I never understood “made in God’s image” until I saw her.
Anyone who’s seen her has higher expectations for what heaven looks like.

We’re both sensitive enough to know what love feels like,
and reasonable enough to know that it can be broken.

The first time you use a new toothbrush is nothing like the first time you kiss a girl,
But I still love them both.

Her laugh is a paradox; an outsider would think she either just said the cleverest thing ever or she wishes she could retract it faster than it was said.
Only I know it’s simply because it’s beautiful. It’s easily my favorite language.

I have considered wearing a wiretap so I could go back and listen to all of our conversations again. And I hope that it picked up her heartbeat. She told me, it’s beating exactly like life should sound like.

She offers to iron any wrinkled clothes. I don’t have any. But I have a wrinkled heart.
I thought it was made into origami but it’s just a wadded ball that missed the wastebasket.

The way she dances to hip-hop shows her versatility,
yet you can tell she doesn’t do this every day; but she still dances.

I’m almost too nervous to hug her - knowing it will have to end.
Whenever I let go, I feel like I made a mistake.

Her voice trails off into silence,
like an hourglass that’s trying to hold itself together.

I like that “click-clack” of her boots.
It lets me know I’m next to someone really going places.

She goes to the mini mart with me even when she doesn't want to get anything,
besides more time together.

a storyteller's perspective, steppin' off the ordinary edge, into the unknown

An unsent letter lay on the rustic log cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light comes in,
where it laid fallen, half *** crumbled, yet never a wadded ball;
never an unspoken thrown paper stone,  a befallen regret was all.
Silently atilt and leaning against the canted wall's slant
behind the gathered dust a squeaky hinged burl wood door

A timeworn tarnished copper wind up clock roosted,
an old lip smirched coffee cup time stood still;
an empty bottle of gin sat near the bed post headboard
where the ink stains and blotted spillings let the memories in.
Stained pages torn and bent like fallen paper wings
returned to the unread sender … postage due,   south a heaven sent ―

A sullied envelope, gnawed and mouse chewed,
for a nest of new beginnings ―     
                                                          just read:                   Lydia  ...  ♡
                                ... followed by a scribbled empty heart               

The time aged brown tattered tablet paper left behind
stifled like the unread heart it holds upon the threadbare pages
of smudged tear’s ache and spilled gin

The weathered rock hearth fireplace filled with spent ashes,
hand rolled cigarette butts, traces of an aching lament;
scratched up old vinyl records lay ***** and tired out,
from a time of sweeter fallen fences, a musical bliss, and
a lost angel's abandoned red slinky party dress,  
aside a busted off black velvet high-heel stuck sullied
in a hollow knothole in the ancient barn-wood floor
a sparkly pearl pink jewel entangled in a spider web

An unsent letter lay on the rustic cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light gets in

The final unread words silently said:

                               "We lost our way,
                                  it all went wrong,
                                  it all turned bad"

                             ..."This is the outcome when someone you love  
                                  up and throws you away"

                             ...“I’ll reach out from the inside
                                  I’ll rise up again and do without”

                             ..."You went out into the world
                                  with an untamed hankerin’ ―
                                  like a carefree restless gypsy breeze
                                                                 and come back worlds apart"

The Unsent Letter,  
                          just whispered words to the dust in the wind
                                                            ­                        in quivering ink:

                             ..."how can I ever unremember you...?
                                  a thrown stone sinks wordlessly as a rock...,
                                  an old wood bucket with a rotten hole the heart,
                                  fallen forgotten, rock bottom as an empty well"

