I face the neighborhood that took
My mother's life,
The same one that I watched turn
Many cousins into ****** addicts,
I burn but I am not consumed:

I write the pain on a slab of Jade
Watching a fleet of dead roll by,
The names will stand among the tombstones
While in mute heavily grieving the nocturnal,
I am filled with the eternal present.
      The memory is a flame
      On open wounds,
      I am thirsty,
      But there is no water......

Time has done its hardest on me,
My blood courses more deliberate,
My teeth at a grind,
I want to fling all the bullets back,
Take the knife from Victor,
Out of his animal belly,
Out of his organism belly,
His human belly;
Life is an ancient gesture
And the hood is the very survival
Of those unfit for society's expectations.

I am Westside,
And I am still here writing
Away all that was taken,
The words plunge itself like
The needle I took from my arm,
A perfect drug that never quits you
And courses inward only to grow.

I am Westside and I am still here,
I am Westside and I still cry,
All the pain I drink with beer,
I push a fight and try,

I am Westside,
Glory in the hood,
It wasn't the best side,
But I always knew where I stood,

And still I carry on.

Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

Take a ride with me,
Give me your ear, your eyes;
Like stellar days of old,
I will tell no lies.

     You see my days weren't complicated,
When the rivers ran red,
    It was a bullet or the money,
Family gotta stay fed.

Your silent gestures cannot fathom
What was my everyday,
Like the hardened hollows of my soul,
I took my gun to the park to play.

    This was my life
From my chest into these words,
    Every link in the chain,
I am tied down by haunted verbs.

  Kindle old fires
And set your daily a blaze,
I survived with deep wounds,
   To the past I am a slave.

Give me my homiez,
All dead and gone,
Give a sip of that Henny,
I'll drip some on the lawn.

  This is me,
Just an old ****,
I'll remember the tombstones,
On bent knee I the marble a hug.

Today I am whipped
Among all the sorrows,
But being a survivor
Give me hope for all the tomorrows.

The westside,
Like a weary night *****,
No coming back, no coming back,
I can't take no more.....

Pick out a casket
And don't remember my name,
Anonymous me,
A Dedpoet who carried the blame.

Walking and saying
Things our wellbeing
The soul needing love possessions
Have absolutely no meaning

Playing and praying
Overstaying and Under-paying
Rising sun and Symphonic searching

" Is this the way it is?" Tis the season

But the tightness no business like
searching business
  She is combined and mixed like a song
fully lined both with keynotes somehow
we declined
The feeling that you cannot breathe
or  trust both of us
 we can  bearly **** it all in
My music playing just click my belt buckle
Will start to begin

The soul is not a crime or just a rhyme
I barely cannot breathe
I am in a chuckle, you see his
smile raising up his dimple

Ms. Thumbelina cobblestone
narrow-minded street your
in the tightrope symphonic beat

But its dark outside your ringlets
Waved him on got excitedly mesmerized
His Goblet of wine she curls up in
his body heat brilliantly dazzled
The sky to your dreams he is
reaching your
soft side skin
whats actually within
our souls

So  hooked into your ride not to slide
better grades and goals
The awesomeness symphonic hatter
Victorian divineness
Her paper cut out hearts as real
as they come
The Eastside Symphonic tip of his
Heavenly Bliss private Quarters
What becomes of the broken hearted
Heads or dimes not landing on her stone
Floor heart
The Duke of all trades of the hat he's smart

Cool running ******
Addictions to the mind so fanatic
What a good soul sometimes
He overexaggerates about
love and fate darkness drives him demonic
What are you kidding me
She doesn't rest her heart on his
soul for the burning desires of food
for thought
She keeps piling his poems like any sport
He's her everything she learns to be taught

Searching lips pricing
Red bloodshot eyes of crying onions
She is so fierce controlling
Musically like a Tiger roaring
He is like a design of graphics tattoo
The earring piecing the sweetest taboo

More soul searching
She's the snake purse
to his snake eyes fancy,
he took a ride
Upper-false teeth
The upper west side
have some prideThe dark side
became her thing
The wildflower not to stand to
bloom and bang like her band

Westside sounds came deep
his pride and joy like a parade
and wickedly dark his charade

It was  sneaking up on her backside
And the other side was just hiding
and smiling
She definitely saw the light lamp post how
the smells came stronger the darkness of desire
she was famished not to have vanished

Feeling like a *** roast love continued
She had a gift for her lover, not the
toast who would brag to boost
Two ****** British what
divine glasses at a cost
The symphonic soul
captured them like the
Dark-Knight of words
Symphonic sounds came
hearing names
soulful hummingbirds buzz-net

And there weren't any more
words there was silence
Eating shepherds pie table was set

