"Go forth, little one." I said as I reached my hand up-towards the heavens. A single **** escapes my unclasped hands towards the sky, and then beyond. Soaring tactfully on the cool breeze.
"You're free at last." And at that very moment, the last of my ***** were given.

*Fin

A time in hand-cuffs;
… This was in 83’, I remember when because I left for Boston just shortly after Rose and I watched Thorn Birds together on the television in the basement; she allowed me to help her do a spring cleaning and ready everything for Easter Company. We cleared out the pantry closet upstairs putting new paper on all the shelves; we cleared out the kitchen-cabinets and fold and organized the all the linings in the hutch and best of all we enjoyed watching the mini-series together. I love spending my time with her; funny how I see so much of my relationship within the structure of this movies theme.  
We, Lisa, Denise and myself, we’re coming home after a grueling four week gig up at The famous Pussycat Lounge in Boston’s Combat Zone; I was the last on stage that night and after getting off I threw on an old-lady dusty over my costume  and began to rush about packing-up all my costumes. We run out to the van; and after tossing all of the bags and me into the back we start our long drive home;
My Agent, Lisa, with her broken leg in a cast, has out the road-map, her wig’s in her lap and she had a nylon *****’s on her head  she’s in the passenger seat; Headliner Denise (AKA The Luscious Lady double D’s Dynamite) the driver is dripping of the make-up remover on her face… she’s in nothing more but her bra and *******?! … Least I threw on my dusty. I’m on the floor in the back with a flashlight digging through the bags trying to see if I have all my new costumes I won at last night’s Show; we worked a big Jell-O Wrestling Tournament up in Cambridge... Hey, I win four costumes and I want to make sure they weren’t left behind! So, here I am all over the floor in the darkness with my little beam of light as a good hour and forty minutes go by…  I’m still going through the bags. Suddenly, I realize this intense quite?!  I pop up my head; there’s nothing out there; nothing but darkness, no highway, no streetlights just this long silent single narrow road we’re on. I climb up grabbing a hold of the bearskin spread pull myself onto the platform-bed back here and I look through the portholes on each side of the van to see the view… the view could only be described as Sod-Farms as far as the eyes could see; with this misty darkness looms above. It seems to gently illuminate over a kind of rippling sea of blackness stretching out from both sides of the van. I crawl back down onto the floor. I look forward out the front window as far as my eyes see… we’re on a road, small dots roll beneath the van but ahead nothing… our headlight lights diminish into blackness it seems darkness is gobbling up all things beyond us and we are on our way…
“Lisa?” Saying this hesitantly; …, couldn’t help myself there wasn’t a single set of vehicle lights anywhere and where we are being as dark as pitch?!
“Where are we…?”

Lisa turns in this growling tone,“ Someone did not want to go through Connecticut!”

Denise giggles,” Oh, come-on?!  I’ve been this way before… it’s faster taking Rhode Island! It’s an easier drive! ”

So, we go; yeah, down this road three gals’ in this converted van which looks like the red-light-district on wheels; driving somewhere in the middle of No-man’s Land, Rhode Island… At 2 O’clock in morning.

“Oh, ok.” I went back with my flashlight counting up and pairing off shoes.

All of a sudden out of darkness comes… in complete silence, flashing lights!
Denise begins popping brakes; bags dart about … as she sets the van to the side of the road.

Lisa, starts yelling at Nissie , “ You had to…; Had to take us through Rhode Island?!
Two, ******* Black //////////s and a little white cotton-ball lying over luggage in the back! You know… You know we’re all in jail tonight!!! You take us into the only northern state that thinks they’re south of the Mason Dixie “

While Lisa yells, (Huge bags Denise uses at high-end private parties falls from hooks and falls open contents toppling over me.)
Lisa turns to see how the van looks… Here I am; on my *** on the floor with boas dangling off me and an yard-long two header rubber buddy as ‘slap‘ hits down into my arms. There I am bellybutton high in whips, chains and the rest of Nissie’s extensive selection of ******* gear and every kind of Joy-toy which has ever brandished a battery and…

“Jesus!!!” Lisa yells, “Look at …! We look like a Traveling *******! Janice, don’t just sit there! Put that thing down…. Hide all that **** before that cop…”
Bang, bang, bang; suddenly, a cop’s metal flashlight s rapping and taps up the side of the van; the cop stands side of Denise’s door for what feels
He flickers his light into her face.

