Dear Mom,
Hey! How’re things?
So, LA is weird. It’s all sticks and stones and billion dollar homes. Last week on the Metro I forgot my headphones, but it all worked out because there was a homeless man who was naked from the waist down except for a pair of Spiderman underwear with the tag still attached who was singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of his lungs.
Everyone here is someone important. They live the philosophy of Descartes like scripture.
I think therefore I am... exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping because my mind has taken up running, which means it’s acclimating to the culture here quicker than my body because everyone in this town ******’ loves running almost as much as they love vintage shoes and car horns.
It’s strange though, I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve lost something.
Anyway, I love you.

Dear Mom,
Thank you for the eyes.
Last afternoon a stranger told me they were beautiful, and on a day where every mirror seemed to be of the funhouse variety, it was a welcome compliment.
I’m sorry I haven’t called in a few weeks, please don’t think it’s because I don’t miss you.
It’s just, lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like a marionette whose had his strings clipped.
Slumped and crumpled.
Small.
Collapsed and sprawled cracked in some forgotten corner--the hollow knock of wood bouncing across the walls of this mezzanine dressed in finer things than me that have been fostered by
Father Time and his Mistress Stillness.
And I know how you worry.
You worry ‘til bones bruise and still your skeleton aches to shoulder my melancholy yourself, so I can’t bear to bridge this distance with crestfallen phone calls where the past year locks fully loaded on six-shooter lips--the way heels cling to cliffs edge--before finally, reluctantly, free falling; firing off each round.
Six words aimed with eyes closed as if it were up to God to decide where they’d hit:
“I wish I could come home...”
Then your silent, empty-cartridge, catacomb sigh would just teach this telephone how cavernously a mother’s heart aches for her children.


Dear Dad,
I know it goes without saying, but thank you for the check and the note attached to it.
It’s hard to describe how much home I find in the deft curves of your surgeon’s cursive.
I hope you’re doing well. Last time I saw you, you seemed a bit like a lit cigarette filter tip watching the singe approach.
Maybe it was just the embers of your eyes glazed over by one too many heavy handed nightcaps.
And this isn’t to say the Superman who stayed up late nights holding me through fits of anxiety has up and flown away, this is just to say you seem to be flickering.
This is just to say I hope you still laugh at bad movies with the thunderous bass of July fourth fireworks.
This is just to say I’ve been staying up late nights holding on to yesterday.

Dear Mom,
The care package was unnecessary.
I now have more Skittles than any one human should ever consider consuming in a lifetime. So thanks. I know I told you, at some point, years ago, that they were my favorite… but *******.
Really though, waking up to that box on my doorstep choked me up quicker than a swift kick to the nuts. You have a way of weaving through this heartland like a Middle-American interstate and I love you so much for that. It’s just next time, maybe try something that doesn’t have the nutritional value of flash-fried butter sticks.
But not too healthy. Maybe fruit leathers?
P.S. Keep the homemade fudge coming.

Dear Dad,
Forgive the handwriting of an earthquake.
My hands are shaking again like when I was young. I’ve been finding stillness, though, in between sips of five dollar coffee and midnight cigarette drags beneath and incandescent moon that seems to use breeze hands to play cat’s cradle with strings of smoke.
Life is fast here. It’s all gas pedal and touch-and-go breaks.
P.S. If you see mom, don’t mention the cigarettes.

Dear Mom,
I got your e-mail about smoking and the ensuing health issues it leads to. Graphic stuff. That was super informative and totally unprompted. Thanks for that.

Dear Dad,
...

Dear Mom,
Stop worrying so much, you’re making my bones ache.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I am a lighthouse with an unfocused beam. I’m searching for something, I just don’t know what.
At least I’m sleeping right?

Dear Mom,
These days blur together with the fading speed of a half-life hardly lived to its fullest.
Was it different for you when you were my age? I shift between a drifting stick stuck in a current and desert stone.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I’m a lighthouse.
There’s a fog horn distant.
I’m still searching for I don’t know what I’m searching for something and there’s a fog horn far off like it’s from someone elses dream but at least I’m sleeping.

Dear Mom,
Do you believe that streams take sticks where they need to be?

Dear Dad,
Have you dreamt of fog horns lately?
I am a lighthouse looking for a nameless something in fog so thick I should be choking.
But I’m not.
At my feet there are rocks and they’re jagged but I’m not anxious because they stay up late nights holding me.
And in the distance there’s a fog horn that seems to be saying “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
Do you think that desert stones are waiting for something?

Dear Dad,
In my dreams a lighthouse is built upon jagged rocks that are shaped like your hands. I’m searching for something and even though my lamplit electric torch eyes can’t touch the sky through this ******* fog, I keep them burning because I should be choking but I’m not, I’m finding stillness in the way breeze plays with smoke strings and far off there’s a fog horn distant promising “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
This town is all sticks and stones and broken home drifters.

Dear Dad,
All is not lost.

The gods let this baby be born
As a thing they could reclaim
One day with cruel delay
Boils from black plague desecrated her skin
Right before her second birthday
A lesson on how a life can be stolen
Shortly after it begins
Or how we're without hope to the whims
Of the bored gods before us

To save the last of his kin
The father implored the science
Of the village sage and physicians
He was turned down at every door
Their medicine was not meant
To save the poor nor destitute
  
Resolute in his faith
there were good gods who gave grace
Unto children without sin
He next beseeched healing power
from varied institutions of the miracle men
Preyed over by priests, rabbis, and sheikhs
He sacrificed and spent
every cent he had saved
And their churches took his tithes
But did not take her pain away

Grief striken, defeated, with no recourse
Liquid sedated in a pub,he feels remorse
" our child will join you soon,
my dearest departed wife"
a pubhand overhears him saying,
"you can still save your daughter's life!"

