Advent Remains Unoccupied

Advent remains at peace, unoccupied
There are no Advent trees to buy or steal
No seasonally-discounted lingerie
No Advent hymns background the lite-beer ads

At Mass: a wreath, a candle every week
And music set to God, not to the sales;
The missal now begins again, page one
And through the liturgy so too do we

Almost no one notices this season, and thus
Advent remains at peace, unoccupied

There is no need to dwell on the exterior cliche of an injured soldier, the propaganda is superficial. Civilians have only plastic green men, heavy dusty movie set costumes, and Army-of-One heroes to populate stereotypes. Keep your images larger than life, no use touching up a paint-by-number. Mine was banal, foolish, and 19; enough said.

One fence is the fraternity itself, the next is brain injury. No other way to understand but be there. A Solid-American-Made-Dashboard cracked my forehead at 45mph.
Crumpling into the footwell,
unaware that the flatbed's rear bumper
was smashing thru the passenger windshield above me
the frame stopped just shy of decapitating my luckily unoccupied seat.
Our vehicle's monstrous hood had attempted to murderously bury us under,
but the axle stopped momentum's fate and ended the carnage under dark iron.
Shards of my identity joined the slow, pulverized, airborn chaos.
Back, Deep, Gone.

Unconsciousness is the brain's frantic attempt to re-wire neurons, jury rig broken connections, the doctor's desperate attempt to re-attach, stand back and say, good enough. Essential systems limply functioned, but unessential ones were ditched. Years later a military doctor diagnosed an eventual triage: Hypothalimus disconnected from the Pituitary Gland, Executive Function damaged, long pathways for emotional regulation interrupted.

I woke up still kinda bleeding, crusty blood in my hair, a line of frankenstein stitches wandering across my forehead.   My sense of self had literally dissolved into morning dust floating in a sterile hospital sunbeam.  My name was down the hall, words and the desire to speak were on a different floor.  Life became me and also a separate me under constant renovation, a wrecking ball on one half, scaffolding and raw 2x4's the other.

Waking up in the hospital, I realized I needed help to get the blood cleaned up.   A nurse came in, largely glared at me in disregard, and quickly left… for an hour.   She returned and brusquely dropped a useless ace comb and gauze on the blanket over my feet and abandoned me again.  This was my introduction to the shame of a VA hospital.  I minced my way to the bathroom, objectively examined my face in the mirror with shocking stitches above one swollen eye.  Gingerly rinsing my hair, the water ran pink in white porcelain.  I remembered the sound in my skull between my ears when a doctor scraped a metal tool across my skull, cleaning debris before stitching.  I recalled that in the ER I was asking Is he ok, repeating it like a broken record, knowing I should stop but I couldn’t.  There was also perhaps a joke about an Excedrin headache.

It was morning, and since there was no such thing as time or purpose or feelings anymore, I wandered to the hall with my only companion, the IV pole. One side was a wall of windows, and I was, what, 10 or 12 stories up from the streets of a much larger city than where I crashed.  The hall was warm and sunny.  I wheeled my companion to a blocky square vinyl chair to sit next to a pay phone.  I didn’t have any thoughts at all, or care about it.   After about an hour my first name floated up from the void, then with some effort my last name.  It took the rest of the morning to remember I had a brother.  After lunch we resumed our post, and I spent the afternoon in concentration piecing together his phone number.  God had pushed the reset button.

Thirty years ago the doctors didn't understand head injuries; they only recognized the physical symptoms. At first there was good reason to be permanently admitted to the hospital.  My blood pressure was unstable, sometimes so low that drawing blood for tests caused my veins to collapse even with baby needles.  My thyroid had shut down completely, only jump-started again with six months of Synthroid.  I had to learn to live with crashing blood sugar and fluctuating appetite.  For years afterwards, any stress would cause arrhythmias, my heart filling and skipping out of sync, blood pressure popping my skull.  Will the clock stop this time?  

There is always at least one momentous event in every person’s life that becomes punctuation, before and after.  The other side of Before the accident truly was a different me.  I have a vague recollection of who that person may have been, and occasionally get reminders.   Before, I was getting recruiting letters from Ivy League colleges and MIT, a high school senior at sixteen.  After, I couldn’t balance a checkbook or even care about a savings account in the first place.  Before, I had aced the military entrance exam only missing one question, even including the speed math section.  They told me I could chose any rating I wanted, so I chose Air Traffic Control.  Twenty years later, I thumbed through old high school yearbooks at a reunion.   I saw a picture of me in the Shakespeare Club, not recalling what that could have been about.   On finding a picture of me in the Ski Club I thought, Wow, I guess I know how to ski.   A yellowed small-town newspaper article noted I was one of two National Merit Scholars; and in another there’s a mention of a part in the High School Musical.  

This side of After, I kept mixing right with left, was dyslexic with numbers, and occasionally stuttered with word soup.  Focus became separated from willpower, concentration was like herding cats.  The world had become intense.

(chapter 1 continues in memoir)

A vacant room of dark spaces,
where furniture once lay
An empty lot of trash and cracked concrete
Where weeds take root with hopes of becoming trees
And cobwebs span for miles
Worn wind chimes still glisten in sun
Papers of bad handwriting fly with the wind
This place left unoccupied for so much time
Small lives make home in the walls,
While this home settles further beneath dirt
This place reminds me of our forgetfulness, our need to not rebuild
As a place turns old we leave it behind,
never to fix again,
never to feel loved again
Weeping floorboards
Walls crying tears of yellow paint
Roof caving in feeling hollow
Abandoned places
Forgotten
Always forgotten

Have you considered being a *** worker?
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than associating with your own ribcage.
You're an actress
no script, just a character summary.

Limp, age 12, non-verbal marionette.
Snaps her strings when forced to dance.
Clings to the ceiling tiles, like the shadows she hallucinates.
Let's the puppet fall numb under strangers.
Ragdoll to be used for kindling.

When you play your part
You'll inherit enough money to afford a studio apartment
in Washington, or Las Vegas; anywhere with men paid large enough salary to afford your vacant body,
three phone plans,
a hotel room for you to stay awake in
Listening to dull thuds against your wrongfully warm corpse
Invited hoping the stinging could form tendons
adhere together like rubber bands
Snap you back into your skin.
You cling helpless to the ceiling tiles
Watch the ragdoll make mistakes.

"Have you considered being a *** worker?"
A homeless woman asked me,
*"Unoccupied bodies should start charging rent.
Let a man who can afford it pay for utilities.
You might be homeless
but you won't be wasted space".