Lisa yells, “Open your window, Nessie!!!”

Remember… in nothing but a bra and *******!? As dainty as you please, “What’s wrong officer?”
She is saying this while the window handle’s giving her a hard time and she’s trying to wipe make-up Schmitz from her face.
“Why are you stopping us?”

Lisa leans …”Yeah! We’re just trying to get back to New York?!

The officer shines the light right into Lisa’s face then towards me in the back.
“Can I see your license and registration?”
And, I need the Id of everyone-else in this vehicle? Please.”
I call out, “I know mine is in one of these bags; this will take a minute please.

I am freaking and in a yelling whisper, “…, Oh Crap?”
Thinking, ‘There’s easily more than fifteen bags back here on the floor alone??? Half these… open and half empty all over?!
“Crap, crap, crap!” I start pulling at all the bags rummaging through everything.” Crap?!”

I hear the cop say, “Did you realize that you were speeding?”

Lisa and Nissie , “What ? Speeding? It’s the middle of the night?!  What the hell are you….”

‘Holy Hell; they’re fighting a policeman?! Their arguing with a cop about, what time of day it is… And, I can’t find my id???’ I’m pushing and shoving things into piles… All of a sudden…The side door flies open!
“Please; Step out of the vehicle.”
Like some startled meerkat my head pops up, eyes wide, from the piles surrounding me.
“What???” I crawl out.
Now; standing out by the side of the van with Lisa and Denise: And…,
I look down. My dusty snaps burst open.
Here we are! It’s the middle of the night and we’re on the side of the road;
Three women; One, the driver, standing barefoot in her everyday bra and *******; One, Talent- Agent, resting up on the van with crutches and cast on her leg to the upper thigh; And,… me…  I’m standing there in my freshly ripped dusty, revealing a pearly pink sequins bra-n- G string set, black fishnets and matching pearly-pink 5in. Stilettos.

The police-officer looks at me,” Did you find Id?”

“ Sir, no?!  No, not yet Sir. I was looking when you told me to get out … But?!”  I try to head-back into the van,” Let me find it…”

The cop grabs me by my arm and pulls me away from the door; he places me in hand-cuffs?!

“When you can find someone to bring you your Id we will release you to them.”

“ But sir…Please I have Id!? If you would just?!  Please, please allow me back in there?!  I’ll find it?! Please sir, please!”

Lisa and Denise, “Well, we have ours! Let us go!”
Lisa,” Keep her if you want but let us the hell out of here.”
Both of them; “We want to get back to the city!”

Lisa waves at me saying,” Stop by the office when you get back. I’ll store your stuff until you get yourself out of this…”

“Sir, please?! I have to get back home for my kids? I don’t have anybody able to come here and get me. I know, I have my I…”
I yell out, “I remember where it is!” homeward bound   “I know where it is!!!”
I begin pulling myself and the officer towards the front of van;” Lisa, Lisa you have it! Lisa has it! It is in there under her seat! My bag… My bag…?! It’s underneath her seat! Sir, look, Look it’s under there… Lisa! Remember, I gave you it before so you could get our pay from the owner at the Club?!  You said you’d put it there?!

“ Oh yeah; that’s right.” Lisa reaches under the seat and tugs my little bag free.
” Oops…; I forgot all about you giving this to me.”
“ Here you go her Id; could she now leave with us?”

The cop unclasped the cuffs and says, “I don’t want to have to see any of you here again; Drive carefully mind your speed.”
Back on the road and on our way home Lisa screams over and over; “Never in Rhode Island! Never again…!”
I sat there thinking, the two of them were going to leave me back there?  I’d be back there…. without a penny; no money; not even a way home.
Whelp, not the worst night of my life.



Please, I know this to be a short story  but could I ask for opinions?
This is a small segment of the book I've been working on.