"listen as I entail
The hidden trail you must trek
before the antelucan hour strikes
Her magiks are only ripe
in the dead of the night
Nestled within that loury forest
Her cabin obscured from mortal sight
Resides an occultist of such cunning:
A bog witch named Blight"

The pubhand helped him to more mead for free
Unprompted he then proceeds to lead
The father through that place he now seeks
-claiming his shift had come to an end
As they drew closer to the cabin
Something happened most curious and queer
The pubhand turned into a black cat,
Scurried off into the brush- to dissappear

Influenced by fermented spirits in his blood
He pays heed to their whisper
-Her cabin door is ajar
And they beckon he enter

Now in Blight's place of power with his offspring.

"oh hapless father when you sing,
How the gods do smile
You worshipped the very ones
who wish to **** your only child
they're vile and malcontent
All they know are delinquent tendencies
They'll torture her spirit for sport,
When she dies you see
But by my incantation
That needn't come be"

"drain the blood of a bat
with deviant intent
Recant the name of your gods;
You now resent  
The blood will brew all the while
-in my elixir
When the little girl drinks:
it will fix her
It will turn her pale white
You will fear she has perished
She will stalk this earth
Forever parched with ravenous thirst
And a stark aversion to sunlight
NOW YOU MUST CHOOSE:
A dead child!
...or a creature of the night?"

The father did as directed
He did not second guess
Unaware of the sorceresses subtle gesticulations
-Were creating a hex
He's blind to machinations set in motion long ago
The wiccan pours her will into a binding circle
As the child drinks the concoction slow

His daughter's vitality returns
The plague is receding
Fangs sprang forth
as she bites into her father's neck
Blood trickles down in specks
The girl keeps feeding
And feeding

all gods once assembled to fight Blight
The powerful mad goddess would direct
her sadistic debauchery at their human subjects
-human praise appealed to the god's vanity-
Her godhood sealed by the Parthenon
in a prison comprised of flesh
Divinity bound;
betrayed by other gods
There were too many for her to resist
A former god trapped in mortal form
Blight's punishment was to simply exist

For 300 years Blight had waited for a night like this
An ancient curse she could wield
As revenge for imprisonment
Finally obtaining the last two ingredients:
A child that was pure
And a father's consent

A direct strike of lightning sets Blight's cabin ablaze  
still in her binding circle, she's indifferent
And unphased
From threats of fearful deities who see
She's about to set her nocturnal creations free
Undeterred by their show of force
she releases her two vamps
with a flick of her wrist and no remorse

Iightning strikes within an inch of Blight
She leers at the heavens
Much defiance and mirth
In the distance a village screams
As her fiends burn it down to the dirt

The Parthenon replies:
Bellowing cumulonimbus clouds
decries her decision
Such chaos;
now her scheming REALLY has their attention
The.Ones.Who.Watch. Above

See all.

Throughout panoptic thrones they peer
pained fury for this village culling:
Blight jeers
Sanctimonius thunderstorm brings fervent rain
Their vain,pious tears-
The skies can not contain

The gods cry.

"Oh, how i wonder what will worship gods then,
When humanity dies?"

Luminous surges of lightning bolts strike
Tries to smite this emboldened bog witch
...Yet, in spite of their wish,
she somehow stays unhurt...

Blight smirks.

Heidi
I fell in love with you at the age of 15, and I remember how I rode my bicycle
The 4 miles across town almost every day that summer, two and a half years ago
How much effort I put in to make the 40 minute ride over, just to come visit you

Heidi
I remember your friends and they were nice at first, until your best friend Jaina
Thought the word *****, was a part of everyday language and I realized
She wasn't even good for much except putting people down and going outside to smoke

Heidi
I remember the stories you told me about them and how you said you felt obligated
To take care of them, and that they meant a lot to you, how you loved them
For their silly jokes and shenanigans and just the fact that they were "******* badass"

Heidi
I remember when Jaina, Miles, and David were over one night I came for dinner
They just walked in unprompted, and ruined the time we had alone
I remember how you all laughed at me when David made a sick joke about my racial makeup

Heidi
I got up from the table and went to the bathroom to cry that night
Not because I had to go to the bathroom but because you replied to his joke by laughing along
And you even made another joke saying "But he's our token asian"

Heidi
I remember sitting next to you on your bed when we would watch movies all evening
But I also remember your attitude and the things you called me the whole time
"Asian buddy"

Heidi
I started noticing things about you I hadn't seen before because my love was blind
Like how badly you treated people, just like your friends did
Like how self-absorbed you were and how quickly you and your friends ego's fell apart

When you realized going to the corrupt Art Institutes for art degrees to make art was probably a bad idea

Heidi
You were having a hard time finding yourself and what you wanted to do with your life
Because you'd spent all your time in high school thinking you were on top of everyone
I led you on for almost 8 months before I decided enough was enough

Heidi
I should have left you early on because during those 8 months I tried to change you
Talk to my friends, I talked to them nonstop about you and what I should do with you
I remember how I only stayed because it wouldn't be fair to you for all the work we put in

Heidi
I'm sorry I hurt you but you hurt me too and as time went by I realized
You weren't even close to someone I wanted to spend any time with
You were nothing I could love, a proven *****

This is the last time I write about ships; the mighty seafarer, clasping in the deep. The last time the esoteric tides capriciously change their erratic minds, left torn between rousing up to fight and solemnly crawling into the shapeless night. I’ll haul, I’ll haul. Outward bound, I’ll haul away from the safety of the buoy, through a thousand spiralling knots, batten aground and set anchor upon the recondite bay. I’ll avast the journeys where the compass takes an unprompted turn, where celestial proves consort to nautical woes, awoke awash amidst the darkened shallows.

This is the last time I go back and fill vast depths, bearing right, then left, across the beating breadth.  This is the last ring of brash audacity resonating in chime with the gull’s hooded pride, the last of the salt and sway commandeering the longitude of each tumultuous ride. I’ll roll, I’ll roll. Hanging on behind, I’ll roll with the salted souls of Nelson and Hook as they furl and collide, hand over fist, drawing the curtains from their chariot’s majestic height. I’ll gybe and set back to sail, quarrel with the rushing sands, and grace every fractured notion that tooth and nail can siege the devil’s rest and forge currents capable of hustling both vessel and man.