Everywhere

She's in every crossword
She haunts the radio
she's in my mind, memories blurred
Cant help but chase her shadow

I feel my heart still palpitate
With just the utterance of her name
All my life , to her , I'd gravitate
For no one else, i feel the same

She's in the stars, for each an ode
Under the moon I'd weep
I think of all the " I love you's " told
And I cry myself to sleep

She's in every, unoccupied thought
I can't help but to endear
But despite all this, its all for naught
Because she's everywhere, but here .

Krypton didn’t fit with anyone,
as it was  the unfriendly one,
it never went beyond it’s limits
even if others did loose their limits.

It was from a forlorn world,
nobody cared to say a word,
to this enigma of another world;
no one wanted to share a word.

The nobles were always preoccupied
with their occupied shells,
they never hung out with the occupied,
nor the unoccupied.

Krypton was mistaken for kryptonite.
It wondered every night,
Why they accused it for the assassination?
it didn’t have the power of absorption.

Krypton had very few of it’s kind,
it didn’t know where they were aligned.
He held the hope of being able to be lined,
with the rest of it’s kind.


Poor Krypton, he was on the farthest
arena of the periodic table
it wished if it could turn the table,
so that it can at least act a bit feeble.

Experience taught this novice,
it calculated the calculations,
to traverse the long distance,
fear hindered the transmissions.

Krypton used to think without links
he was one of the stable nobles,
he wasn’t the one that wobbles
and, one of the table’s baubles.

long to be with her ‎
She wants someone else
Her actions is different frm her wrds
Wen she's with me 
I find my haven in her
Re this all I wanted
Or dey're mirage
Wen she's with him
She becomes cold towards me
Get scared of calling cos her tone is scolding
She quickly wants to get  off d phone
Soft talk in pace 
Can I kip up in dis race
Crying becomes a routine
Can't find my rhythm 
Tot she's drifting away 
Didn't realise she's far gone
She came to say goodbye 
Nw I see d bye bye
Guess she's my rabbi
Cos I can see d byline
She made her hair going to see him
Me she didn't even flinch
Asked our normal question
Are u ok/cool‎
Her response shocked me
Why the question
Do I expect her not to be ok
Cold feet I had
Tank God I didn't get struck by a truck
Told her I had issues 
She didn't bother askin wat d issue was
I asked her to come on Friday 
She said it was too early
Today she went to see him early‎
Am I a fool
Or i'm being taken as a full fool
Well she's with her love
Why shouldn't she be hapi
I guess dat's wat she meant
Do I mean anytin to her anymore
Or i'm a tool being taken along‎
She once told me
Dat I shouldn't repeat d same mistake 
In my next relationship 
Oh my should've read the hand written on the wall
Is dis d voice of Jacob and d hand of esau
Forgetting her I can't
She wants me to move on
Move on to wat
Guess to my masters
After 4yrs tot it was worth the wait
Guess i'll neva. Be loved d way I want
Who knows may be i'm paying for the sins of my ancestors
They worshipped ifa 
Guess dey made some innocent peeps cried
And dose peeps are hunting me nw
‎Yet she said if I truly love her 
I wouldn't cry any
I found a place to cry in apapa
Was asked if anyone died
I said YES my love's feeling for me is
Dey all laughed
And said even in t,ears I still hav my sense of humour
Didn't want to try out loving again
Aina made me too
Do I regret
NO she's been awesome all d way
Even wen she leaves
Or has she has left
She'll hav her place unoccupied as long as I live
She wants She'll hav her place unoccupied as long as I live
She wants to stick around till I make it
As wat I ask
She has suffered with me 
She deserves to enjoy too
She said I should be ready for d worst
Guess she has made up her mind She'll hav her place unoccupied as long as I live
She wants to stick around till I make it
As wat I ask
She has suffered with me 
She deserves to enjoy too
She said I should be ready for d worst
Guess she has made up her mind long before now
Well i'm prepared for just one tin
Which is notin
All my readiness is to love her always
Whether she leaves or stay
If she leaves she can always come back
I long for no one else
Until she tells me to live without her
Even @ dat‎
I won't give up‎
This is not the end
It's just d beginning. ‎

I come inside the room and sat at front
on the last unoccupied seat
I spot a girl that’s not at all blunt
and was really kinda intimidating with the way that she greets
very ecstatic and charming with her gorgeous little smile
she was lighting up everybody in the room, it was really worthwhile
I was looking at you in disbelief, I almost started to sweat
then you glanced at me so I started to fret
but you made a silly face and I did too
that was the day that I met you




Happy birthday Yam Ng. This one's for ya. Love ya bud.

Without you I often feel
Like a child who has lost her parents in a department store
And turns round and round
Waiting to be rediscovered and led back home.
It is a childlike feeling
In that it is so pure and intense
That it overwhelms everything else.
It's consuming,
This...lost, echoing sort of feeling,
This space inside me that calls
For you to be next to me and heal me.
It's the simple, gripping yearning
Of the child inside my heart
For connection
For tenderness
For contact-
To reach out and find purchase with my fingers
In the warmth of someone else's skin,
Someone I love,
Someone I trust.
Someone I miss,
Even when they are close.

Without you I often feel
Like a balloon that has been cut from its string
And left to wander through the stratosphere,
A lone black dot wavering above the treetops.
I have no control over where I am taken,
No way to reach out to where I've come from and say
"Wait, I want to go back."
I am adrift, in the most terrifying sense,
Emotionally floating through the emptiness of air,
Above all else but utterly alone.

I fear being away from you,
Is the truth,
Is the constant struggle.
I fear the mornings when your arms are not around my waist
And your breath isn't on my collarbone.
I fear the days when my hand isn't clasped in yours,
Tattooed in golden brown henna and entwined,
Fragile but steadying,
Like the rope that holds a ship fast and safe from the greedy fingers of the sea.
I fear the evenings when you aren't curled up beside me,
Your smooth voice telling me stories and ideas.
I fear the nights when I cannot look at your sleeping face
And feel the heartbreak cry out in my chest
Of loving every curve of it
In the halflight shadows
And seeing your skin glow gold
Against the velvet darkness.
I fear every second that you are not near me,
And that is why I feel so oddly lonely
In any tiny breath of a moment
That I am unoccupied.

Without you,
I'm not even entirely sure I exist.
Not properly,
Not like one should exist.
I think perhaps I pale a little,
Like a negative photograph,
Perhaps my edges become a little hazy
And the world bleeds into me and takes my light,
And my skin becomes a little transparent
So that if I stand before a streetlight in the rain
You can see the wet road through my back.
I think a little bit of my color drains,
And I become drab as a silverscreen movie,
Only projected upon the world and not
Really there.