Swoon to a tearful night, unknown to its grief
Dialogue of peace, and those of plight
Ringing of morphology, raindrops on the roof.
Such things heard from the peasants’ seat
In the many wet heads sopping
In the sonorous waves, upright in the city clime
Untending to their beds.
At the bottom of that something
All told are destined they will find
Be pliable to the ills they’ve dealt
To carry on, to work, admonishments
Said once to justify these red romances
That in every rain storm melt
As pity through the night, forever unclasped
From shackles of their blame
Since life and ideology somehow are the same.
‘Tis destiny for abating storms
As some will rose from their thickened thorns
These nights deliver their gentle morns
All the same as hemlock grows as poison
And is best to be avoided.
How—this, I fear only rain my know—
Can we still bathe in fraternal glow
When some still heal from Death himself
Each breath that enters is quickly prayed to leave
High on seated thrones
Those mean so quick to thieving, the poor
The lazy deserve no quarter
Those dusty pockets afford not one
So steal the heart upon his sleeve.
May we help man wrought our kin and kind
By common tongue, free, as we are ought?
Since another may make my world
He is mine to protect, not throw to bytes
So ludicrous and feeding back upon themselves
For destiny can be remade
If hatred weren’t so blind.

They never spoke, but every time she walked into the train
He reflexively slid to the left and made room for her.
And they would travel together sitting one hand width apart.
He drummed his perfectly crooked fingers on his left thigh,
like a horse that galloped towards an unknown destination.
She clasped and unclasped her hands, and
chewed on the dry skin of her bottom lip.

She always switched off her phone before getting on the train.
She assumed he did too because no one ever disturbed their unsaid conversations.
The old man singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand provided the sound track to their journey.
Yet the most endearing sound was that of him sliding his right foot from side to side.
The soft scraping sound soothed her more than any song ever had.

The train ride lasted twenty-five minutes every night,
during which, in her mind they got married,
went to Vienna for their honeymoon,
and had three children: twin boys and a girl,
who grew up to be the perfect balance between the two of them.

His stop came before hers and
She wondered if one day he would miss his stop and
Ride with her to hers.
He knew her beginning and she knew his end.
She may never know any more
But that didn’t matter because for twenty five minutes a day,
all she needed was the soft scraping sound from his right foot sliding from side to side.