This is the last of the gallant endeavours, set adrift from buccaneer’s voyage to a solitary pulse at the end of storm’s tether. This is the last stern embrace of Poseidon’s harrowing howls, the last of the rapturous applause mordant as it rises and swirls, the last time I wrestle away from his scaly hold. This is the last time I change tack and set course into the path of the sound, where finally, the tides settled

I’ll release control of the helm.

The wandering minstrel,
sung a song that kept hidden,
deep in his lonely heart,
it touched the dancing girl so much,
she sprang up on her feet unprompted,
and danced the way the song spoke to her.

Oh! it was marvelous and she was swift
like a lightening during monsoon,
there was a subtle absence that heightened her presence,
her admirers, a whole lot, was caught by surprise,
strangely, they got agitated,
as her move was unexpected,
that stirred a hornet's nest
which, then  led to a melee of sorts,
every one was running helter- skelter,
while the whirlwind swirled around,
the girl still danced like possessed.

Only now they saw the Dervish,
with long white hair and flowing dress,
while he gently circled, his aura bright
created a dazzling circle of light.
It became difficult to see what happens,
to most, without the inner light.

**To the few with opened inner eyes
it was revealed at once thus:
the swirling dervish, the ecstatic dancer
and the wandering minstrel lost in  his song
went beyond,
became one in spirit.

what is to be of a wasted life of spent breath to vent the concepts unkempt to the context of the plight?

It could really be alright, as we dance the night away, and play house on a world scale, a snails pace on the trails of progress.

Yet to digress to a better man with a plan and a project to reach naivety, in elementary innocence never completely lost.

We are the boss of our own reflections.
Gluing together the inter-sections divided of the perfections embossed in loss-less injections upon your ghost.

Host to your congregation of one.
One day to become
Become the son of the day
Days encased of night
Nights blathering beautifully in the love songs of lonely poets united beneath the stars of afar in unprompted kindness that spread like a virus inside us, and opened the eyes of babes with the dice of slaves freed on self gambles, leaving dread in the shambles of yesterday's imagination.

Be emptied everything.

A quaint cabin amidst pines
Gently tucked into the backdrop
Of modestly, snow covered mountains.
Echoes of unprompted elk cry’s bonded together
by the ever-present sound of rolling water

Inaudibly peering through the dirt stained window
Of this serenely placed cabin
Feeling a kiss of tender coolness
As your cheek touches glass

A sight of marbled walls
Which glisten with auras of green
As the sun peeked over the mountain
Floor covered in ruggedly thick black tar
while old pink gum disguised the ceiling

a shaky skeleton walked out of a closet,
as if to come and say hello
The sun tucked itself back behind the mountain
as if it suddenly grew tired of rising

Darkness embraced the scene,
then the shaky skeleton flipped a switch
Which caused colors of reds and greens
To re-embrace the terrain

The once green pines, now strangely red
The once blue sky, now strangely green.
Could this really be?

Grabbing the rusty doorknob
To enter the cabin
Turning it twice
To compensate for friction

Inside

A step into the black tar,
Leaving a shoe behind
As the shaky skeleton
Motions a laugh.
I know where I am
As the gum leisurely rains

I'm in my mind

To the girl who empowers me,
With a laugh, a glance, an honest word,
an unprompted touch of my shoulder,
to do the things I otherwise wouldn’t bother to:

Never have I been so brave as to hold a ball python for my own fun til she spoke of a snake who’s half her height
like an old friend.
That is not a metaphor.
Or to do that one pull-up more
and maybe one after it,
if there’s even a chance it’d bring me a step closer
to being the person I know I want to be.
And I’m definitely not yet a person who’s built for pullups,
but with her looking my way, doubt seems like a foreign word.

She told me she wished
that she could someday be the subject of my writing,
yet it seems every time I try to prove
that love is action,
passion eclipses intellect,
my paper folds itself into an airplane and flies by its own accord,
and I’ll be ****** if,
of all the things I can’t control,
my own words will be one of them.

I know I severed us for a while,
tugged too ******* the Jacob’s ladder between her fingers,
wanting more in the moment than she had to spare,
til her eventual reply was noble truth:
that her hands wouldn't be vacant for holding
while she had so much to set them to work on.

Her hands, her beautiful hands, were booked,
sometimes literally,
with her thousand different interests and commitments,
and all I could do was lay in bed at night,
sometimes tossing and turning at the thought of the time
where she took me in her arms on a whim,
and I was unable to fall asleep
for fear that, if she permeated the film of my dreams,
she'd be more nightmare than not.
Yet with time, she spoke to me by her own inclination.
Whistled to me like the stray dog I'd made of myself
and lay out a spot to sit next to her.

I never realized until now how much I respect her
for never playing nice with the boy who,
assuming we’re friends enough,
calls me a useless lesbian.
I guess that pound of a joke had some ounce of truth to it,
for all the times where what she and I had
felt like one great web of miscommunications,
and subconsciously I see her as the spider
or she sees me
or sometimes it’s us both this whole time.
But if there's any certainty in it all, it's this:
She'd been in at least the back of my mind
for as long as I'd known her,
asserted herself right away
as the kingpin of my flighty wits.
And I still dream of writing something that makes her heart beat,
even halfway to on par with all the stories that race
through her head,
in her wild blood.
I wanted to be her latest passion for even a moment.
Because the honest to god gleam in her eyes
when she tells me what’s really on her mind
made me so selfish as to want to be that thing,
for however long
or not-long
it could last.

Yet I've sometimes seen that fervor in her eyes waver,
like they're trying to promise something better.
Little does she know
she's already the best thing for me
just by being herself.

And I understand that she doesn’t love me
not in the way I once wanted,
but having her for however long in my life,
before she’s off like a free willed honeybee
with so much better to do,
that is enough and so much more.