                                        just signed:   ...   ❤  August


                          *January 1st, 2017 ... august ... wild is the wind  ♡

No men.
But when the
conversation starts, they dominate.
Worm their way into every sentence, every silence.
Every caught breath, exhaled pause.
Names, nice-to-meet-yous, passed round with sandwiches and tea.
Hole-riddled autobiographies, wadded out with circumstance and need.
Explaining themselves, defending their actions. In turn. And I?
Have never felt so young.
To my left, and working clockwise: Affair-with-the-boss, Heart-condition, High-risk-of-genetic-defects,
In-the-middle-of-a-divorce-not-sure-why-she-slept-with-him, Grown-up-children-can’t-bear-to-go-through-that-again,
and back to me. (Boyfriend-has-two-kids-wants-no-more)
He noticed that I’m pregnant.
Was pregnant.
Was.
We chew our way through sandwiches. Different coloured fillings, no flavour- choked down with lukewarm tea.
We know it’s a test.
We have to talk, smile, eat, drink, laugh (not manically)
if we're to go home.
I can’t do it.
I want to cry. But I’ve been told off for that already (curled up on a trolley, examining bloodied fingers)
I drift, I think.
Jump out of my skin when she speaks to me.
You must eat she says.
You must eat.
I search for myself in their eyes,
re-make myself from fragments and reflections I find there (Four parts child, one part *****)
It’s OK, I tell her. It’s OK.
On my way home I’ll get a Happy Meal.
I’m collecting the toys.

Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.

Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.

Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.

Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!

Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.

Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.

At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.

Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:

Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American

Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American

One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky

At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American

One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.

Empty asphalt parking meter,
Suburban drop out,
Accidental, half baked,
She-really-didn't-mean-to-
Love story of the empty
Alleyways and crowded
Cross streets, full of sober promises
And five day old
Chewing gum
Wadded up and discarded
On the faded, cement floor.
Blood pulsating
Through fifteen dollar
Cheap leather combat boots.
The almost cold, October air
Wheezes through halfway parted
Lips and abstract fleece jackets,
Stained by yesterday
And the subtle scent of pizza sauce
Evaporated grease and
Paper thin
Apologies.
Nothing grows here,
As worn out tires skid to a stop
In front of fluorescent bank signs,
Illuminating the way
To a safe ride home
Along with a three dollar waiting fee.
Heavy upon our translucent veins,
The world pushes down onto
Our vulnerable skin:
Hold your breath,
And one-two-three,
You won't even know what hit you.
Pulsating rhythms of life
Of something like Vicodin,
But with a stronger kick-
Bloodshot,
Our eyes dart back and
Forth, until eventually they lose track
Of everything alive enough to feel it.
Vibrant shades of yellow and red,
Lose their faces within
The fogged glass of the department store
Refrigerator. Who is there
To see the transparency of
The off-brand seven up
And diet doctor pepper?
Momma, I have shied away  
From life:
A coward too preoccupied with
Monday.
Death and damsels
Pull at my indifferent coat strings,
Until all I hear is the muffled sigh
Of yesterday
And that of the tomorrow
I will never see.
Oh, twisted fate,
Don't fail me now:
Palms up, I mindlessly surrender:
Who I was
For who I will never be,
Amen to amen,
Crammed up against the scratched,
Metal lining of a transit bus
Between the middle and end
Of a crowded route-
Nothing breathes here:
Hold your seconds until
Reality pushes up and
You can heave in the polluted
Scent of half past five
And missed doctor appointments.
Neck arched back,
Life flows down my esophagus
In the vessel
Of a Benadryl
And vitamin C. It's all the same
When you've bottled up your
Emotions, and sold them for
A pretty price
To anyone poor enough to buy
Them. Leaving you with a penchant
For emptiness, and a stomach full
Of vacant ambition
Sealed to the brim by an
Extended hand, not quite close enough
To feel it.
Bang, bang,
The sound of closure haunts my every move,
Driving me closer to my final hour
And away from the one before it.
I'm no longer with you:
Practiced, proposed, rehearsed and perfected.
Life after death is an encore-
A standing ovation,
So loud
That it drowns out reality.

Yin, my queen, was undiscovered.
Instead of royalty, a mother.
Lately she begins to smother.
Enticing me to yet another.

Yang, my king, he has no face.
But fullness in disfigured grace.
Charred instead by lapping waves.
Ideas wadded, thrown to graves.

Terrorist, chauvinist, make a list, burn it.
Hear a plea, guarantee, feel so free, turn it.

