The weight of life is reduced to a cloud
As raindrops of lysergic acid run free.
Their pitters and patters equally loud
As all of the colours that melt around me.
The womb of the universe beating its drum
And setting a pace for the flowers to bloom.
A force with such strength that all nature succumbs
As peacefulness floats in kaleidoscope flumes.

Empathy blossoms, arousing a smile,
That creeps from my lips to the end of the room,
Searing itself on a cosmic denial
That beauty like this shouldn’t gestate from gloom.
Floating, not unlike a dandelions seed,
Thoughts of anxiety flee to the Earth.
They carry but vapidness with the sweet breeze.
In nebulous nebulas they are dispersed.

Now what remains as a warm neon cloud
Is beauty profound and purpose pristine.
Unwanted, the ego is left disavowed
Dancing in memories of amphetamines.
Left in its place was the beauty and I.
Climbing like vines as it forces the walls.
Pushing them down with an ******* sigh,
Revealing a cosmos that rhythmically calls:

‘Freedom is such a deplorable word.
It offers ambitions too fruitful to take.
Though comfort or not,
As with fictitious plot,
It’s only as real as it’s fake.’

I keep finding myself
folding your laundry
staring blankly,
my ach clinging to our empty walls
I keep finding myself scrubbing your pots and pans
grit shoved up into my fingernails
black as the lies and the vapidness
that follow me across the state
everytime I flee your side
I keep finding myself shaking my head at your reflection
forcing myself to say something kind
why can't it come naturally
like the salty taste of yearning on my lips

I keep finding myself trying to find you
and accept is as part of me

but I can't.

I belong to a fractured consciousness
Whose needle skips and leaps
Relentlessly
Over the cracks.

In any instance,
I can see you
And her
Lithe and writhing
In all her voluptuous vapidness.

Drive on, drive on!
Rock, and reel, and repent.
Repeat.

He's not you
But he's here.
And he lays me down
And says that I'm pretty.
For now, that's enough.

this is where our adventures begin to warm up, they burst diagonally, stretched seams. Opened wide, blistering under this caustic and virile heat. The epicenter of someone's bi-polar anomaly-

swarms of words and their words
people coming and parting,
coliseums and amphitheaters in spectacle
garnet, draped in praise

as upsetting and down-troche of what those blue sapphire lumens grew
against the pale and sinewy shadow of shape flickering,
violet cartoon faces bruising up their faces in the pulp and pulchritude
where two separate identities meet and coerce the familiar into seeing

at what it conceives. The diplopic opera and didactic vapidness in
the horrendous aperture of the inexhaustible and mercurial sport.
Then to see as the other half lives, compartmentalized in the
curious cabinetries of disorder

A two-toned albatross
Skidded white across a black n' blue night.
A dog barked far off at a pair of squirrels worried about a nut.
There was that one hoot owl.
One boiling kettle whistled for some late night decaf tea.
Maybe a near-empty plane overhead.

It was a night with two people on a dock by a lake.

What day was it when we fell out of love?

You've never asked before so I assumed you knew.

I know, I said. Tell me.

The skinny white bird finally planted its fat ***
Into the water,
Messing up the reflected starlight
And the peace felt only
Out there.

You don't remember?

Sure I do, I said. I just want to hear you say it.

A flicked shadow shifted my gaze. Starting to hit. Hesitation burdened my voice. Aloha, I thought. I was in search of another way to say hello. Hello.

That was one of my main issues.

There were sub-issues? Sudden guilt made me turn my eyes to something I could manage: the shadow between waves; the gum creak of wood; the pain in me; the vapidness of words sometimes.

I'm cold.

Same, I said.

There's a sub-issue.

The albatross, stoked by moonlight, was suddenly ripped underwater by an unseeable, unavoidable need. Like all needs, there was no way of getting away from the necessary impulse for every organism to live a healthy, sustained, justified life. The commotion sent ripples to a shore that would always be there to catch them. Nature, in some regions, has its unbreakable commitments.

Did we see that? I asked.

No.

But the ripples, I'm implored. They ran across the surface of the water like track runners for the stick...the trident. I paused. The?

Baton.

The baton, I repeated. They ran to the edge like a runner who bet their legs if they lost. I never have seen such commitment.

Me neither.

Low, I smirked.

Well, then what?

Then what? I asked.

My mind started chatting within itself, When I was young, there was a time when I was so scared to fall asleep because I would have these vivid nightmares. They were so bad I thought they were real. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I thought I was destined to stay locked in that nightmare forever.

Funny how there is always a then. What if there wasn't?

Then, I said. There wouldn't be. What about ripples? I urged.

When you throw a rock into a body of water, the rock pushes the water out of its way as it enters, causing ripples to move away from its point of entry in a circle or ring shape. Water then rushes back in to fill the empty space, which can often cause a splash, resulting in more ripples forming.

Through a thick ivory cloud, another albatross burst forward. I tried not to look up, for I was afraid if I looked away from you, you would disappear. There was a screech. I flinched. I couldn't help but lookup.

I'm sorry, I pleaded.

As soon as I took my eyes off of you, you were gone.

The albatross, in need of a home, skated their legs across the water.