Because despite how I’ve tried to deny the facts of the matter,
I’m firmly rooted for a girl who's bold enough
to crack the whip over my head if I ever went to war with myself.
A confidant that won't run,
won't offer half truth when the whole of it
is all that actually matters.

This was that paper airplane
comprised of eight months of the cheapest blood, sweat, and tears
from the first moment she set up camp
in the farthest reaches of my heart,
to where I was finally past the point of dreaming
of any future
where she may not be as happy with me as I am with her.

For better or for worse,
I've straightened my spine and let the honest truth sail
knowing full well that she doesn’t owe me a thing.
I'm still not sure if I was coming clean
or stating what’d always been obvious,
when I wished for her peace
among these watercolor depictions,
for her to find the rest she so craved and deserves,
and to wake, inspired anew, in a cycle that suited her,
whether I was a part of that cycle or not.

To the girl who helped me find the gall,
and who's going, going,
gone on to better things:
Gabriel García Márquez says I love you with all my being,
so maybe that’s why I'm finally letting you go.

In the most quiet voice possible while still being heard
Whisper to yourself a secret out loud, and with a smile.
Please, let it be your own, and not one you've kept for another.
Don't break a promise on my account.

Now, breathe. As if you weren't before-- good, like that.
Do you hear that now? Has the loudness returned to sound?
What was the secret? Not specifics, give me broad themes.
Did it involve a regret, something to have been done and not said?

Your secrets are mine, too. We share them now.
For what paupers we are we are rich in schemes.
Pathological lovers, and our smiles wider than opened meadows.
They might flood this town one day, turn it into a lake.

Did you forget to say, 'I love you'
You shake your head, your mouth quirks.
Eccentric lips kissed to heed a platitude.
Are you breaking up with me?

Why does hope feel restless and final,
does that feeling make sense the way I described?
Is it the contemporary nervousness known as anxiety?
Do you know a healthy person? Are they nice people?

Are you still with me? Willing to listen and reply,
Follow through on my few dictations with glee.
Now that I have your attention it's the last thing I want.
Everything I desire is meant to be unprompted.

If that's true then why did I leave my own surprise birthday?
Oh. Because it's an annual occurrence. There's nothing spontaneous in an anniversary.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse? How related are the two words?
It's legal to marry your first cousin where I'm from, but we don't talk about that.

Sorry, I'm back. To the whispered secrets again, yes.
But, alright, hold on, I think I have something here for myself.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse?
Do we lose choice if we're influenced, or ill? Only if you're cited a 5150.

Lost the thread, and mine, too. I'm sorry, this was meant to be for you.

Forgot what I was saying, can you repeat the last thing back to me?
No, before this and that, before I went quiet.
Right. Yeah. I remember now. I'm tired, get the **** out.
But don't leave me, please.

---------------

Morning, darling. Did you sleep well? Were your dreams strange?
Sorry to cut you off, I'd like nothing more than to listen, but I also have images,
the likes from which I cannot wake. Didn't Joyce make a similar remark,
No, his was about history. Am I a plagiarist for having ever read?

Neanderthalic poets were the best, I don't care for their new verses as much.

Brush the slept hair from your face because I saw it in a movie once.
Am I cliche for repetition? Pretentious for lowering myself in the lake
to see the creatures nipping at my toes? I didn't see anything down there.
It's too dark.

"Got a light?"
Scoffing a denial like I'm a better man. It's 2017, who even smokes anymore?
My thoughts are the myriad of flaws in my personality. Each one a used **** ******.
Adrenalinic joy pulsed into a tight fit devoid of any semblance of human contact.
That's my way of saying I hate myself, and the thoughts I think.
"Be happy. Smile more. Travel the world."
So I can be depressed in Egypt with more wrinkles in the old age I didn't want to reach?
This actress has phenomenal range. Who is she again? No, the brunette.

Who gives a **** about a blonde anymore?
I'd like to see her deliver some of my written lines, if you catch my drift.
No, I actually want her to play this character I've been writing.
Is my libido tarnished, or am I still recovering from an assault that only exists in my mind?

Stop talking, you're drowning out my favorite part.
Sorry, nevermind, we lost the station. Look, the state line.
White noise and static. I don't know the radio outside of town.
Why aren't we listening from our phones? I needed the nostalgia to feel bad about my choices.

Yes, it worked. It always does. Kissing cousins get found out,
and I wear my impulses as a tattoo sleeve. That is as scarred wounds on my forearms.
And thighs.
And once my neck, but it healed clean as an only slightly lighter shade of skin.
It took two weeks to heal. The grief from having to continually hide it kept me feeling fine.
Maybe I need to lie, more.
This isn't a picnic for me either. Implying picnics are worthwhile events and not cornerstones of an America that was painted into existence by Norman Rockwell.
The irony of hobos using the same red and white sheets to bundle their lives
as the ones used to create a slice of Americana cheaper than the cardboard cutout
apple pies at your local grocer. Is that even ironic?

**** the bourgeoise. Said a white teen.
Where dead end roads are called cul-de-sacs.
No, I won't judge this family further for your smug confirmation bias.
They are good people and you don't deserve them.
Who cares if dad is an accountant, or that mom is a criminal defense lawyer?
That daughter is addicted to the dopamine of comments and likes.
That son is a *** addict in training, and his next week's girlfriend will regret her nights spent.
Which one is worse? Let's dissect their lives.

They didn't choose their station. Or when it'd all turn to static and scratches.
"Change the station. Turn the dial."
To what? It's all white noise and radio signals, and it's being cut down through the air.
The density of space is frightening.
Did you know neutrinos don't interact with matter in the ways that a photon does?

Oh yeah, tell me about your dreams. I think I've calmed myself enough to nod my head,
with a crooked smile that barely shows my teeth. This is my listening expression.
It worked on our first date when I pretended to be interested in your major and we ****** after
bad garlic bread and cheaper wine. You weren't easy, neither was I.
But we had a fever together and needed to sweat out our impurities.