Third day of this trek descending
rapidly from cloud forest into high jungle habitat,
alive with hummingbirds and orchids,
her Q'ero porters guide the tour group
to Intipunko, "Gate of the Sun".
At 4:30 AM and 10,000 feet altitude
biting cold cracks stone, eats exposed flesh,
stealing breath as she gulps pale sunlight.
Coca leaves wadded in her cheek
forge mind against the acts of atmosphere.
A lifelong pilgrimage to this purpose,
observation of the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

The Q'ero pass around a sack of pemmican.
What meat it is, she doesn't ask.
It smells of canvas, but tastes of apricot.
Her fate entrusted to these guides,
she eats what they offer.
This Inca Trail is marked with their scent;
they follow signposts painted on thin air,
read morning mists like road maps.
They have brought her to this citadel,
Lost City of Peace and Power.
Her life for now at equinox,
shaman-guides have opened her vision
to the hitching post of the sun.

The pale lips are smashed together in a fake smile, the teeth not wanting to show in the little pod of the mouth, hiding like scared peas. It’s frightening.
The eyes crinkled just right so that it looks so plastered on that you can tell it is fake, the folds overlapping again and again in an unnatural way. I blink.
The cheeks covered in makeup, splashed on in spots, smoothed over in others, splatter painted to look realistic. It doesn't work.
The fingers resting oh so stiff on the stomach raised a bit so that they are hovering above the skin, like he doesn't want to touch the dead fabric. I wouldn't.
The suit, so neatly pressed that not a wrinkle shows, except for on the collar where nobody notices. But I do.
The silk lining of the box he is resting in is shiny and overly polished, like a cherry wood dining room table with an overload of Pledge. It hurts my eyes.
The bouquet of flowers is a bundle of Death’s heavy perfume disguised as a bunch of roses and daisies. The smell is disgusting.
The picture frames surrounding the box are shined like pairs of leather shoes, embedded with gems and memories that are long past. It makes me sad.
The stuffed animals in the corner gaze deadly at the group, mold and dust sapping the life out of their beady eyes. They make me shiver.
The chair I sit on is hard and stiff, the cushion starched to the breaking point, the crackly material hardly comfortable. I squirm.
The vent above me blows a gale of cold air and underlying currents, which whips up my hair in a flurry of brown. I pat my head.
The people around me clutch tissues in bony hands, the wadded up paper soaked through with tears and makeup. It looks gross.
So as I observe every detail of this morbid place, I close my eyes and breath deep. Mistake. The air is ripe with anger and sadness, misery and frustration. Musky lady perfume, sharp man perfume. My hands clench, unclench, furl, unfurl. My throat closes up then swallows that lump of matter lodged in my my esophagus. What is death? What is Heaven? What is God and Jesus and church? What is all of that if it ends up like this? Like a cancerous tumor, like a lump of mutated cells, like a painful death? It is forgiveness and freedom and newness.
With that I open my eyes again and cry.