A thin white dust of snow littered the concrete path like an overspill of Styrofoam *****. Summer had her hands buried deep into the lining of her coat pockets and her chin pressed tightly within her pashmina scarf. It was the first bite of wind she’d felt in a while. She had been holed up with her friends for several days and the concept of loneliness was already foreign to her, much in the same way as privacy. She could feel the cheap red wine rust in her veins as her body told her “too much” and in truth she was ready for the crackle of vinyl and the promise of fresh sheets and a shower. The week had been fun, she guessed, she’d certainly felt closer to her friends than ever before, even though they all went back for as far as it was worth remembering.  ‘She guessed’. She’d been guessing for a while now, living in absences with everything held at an emotionless distance – whether or not this was deliberate she could not decide.
It wasn’t a particularly long walk back to her house, enough to take the bus - but she guessed she wanted the walk. The cold air made her eyes glassy and occasionally she had to blink furiously to catch the water forming along her lids. The din of distant inner city traffic consumed the airwaves around her but the path that lay ahead of her was surrounded by parkland, and within eyeshot there was a lazy brook where children would often be seen playing, though they’d be at school at this time of day. She guessed. She wasn’t quite sure of the time, but she knew it was the 15th of February. She couldn’t always be sure of what year it was though, her head was often stuck back in the 1960’s, before she was even born.
Summer could feel the claustrophobia of youthfulness shedding from her every angle and with every insipid step she took, the world took on a more familiar feeling and she took her first real breath of air for days. From out of nowhere she felt overwhelmed at the breathless ease of the faint snowfall and the slate grey of the sky. The clench in her stomach – Summer often found herself weeping for no real reason, and she could never quite work out whether she would be weeping for beauty, or for sorrow…she guessed that there was some compromise between the two. All she knew is that she was very sorry when she reached her front door that her walk was over and that she must again disappear into the walls.
The heating had been off for almost an entire week now and Summer could hear the house groan into action as the radiators cracked back into life, and she felt much the same. The kettle jittered on the spot as the water steamed and bubbled welcomingly and soon the kitchen was greeted with the smell of tea. Summer retreated to her room upstairs. A wide room with white walls meant that it was often brighter than the world outside and it often appeared to unadjusted eyes to have a ghostly glow about it. Summer thumbed through her proud collection of second-hand LP records until she settled on listening through Pink Moon for what was now an uncountable time. “Saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way”. She let out an exhausted but contented smile and fell onto her bed. The sheets were cold from privation of use but the coolness on her cheek was welcome and she closed her eyes and imagined she was still outside on an effortless walk, with the sounds of Nick Drake overpowering that of the exhausts of one thousand cars.
After several moments of another world, she reluctantly sat back up and began to take off her clothes to get a little bit more comfortable. It felt good to get out of her clothes, she’d only meant to stay for one night so she had not been able to change her clothes for days and she’d appreciated the idea of clean underwear in a way she never considered worth noticing before. She unclasped her bra and felt it fall clumsily to the floor and just sat there for a moment, bare-breasted in the pearl white of the chilly room. She couldn’t help but feel like an illustration, of pastels or watercolours. Her mind was still a convoluted collage of the past few day’s events – the haze of alcohol and **** still occupied a small corner of her being, despite the cleansing walk and the wonderful clunk of a familiar guitar bouncing across her walls. Her ******* were hard from the cold so she threw on an extra large male t-shirt that fell to just below her upper thigh.
She slid off her skirt and underwear, which fell limp at her pale thin ankles. Looking at her thighs, she could still make out the small thumb-sized bruises scattered across them from the distant and removed *** she’d had at some point last week. At least she guessed, it could have happened back in the 60’s for all she knew. It felt as if the past week was not real, a familiar feeling. She was almost certain that man who had shared her bed did not really exist and her bruises contested her own existence. At least that’s how it felt.
She turned over the vinyl and remembering her tea, slid between the covers and warmed her hands against the steaming ceramic. The tea was perhaps the most wonderful and delicious thing she had ever tasted and she felt it nourish her metaphysically. In a way beyond words, she felt herself heal with the rush of warm past her lips and the sweetness on her tongue. The room was slowly warming as she skimmed her legs back and forth against the mattress in complete comfort. Once the last of her tea had been drunk, she let the empty mug rest on the bedside counter and almost immediately fell into a dreamless sleep.

For I to cherish soaked in sunbathe dream of freckles on cream and strawberries
For you to see and sigh and fill with warm fizzy pink water too sweet to contemplate 
For you to see and sigh and long for long sleeved sheathed in jealousy spilling out in bright red syrup

For I to paint faces with my utterances fanciful making ugly alluring curious mysterious attractive

I can take my nose to be strength clever seducting wicked men and women to listen to my describes or look upon papyrus sheets

I can make my jaw a naive child stricken with blue veins translucent skin clinging papery like wings to brittle bones under eaves ready to snap

I can write my eyes wide innocent in first time headlights first time frosted firsts filled with empty antecedents of unclasped things and fifty fifty longings

I can make the ugly striking like a stinging snake cruel contemplating lashing smarts or make it sad sorrowful quiet longing new to life love mature but still a child

I can add grace poise to my stretched out neck make it stand tall of pride training because it's ladylike to do so and so I must and say my prayers every night too as I powder over my faintly drawn freckles

Boyish humour uncaring to my generous brows a baseball mitt bubblegum cards and a fetish for goths forever unrecognised as spit flies and at home haircuts compose a flyaway life

Embellish the hollows collarbones and detract the too-broad shoulders make the frailty proud and small shrink it down to fit in a girl big brothers to gentle and lovers to rough pinned wrists that near snap

With my words I reap the benefits of my own mindly kindling I wander through half made times in history and finished times two seconds right now 

I can create myself and so I do my thirst to be is insatiably insatisfied like my attraction to bad grammar and lilts when you talk so I do I become each and every one 

I create myself and it's addicting

Scrambling across the tiled rooftop,
I avoided peering down.
The sight of charcoaled pavement
emerged as an unbecoming comrade to this city’s
easy skyline.