You told me to take the ****** off. Didn't even know I put one on.
What a minx you were, -- oh, right, your dream. So, what happened when you opened the door?
Oh. You woke up? But, wait, what was behind the door? Where did it lead? Was it locked?
Who directed you to the door, the concierge from that hotel we stayed at during our trip to--
Where was that again? Didn't that guy have a mustache, though? You said the one in your dream--
Yeah, right, of course, I'm sorry.

She brushes her hair before bed. Puts on this mask that smells of avocado.
Tastes nothing like it. Yes, I tried it. Twice. I've huffed kerosene with better flavour.
Oh, it's very bold, has legs. It'll swirl in your nasal cavity for days after you breathe it in,
if you breathe in deep enough. What's the point of getting a shallow high?
Now I think I'm getting somewhere, I desire depth.

Sorry, what were you saying?
Oh. You are leaving me? But the cheap Italian dinners we had.
I think you're overreacting, that doesn't sound right.
Okay, yeah, but. No, I mean-- well, no, there's-- No, but.
Fine.
I'm fine. I'm sorry.

Where did it go wrong? I should have known when she wanted me raw.
Nobody sane wants that from me. Maybe it was when I told her I hated her mother.
She hates that ***** too, the **** am I thinking? Clearly it was when I forgot
the tea she bought from the yearly festival in the hay maze.
We sought to get lost.

Maybe it wasn't a one thing, but the overall of these events.
Occurrences accumulate, and memories carry over into the next day.
Like when she woke first after our supposed one night stand,
and instead of quietly creeping from my bed, which I woke to expect
the lukewarmness of knowing there were two, instead she laid there and watched me sleep.
That bothered me to no end, because in my dreams I have no say in how I look.
What if my brows were comically arched, or expressed an emotion I wasn't feeling.
What if she saw the twitch I took a year during middle school to correct after I was teased.
I failed, a decade of quiet self-ridicule for a muscle that took it upon itself to act without thought--
"Did you know your cheek sometimes droops down as if you've suffered a stroke?"
No, I didn't know that, I've only lived with my face as long as I've known you so I appreciate your observations.
Still, I smiled, and pulled her closer without the thought of gravity.
Now she was letting me go.

We need to unify and get to the root of the problem.
There are four main forces in nature;
electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravitational.
The crux is the unity of conventional with quantum. We don't understand gravity
as it works in a world that relies on thought experiments and metaphor to be
perceived by the general public.
**** the Copenhagen interpretation.

So, she woke up and watched me sleep. She stayed with me in bed and we did nothing but
cure ourselves of sicknesses we had yet to ever diagnose. She asked me where I got my scars.
With the gleam of a subtle sadist she traced them with her fingertips, then her lips.
What a peculiar woman. Why did she ever agree to marry me?
Wait-- no, why is she leaving me is what I should be asking.
Is it the baldness? Doubtful, she's who told me to shave it off in college when it went premature.
She found other places to dig her fingers into me. She was resourceful.
Why is this in the past tense, she's left me, not died.

Why am I feeling surprise when I've anticipated her dislike for me since we shared a Cabernet
I mispronounced when ordering. Why do I only reflect on the one dinner when we had hundreds?
We still have that old bottle. I bought the whole **** thing at the time not knowing you could
purchase by the glass. Looking back I wonder if she took that as a sign, that I wanted her drunk
to ****. Or did she sense my mistake and instead embolden me with the scaffolding needed to
keep up the facade of my crumbling masculinity?

As we got older together we poured more expensive wines into that bottle. It was a whole ordeal.
Every single time, from one bottle to another poured down a slide, which at first we made from stock paper, but then she saw a funnel in the store. We called it our little slide of heaven,
and down came manna.
Even during dinners where we had friends over, their pretensions worse than mine,
we'd simulate an uncorking of a better wine with an app on our phones.
You can download a lot of different sounds.
Our old Cabernet was a twist off.
And we'd see the eyerolls, and pour them a finger less than the rest. Romance deserves alcohol.
And the romantic need it most.

We wrote our own vows. For our marriage, that is, and we renewed them every two years.
We agreed to do that years before the idea of marriage was anything more than a thing
we told ourselves to comfort each other in the idea that the future is anything worth pursuing.
*******, how did we ever make it out of ours 20s with the thoughts we shared?
You crooned to me, once, it was this night where we had walked down to the playground a short half mile from your apartment. I mean, sure, we went there a lot, but this night was different.
Even you agreed the wind blew in a direction that felt strange. We couldn't figure out why
our scarves were billowing in our faces-- do you remember how you tore yours from your neck?
And with all the punctuation of an engagement ring being thrown at the accused you threw
the scarf I bought for you after a three week deliberation on whether the fabric blend would make you itch or if the colour I chose would clash instead of match whatever it was you wore, and it got caught in the wind without the embrace of your beautiful neck and we watched in the dim quiet
of a streetlight glow as the scarf disappeared into the rest of whatever was that way during night.

It took entire moments after we watched it go for either of us to speak. You crooned, like a kettle on a hob, or the hungry moans of a wolf scavenging the last remnants of life in the world, your regret for what you did. You apologized to me, and almost fell to your knees from passion
for your plea. Asking to be forgiven by me.
As if I cared about the money, or the colour. I only worried about your neck and decolletage.
It was cold, and a half mile is a long way to walk without a scarf when you expected to have one.

Instead of giving you mine we shared the one I wore.
Praise Solomon for the nuclear family, because to him divorce meant separation.
So we engineered a response to either of us being a have-not and we became socialists.
You didn't even have a toothbrush at my place, and the only thing we shared was an enjoyment
for ******* with people. Yet, wrapped as mummies in a romantic comedy we stumbled as nervous kids in a three-legged race back home.
Home. Where it was to us then. Your second floor, four bedroom apartment. Or my town house, whose rent was cheaper from a grad student's suicide the semester before.
I lived alone, because I'd tell gullible people stories of ghosts.
You helped me with the idea when I was afraid of having a roommate move in.
They left in tears. We laughed, and proceeded to **** on the floor where he died.
At least, I think it was a he. Is that sexist of me?