before i bury myself
in the fallen leaves,
i paint
a golden picture. idolize
unreality. force open a dream
of spring
and what it should mean.
and whenever i see two ready eyes like the
gestation of a new cosmos,
my anxious fingers tinker about;
there are fruit and flower
worth the time it takes to focus upon
like a man who is
worth the time it takes to love--
but romance is not natural
for such an animal
as i have been,
unread, not belonging within, clattering, preparing false wings
to abandon
a family. i grow old and young inside depths
that i cave
in.
attuned to noise, some crazy flute,
i go cacophonous toward the sound of sickness,
calling the name of no one into random abysses;
an abstract heart is precious, the selfish self-hatred however
, a practically biological second nature.
bred. arterial, laced
in a genome.
it has nothing to do with womanhood
god
or area. now by the side of whatever is wrong,
future dies
prematurely.
observe the scolding history
rearticulating itself. how i pressed barely visible
to wrought iron and plexiglass
kneeling to whitecoats, a sinkhole stomach pillfilled,
for extended temporarity a frenzy lent to me,
i drew unintending daggers. there was no defense,
but there was no bravery either.
escape and escape and escape and
claim loyalty and value to
somethings, but i did not follow
to that other end
where light lived.
where they were talking
and talking and talking about me
and shaking my shoulders,
jumping in after me,
i wandered persistently so far
so deep and so dark until
they dared not enter. fascinating strangeness,
still they are afraid of what they do not know
and i continue to be afraid of what i do
know.
miserable as unwanted rain,
lamenting the instability and
inventorying uncontrolled damages.
i have no reliable property, i have no money, i squander potential,
restlessly i change shape at night like a fabled figure,
like my father, like a jeckyll, like a hyde, like an
addict or
adolescent rat.
reclawed, hand out free kisses, rest in forbidden laps,
ashamed at the summit,
with a deceptive shadow, i don
a foiled crown gleaming
and scream into the fabricated storm.
the trees all crack their necks.
by morning i slap myself and untangle my hair and
play with my suitcase.
flipping through pages of what i wish i was,
what many people wish they were.
staring at the washing machine long-motionless,
i have a favorite stained outfit, a few clean shirts.
i will probably learn to anticlimactically dump into the sink the crumbs
that collect at the bottom
of the toaster. i will stop running
and take a time out in a place with no season
or color soon
but before i step further into the same street
godwilling i say something
important.

dwelt,
dwelling,
spend years dwelling in what pools
afterward.
there is my face in blood,
there is my face in ketchup,
there is my face in the grocery store floor,
there is my face in front of a padlocked gate,
there is my face in liquor ambivalent, in *****,
there is my face in ravines unflashlit,
there is my face in a wadded poem,
there is my face
in my hands.

