, cycles,
Of which the length, shape,
Endless are the variation.

Your expertise? Your cycles?

Read my **** poems,
A to V.
Even the equations.

I have known heart ache so real
My chest hurt for months.
The doctor had no pills for that.
Risked everything. Lost.
My own weakness seek and sought,
Self-destructing me.

I have known the soul ache that makes
Rising From The Bed,
The most agonizing decision.
A life and death incision/rescission.
A go/no go apparition questioning.

All this long after I was a man.
Two children, reso-possible?
Nope. Choices limited,
Sat in the sunroom,
Contemplating all this.

Say what you need to say.

I try every day to just grab,
Hold, get fastened to me,
The tiniest scrap.

So when I walk by the river,
One atomic iota of sun, a single rain drop,
Gives me cause to pause.

The cycle begins again.
Still unclear? Get graph paper.
Copy this overlay down.
My manic-depressive cycles lookalike,
But the amplitude variegated.
In 59 seconds, Live and Die,
A calculus point on a monthly cycle,
Which in turn, but a point,
A microscopic dot,
In a cycle longer,
A Hundred Years War.

You ok dude?
.
Where is this coming from
On the commencement of a
Three day weekend?

Fair question.

There is a button here,
Randomness incorporated,
Into some poetry sight.

Led me to a eleven year old, poet.
Now,
Know, you understand...the question, posed.

The tiniest scrap of hopeful buried here
In plain site.
These colorful, wordy points,
Scattered, on the cycles,
Usually at the highs and lows.

Maybe I did not answer it well enough.
Maybe nobody can.

Yo, need a job.
Yo, need money.
No cycle in my savings account,
Only a straight line downward sloping.

so I grab an iota of sun,
a solitary raindrop,
make a plan,
write this poem,
a cycle
inflection point.

I ask this question
Every ten seconds stil,
If you must know my truth.
Dueling banjos in my head,
never ever
have stopped playing.

This poem-answer,
Not my best.
But a cycle turning point.
Again.

Having fed the beast,
Maybe I'll get five minutes till
I write it again
In a different shape,
En pointe,
Standing up and beautiful,
I am a twirling ballerina,
who can twirl with out ceasing,
knowing the perpetual motion secret.
For but another mini-cycle

I am endless.
It is endless.
But dear god,
why must you commence with the young ones,
aged eleven?


6:40am Saturday.

**** me for being so weak.
**** me for falling in love with every girl who shows me the tiniest bit of attention.
**** me for giving in so easily.
**** me for wanting to please others.
**** me for being too nice.
**** me for not loving myself.
**** me for thinking others would be nice to me if i'm nice to them.
**** me for trusting people too easily
**** me for not thinking more.
**** me for being so weak.

Okay, so there might be a possibility I have maybe slightly convinced myself that I may theoretically have developed the beginnings of the tiniest dollop of a smidgen of an enormous crush on you.

So please don't break me.

REPOST IF THIS IS YOU RIGHT NOW
please comment I love to read thoughts on my work!

Everything is made up of the tiniest particles and if you think about it,
we're not that big compared to a lot of things out there in the universe and
I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel everything crashing down on top of me,
I feel the weight of being such a tiny speck in such a great big world closing in around me and straining my very bones and when you get to the point of lying lifeless on your bedroom floor or screaming and cursing at the moon with every breath stored up in your little lungs, you start to think you could never feel much worse but I'll tell you something: there is something small but great
inside your very core and just a little Faith, it doesn't have to be any bigger than a mustard seed,
well that can go a long way and if you look hard enough, if you really try,
Darling find that God Atom inside of you; I promise you'll get by.

My love for you lives at I-95
Right past the exit for Towson
Where we stopped at Lito's for pizza
After we kissed for the first time
I passed I-95 today and didn't remember
Those soft kisses in back seats
Until I saw that pizza shop sign
I could see myself, 13 and blossoming
Holding tightly to your hand
It was like I was standing outside of your dad's car
Looking in at the events that just unfolded
That thirteen year old that won the bet with her friend for having her first kiss
It wasn't why that thirteen year old wanted it though
She just mustered up the courage to move her face close enough
So that the tiniest amount of contact could be made
It was intended to be soft and meaningful, the first of many
But it turned out off-centered and askew
But it was lovely
You, thirteen and dream like, were shocked
Yet intrigued, so you kissed me next time
Then it went back and forth
Alternating kisses, testing the feelings of new connections
Tingling fingers, tapping toes

Three days, is what the HR rep said, somewhat sheepishly,
As if she was fully aware that boxing up one’s grief
In a span of a few dozen hours
Is a matter of wishful thinking
And certainly she sympathizes
(Indeed, as she speaks,
She spreads her hands in such a way
As you half expect doves to come forth in full flight)
Empathy being their stock in trade,
But the law and the handbook say three days,
And then you need to have your head
******* back on and looking forward.

Eventually, the mail brings fewer envelopes
Marked with embossed flowers
And subdued and tasteful stamps,
The usual flow of solicitous inquiries,
Pre-stamped and pre-sorted,
Inquiring as to your credit needs,
The condition of your windows and siding,
Resumes apace, and more than once,
In fits of inappropriate black humor and frustration,
You scribble, in bold thick strokes of a marker,
The addressee no longer resides at this location.