No way of approaching how I feel without you
Can explain it fully,
And little flashes of what I mean dart across my vision like meteors.
I can try to equate it with something relatable,
Something tangible,
But the truth is that missing you transcends the words I've got to explain it.

I feel like a child, crying because she has realized what the word "alone" means.
I feel like a ship, cut adrift and floating through a mirror sky of sea
With no land in sight.
I feel like a worn out film reel
Ghost of an image hollographed against the world.
I feel like I've lost something
I couldn't live without.
My lungs, perhaps.
Maybe an artery,
Or the bones in my legs.
It feels wrong, to be without you.
And yet,
I am.
Without you,
I am...
Something.
But I'm not even sure I care to know
What.

Thoughts escape through cracks and crevices of the swelling gray matter. Each breath forcefully exhaled through thinly parted lips pushes the unfinished coliseum constructed of heavy stones, weighted with unsure purpose, out into the previously unoccupied space before me. Each exhalation creates small beings composed of struggle that march mechanically into the arena. Ready to throw their lives on the line to fight for recognition. As these thoughts battle one another, one falls after the next. Once the battles between these thoughts has finished, and the coliseum is filled with dreams and ideas that will never find themselves fully recognized, only one stands victorious. Though battered and broken from the ****** battles it has fought, selflessness has conquered any that would seek to oppose it. It inhales the dire wounds caused to the others, and they stand before the crumpled mass that saved everything they fought so hard to achieve through personal sacrifice. Not knowing the events that occurred, they cannibalized selflessness to sate their primitive greed. Now a small portion of him exists within every ideal that escapes through pursed lips from the fields of grey matter where they were conceived. Through this process the idea of love was given life, and it will forever seek that selflessness that gave birth to it.

THIS **** ******* *****!
You have deleted every profile picture
and cover photo with us in it,
Ten times out of Ten you changed
your laptop background of all the pictures
of us,
Forgot the song that you gave us 3 years ago,
changed your cell phone background,
deleted the cell phone pictures,
Go to sleep without thinking a bit about me,
Talk about me casually to people like I
pretty much don’t ******* exist,
And to top it all off,
You are probably the happiest you’ve ever been.
Like our relationship was nothing but handcuffs of burden
you were dying to break out of.
I guess my lies and stupid decisions were memory cards
large enough to completely erase all of our past data -
How is this so easy for you?
How is walking around campus easy for you?
How is going home alone easy for you?
How is cooking alone easy for you?
How is sleeping alone easy for you?
We have marked our forevers on every inch of this
25,000 populated resident.
I can’t go 3 feet without remembering a time where
we were here, and there, and EVERYWHERE.
How we held hands on every speck of the sidewalks,
How our favorite bus seat is now unoccupied,
And our short cuts that weren’t really short cuts,
just flatter ground to walk on because you were so
lazy to walk that way is now a ghost filled alley
of “I don’t give a ****”

What also ***** is I still do all of your habits.
Like put my sides of food on top of one another.
Or how I turn off the lights when I leave a room,
Or how I now buy that Gain powdery washing
stuff for my clothes
Or how I turn off the sink when I’m brushing my teeth,
AND how even though I am not lactose intolerant like you are,
I STILL BUY LACTAID MILK!
WHY?!
I DON’T ******* KNOW!

My mom always told me I will learn everything the hard way.
I guess I wasn’t meant to get my first real relationship
right the first time around.
Heartbreak.
I would rather wish for God to come take back his Saints
but leave me on earth’s dying wasteland
than this.
I feel like I am wasting my time saving myself for that
hint of what if called, faith
but then doubt comes along and says,
She’s gone.
She’s never coming back.
Ever.
Move. On.

It’s so hard for me.
What harder is that I know it’s easy for you.

It is starting again.

The busy people around me are too preoccupied to notice it,
Too engrossed in their own little worlds
to give even an iota of attention to its wondrous arrival.
My fast, disorganized thoughts abruptly come to a shocking halt.

Their own little worlds.

Little.

I am taken aback by that single word that stood out
From all of the effusive words inside my nearly bursting mind.

Little.

I dared to describe their worlds little.

Little.

I dared to speak as if what was about to come
Is larger and vaster in terms of size.

Little.

I dared to speak as if it was immensely greater
And more powerful compared to theirs.

Little.

I dared to spit the insult out of my mouth,
But I will not take it back.

It is starting. The time has come once again.

It was once tinier than a speck
But it is now overshadowing everything that its power can take.

Its underestimated power is surprisingly getting stronger.

It is fast approaching and now it has become unstoppable.

They are starting to utter curses and bluster profanities,
Obviously abhorring the unexpected turning of the tables.
In contrast, I feel inexplicably elated.

They are now terrified,
Their uncaring eyes instantly bulging wide
Upon witnessing the boisterous display of its power.
Despite their fears, I feel valiant, certainly brave.

They are beginning to scurry off in haste
To seek for safety and security as they all dashed
To find a confined place, away from the approaching force.
On the contrary, I feel safe out in the open.

They want to escape the settling darkness,
Longing vehemently to see a ray of light
Amidst the perilous surroundings.
On the other hand, I feel comfort and belongingness.

As they all hid themselves away from the inescapable reality
And decided to lock their useless doors and penetrable windows,
I stood still on this copious ground.
I remained stationary as the authentic rubber beneath my old sneakers
Strengthened its affinity with the asphalt ground.

I closed my eyes,
Not to depict a paradigm of disembodying my entire self from reality,
But rather to show how willing I am to accept what was enveloping me.

The monochrome darkness that it possesses was like a vast mirror
Reflecting all the hidden woes and sorrows inside my beating heart.
Then I realized that we did not just resemble each other.
We had become one.

While I disabled my sense of sight for a moment,
Shortly forgot the purpose of my sense of touch,
Ignored completely my sense of smell and my sense of taste,
The one remaining became prominent.

A clamorous sound filled my ears.
It was a deafening scream from the fearsome entity.
The sound banged my eardrums wildly but it did not hurt.
The horrifying sound resonated through my body,
Awakening every dozing part of my being
And eventually giving life to my dying soul.

The loud voice covered the unoccupied land,
Walked through every existing path
And vociferously shouted out its untold sufferings.
During that event, we were still one.
The ear-splitting shriek belonged to us.
The heart aching sound of sheer pain belonged to me.