One cord. One hand.
A fear of falling in another
My attempt at a Sunday Night Football
twisted to the anticipation of
a roadside tackle from the opposite team below

The view from up here
was my only peace
A great inhale of chilled air
filling the bottom corners of my lungs
You are safe. You will not fall.
You are content and happy up here.

And that is what scared me the most.

The roof groaned at my passing weight
I stood at the brink of it all. Admiring
the city inside me
the metro, the lights, the busy buildings
It was filthy and a little unbecoming
but I was lucky. Nothing
was wrong.

Then I slipped off the edge of the rooftop.

Gripping at the pipes that rimmed the building,
the hooks of my fingers rioted for a savior.
Sprouting blood like fireworks on a holiday
I begged not to fall. The pipes wailed as
my legs reached further for the ground,
like a child stretching towards their mother’s arms
I cried at how simple it was -
To let go or to bring myself up
not knowing if my will could
get me up to the rooftop

I thought hard for us all - my only undoing -
Then I unclasped my broken fingers
and fell down onto the concrete.


November 7,  2013 3:59 pm
Revised: December 9, 2013 1:53

amid pentagrams

satelliting my mind

an outward location

of an ostentation

that lids a voyeuristic eye

to Da Vinci’ fingers in a jar

waiting anxiously for them

to move, perform an ******

panache of evocative art

but they are congealed

in a stalactite shiver

that lacks transmitted urgency

but contact with these

enigmatic digits causes

a correspondingly delayed

then urgently convulsive frenzy

that somewhere in time

bring frictional contact

with a canvas or a ceiling

Da Vinci’ fingers in a jar

an outward location

of unclasped curiosity

Body doubled,
Huddled for warmth.

Cold sweat.
Thumping movements.
Buzzing fingertips.
Itching apparitions.
Mighty seraphim's dreams.
The danger of an open mouth,
The Tempest of the dunes lingers.

Unclasped hands,
No longer able to etch
The tablet.

Stalled in afternoon traffic
by the crack of a jackhammer
and the smell of hot asphalt,
what else is there to do but wait
for the sun-kissed woman
in muddy work boots and
orange vest to acknowledge me.

She has a tattoo of an AR-15
on her left forearm and more
ink (an octopus?) under her eye.

She is in total control.

Her unclasped safety
vest ***** in the wind.
The smoke from her
Marlboro Red snakes
down the line of cars
and wafts into my open
window with a smell
so strong she should
be riding shotgun.

She alone will deliver me.

As the jackhammer
fires on full auto,
I wait like a child
for my turn to go.

Her eyes squint and the octopus
squirms and my afternoon restarts
with another twist of her gloved hand,
the sign revolving from Stop to Slow.

for instance, I felt the yearn to feel love
an arm surrounds an unclear path of blue,
rejuvenating it is; I’m above,
yet unanswered questions linger; seek clue,
art thou afraid to love like juliet?
hands unclasped; bent knees and silent prayers.

Hug the earth close
as the moon goes around.
We all have lights
some greater, some lesser.
The sun is so generous
it doesn’t need to shine all the time.
It leaves room for the moon's turn,
and the moon turns the sun into time.
In waves it comes
gradually, as an evening ends,
as a child matures.
The child matures
as it grows dark many times over.
Is the child still afraid of the dark?
Or does darkness just mean stopping
laying down, listening without moving?
It is so still tonight.
The moon is just beginning.
Once again, just beginning.
The stillness is like the darkness
it makes the earth closer,
the mountain the unclasped hand
hugging me closer
sheltering my little light.