Taking over another soul that's a lie
just like magic searching for a love
so long ago became tragic
You need more perseverance
Her true love gave her
an incredible sixth sense
of deliverance
The top seat at the concert
classical wicked taste of music
candescent erotically sonic

She had this certain quality
He was a symphonic love bounty
Her lips moved so fitting fantastically
The flower shops caught her eye
She couldn't sense what was real or a lie
The fast pace of the people all worked up.
What a soulful smell music sounds
she faintly known

To her ear wanted to hear only him shown

Besides the faintly illuminated
shapes evergreens were
heartily trimmed
She stood out bright as the ground
She was turning gray losing reality
not to be found or heard
So soulful her lips speak
she was walking with her head up
in the air fancy dancey
How those men could speak.
You could smell all the ethnic
flavors of foods
She felt the search for something
of a Saint, she was trying to
hard to be good
What a Haydn, his wife
was the mad hair driving

Miss Daisy soul of hers crazy curled
inside her book
She's the lady-like curler
How he played through her hair
Hunchback of Notre Dame who was to blame?
How his eyes wondered playing
and observing
But she was holding his stare

like a womanizer and his eyes flew
what a haunting moon
But Samatha the harp shady tree
He said, my fair lady,
He's stringing something together

What! creepypasta but sometimes her powers were weak
The symphonic love potent every other week

Some Gothic man symphonic music started
Playing Rossini Opera he could stand on his head.
She was pinned to his eyes
Pinterest such interest
she was all bloomed like a fly

By witches, flower came he passed her and he knew exactly who she was as is but wait not his?
The pleading the beg humbug far from her tunes of the ladybug

Razzamatazz all body of Jazz jitterbug
He winked she-devil
summoned him on
What a binding spell
She wiped the sweat off her face
She was beautiful with pale
porcelain skin
So alluring walking
with her parasol

Where the first candle was lit
At midnight mass,
You greaved forward the light
And blessed the joint,
Took a puff and inevitable
Like the cries of the kids
Chasing the raspa man,
Said puff puff pass.

Over summer 95 with
An eternal cusp of weathered
Youth we drove the neighborhood
In the Accord I was given,
At times I believe for graduating Jr High, your unbeatable design
To get us laid was never like the fated quartet moon
That you held in respect almost
Soldier like.

   Remembered C-5 Galaxy and the base we could never get into,
    A roar of sunset glow and the
Colors we flew for our street
Wer more than the rainbow
Could bear,
   A spectrum of a place and
Time that only
A whispered gallantry when
    You took that knife for me,
Always the duo,
Once alone,
Taken with the ways of men.

    I did nothing  with my
Pano, the red handkerchief
That all the homiez through
In a sea of red,
I swear I heard the Taps
Being played by Carlos Santana,
I took a breath and lay
Out a cry,
     One that still runs the barrio,
Mi amigo,
Once the road in a present dream
Taken like the winds
And a memory's glance,
    You are there
And I still,
My Friend,
      Westside intangibles.

We’re on-high - in Lisa’s (parent’s) 50th floor penthouse in Manhattan. The sky outside is a cloudless, blinding powder-blue, infinite and reflective as liquid. A TV news helicopter flew by under her window a few minutes ago.

If you don’t feel God-like looking down on the world from her living room, then you’re probably an atheist. Peter was with us and as we stood, looking out on Central Park and NYC from her balcony, he was suitably impressed by it all - from the chopper ride in from New Haven to the opulent digs.

Peter’s a poor (he exists on a meager stipend) doctoral student from Malibu, California. He grew up simply, in a rustic, one floor, three-bedroom cabin that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. He never had a smart-phone or cable TV growing up and only got glacially slow Internet in high school. He says he really lived in the ocean. His most prized possession is his 70s “Bing Bonzer” surfboard that stands, like a priceless, Egyptian relic in his dorm room.

We got a vibe switch when we came inside and 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em up” was absolutely airhorning from the stereo system. “Westside, Westside, Westside,” Lisa and I joined in the chorus and clumsy-danced by reflex. Leeza, Lisa’s younger sister, saw us and ran over for a group hug with Lisa and me.

Lisa’s little sister’s 13 now and boy, is she a new-teenager. Her long, deep-red hair, which now has fluorescent blue ends, is tied-up in a ponytail revealing a buzz-undercut. Leeza had just gotten home from school and had already changed from her school uniform to ripped jean shorts, white socks and a black, 2Pac sweatshirt - which her mom reported she wears every single day. When her mom manages to launder that, Leeza rotates to a Jets hoodie - although she’s never watched a football game in her life.