I felt its blowing frustrations against my lithe body
And it seem like it was trying to knock me down on the hard ground.
Eventually, I realized that I was badly mistaken.

The powerful energy was embracing my tainted personality,
Giving me the pure comfort that I longed to receive.
This formidable entity was vaingloriously above all
But it crouched down to solace a pathetic being
Slumped deep on the filthy ground.
It horrified everybody
But it exerted an effort to put on its caring facade to console me.

I was nothing compared to it and I am about to prove it.
My weakness was about to show as it pooled beneath my lids.
Never did I try to stop it from rolling down my dull cheeks.
It was a bold statement.
I was not worthy of such greatness, nor will I ever be.

It was your usual way of displaying your immense power.
It was my ignominious way of showing how frail and helpless I am.
I cannot fathom how two different things
Could perfectly blend with each other.
I can never fathom how it was possible
But I will forever be grateful
For such a peculiar yet wonderful event happened.
I slowly lifted my head up with my eyes closed shut
And enjoyed the indescribable feeling
As I got soaked down to the core by its liquefied power.

Suddenly, its lengthy cane reached for the cold ground harshly.
I cannot help but flinch in both surprise and fear.
My eyes darted open in order to see what was bound to come.
The unusual-looking cane met the ground once again
With an indignant hit and it was more brutal compared to the first.

Its cane looked immaculate and divine.
It was eye-blindingly bright and such a beautiful sight.
I realized that it was not just a cane angrily meeting the ground.
They were rays of hope intended only for me.

Time passed ever so slowly,
As I stood alone at its overwhelming presence.
Never was I acquainted to anyone, but in this case, anything like this.
It made me feel important.
It made me realize that I am worthy of being comforted,
Being accepted fully as I am and being loved.

I thought it was everlasting.
I assumed its glorious might was never-ending.
The unimaginable power that it made me feel
Was something I have never acquired before.
Everything seemed real to me.

Now it was fading.

The people are slowly unleashing themselves
From their respective refuges while I still stood there,
Hoping for this force to regain its unfathomable power.

I was being selfish.

I begged for it to stay as it is.
I was about to get down on my bruised knees.

I hungered for the power.
I needed the power.
It was my intangible talisman.

The great force was slowly fading.
I felt a new kind of pain as it gradually departed from me.

I wanted more of the unconditional comfort that it made me feel.
I need more of the unworldly love and care that it wholeheartedly gave me.

My pleading was put to waste.
It started to disappear faster.

I cannot do anything to bring it back.
Now it was gone.

I was completely lost.

I am back to being weak and worthless
But there was an evident change in me.

I have become more pathetic in the eyes of many.

I cannot bear their unfair criticisms and overly biased judgment.

I wanted to dissolve.

On the other hand, moving on seemed accepted by society
As a sophisticated decision in comparison to the other.

I took at step,
Moving myself away at a distance so infinitesimal.

I took another and found a menial amount of strength within me,
Instructing me to continue.

No one seems to notice my horrible state.

That was a good thing.

I continued to walk.
My feet became steadier with each step I took
And I began to cover a longer distance.

As I walked, thoughts began to saunter inside my mind.

I will never forget the magnificent sensation that I felt for a short while.
I have to face the agonizing truth that it was gone.

It was nothing compared to paradise.
It was so much more than words could possibly express.

I felt utter remorse at its departure
But something tells me that it will be back for me.

It will soon come back and we will become one again.






I will be waiting until it rains again.

Now:
The EMTs respond.
A Jane Doe is found dead.
Beneath the I-90 overpass.
They lift her
Zip her into a bag,
And transport her to the morgue.
They can’t feel sad.

Today:
The few wispy strands of hair that remain
Dangle haphazardly from her scabby head
Jagged misshapen teeth protrude from dry cracked lips
betraying breath that stinks of infection and decomposition
Vermin gnaw on exposed flesh while parasites feast within.
Her eyes dim as her body putrifies.

Last Week:
Mission workers prop her up against the wobbly chain link fence
A thin blanket is wrapped around her bony shoulders and
Her blue-tarp awning is adjusted
She would be less wet and cold.
For a night.
They leave a cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup.
The rats eat most of it.
She wouldn’t have kept it down anyway.

Last Month:
The shelter is scary and dangerous.
She couldn’t sleep without nightmares and her screaming disrupted other ‘guests’.
The shelter workers apologize and put her out at 2:19 AM.
She finds a spot between two dumpsters.
It reeks of **** but is unoccupied.
Sometime in the dark she is ***** and beaten by two crackheads.
The crime is unreported.

Last Year:
The fluorescent lights sting her eyes.
The antiseptic smell burns her nose.
The noise and chaos that surround her make her dizzy and disoriented.
She fights hard to get away but is restrained by strong hands – then leather straps.
A painful jab in her arm and then nothing.
Days or weeks later she emerges in a haze.
Kindly eyes greet her.
They stay with her.
They accompany her to the shelter.
They tell her to come back for follow-on care.
She never sees them again.

Before:
The divorce rips her heart in two.
She has nothing.
She is nothing.
Her world crumbles beneath her and she crumbles with it.
Where would she go?
What would she do?
Everything has become so wrong.

Once Upon a Time:
She was happy. Joyful.
Filled with life and hope.
He was smart, funny, successful.
Together they were magical.
Perfect.

"He whispers your name in his sleep." she mumbled-hicupped, wiping the back of her hand roughly against cheeks stained with misplaced mascara, ***** sloshing in hand. The bottle was rimmed with most of her lipstick now, the parts that you hadn't kissed off in all your negligence earlier.

"Your name- that's what he whisperes" she hissed across the bathroom floor- laden with her *****.

I had excused myself only moments earlier to to get away from you. I had even looked forward to the unoccupied seat that the toilet lid would inevitably offer up. I had even resolved to endure flipping through the aged magazines that people invariably place in their bathroom- to get away from you, that was my plan.

What I had not bargained for, was her-
your wonderwall,
your idealized teenage fantasy breathed into existence,
your walking *******,
your girlfriend-clutching the edge of the bathtub with a wild drunken determination.

Looking at me instead of through me-
as if to figure out how my name could have lay so heavy, body indented between the two of you the first time you breathed my name at night.
It was more than once, this much I knew -
not because of the way your finger tips had once burned my bare back or the way that some of your clothes still smelt of my perfume or the fact that you'd almost moaned my name against her flesh before slipping into ecstacy,
but by the look on her face,
the determined urgency with which she sought resolution at the bottom of that bottle.