Growing up as a girl, I watched and learned,
The truths of boys and men often go unturned.
“Boys will be boys,” a phrase we all know,
Implying that girls must shoulder the load.
This notion suggests that girls mature fast,
Leading to women who pick up the cast—
An unspoken burden, a silent decree,
To bear the weight of their irresponsibility.
In a world steeped in misogyny’s grasp,
Women face judgment; their futures unclasped.
Absorbing the shame of the games that they play,
While men to walk away, free to go on their way.
Many men abandon homes they once called their own,
Now seen as free, yet their true selves unknown.
Disgrace drapes over women like a heavy yoke—
A weight of neglect that shatters their hope.
This yoke is forged from promises unkept,
From fathers who vanish while their children wept.
He escapes guilt with practiced ease,
Dodging duty like a ghost on the breeze,
Claiming children and a wife he never knew,
While society laughs at the pain he withdrew.
Leaving his children to carry his woes—
Their identities shaped by the hurt that he chose.
His children learn quickly to shoulder the shame;
They remember who was the burden of blame—
Like he who claimed love but was never there.
Those left to carry his name feel the strain,
Learning of unfairness that echoes their pain.
Abandoned women and children continue to grow—
A daunting endeavor men wish to overthrow.
Yet shadows may linger, and burdens remain;
They’ll carve out a future where hope will maintain.
For every struggle faced will lead to the dawn—
A testament to strength as they carry on.

To tell any story of you I should begin with stone –
Marbles, granites, slates – in slabs and blocks so large
They surrounded the family plant like cold-faced
Soldiers, armed not to keep out, but to keep safe
The secret knowledge: how to turn function to art,
How to harvest beauty from earth’s dark home.

We could count on you to be part of our home.
After school days and weekends of shaping stone
You appeared at our table, wearing your appetite large
And wooing my sister until our brother’s blank face
(Your best friend’s cold face) blinked there was no safe
Way to have them both. Somehow, for you, the art

Was in the trying. At work, you created a new art
Cutting and carving miniature relief scenes – of home
And history and Greek goddesses in soft marble stone
Streaked pink and black – with callused hands larger
Than the finished pieces. My sister lowered her face
In refusal of that first gift.  Believing you were too safe,

She married someone else. You married, to be safe,
Someone who didn’t care to understand the delicate art
Of your labor. Soon, some chasm reached your home,
Splitting you in silence until you no longer were stone
But shards and pieces scattered at the bottom of a large
Abyss, unwhole. Your grief too hard for you to face,

You led your wife along a trail up to a rocky west face
Above a summer pool. Here, you thought, you were safe
To perfect an absolute stillness between you, a terrible art,
And somehow avenge the jagged cleavage in your home.
You struggled (the papers would later report) until stones
Slipped, hands unclasped, the space between grew large.

Like a pebble thrown, your wife’s body created no large
Ripples until shallow breath returned and she surfaced
Flailing, waving one unbroken arm to show she was safe.
But it was too late for you, whose new attempts at art
Had once again failed, and so you turned to go home
To become immovable, unreachable, a dumb stone.

At home, you recorded failures and defeats you faced
In large hurried script, writing to set forever in stone
One final success: a safe shot to the head, your newest art.

Apart, we stood on the wings of unparalleled airplanes
With a hunger to grow a pair of wings for ourselves
Together we stood on the island of a shifting ocean
Broken backgrounds shattering preconceived notions
Wrapping each other’s arms around healing scars,
We opened them back up
So the rest could massage soft words into the wounds
Turning our hearts into good soil
Where we could start to re-grow the parts of ourselves
Left black and cracked by a burning past

We stepped out from behind the masks packed firmly in our suitcases
Learning to love ourselves and each other
For the vices and vulnerabilities we’d hidden for so long
We forged a chain where the weakest link
Was the one that wouldn’t let another bear their burden
And we used that chain to lift each other above our worries
Because perspective was the one thing we were lacking.
When we stood on the cliff hills looking over the ocean,
Perspective was the only thing we had
The rest was swept up in sea foam carried by rolling meadow breezes,
Soft rainfall on window panes,
Shared smiles and the laughter of fast friends

As we unclasped our hands to turn towards home
The sadness we held was for the time until we would meet again
The tears that streamed forth were to show that
Noone would be forgotten
The months we spent together will be etched on our hearts
Waiting for a reunion to read back the memories
We stand on the doorway to tomorrow
The taste of long-gone whiskey on our lips
Tempting to take the breath out of the final hours
Until the winds beckon us back to Belfast
My legs grow restless as I await your return
I need to see you all again