"This town is dead," he said. We sat on the old stone bridge, with our feet dangling over the steady creek. "Where's Kacey?" I asked, hitting my cigarette, then passing it to see if he wanted some. He took a puff and looked off into the distance. "Probably still back at the house. Ya know, it sure is some *******, man. We fight, and she takes his ******* side." He hands me the cigarette. I gesture to him to keep it. "Thanks," he sighs in a slight relief. He seems stressed enough. I can always buy a new pack.
I take out my current one and pop a new cancer stick in my mouth. I shuffle around in my pocket to find a lighter, and spark it up. The nicotine on a cold, grey winter day like this has the perfect bite. I inhale, lick my chapped lips, and exhale. "Dude, it's just because he is younger. Remember how annoying we were when we were seventeen?" I pull his beanie over his face, hoping to at least get a smile. He lets a slight grin escape his aggravated demeanor, and slaps my hand away. "Yeah, you're still that **** annoying." We laugh for a brief moment, then the calm settles in again.
I look to my left: brown grass, dead trees, and playground that has been neglected for months. Then, to my right: Eric, flicking the cigarette, the old auto parts plant, more dead grass, and the road. Everything has a grey and pale blue tint. This is what winter brings. Eric scoots back and stands up. He brushes gravel off his pants, "I gotta head out. Ally has to go to work, she needs me to drive her. You want to come?" "Sure, I don't have **** to do anyways."
We hop in the car and drive off. I lean out and look at the stores in the town square as we cruise through: Barber, antiques, diner after diner. He's right: this place is dead. "Hey," Eric slaps my chest. Impact is reduced thanks to my puffy jacket, "Do you think Ally is just slutty enough to settle for a guy like me?" He smiles and looks in the mirror. Peeling off his beanie, he exposes his blonde, messy hair. To be honest, he wasn't that bad looking when he tried. Maybe if he would just shave that creepy soul patch. "You know her better than I do, man," I say, "I mean, she asked you for a ride to work. I wouldn't look too far into it."
The thing is, I don't want him to get his hopes up. This past summer, she and I slept together a few times. Instead of cuddling afterwards, she'd roll over, do a line of coke, then say she has to go somewhere. Easy to say, we were just **** buddies. The part that is ******* though: anyone I know who has messed around with Ally, gets trapped in this abyss of feelings. She makes you fall in love with her. But it's so hard to love her, too, because she's so strung out and scattered. These days you can't even tell if she's high or not. It has just become her.
We finally get to her apartment and wait outside. I see her starting to come down from the third floor. Black and white Converse High-Tops with black stockings. They have a few runs and holes in them from our wild nights. She wore them the night we first had ***. Then a pair of frayed, high waisted, black shorts. She always knew exactly what to wear to show off her thin body. And finally, a simple black tank top. Her hair was in a messy, blue bun. Tattoos disbanded all over her body. Small simple ones, because she could never save up enough money to buy an actual normal one.
"Hey, *******!" She says as she crawls into the backseat, pushing empty cigarette packs and fast food bags to the other side. "What's up Ally?" Eric says, looking her up and down with a giant grin on his face. "Oh, ya know," she sighs as she digs through her purse. "Do you mind running by the gas station before you take me to Moonie's? I need some aspirin and a pack of Marlboros." "Moonie's? I thought I was taking you to work, not the bar! God ******, Ally, if you want to drink I'll just buy us a bottle. It's much cheaper, and you can get as ****** as you want." Eric had no subtlety to the fact he wanted to get her wasted. "No, **** face. I work there."
Eric and I just look at one another.
"When the hell were you going to tell me you work there?" He says, overjoyed. "I didn't want you dragging a sweetheart like Syd down there to be a little pervert," she says jokingly. It's not like I haven't seen it all anyways. "Besides, I'm not on the stage....yet. I'm just bartending"
  We made it to the gas station. Ally starts scrambling through her purse, pulling together wadded up bills. The sound of medicine bottles fills the car. Midol, migraine medication, and various other pills (and, honestly, I wouldnt be surprised if they weren't originally hers) "Okay," she said with a deep breath of relief,"I'll be right back." She hops out of the car and dances a small, hungover sway, one foot over the other. Eric and I watch as she heads in. I observe her tendencies, motions, and body language. Such a broken soul intrigues me. How is she okay with this? I feel protective of her, but desire a release. How does one care for such a soulless being? She finds her peace in stranger's arms. I was a stranger when we got together. Once we got close, she started at it again with the mystery men. Eric, he doesnt watch her, really. He stares. The guy might as well be drooling, standing on all fours like a dog. He doesnt observe her, notice the little things. He lusts for her body, much like all the others. She has that air about her. She could make the Pope sin, for God's sake. It's almost pure evil in that skin, but I know there is something fighting. She couldn't have always been like this.
I must have spaced out, we're already pulling away from the parking lot. "Here," she says in a spunky and proud tone, as she tosses a pack of Newports up to Eric. "God bless!!" He shouts, closing his eyes in rejoice, "I've been out all day, bumming off of Syd, here, the past couple hours." He reaches over and pats me on the cheek. I shoo him away and turn up the radio. Arctic Monkeys, a black and white dream flows into my head. Saving her, but nothing could. I could grab her head and push it up against the wall, hold the needles, pipes, and pills infront of her, beg her to stop, and all I'd get is a smirk. I know it. No ***** given.
We arrive at Moonie's. Blacked out windows, purple and red paint, black velvet door. It's the only ******* for miles around and tends to stay busy. Who would think I's spend my days here as a young adult, when I went to church right up the road when I was kid.
We walk in and sit at the bar. The only place i can drink at besides friend's houses. Moonie's son runs the joint now. His dad opened the place forever ago, long before any of us were even considered, or unwanted for a select few. Moonie, apparently, was like a small town Hugh Hefner, had his pick of the ladies. Messed around with his top dancer and had this *******, Todd. "How's it hangin'?" Todd asks Eric and I as I reach for the ashtray. It's ******* weird, no doubt. Todd looks like a middle school teacher who would spend his time writing in a coffee shop, not running a ******* or holding an impressive amount of assault charges. Curly brown hair, like Corey Matthews from Boy Meets World, skinny and tall. Button down flannel, fitted blue jeans, and the beard to top it off. Looks like a young dad, acts like it too. He looks after the "troubled youth" in this place. He provides love, ***, and drugs for those without. I've crashed a few times on his couch. He's charming, which would make sense to him being Ally's current weakness. I catch the glances they share as Todd awaits for either Eric or I to finish a drag on our cigarettes to answer. Now I understand how she got the job.
"Uh," I say, exhaling smoke, "It's good man. Eric here shut down into "Little *****" mode with his mom again." Todd and I laugh as Eric slumps down. His eyes fidget for a moment, as he searches for a comeback. "Dude," he says, as he places his hand down calmly on the bar. He closes his eyes, and slowly whispers,"I swear to God, **** her." Eric sounds breathy and comedic, yet you can hear the truth in it. He and his mother never got along. He always idolized his dad, who left a long time ago. He says a lot that he wishes his dad took him along, and got him out of this town. He really hates it here. "I've seen your mom," Todd smiles and shakes his head as he breaks out three shot glasses, "and I would most definitely **** her. You can call me 'Daddy *******'." "Absolutely not, you **** head," Eric says, choked from trying not to laugh, "Touch my mother, and you die. Last thing I want is another little ******* sibling, let alone, one related to you." he says, now laughing at his own joke. I must have no sense of humor, because none of this is funny. My parents raised me to respect women. I've seen Eric and Todd, both lay hands on Ally. She would get too drunk and start yelling and *******. Granted, she antagonized them, but they know her. She's too ******* little to REALLY fight. Luckily, it's never gotten past a few slaps and slams.