“Why. Huh?! Why?...” she asked herself, more than me before kicking off one of her shoes, I watched it clatter against the wall, the last sound before a heavy silence fell between us, interrupted only by the hum of music which now seemed far away.

Why?...
Why would I have the answer to that question?
How was he, or anyone really- supposed to have an answer to that question.
How, how was he supposed to suppress his souls true desire?  
How was he supposed to mold the shape of her body to fit his arms the way I once had,
how was he supposed to learn a new language of love  of love that no longer answered to my name ?
How was he supposed to forget all the letters I’d written him or the fact that she don’t quite call for him at night,
the fact that he doesn’t find himself choking in a face full of hair at 3AM because your subconscious doesn’t crave his body in your sleep. 
How was he supposed to forget all that?
How was he supposed to forget that in spite of that he never once told me he loved me.

I looked towards you, a women I thought I knew and realised now, only one thing-
you could not be angry at him for breathing the past into existence once more, as his sleeping mind mulled over the way my shoes clicked against the tiles we’d picked out together, roller bag following quickly after or the way I’d choked out his name when I read the messages you'd sent him.
You could not be angry at him for exploring his soul in his sleep, a soul that I’d once fully inhabited- that now somehow seemed hollow.
You had no right to be mad at a man who only managed to say 
‘I love you’
to me in his sleep.
You had no right to be angry because the way he loved you suddenly didn’t feel earth-shattering after you noticed the way his smile faltered when I walked into a room.
You cannot be angry at him for breathing the past into the present because we  both know he still carries me around in his spirit,
still carries around my picture- folded now, in his wallet.
We both know that at least it was only my name that lay between the two
of
you.
Unlike
you.
Your sordid body lay between my freshly ironed sheets when I left the apartment for more than two hours.
We both know the evidence of your existence did not inhabit him, it only inhabited the sheets which did not smell quite like his sweat only.

I looked at you now, reflections of us in the mirror. 
Mine, surprisingly poised and exhaled.
I exhaled all the notions I’d had of you, being more beautiful or funny or perhaps more ****** than me.
I exhaled the way I’d clutched myself crying, desperately trying to pull my life together, wishing I’d never read the text you’d sent him. Wishing I could stomach the thought of his arms around me once more. I exhaled all the memories of him and I.
All the wasted thoughts of the two of you because I realised now that you were now both just living in your brokenness.

I realised now it was not my place to tell you any of this.

"Why?" You slurred, lazily throwing the now empty bottle across the room towards me.

Because he used to whisper yours,
is what I had wanted to say instead:

“Probably just a bad dream.”

I turned, leaving the room knowing  I couldn’t bear witness to her pain in earnest. Not in true communion the way women ought to.
I grabbed your arm, more forcefully than I once had when touching you was habit.
Your eyes widened, studying my now unfamiliar face.

" She's in the bathroom now,she needs you" was all I said.
"Oh, umh thanks, hey I jus-" I could feel you were about to backslide, blurt out those late night whisperings which had so upset your girlfriend.
So I cut you off before it all began.

"Please just love her properly"
I hoped my absence had taught you at least that much.

I am under the sun’s dust-specked rays
With the low mumbles of a nearby river flowing into my ears
My brain bathes in it’s cool water
The pitter-patter of energetic drips hopping in and out of their prism
Becomes the only sound that occupies my head

Leaves,
Brown
Gold
Holey
Deep
Crunch crunch crunching
Dirt like magnetic attraction clasp to
My boots
My pants
My hair
The sky
Empty
Unoccupied by nothing but the birds that fly in it

Deep breaths of wind proud and tenacious caress my eager face

And it gets dark and the sky swirls and contorts
Screaming out it’s agony and frustration
Over another dying day
It assaults my eyes with it’s canvas
Melted oranges, cascading reds, opaque violets
Illuminating all it looks over
With the glow of it’s ferocity

The scent of pine needles and bark seep into my weary lungs
And I am invigorated with a burst of life
I’ll laugh and let the cold air cap my teeth
And grab my naked eyes
And shake me and shake me and shake me until
I can’t take it
And I cry from it’s frozen clutch
And I laugh and my face is as red as the burnt burgundy leaves that cushion the bottom of my boots

And all
I can hear
Are the echos
Of my solitude
And the toads
Croaking
And
My skin
Warms
And my
Heartbeats
And
My brain
Is silenced
And my eyes close


When I open them I see nothing but my ceiling

And I look forward and my TV is staring at me
With the look of nefariousness it always has