"Anybody can **** in a graveyard." I said for pillowtalk,
and that subtle sadism came back to your eyes, and it parted your lips.
But you never said a word.

How about the time.
Remember when?
Of course you do, you were the second billing in the same film as me.
But of course you've made a decision. Who am I to disagree?
Is this the part of the script where I fall to my knees?
Will it count if it's not done as earnestly as I actually feel?
Roleplay always excited me, but did you take my fetish too far by pretending to love me all this time?
I didn't want you to change.
But we grew older together. You barely aged, and I swear you got taller.
Idyllic and ideal, the small town feel of a front porch. And back yard.
Is your Eden elsewhere, Eve? Tell me and we'll leave. I swear to you we'll be okay.
That was something I told you anytime you were upset at something more serious than not.
Anytime you were actually in need, and not only wanting more attention.
It's weird how we come to sense the others in our lives. The conformity of time spent together.
Boarding schools make kids gay. I never knew you, did I?
Of course I did. If not, you're a remarkable actress. You should come to a casting session I'm holding.
In this fantasy I'm a ****** Hollywood producer with enough money to front confidence, and enough debt to break two knees. Meanwhile, in the time before I end up presumed missing and buried shallow in a desert somewhere, I go around and **** the fresh from Kansas teenage girls that get off the Greyhound around the corner from my house.
My ******* God. You're so ******* tight. Jesus ******* Christ.
Sometimes I'd use your actual name in the moment, too heated to remember my own direction.
Take two.
Three.
That's a wrap, we're finished for the day. Until dusk then, my love.

"Oh my god, hon. I was kidding." And she kissed my cheek.
"You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. Plus, the divorce laws in this state are ****.
I wouldn't get anything from you."
You smiled wide and stared at me in expectation.
"Yeah, of course, I knew that."
Why did I feel as if I had been drowned?
Why did that feeling keep me buoyant?
I'm sorry.

I didn't cry today
I can't write it in a resume or post in a status or sing it in a song
But I didn't cry today so maybe that means I'll be okay
Maybe the unprompted tears or sudden screams are over
Maybe I'll never sit in the shower hyperventilating
Because I accidentally pictured his eyes
Again

When I hear his name
It’s like every one of those horrible moments all rolled into one
It’s like every time I pick up the phone to call him
And the universe waits till the third digit to remind me that he’s gone
Because that’s what he is: gone
But I can't forget the way he held my face
Or his laugh at three in the morning

I avoid sitting in certain rooms
Because when I walk by his spot
It's like it’s mocking me
"You're still here and he's not"

So I'll celebrate the first day without tears
I'll ignore people who may mention him
And when I walk into the dining room
I'll keep my eyes on the floor
So I'm not reminded that it's no longer his chair
And he’ll never be there
Again
{bcg}

We met last week.
Its hard to understand but I think we hit it off?
You let me play with your hair
It was nice, I sat on the hotel bed above you and you sat on the floor below
We spoke at the mall and you pseudo ditched me
It was okay and I forgot about it
I like you, you make me smile
You're cute and easy to talk to
At 5:04 You said "HI"
your first facebook message completely unprompted
I saw I had a message and of all people I didn't think it would be you
I wasn't even hoping it was you, but I was happy when it was
It meant you thought about me
"Were you at school today? Or am I just blind" you said
You looked for me and noticed I wasn't there
You apologized for blowing me off, it was okay
We discussed school and teachers
At 8:34 you asked if I was coming to school tomorrow
I said yes
We talked about TV, movies, and things we liked
I liked you
You asked if I had a pet
I don't, you do
Out of the blue you asked if I liked coffee
I do, and I thought you were gonna ask me to get some
You asked if I liked a coffee shop down town
I thought you were gonna ask me to go with you
You asked for my number
I gave it to you
We talked about bad classes
You asked if I ever got detention
I had, you had too
We discussed grades
I mentioned I'm failing Algebra
You offered me help
I was gonna say no, but then I thought Why not
You offered me notes, or help in person, or both
You told me to text you when I need help and you would find time
You said something that made no sense
You mentioned that you were sleepy, and I suggested you go to bed
You did
I looked up through the moon through the slots of my window shade
All in all good day
Im hoping you message me again tomorrow

Seb's young fertile face beamed African royalty
even in the penury of this Nigerian refugee camp.
Her mother's downcast eyes shunned the camera's querying lens,
while Seb's, "I-love-you", eyes were welcoming.

Seb's eyes were as blossom-petaled obsidian pools,
each pierced by the light of a distant star.
Her blackness did not succumb to woeful displacement,
but shone with the promise of an overcoming spirit;
for a Mother's prayers were writ in the marrow of her bones.

Born with a tenacity to love,
her young heart leaped out through trusting inquisitive eyes.
Her tongue, budding out of rich dark faced soil, seemed eager
to taste the sweet juices that her spirited-eyes promised;
smiling, "l love you", behind barbed wired love-me-nots.