The only reason why anyone EVER believed that Pine-Sol smells like lemons
Is because a large woman screamed at them from the television saying so.

What it ACTUALLY smells like is a combination of chemicals,
Ya know, like that doctor office smell?
That isn't so much a smell as it is a burning sensation in your nasal cavity?
AND fermented menstrual blood...
Or, Fermenstruation.

Is this what we call cleaning nowadays?

I'd rather my drain be clogged with mildew and ****** hair.

Thanks for the loss of appetite.
And, the horrible vision of my mother on her hands and knees
Scrubbing the floor with a wadded up blood-stained rag.

Good Day.

My jeans between the sheets
Feel like strangers on my legs.
All six of my dollars,
Wadded and shoved in the front pockets,
Smell like last night's soiree.

I get up,
It's 2 pm,
And glare at my half-naked body
In the blurry mirror.
I like myself when I don't eat,
But I swallow a handful of cereal from their kitchen
For Mom.

I can still taste the cigs that he hates,
And old beer is sticky between my fingers.
I can't remember getting this bruise
Or this one. Or this one.
I bruise like a peach.

I do remember sloppy kisses
With my roommate,
How her lips were softer than mine
And I remember feeling full
Of love and of *****.

I am happy.

Chicago summer nights
I attempt to refuel and take care of myself

Lights out
My cat meows and hops onto the bed with me
I wish I could be more of a present thought
In your brain.

Clouds and pesticides
I could have gone to an event tonight
But I cleaned and took my laundry in
Cooked dinner and listened to a podcast
Went for a run and showered my bones
Defining myself through how I move and breathe
On my own.

I miss you dearly
I hope you miss me too
I know you said you do.

We watched movies with neon lights
Do you remember the way I wadded up the bottom
Of your boxer shorts
Because I got so antsy
During the movie?

Staying out of the way
I exist and I linger
In the halo of my own prism.

You come back in 20 days
You spoke of the count down not that long ago
Using words like babe and baby
You were affectionate and meaningful
I cried to my therapist

Love is certainly not convenient.

They talk about the
garbage like it
was treasure.

Man made
garbage.
Made in order
to keep the
creative side
from
creating.

Its all made
to uninspire
the otherwise
always
inspired ones.

They worry
themselves over
Trash.
Mass produced,
soulless,man made,
ball chasing,
over paid
Trash Heroes.

They're not my
Heroes.
My Heroes
didn't have time
to chase *****
and call it an
accomplishment.

These goals they
strive for all of
which were
created out
of nothing
for nothing at
all but to
numb the mind.

Trash.

They worry about
having more
while I secretly
worry about having
nothing more to say.

Conversations going
on all around me,
its torture.
I hear their
words and
can't help
but wonder if
they are hearing
what I'm hearing.