Frantic, desperate, delirious

I grab at my skin

And I
Am
Cold

The driveway was strewn with rotted oak leaves, and Oscar wondered if the old man was still alive. He stopped his car just short of the rusted garage door, knowing that from this vantage point no one from the house could see him. Stepping out of his car, he strode toward the front door. The outside looked much the same as before, ivy gnarling up the walls and spiders webbing around the door. He held up his hand to knock.
“It’s open, Oscar.” He was relieved to hear the old man’s voice through the open window.
“Thanks, Harry. I’ll be right in.” Oscar nudged the front door open and walked into the kitchen. The green wallpaper was faded but the little square table in the corner was clean. The old man had his back to Oscar, stooped over the sink drying the last of a small batch of dishes. Oscar stuck his hands in his sweatshirt pocket.
“The wood looks like it’s staying dry,” Oscar said. The old man gave a slight nod, wiping the counter with slow, decided movements. “I heard it’s been a wet winter.”  
“Not too bad.” The man looked at Oscar with tired eyes. “Those gutters need cleaning, though.”
“I’ll do what I can before I go.”
The old man turned his pale neck back toward the sink. “That’s fine.”
“Do you need anything from town? Or anything?”
The old man didn’t respond. Oscar took his cue to leave, walking through the laundry room and out the back door. An enclosure of thick oaks and cedars faced him, not quite a forest, but more than he could count. His feet carried him on the familiar path, up the mountain where the air was thin, and he struggled to breathe deeply. The trees grew thicker and the path narrower, but he trudged on, finally coming to a stop at a small clearing housing the remains of several tree stumps. In the middle of these stumps sat a bright yellow lawnchair currently unoccupied. Oscar took the opportunity to catch his breath, closing his eyes and lowering himself into the squeaky chair, waiting for her to come. He imagined her sneaking up behind him, covering his eyes. She’d giggle and lope back into the trees beckoning him come to follow her.
He heard a slight rustle through the trees and saw her walk toward him, her steps slower than usual. Her once long hair was cut short against her scalp and her belly protruded in an obvious way. She stopped just short of his arm’s reach, resting one hand over her belly. She cocked her head to the side, looking Oscar up and down. Her eyes settled on his face but not his eyes.
“You got old,” she said.
“You didn’t.” Oscar smiled while she stayed serious.
“I got old and died three times,” she said. “This is me,” she said pointing at her belly.
Oscar reached out to touch her arm, but she took his hand, leading him back out of the clearing down the mountain. He didn’t wonder where they were going. He set aside all the world but her. As he followed behind her, he thought that she looked much different than last time. Her eyes seemed less savage and her skin less pale. He thought she looked strange without her long hair tangled with leaves and wind, and he wondered if the same person that put this baby inside her was also trying to fix her, to make her like everyone else. He tightened his grip on her hand and rushed ahead of her. She gave a tiny laugh and started running after him.
Soon she let go of his hand and sat gracelessly on the ground, resting her head against a tree. Oscar turned around and sat across from her, watching her pick the leaves off a fallen branch.
“This is my tree,” she said, holding up the branch.
“I’ll plant it for you, so it can grow bigger.”
“It’s already dead. Won’t get any bigger.” She began pulling the twigs off the branch, smoothing it into a pole shape.  
“Are you done with college?” she asked.
“Another year.”
“I’m going to go, too.” She sounded like she meant it. Oscar wondered if he had been gone for too long this time. “Soon,” she said.  
Oscar nodded. “You don’t have hair anymore.”
She looked up at Oscar, not meeting his eyes. “It was trapping all my thoughts in my head.”
Oscar smiled. “Now all your thoughts are running around like rabbits having little thought babies of their own.” She laughed out of courtesy, and it bothered him. They sat in silence. He continued to watch her.
“Do you think it’s going to rain today?” she asked.
“Since when do we talk about the weather?”
“I want to.” Oscar said nothing. “I think it’s going to rain. I can smell the water in the air. Do you remember Frankie, that gerbil I had as a kid?”
“I’m leaving again tomorrow.”
“I know.” She started to stand up, bracing herself against the bare branch in her hands. “Frankie knew when it would rain. He did this thing with his ear. Twitch.” She brushed off her pants. “Next time you come back, I’ll be a baby. Brand new and wrinkly.” She met his eyes.
“Are you going to name it after the dad?” He asked, hoping that the dad was long gone.
“No, me.”
Oscar thought she looked very young then, and he could imagine her becoming younger and younger as he continued to age. He would grow into an old man like her father, stooped over and feeble, and she would go to college, reborn without him. Without her hair, she would run faster and he wouldn’t be able to keep up.
“Let’s watch the sunset,” she said, taking his hand. “Go get some lawnchairs and I’ll meet you there.”
He watched her trek up the mountain for a moment before making his descent. As he neared the house, he saw the old man gathering wood, one piece at a time. His bones seemed to creak as he lifted the tarp off the remaining dry wood, feeling which pieces were dry enough. The old man seemed to acutely feel each footstep, pausing on every stair and taking a deep breath, before entering the house. Watching the old man repeat this process again and again, Oscar decided that all the youth in the world did not belong to her. He would preserve her forever as she was now, and by standing in her orbit maybe she could give him everlasting life.
He waved to the old man as he hoisted two lawnchairs over his shoulder. After the old man had walked back inside, seemingly for the last time, Oscar grabbed the half-empty canister by the woodpile and began climbing toward the clearing where she was waiting. He hoped the rain would never come. He arrived out of breath and set up the chairs in their usual places between the tree stumps. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her arms wrapped around her protruding belly, watching as the sun crawled below the tree line. She smiled at him and he beckoned her to sit down. She sat and Oscar told her to close her eyes.
“I want to see,” she said.
“It’s a surprise.”
Oscar crossed the clearing, carrying the canister. He looked as the base of each tree, trying to find the right one in the fading light. “It’s the one on the left,” she shouted.
“Keep your eyes closed.” He tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He saw the tree and began to pour the contents of the canister onto the trunk.
“I knew you remembered Frankie,” she said. There was a large stone underneath the tree as a monument to the gerbil. Oscar remembered that it was the biggest stone that they could carry as children.
“I know.” Oscar took the makeshift walking stick she had made earlier from her hands and wrapped a piece of his shirt around it. He again crossed the clearing pulling out his lighter. He lit the end of the pole before putting the flame to the gasoline soaked tree. He backed away from the tree as the fire struggled up the wet trunk before flaring in the leaves overhead. It crackled and hissed through pinecones, trying to keep its hold on the damp tree.
Oscar’s leg hit the edge of a stump and he sat down. He felt her walk up next to him. Tearing his gaze away from the fire, he looked up at her, and it seemed to him that her skin mimicked the red of the fire, coming alive in its light. Her eyes were once again untamed, feral. Oscar imagined that no time had passed since he left for college and that no time would ever pass again.
She took his hand, just as the fire spread to another treetop, and put it on her belly. “It won’t burn forever,” she said, letting go of his hand and turning to carry the lawnchair back down the mountain.
It rained. Oscar stayed watching the last embers flicker and die before his feet blindly carried him back to the house where he would clean the gutters and leave.

Stomachs fill
and bottles empty
and pictures are burned
along with bridges.

To be a second choice is not good.
To now you are a second choice
and being happy that you are a choice at all
is not good.

I came to her with a heavy heart
and a poem
and I asked her if she could hold me up
and for a moment she did
but falling to the floor
I realized her heart was heavy enough for her.

She sought refuge by sleeping with sleepy men
and by drinking although she was already drunk.
And now that her bed is unoccupied
and her stomach pumped and her heart not so heavy,
she wishes to help hold me up.

But I have realized that I don't need her help.
I don't need the help of someone who
wishes only to help those who can help her.

"Sometimes I think to myself that if I owned a gun I’d blow my brains out the back of my head. But since I don’t own a gun, these bottles of whiskey will have to do," Richmond told the Arab man behind the counter of Bob’s All American Convenience store. The Arab man nodded politely and counted the money Richmond laid down on the counter before putting it in the register.

Richmond leaned against the counter staring past the clerk and past the cartons of cigarettes and boxes of condoms and blunt shell wrappers that fooled no one of their intended use. Richmond stared past the convenience store walls and passed the ****** blowing a John in the back alley by the dumpster and past the man beating his wife in front of their children and past the 13 year old girl that just found out she was going to be a mother and past the block that only worsened every day and past the city that was crumbling beneath corrupt politicians and the debt they incurred and past the country that hid the truth from its citizens.