Seb was a child . . . full of joyful expectations.
A child who did not choose this world;
'tho born of a Spirit conceived to love . . .
to love the . . . hell . . . out from her world.


gv 4.2015  Word Hobo

~~~~~~

(Note: This piece came out of seeing this fascinating photograph
by Sebastian Rich,  of Seb clinging to her Mother in a camp for displaced Nigerians.)

Link to this Photo of Seb and her Mother:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/infectious-and-innocent-smiles-from-war-zones/7355958

Scroll down to Ninth Photo
Caption  :  A Nigerian child in a UNICEF clinic, who was finally on the road to a full recovery after suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Her unprompted smile filled my lens.


I would encourage all to visit the website of Sebastian Rich.  His heart-gripping photography is incredibly moving and meaningful.

sabastianrichphotography.com.

Every time I read what you first said to me,
I get so ridiculously confused,
Because you already knew I was talking to people,
You knew I'd been
Getting help from the people I'd been talking to.

I said it to your face on a Friday evening outside the building,
When you and I talked about everything,
"I'm talking to Person X and she's helping me a lot"
"I've been talking to Person Y too, she seems to understand"
You went inside to give Person X a hug for "doing a good job"

Unprompted, a message:
"Hey, it's me. I've been told that you keep messaging my friends and
I haven't had the heart to message you back. You need to move on from me."

Let me tell you something,
What you did was horrible.
If your message was warranted, okay
But it wasn't, like I don't know what the hell you're believing
"I've been told that you keep messaging"

What bull, who did you hear it from?
MY OWN MOUTH? WHEN YOU KISSED ME?
How great of you to move on and protect your friends, the ones you said "Feed you sh*t"
What the hell were you protecting
The chance that I'd start feeling better?

I found a huge friend in Person X
I'd been friends for years with Person Y.
Everyone else had jack squat to do with you
Except that girl that works with you
Who I asked to tell you "HELLO" and that "I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL"

Who were your mysterious friends
Those friends I "kept messaging"
Why did you treat me like
I was annoying all your friends
Because what hurt me more than you

Was that you acted

Like I'm a liar

unprompted proposal.
official assumption.
sweet surprise.
not asked.
not bribed.
not coaxed.
+
not hushed.
simply loved.
bad timing.
Almighty appointment.
=
subtle reminders.
frequent tears.
positive impact.
two-way street.
what if.
why now.
questions abound.
relentless trust.
emotional orphan.
family embrace.

I have an intensly difficult time opening up to anyone. I have been burned so many times, yes, but this isn't about that.

It's about the way you will look at me when I tell you how my mood swings from happily eating ice cream for dinner to throwing out all the food in my house because I should stop eating forever.

It's about the things you will say when I tell you I want to drive my car off a bridge the day after we had a grand time at happy hour.

It's about the energy I will feel when I explain why I don't let myself get too happy anymore because I am afraid that will be it for me - the best memory I will ever have.

It's about the people you will call and the places you will put me when I finally say how I feel about my life and my desire for it to end.

It's all about what I know will happen.

This is why I stay quiet and I cry alone in my bed. This is why I put a smile on each day and break down as soon as I step through my front door. This is why I will never tell you how I feel because I know the moment I do, life will never be the same for us again.

In all reality, everything I do is to protect the ones I love. I stay alive because I couldn't bear to put anyone through the hassle of dealing with my dead body. I keep quiet because I can't burden you with my words. I cover it all up, keep it shoved down deep because I will never open up this storm of emotion to a person who lives life in such an unapologetically perfect way.

I am here because of you. I am still breathing because of you. But I am still hoping that one day, unprompted, you give me permission to leave. THAT is when I will breath a sigh of relief.


-t.s.

When you aren't home, the walls speak to me.
The floor heaves with exhausted breath,
and the furniture creaks unprompted,

asking me to leave.
We call this home so often,
but only together. Alone,
we feel unwelcome here.

We both know. It's because
we painted the walls with our loathing.
We didn't mean to. And now I want nothing

more than to start new with you,
in a moderately clean home
with plain white walls.

the ghosts of many days.

here are the many eyes insidiously cutting through insides, gutting them out of their poisons and their moribund steps, assuaging none.

before the step was the flesh,
and before flesh was the emptiness,
keen with its marble eyes
like sizing down an already
thwarted opponent.

these pallid-faced buildings
peer through the sleepless concrete
like fathers searching for children.
like crows scavenging for
truths behind myriad lies of death.

here comes the marauder thieving
again, the gutter's chagrin.
underneath stirs the deathly
**** of rats, the deep inset
of petrichor hiding behind
the overcast of a death foretold.
streets continue to emblazon
their nameless turns:
George Street bayoneting through
Pitt as a ragamuffin dog slithers
past Castlereagh, scrounging for
bones with forgotten pains.

the ghosts of many days
weaving the loom of sky
tender with sound of labyrinthine
flapping through the hollow
of dawn as my fingers
clash in battle, rearing this nailed triumph.

apparitions tracking me down,
chasing me with vivid light
through uneventful avenues
forking without meaning
past the hammered cinders,
away from the frozen barricades
in stiffening cold,

ghosts of many days
coming back with unprompted tongues
and their pertinacious susurrus.

Alongside the girl who's a home where the heart is and a rooftop escapade all in one, I learned while wandering like a stray dog through a French chateau that old folktales believed salamanders were born of fire.

I’ve always felt as if fire is a cliche. It bites the hand that feeds it. Beautiful, but destroys. We’ve heard it before.

But, no one strives to be a cliche, and no one would like to be born of fire, either.

Too often, when we hack the head from the hydra of our family roots, another tragedy grows in its place. A salamander might have poison in its blood, and bloodline, ‘cause this family tree was uprooted long before I’ve ever seen it in its prime.

Sometimes, it’s hard to use the brimstone on your tongue for good when those with a right to be pessimists seem to drag you down, but think before you spit fire at the cinderblocks round your ankles, because even under a cockatrice’s gaze, they’re people too.

In those long weeks where high school looks like a desert, we somehow learn to never be more fragile than the skeletons, or the eggshells we're walking on. But I’ve since learned and swear by the fact that life and living are two very different things.

I can't make up my mind if this is all more apology or anthem, but if I can recommend one thing, it's this:

Allow the complexity of language in the simplest of words to forcibly beat your heart. You won't always hear the words you want to, the words that might keep a desert salamander alive, and that would do the same for you if there were someone there to say them. So grasp at straws. Hear poetic words now, and poetic words later, no matter how ragtag they may or may not be, intricate or beautiful, both, or neither, and everything in between and not. Plaster in the cracks of your atrophied heart from those nights where your mother slams every door and threatens to never come back, and dear god, make use of whatever words in this world there are that bring comfort through even that.

When the drudgery of life interrupts the sensation of living, presenting you with a rigged inkblot that just won't do you right, look, in the absolute worst of times, rather than up at a sky you've seen every day of your life, look down.

When the inconsistent blue that you've seen on every week of every month of every year fails you, do not search for life saving inspiration in what you've seen a thousand times. See the intricate patterns in the wood floors you walk on. I know it feels so often as if the beam from the lighthouse has already passed you by, but a crack in the pavement, a blemish, might just be the greatest joy of your day when you spot the flowers that still grow in spite of how they’ve been tread upon.

Then, scan your neutral horizon to see the little people. The unprompted kindness, the shy smiles, and the people who never quite know what to do with their hands, because I cross my heart and hope never to die young that they've felt this way too.

A person ought to mean more in life than in death, so for the love of your own self, feel, even in the darkest of power outages, for anything that's always out there.

And it’s true, autumn leaves cannot save your life in the long term, nor even will the smile of a stranger. But as long as you keep saving room for the simple joys that make your heart beat overtime, you'll have the first ounce of leverage it takes to save yourself.

This illness encompasses me.
A ghost of the mind, haunting my existence.
Even in the brightest moments it finds the instant out.
Laying in the deep, old fashioned tub, relaxing as the ghost whispers.
Of the romanticism of tubs like this and early exists.
In these moments I laugh to myself: "of course you'd think that."
Corruption of the spirit.
Errors of the mind.
I wish heights were just terrifying and not lethargic calls to actions.
Unprompted these thoughts corrode my soul like battery acid.

I love you and I’ve run out of excuses of why I shouldn’t say it.

I’m not saying this out of insecurity.
I’m saying this from a place of confidence because even if you break up with me, I want you to know.

I don’t want to have held in what I know. What I have known since February, maybe before.

I want to be vulnerable with you because I’ve never felt like I could before.

So I need to say this to you unprompted.
I need to say it first.
I love you.
I love this version of you.
I don’t love the idea of you.
I love this life with you.
I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else.

There is a god at the bottom of the swimming pool. Whirring, he wakes me from my sleep. He scuttles like a crab across vinyl. Some nights, I stay up to listen to the song he scratches into the tile.

It’s a somber sound, settling unearthily on concrete. It wasn’t meant to be enjoyed, I know. But I do.

I close my eyes and imagine it’s the sound of the earth turning on its axis. I imagine it’s the sound of time moving, year after year. It turns and turns and I follow suit, casting shadows behind me.

I imagine the god is lonely and far away from home. I imagine he is just as lost as we are, piecing together maps from soggy, fallen leaves and clumps of hair from the filter.

He cried himself into his containment. He misstepped once and fell into this hole. I hope he curses himself for being created without wings and arms and hands that could climb out of this.

I hope he catches his reflection in bubbles every now and then, and stops to consider how his face grew so hard.

He cries out and causes waves to rise and fall, splashes around, drags the moon close and pushes it away.

I hope he knows he can do anything, believes he can do anything, except help himself.

Each morning, I clean the pool. I dissect his well-laid plans with a skimmer and make his world clear and beautiful again. All for him, of course.

I imagine he is building character, struggling in a world that was not meant for him to live in, a world meant for someone else to enjoy. We built him in our image, to do the job we don’t want to do.

I hope he wonders at the unprompted responsibility and grows frustrated each time I insist that I would not give him a challenge he couldn’t overcome. I hope he’s beginning to learn.

There is a god at the bottom of the swimming pool, learning how to grow old and tired of swimming.

there is a skeleton of an idea
born from some barely formed imagination
abducted from its incubation
and slammed into the dirt
under layers and layers
it fossilizes
and bone becomes crystal
and silicates abound
and the impression is ripped from the ground
paraded amongst the public
strung up and put on show
but what has happened to the flesh and sinew?

we were sitting in my car
eating food that we shouldn’t have been eating
a comfortable silence existing between us
a single overhead light illuminating us

you looked over at me, gave a quiet smile
“you’ve got something on your face”
i shrugged and replied, “i know, i’m enjoying my food”

a delicate hand appeared, using a napkin to wipe the corner of my mouth
i chewed my food slowly, eyes blinking to the left in careful curiosity

“thanks” i replied, my stomach doing something other than digestion  
you took another bite
then looked over at me again

“can i kiss you?”
my eyes blinked to the left again
my cheeks turned a shy shade of pink
**** it, **** it, **** it

i turned towards you,
eager, smiling, wanting
“yes”

and you gave me the sweetest kiss -
there, in the silence of my car
out of nowhere, unprompted -
our food left, abandoned -
my stomach, feeling true butterflies for the first time -
an honest smile, never leaving my face.

I can see through you
I can see through your lies
Most importantly, I can see through your half truths and false promises
I can see through your flattering words and your false charm
I can see that I have been stupid to believe a word you said
I can see now that it was all just an elaborate facade
I can see you were just a foe carefully disguised as a friend
I can see it was all air and vapour masquerading as tangible matter
I can see that it was all theatre , a fool I was to think it was factual
I can see that I thought I could see but in reality I was blind
I can see that it was just a well crafted illusion
I can see that all you brought me was confusion
I can see that I was subject to your unprompted rejection
I can see that you were never willing to alleviate my dejection
I can see that I would never be part of your selection

Unprompted lies
They hide a face
That lies beneath
A marked crusade
Porcelain dolls
With plastic smiles
Taught to be the person
That the man dictates.
Taught to talk
A rose in bloom
Rotting from the inside
From soul's disuse.
Taught to hide
To portray
The painting
Stripped of its depth
Diluted
By turpentine
Made to stink
(Cross that last;
her opinions don't matter)
A perfume
To suit the possessor
To enhance his theme.
Late at night though
When he's asleep
With another,
She writes
He could silence her mouth
But never her words.