There's a vision
that stays with me.
A circle of
beautiful people
in stain free
clothes.
The kind of people
who throw
their heads back
before they laugh.
They're standing
around a street
person who wears
wadded up
news paper
inside his coat for
warmth.
They're tossing lit
matches at him as
he lays and sleeps
the sleep of the
invisible people.

For the longest
I dreaded the vision,
their cruelty is
unlike my own.
Theirs is inhumane
but legal and in most
cases it provides their
Godless insides
reason enough
to smile.

Mine is soul scaring,
memory aching,
and really only
me wanting to survive.
It leaves behind
deep embedded
stains in everything
that is you.

Now I find myself
no longer
fighting it off.
I need the
images the vision
provides me.

I welcome the
echo of their hollow
selfish laughter.
I take in the
whiteness of
their grinning
stain free teeth.

I need it all
in order to
try and
understand
their sickness.

As I continue
to survive  
amongst my
own
lonely madness.

how can i still love someone
who treated me like chewing
gum- wadded me up in his
mouth and blew the world's
biggest bubble, sent himself
up into space with my offset
reciprocation, soared past
the stars he was so obsessed
with, used saturn's rings to
burst all that i was. and when
he fell back into earth's orbit
he was safe, but i was scattered
somewhere around neptune.
i cannot find my way back.

You took a piece of me
Wasted my time
I was like paper
You wadded me up
And threw me out of line
For some time,
I thought this is why I've been waiting for so long
To figure out
I was completely wrong
I didn't have any hints
Or any "No this isn't right"
Only the look on his face
Proved it was love at first sight
We talked for a short while
Went to church in style
I went to your games to show support
As well as watching my favorite sport
We hung out almost every weekend
Movies, and music, and a little bit of kissing
We went to prom
And danced til dawn
You asked me during a slow dance
If I would be your girlfriend
I said yes
You were so sweet
You took me home and swept me off my feet
(Literally)
I met your mom
Spent the night with you and the dogs
Woke up in a flash
Took me home in a dash
And that was it
You left me without a word

Andreya,
will you marry me?

Will you let me make
nests of sticks
and bubblegum
wadded together by spit
in your arms?

Please say yes,
I have drifted
into *******
of your voice,
and spurn the day,
when I  cannot hear your voice
that rips my heart
to
peices.

Startled me, it did
With darting speed, a small arachnid
That leapt, then rested upon doorframe
Fascinated me all the same

I’d seen these as quite loathsome creatures
This one epitomizing their standard features:
Clinging and spindly, longly legged
Many eyes – quick death, they begged

So grabbing a tissue, I prepared for gore
Having slain these things many times before
I wadded the weapon tight in my grasp
When the spider did speak – and I did gasp

“You are, sir, a gentleman, I do so guess
And I will so die at your behest
But perhaps from me something you could learn
And my purpose t’would be duly earn’d.”

“Go on,” said I. “Say what you will.”
Disgusted by the thing I’d planned to ****
“My life is short,” the bug went on
“Spare me and I’ll still soon be gone.”

“That’s no reason to your company savor
Sounds like I’d be doing you a favor!”
But it stretched and displayed during my hesitation
All the merits of its creation

I watched with skeptical cocked eyebrow
The spider approach and grinning now
“You’ve already spent more with me this spell
Than any other bugs could have lived to tell.”

“All I wanted in this spider’s life
Is not strength, nor size, a man nor wife
But just to hear I’m thought of separately
From other spiders you’ve killed lately.”

“So, with our promise and the final ****
Bugs appearing, no longer will
And all creatures, then, that you will meet
You’ll happily choose to love and greet.”