Richmond stared past it all and felt his eyes begin to water as tears started to fall down his face, tracing his age lines, tracing the scars that scared away children, tracing the laugh lines he no longer used until he could taste his tears, salty and wet, first on his lips and then his tongue. Richmond cried for the first time in a long time and began laughing at the thought of himself crying. He did not know what brought it on and when he tried to pinpoint the thought or feeling or emotion that triggered the tears he was met with a migraine.

The Arab man behind the register looked at Richmond with suspicion and reached beneath the counter top and pulled out a baseball bat that had nails protruding from the top half and told Richmond that he needed to leave, that this was a place for business and not weirdos. Richmond wiped away the tears with the ragged sleeve of a flannel that he had found in the dumpster earlier that morning. He feigned a smile the best he could to show no hard feelings and grabbed the brown bag containing three small bottles of whiskey and left the store.

The air hit Richmond’s tear stained face and instantly cooled him and he felt the bitterness of winter coming even as he heard the air conditioners running and the taxis honking and the birds over in the park a block over chirping. Richmond walked along the sidewalk, ignored intentionally by everyone he passed, and found an alley way unoccupied except for the rats digging thru refuse and slid his aching body down against one of the buildings brick walls and took out a bottle of whiskey and uncapped it and brought it to his lips and felt its amber courage wash over his tongue and down into his belly creating a warmth that he hasn’t felt since the doctors told him that his wife and daughter had died in the car accident that had only left him scarred badly upon his face and chest.

Richmond thought about their deaths and felt the pain as if it had just happened and not seventeen years ago and drank the first bottle of whiskey gone until the numbness overtook the ache and he watched the rats scurrying thru the garbage before a cat crept down the alley and coughs one of the rats off guard and began toying with it as cats do. The other rats took off down various holes and behind whatever coverage they could find so that they could live another day.

“Smart rats" Richmond found himself saying allowed. He opened the second bottle and drank it as he watched the cat tear open the flesh of the rat with its sharp claws on its paw and tear chunks of insides out with its feline teeth. He drank the bottle as he watched the cats white face become red with blood from its **** and he drank as he watched the cat lick and clean itself until it was a white cat again and it left the alley. Richmond stood up slowly using the wall he was leaning against for support and he stumbled his way out of the alley with his one whiskey bottle left hidden beneath the left side of his flannel. He cradled it like an endangered animal and continued his sluggish, stumbling walk towards the park where he found a bench and laid down and closed his eyes.

When he awoke he saw a cop coming towards him. Wanting nothing to do with the law Richmond quickly snapped to and started walking in the opposite direction of the cop. He looked over his shoulder once or twice or three times after a good while of walking and did not see the cop anymore. He sighed. And laughed quietly.

Richmond walked some more with no path or intention in mind until he sobered up and realized he had walked to the graves of his wife and daughter. Richmond dropped to his knees and began sobbing and scratching at the dirt that covered their caskets some six feet below. He howled for god and asked angrily why them and not him. He laid his head down on the ground and cried and the dirt mixed with his tears so that he looked blackface in some spots. He wiped away the mud and tears and took his last bottle out and before putting it to his mouth told his wife and daughter that he would be with them soon and he pulled the trigger by drinking the bottle empty and laying down next to his wife’s grave and holding the ground where she lay dead.

The next morning the care taker was doing his first daily walk thru and came upon Richmond lying with the tombstones, dead, and with a smile on his face.

The wood room door was opened wide
I closed it firm last night.
I woke at four and felt it's breath
It gave me quite a fright.
I felt it's chilly, gentle breath
Exhaling on my brow
And upright in my skinny bed
Roared "Get thee gone ghost,
******* now!"


With naked shanks I padded forth
To set and light the fire
Whilst outside in the wilderness
I could hear the specter's ire,
It moved about deliberately,
It stalked outside my room.
I warmed my *** by fires heat
And cursed to dispel doom.


That icy feeling permeates
It reaches to the bone,
It is far to early for a call
Yet there's the ringing phone,
I listen to the vacant hiss,
There's no one there of course
So I bellow forth obscenities
And hang up with a curse.


Old Basil told me of the time
He watched with open mouth
Whilst a faceless man in hounds tooth coat
Glided past him from the south.
The housemaids tell with fear filled eyes
Of depressions on the bed
Where something sat and rested there
Laid down it's weary head.
Except the house was empty then,
Unoccupied by guests.
No cat nor dog nor friendly hog,
Nobody playing jests.


Some nights I walk the corridors
To see what I can see
And I fancy Thomas Dawson's ghost
Is quietly watching me,
For he only shows his bearded face
At the darkest witching hour
And it's usually in the dead of night
To the echo's of the old clock tower
When the mountain looms above the lodge
Enshrouded in the mist,
And the morepork calls its haunting sound
And the snow is moonlight kissed.



Marshalg
Dawson Falls Lodge
TARANAKI,New Zealand.
18th August 2008
- From Watching the Ripples Radiate

Sometimes I stay up nights waiting for you, just so I can pass the days that follow them asleep and not awake to miss you.
The daytime is always harder, the waking up.
Staying awake into the small hours of the morning, that is somehow a bit numb and detached.
Late at night I can even stand to think about some things that hurt me from behind the glass of my own fatigue, protected from their full effect.
I stay up as late as I can, in times like this.
If I can whittle away the hours and the next day delay my wakefulness,
I do it wholeheartedly.

Waking up is a vile thing.
No, not just because mornings are drowsy and too bright and too quick and I never feel rested if I get up in the AM.
Waking up is terrible in a different way than even that.
It is insidious.
It is the departure from my dreams.
Even the awful ones are better than the waiting.

Going to sleep I adore, truly, because it is an escape from living without the permanence of dying.
But ah, the waking up.
That is what makes me hesitate long hours in the dark depths of the early morning.

I dread waking up.
All the illusions are shattered, good or evil,
And I must taste the bitterness of reality.
Every day it gets a little more sour.
I suspect it's this way for many people. I don't know, though.
I know only that in the first moments of waking up each day, my heart is seized by this wicked, burrowing grief,
And so I begin each of my hours of awareness with the painful sorrow of loss.
That is why I stay in bed so late, most days:
I lay there and before the haze of sleep departs I think, "Oh no, not yet, I can't bear it yet."
And in fear retreat back into my stupor.