With a twist and a turn
Not of this world
Her coat is unclasped
And slides down to the floor
It's her song
Weaving itself
Over mumbled words
Through cigarette smoke
She moves,
Her body ,water
The air, her vessel
Se possesses every atom
That dares touch her
The first notes still playing
Her feet find the centre of the room
A slight pause
Then the first beat
The first note of the first verse
Giving itself to her
The virginal sacrifice.
She takes it
And the next
And the next
A goddess
Greedy for her pound of flesh
Each note absorbed
Entwined selfishly with her essence
She winds each round her ankle
And slowly
They rise
First seeking out her calf
Then her knee
Then her thigh
Then....
Then she begins
Water flows
Becoming the one thing
Every being strives to please
With honed patience she captures all
Forming her banks
Her slightest of moves
Carving an unseen light about her
Marking her
A brand not seen
Yet it draws the eye
Then your soul
And with the music to herself
Not letting one thing
Escape her now heaving breast
She curves
The soul curves
She moves
The music moves
She is the melody
She plays
It's the music that dances to her.

serenity encompassing the shy masks
masked marble stone with the sliver of gold
two slits and a mouth to taste
those withering syllables left decadently on shore

masks, masks drinking roaming with haste
jumbles of words unspoken and texts never sent
interiors slashed as desire gathered and clashed

how long can our masks endure to the last?

last sip of golden beams
quench the sunlight with aching feet
last time stepping out the auditorium door
I swear, you were a great actor amidst the despair
last time you'll lay your eyes into another
getting lost trying to comprehend the dots
the last stroke of fear eradicated the moment
the fastens are unclasped,

fall
     tumbling
                     flying
                               spinning
                                              exhilaration
                                                                ­   clarity
                                                         ­                     weightless
as the mask becomes of no more
something like vertigo,
sudden visions of peripheral miracles
and yearn to feel your own cheekbones

this is for the lost and found

this is for the star gazer who connects the dots,
but the dots just don't conform...and he stares infinitely
this is for the mailman who braves a snowstorm to deliver teenage puppy love letters
with ***** induced rhymes to ignite a lust
and his wife hasn't loved him in twenty years...yet he still believes

What are you waiting for?

this is for the couple on the edge of divorce
but the veins leading up to their hearts are still twined like an intricate array of grape vines
a cartographer could probably still design the road map of their love
and yet they still fight

What are they waiting for?

this is for the matchmaker who manifests love from the tip of her fingers
and can put one and one together to make magic
but she can't seem to find the right one
so she lives vicariously through the successes

What are you waiting for?

this is for the girl or boy wishing they could be the hand that was held
through the maze of ten thousand footsteps they walked alone
because they cannot have this dance tonight
and their palms remained unclasped
...still they wish

What are you waiting for?

this is for you, struggling with the wait the plagues
trapped in the limbo to move forward or continue to let life happen

Stop waiting.

Be unsatisfied.
The moments we settle  are moments wasted
wasted on waiting,
I want you to have caffeinated jitters
instead...
we wait
and we wait
we wait.
and some more
wait enough and life will pass you by
so make a change
step out into the daylight that only occurs twelve hours of the day

Be a shot out of a cannon, or the confetti of victory
a firework that illuminates the entire midnight heavens
don't search for the brightest star in the sky, be it
don't wait. don't make an excuse
because, i may not alwys be looking, but you're transparent enough i can see right through you

and if you need it
I'll be your push, like a swing
but its up to you to sprout wings

be unstoppable when you terrorize the sky
be a force of nature
be a gust of wind so strong that it knocks God on his backside
and  his laughter shakes the universe
and for one brief and fleeting moment he shines light upon your rainy day

when you finally stop waiting for life to happen
don't bother telling me because i will see
because the wreckage you left behind tearin up that robin egg sky
will last longer than rainbows

that stargazer who stares infinitely will see your supernova soul
burst through the darkness, fleeting beautiful and damaged
forever shall you be etched in the stars
may be you forever...capable

All those pretty boys and girls
in Utah with perfect families
and straight teeth and
golf weekends and BYU

I wanna be a Latter Day Saint:
faith like a gorget keeping
holiness inside and sin without,
my eyes turn blue contemplating sainthood

In the south they shout in tongues
they have a private line with the devil
and he lurks in the hearts of
Communists and liberals he says.