You return to nine-to-five,
Though your ghosts keep their own hours,
Stopping by to visit on their own schedule alone,
Prompted by the tiniest of things:
The dog scampering to its feet in a hurry,
As if someone was at the door,
The discovery of a long-unused pitching wedge
Standing expectantly in the back of the closet,
A song from long ago which was beloved
When you lived in the pairing mandated by Noah
Before you entered the shadow world of ones and nones.
Sometimes you give into the giddy madness,
And rise to waltz around the room,
Careening about unsteadily, clumsily
As you have yet to completely master
The difference in weight shift and distribution
That is required of a solo act.
The timing of these visitations
Often disrupts your schedule and sleep patterns,
And you think that perhaps tomorrow you’ll call in.

Hello Little Prince
Your Eyes Shine
Like Emeralds Of Pines
Your Hair Made Of the Sun
You travel from Star to Star

I draw  each day since you are gone
in all color and form - sound and line
for our rejuvenating living particle
made of crystal of truth
I sense you water my lost dream

I the lover the queen of All Darkness
I the lover the goddess of All Light
remain unreachable
reside on  both -
of your own making they say
- undying and unborn star

Outside of the two or one
you travel to All the glittering
unknown but remembering
of those starting and ending
to recollect living pieces
of that forgotten dream

as if a scent to remember
from lavender fields
brought by a distant whispering
of a northern sky
to fade away
if you choose not to hear

Your experiences- real - reach as vivid pulse
of  a song -  a mantra of love
My roots sense to mature wisdom in all tones of Reds
Innocent is my heart longing for your glowing face
the greens of my leaves reflect
the color of the light of our secret seeing

I shall play no more games of extremes
for you to visualize of me other than what I am
I surrender to you  fully because I know you have seen
many of rose gardens and touched and smelled and cherished
each one - as vital as the cool mountain stream singing for
me the myth of your love spreading

I shall no more play games other than the truth that connected us inseparably
We gave birth to fertility through the bite not more painful than a thorn on my stem
Our love born of the poison of the serpent that connected us
We travel to be healed and to heal the universe
in our shell as we experience to learn and teach
not a mystery but a technology is love where
I shall see you again beyond the body

I the lover of healing fully flowing on one line
Crossed valleys made of fractals of blessings
My colorless strong hair carrier of red blue yellow and green glitter
on streams reaching the oceanic clearing as the victorious salty jump of a whale

As the Heart purifies its Crystal - We Be  One -
Our Home - You - I -. The Rose -
Not the Unreachable - The Dark - None of those Extremes -
but a Rose is I Just  like One of the Many Other Ones -
but One Of a Kind on A Tiniest but A Home for Us Planet  Under Stars
Us --  The Little Prince - The Rose - bring love to universe - when whoever on planets looks up  in pure knowing - to Skies shall sense among all other  Stars Skies and Hearts -  a Universe  made of  Glowing  Vibrating Expanding Delivering Joy is  Divine Love
of the Rose and the Little Prince and the Tiniest Planet made of a living Crystal Heart of Dreams
of the Drawer or of the Reader or of the Dreamer or of You or of I

So, grasshopper....
What is love / to someone who is complaining?

Screaming. Wailing /  Proudly prevailing / loudly Reprimanding
Or commanding Bounded feet
Pushing.
Shushing in rushing / Busiest with everyone else's business
Pushing.

Dumbfounded yet Enforcing.
Forcing / mindlessly
divorcing meaning?

Not knowing /  Rather assuming or presuming
To speak not for himself
Instead for us, lauding law, howling for god

What is it without making / any sense? /
Having no reason?
What is love if only a word /
Sung or graffiti tag on walls / Ave. 3rd / blurbs

So to speak / a word / whispers...
Write or read / Flat screen / one dimensional unexperienced /
Word up /  Another billboard's Loud propaganda
"Unt wonder-bar sinfully delicious"
You will OBEY
Says snickers /
Harangue of commands
The replete of a single word / repeat
"Believe"
On and on / carrying calm

And what is forever to an insect? With brief breath
Vampiric      Parasitic     Abuzz
Without purpose but swarm
Wasted waning /  Locust death Landscapes / we barely notice

Cherish just a starving word

So goes my question / Unanswered. Kept
distant. Unproven / underserved
The point is moot /
What is love  / To you?
Without proof Without life
What are eyes without the light ?
What is love if nothing /  If never born
A mind Emotes  /  oceans / swells /

Love ....
The tiniest of tempests
One thought becomes a storm
Felt Like dreams /  Stars for diamond tears
Energy in living form... now asking why / Are we here?
No doubt It is to know love
And so... What is a good word?    

Truth (the word of god)

So jump for joy, grasshopper...
Being loved is like being found.
Finally seeing the awe and the wonder.
The clarity of a mind's eye,
life is the dream the heart you must plunder.
the perfect time is now
because this is love, grasshopper
and we are the tempest and peace
the hearts who think...

This must be love
Thank goodness/  for everything….