I don't know what it is, this feeling.
If I had to put a name on it... I'd say it feels akin to disappointment, regret, and....
Shame, all at once.
It swells up inside me and fills me to my fingertips the moment I decide to leave my bed for the day, sometimes even before.
And the fact that it can fill me everywhere reminds me that that space is usually unoccupied by anything of substance.
The only comfort I've ever found for it was the safety of your arms, and even then only a few rare times when you and I were truly honest with each other and I clung to you like I always want to.
It's like I am only a shade,
Made of glass thin as paper and hollow,
Only in the shape of myself,
Until the moment you wrap your arms around me
And only THEN am I flesh.
And when you aren't around this cold hard seed of panic and bitterness rattles around inside, making an awful high pitched tinkling sound and chipping the brittle walls.
I'll be waiting a long long time for you,
For this feeling of total loneliness that comes upon me each day as I open my eyes to the world to dissipate and anything of any real joy to take its place.
So to make it easier on myself, sometimes I stay up nights,
Waiting for you,
Just so I can pass the days that follow them
Asleep and unaware,
And unconscious,
And unfettered,
And unable, in my innocent ignorance of all the world's harsh, brutal reality,
To miss you.
Until the headache that comes with too much sleep forces sunlight into my mind,
And I must wake up,
And face the day all over again.
Oh, I just loathe waking up.

“Love: an emotion, one that, so low as to bar
From fair desire—self-righteous and self-serving
Excuse, a pretense, lyric, will not inspire.”
I detest to hear him speak—
Adulterer, why, pray tell, do you prey upon the weak?
“Simple in answer, as simple in method. No heart
Rich needs to beat for “that” emotion obsoletes.
Adults, mature, do not even think the distinction
That is kid’s table morality, what mommy
Only says after a few drinks, winking, your father
In his eyes—just where you have come, in fact—
You needn’t think mommy and daddy stayed together
After long spats, strife, and frustration for their waves
Struck the same height or the moon hits mom just right.
It is not the eternal enthrallment of Eros that keeps them in motion
Dear, friend—it is “that” emotion. In bed, hearts
Are inverted and split down the middle
The negative just drowns away in chemicals.
But how bad we’d feel, (no?) if that, the long and short?
Machinate the “thing” justify “that” feeling
Ennobling, beatifying, kindling for sonnets and odes
Fashioning morality and aesthetics onto sweating
Thrusting beasts, one on one in their dance of love.
A harlequin of truth, my friend! When it is found
In contraception, safeguarding our natural predilection.
Ha! Oh, fools! Why trouble with the rituals
When, really, ****** collocations concern capricious
Chronologies and covetous craving for **** and ****.
How ******! How crude! But, oh, but oh how true; think:
Admit the urge has primacy, the “L” emerges and
Lies emitted: of connection, intelligence, intersubjectivity.
Given its stage of farce and face, our sieves are at
Ageful capacity and then needs a bargain, more;
The office of “thing” goes unoccupied, its twin
Will gladly keep it clean and orderly, act
As it did: gentle and cordially.”
Blast it! Such ways in truth and walk, for
Repetition in faith of life
Pegs my myths with all their strife,
Strife and succor irony.

Your chair is unoccupied.
I am waiting for you to come.
But you will not.

Why does it happen?
When I touch you, you are not there.
A silent poem writes your name.

Untouchable was your
pain. An eagle hovers in the blue sky
to pick up the child of death.

I'd knock on your door
but you're never home.

So tell me, how do I love you
when you won't let me in your dome?

It's like wanting to fill a water bottle
but the lid is ******* shut.

They say love is easy.
So how come there's too many "ifs" and "buts"?

-m.b

there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice. i should have asked you who taught you to
lace up your shoes in an instinct
that feels just like a memory,
your luggage is always packed.
you love out of a suitcase, always
ready to pick up and move. your hands are stained with their last
names you have boarding flights tattooed
on your palms because you're so used to
leaving, there is never a good-bye it is
always departure gates and terminals, and i'm writing this in on connecting flight over the ocean because close to nowhere is
the closest we've been in months
just to tell your passport that i understand
how you cannot love me. i could
taste it in your gas-station coffee breath i could
feel it in the hesitance of your fingertips
you are always close to the highway you are always waiting to hitch a ride with a new girl who will write poetry about how badly you feel like permanence and i
am always trying to unpack you, begging
you to stay one more night.
i understand how you cannot love me, i stay on the ground and you buy plane tickets with spare cash, with a turbulence that makes me
want to fasten my seatbelt.
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice and i whisper to the sheets
"i thought i could've made you stay."
your face is always towards the
humming of the window and
i like to imagine you can hear
me if you can hear me, you can leave all you
want. you can travel across the world and exchange your
heart for currency, you can walk through
security and stuff your belongings into the closets of cheap
hotels. i understand how you cannot stay because you're always too busy leaving,
but there will always be a place for you to
unpack in my chest.
there is a home that remains unoccupied.
there is a bed that
you haven't slept in twice, i keep it unmade in case you
ever feel like coming back.

The things she said to me 
Settled into the crevice 
Of my heart 
Previously unoccupied 

The tighter she hugged me
The warmer I felt
I could never recreate 
Her love for me

The words 
"Adopted" float around 
In my head
Like clouds in the sky

I've thought about it
A thousand times
And now I know
She thinks of it too.

Our routine entwines filaments of comfort
Finely woven between gaps of unoccupied time
My hands wrinkle with the loss of my
youth
Cracks and flakes of dryness and Future
I am only 23, but my soul says otherwise

My fingernails grow like tree branches
I cut them down and use them as swords
Battling imaginary creatures who stalk my shadow
Each victory harms my ego
Each trophy an intangible farce

Foreknowledge and foresight allowed me to
forego certain forgotten ceremonies;
I encounter them on the road to Manhood
Avoiding each by traveling the dark impasse
I cloak my yearning in a wool coat and a bright red scarf

Bound by absurdity,
I become the High Priest of Ritual
Anointed with the experience of Curiosity’s fluid influence
I wade in the shallow waters to catch my breath
I see you walking on the pier,
Pensive and lonely

**I am too late.

You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,

spend less time breathing than contemplating,
jailbreak daily from your ribcage,

harbor kitchen spoons to feed your escapism.
hide the entrance
under stale white hotel sheets.

Born to be an actress
with no script, you ponder this
in every mirror.

In every mirror you inherit this vacant body,
enough money to live in a studio apartment
in Washington, Vegas or anywhere

men would pay for three phone plans,
calf-length black socks and pseudonyms.

A room at the Marriot to trade scars,
connect you again with your skin.

At a political dinner
roasted hog, blueberry pie,
gilded knifes protecting the spoons.

Dog mouths are wet for scraps.
They bark beneath the table,

"Unoccupied bodies, should start charging rent.
Have you considered being a *** worker?"

"...Oh come on,
you never even turn on the lights."