I wanna be a born again Baptist
full of hellfire and moonshine
fundamentally patriotic and God
looking down every day at my white hot purity
It’s a good day to be a Baptist my friend.

My Catholicism is a ragged old red robe
seams dragging through the dust
of old men’s prayers and smelling
of my grandmother’s face powder
even when she died.

In the end the rain washes over the berms
of every river not only Jordan
and when the flood comes I will be
lying open in a field
smelling of damp earth and crushed grass
my knees unbent and my hands unclasped
my heart in my mouth still beating.

he came, i cried
a blanket wrapped around me and a bra I’ve just unclasped
because he asked me to
they always do
I fall into pattern and I do as he pleases
and he tells me it’s on my conditions
and I’m too tired of definitions
for I don’t know what’s right or wrong
I’m afraid he’s just like them
and I’m so sick of wearing a thong
fluttering eyelashes and doing makeup only for him
my worth boiled down to a simple *** doll
tell me to reach for the alcohol
at least that makes me feel better for a while
when he’s not around
he’s n o t around

Continue to process the words in your head, extracting these whispers which simply linger and listen to each of those gifts delivered.
Pick up on the frequencies which ring in sync, with a tone clear to hear that's felt from within, risen up from our chest to the head as it spreads.

Draw in a line between each speckled dot, removing the fog to make sense of our self, helping unclog built up tears often hidden. When we try to grasp traits from silent ideas, varied trickle effects help let go of the fear.
Prioritised tasks edge out further unclasped, where the forward thinking sinks in amongst us.
Contemplative thought of feelings less said,  as helpful hints given are informed well ahead.

she wore her pain
around her neck
adorned as the most beautiful set of pearls
and i envied her

ode to our friendship
she unclasped her struggles
on my shaking hands

this string of majestic mourn
collected from mysterious depths of the ocean
how could i have been so foolish

for now i know why its called a choker

Don't kiss me with lying lips
I might fall and die from it
Don't look me in the eye and say you will,
will wait for me till death cause I know you never will

Don't dive my core nor explore in deep
You are my ideal boy but you can't keep
Can't keep all the promises where is your faith?
I shouted your name until It turns into hate

You lose the battlefield
that sunk into deep and shallow pace
now we sat like strangers did
as we unclasped our hands and forget how it feels.

goodbye for now 'till we meet again
or just simply let go and don't comeback
or break my heart  once again

I was drenched in color orange
lightening hue of the sun
beneath the shadow of music
where the violin string unclasped
the rhythm of their wailing
into one beautiful lyre

an angel feather fallen
because God forbidden me
from chasing axes with mixes
of hate and despair that run
the smiles from their faces
then made it into innocence gone

the forsaken forest spirits
now dwell into the grounds
made up of lilies and roses
trying to hear the sound
from my tree of despair, oozing
with my arrogance and my lies

The moon glistens,
Its light seeping through my curtains,
Illuminating my room ever so gently.
I took in the beauty of simplicity,
And for that mere whimsical second,
I felt nothing but bliss and tranquility.
In the state of being solitary,
And out of sheer curiosity,
I clutched the key and unclasped my lock-box of memories.
Jet black wisps scrambled out,
They grapple me by the throat
and silence my shouts.
They claw at my hair and throttle me about.
With bare hands, they ripped my heart out
Mutilating it without mercy.
My arms-- restrained
I felt nothing but pain.
With their bare hands,
They returned the scraps of my heart and whatever remained
back into my hollow chest,
before leaving little kisses upon my forehead.
They wiped my teary eyes and waved me goodbyes.
They put me to bed and immediately fled.
They tucked me in, in extreme unbearable agony,
And left, in forms of bittersweet memories.

We walk ever into the night
Hands unclasped
Heel to toe
Trying not to stumble
I can only hear your breath
Sense that you are there
But otherwise
We walk ever into the night
Alone.

Until
Our fingers collide and mesh
Matching steps
Into a path of darkness
Where I feel you
And your breath
In cadence with mine
Into the darkness, sublime