The spider and I consummated this pact
And suffice to say, I committed the act –
Crushed the thing to death betwixt
Fore finger and thumb, with tissue affix’d

Since that spider, the abhorrent gnat
On the door frame never a spider sat
But since the spider’s vague prediction
I have new troubles, this strange affliction:

A hatred I had felt so sure
Simply isn’t any more
And I must tell everyone I see
Just how the spider baffles me

when you go through something trying all the good guys and do-gooders flock to you. they wring metaphorical hands and ask if there's anything they can do, like some baked ziti or wadded handkerchief will caulk your cracks.
then an acceptable timetable for healing goes by and they lay pity eyes on you give you that how're you doing honey smile, but their baked ziti didn't serve as the salve they'd hoped and you're crumbling fast and maybe that pity smile is your solution so you tell them.
you tell them how many times you count the cracks in your ceiling before falling asleep (27) you tell them how many glasses of wine it takes to feel decent again (at least 4) you tell them how many hours it's been since you last ate (56)
and they wish you ate the ******* ziti and blew your nose in damp handkerchiefs because an acceptable amount of time has passed and you should be healed by now, but what they don't know is your timetable is inverted and you work in wrong-way highways. they don't know that time is scar tissue much more delicate than the lock-box you've put him and all the things he did in, and each second chips away at that box and the essence of him is seeping out like acid that melts through all your barriers.
the good guys and do-gooders don't want to open your broken-heart bank and let all the bees out. they want you to eat the ziti and say thank you like it actually fixed something.

shadows and silhouettes
dancing on the ceiling.
blinding blue lights
circle the bathroom mirrors
stained with purple lipstick.
silent vibrations from your phone
blocked by the shower’s storm
and overflowing sink water.
spilled lotion bottles
and untouched lemon wicks.
wadded tissues
colored in colorless tears
drowning in puddles
of the bathroom tiles.
girls’ giggles in the room next,
moaning through the right wall,
and sad chocolate eyes
abandoned behind the shower curtains.
wet hair, wet mascara, wet sobs;
your sad chocolate eyes
trapped in a nightmare.

I fold in on myself
Like the wadded origami designs I could never fold quite right
Layer upon intricate layer, receding
Into a crumpled relic sheathed in dust patina
Taking up space, a relic to my past

I surrender to your guiding hands
As you carefully unfold and gently press my form
Unfolding myself to you
The desire for new edges
Shapes us –
Convening at the crux
Our vertices press into transformations
And I fold into you, unfurling concurrently.

Charlie crumpled up the script
that his mother left him as a note on the banister;
an ode to matronly passive-aggression
scrawled in haphazard cursive
on the back of a Meijer receipt when she was drunk.

While conducting a routine bedroom sweep
for any arbitrary evidence
to convict her son, yet again,
as the eternal family scapegoat,
Marilyn was far from pleased
to find his final disregard
of her bankrupt maternal instinct
clouded by inherited alcoholism
wadded up in his wastebasket.

Jaded by plot conventions, dodging foreshadow,
we scrapped our narratives and hopped in his car.
Untethered by destination, we drove through the rain
in the last hours to waste of a Sunday night.
Stopped at an intersection in an unfamiliar town,
he turned to me with an expectant smile:

“Where to now?”

With no surrounding traffic to rush our decision,
I glanced in both directions.

“Let’s turn left.”
“Where’s that lead?”

I squinted in the dark.
*“Wherever the hell we’re going.”

Passed hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen or made of your own strain.

Effervescent, warm as the crook of an elbow.

1 cup starter



Tang of the sea, dried in the sun or

Labored from it's ancient bed.

palm full of salt



Sustainer, banked sunshine

Hacked from the fields, ground in to submission.

7 cups flour



Chipped fired earth, with a blue stripe and lip.

Nouveau ancestral.

1 mixing bowl



Wadded in the corner of the last drawer, found.

Blue checked linen parted warp and weft for hanging.

tea towel



Baby on hip, hair hitched out of view

Hand stands in for a wooden spoon. Mix and rest.

magic bubbles



Forgotten on the back of stove, rediscovery.

Dusted hands slink along, through, around elastic shapes.

second rise



Expansion, gripping uppermost lip of the pan

Night falls, contraction.

bake



Bubbly sigh releases with tightening crumb

Evaporation, setting.

cooling





Slab sliced for breakfast.

Eaten with fork and knife.

peasant meat