“I’ve got a worried mind,” I confessed to Peter, later, as we were scrunched together, me half on his lap in an easy chair. He gave me a consoling hug.
Our grades came out earlier today and I got an A- in Physics 3. I crumbed in the face of classical mechanics. Is an A- who I am? Yeah, I guess so, and I’ll have to give myself an “F” for dealing with it. I suppose I’m acknowledgeably challenged.
“Can you appeal it?” Peter asked, he was trying to be supportive, but he knows that’s a ridiculous notion.
“It’s a male professor,” I said, “maybe I could send him a voice message and cry,” I updog.
“That would be HOT,” Peter said, in a dream-like whisper.
“Uhgh,” I groaned, “It’s emotional manipulation, it’s NOT ******,” I explained, creeped out.
I haven’t talked to my parents yet. They’re in Poland and don’t know my life is over.

“You deserve to embrace your awesomeness, stand up for who you are and reject the status quo.” Peter offered, “I dare you,” he finished, unable to keep a straight face. “But seriously, you’ll fix it after the break,” he offers in hope.
“Yeah,” I say, somewhat unconvinced, “I know.”

The streets come alive when so many
Sleep softly into their dreams.
      The newer L.E.D. street lights pierce
The secrets on the Old 90.
    The women that the sun does not touch
Is aglow in the moonlit pavements,
Because she is a nocturnal,
     To be seen by those who cannot see
The bright sun, she shares herself
With the secrets, only known to those
That never stay.
    
       And to better fit into the list,
To better know the secret is to become
Something other than what is expected,
      A desertion of your standardised
Places, where scars can be hidden,
Everyone can dress as royalty,
     This is more common and natural,
Becoming the creature we all seem to
Leave behind.
     And here there are lovers,
Beckoningly fighting one another
For a chance at one night,
An embrace in the eternal momentary.

    And the thirst is deep,
The desire is a window to the stellar
Places, a deep freedom in the nocturnal,
        An occasion set for nightly meetings
Of souls with shadows that seem to chase,
       Street people on the Western venture,
An exchange of souls at home in the night.

It's strange, at times, I find
What books can mean to me.
My life, inside, reflected back
Almost instantly.
They rest on shelves, holding knowledge
Almost timidly.
How can it be, their wisdom rings
In eternity?

I walk these streets thinking
"this could be the last time",
She whispers to me subtly
and I know she's kind;
Lost thoughts ripple,
Abandoned to reflection,
Zer0-summing throughout all time.

Isn't better now to back
To the hood where the Eden
Is in ruins, silent,
Among the bullets echoed with no names?

Even the crippled that hold fast
Like dignitaries to empty beer bottles,
With a good for a drink at the tips
Of tongued devils groaning that all
Have failed them.

     Dealers on the corner
With their ominous eyes and crooked
Cash on the beaten sidewalks of a ghostly
Corner, wondering if they can return
To innocence like a prodigal son,
Home to end an evil spell,
Might he end up free as in dead
As he walks with a half hope
And pockets of cash not his own.

    When the homes stop falling sideways
And the floors don't break at
Nights step, walking by old frames
When the home knew better days,
Half open eyes walking about
The enclosure's cracked walls
And roach infested walls,
No water and asking themselves
If it's all worth it.

And I return here in a stranger's
Stance with mind wide open,
I watch the leather bucket stands
Dripping its drop like a weeping
Woman for a child.

   The sun decieves here,
Light sheds over burning fountains
Where the trash is unfiltered,
The homeless suffer chronic mist sleep,
    The ******'s eyes closed with
A faithful candle hoping
To open her eyes and save the neighborhood
From itself or its repetitions,
And still they bury one everyday
Too young to go,
The doves humming above when
Another is laid on a slab dead from
Hopelessness of it all.

There are no new arrivals here,
This is the hood after all,
If you can make it out and remember
The overflowing reflection,
Bring back a fresh and humble view
With some dramatic memory,
You may survive the barrio,
But the intimate response
Of sadness when you visit,
Somehow the nightmares never go.

Whorepaint does not do her justice
So much prettier than her disquise

As she paints the sound of beauty
in her voice
Singing love's lullabyes

Cracks in cover let
Sun in hits like
Bullets

Unwrapped window
Gives solar epiphany
To cocooned child

Flee fluorescent,
Flee faux verve
Doorframe: portal
Extra-terrestrial
World through eaves
Like bug zappers
See-through walls
Most envious glass
****** passage

Cold shoulder, concrete, masonry
Phosphenes gleaming, staggering
Hotfoot, addled eyes
Inverted wavelengths
Gravel clinging, unwise
Scrutinized steps to grass
Great big sigh
Saluting sky
With micro pupils
Torrid shell
Swollen locks
Rejoice

Westside: Central Avenue
Pack up, load up
Truckpower to State Street
Beer, veggie dogs
Corn-on-cob
Bag-of-fruit
Checkout scandal

Three-in-the-front
State to thirty-three
Thirty-three to thirteen
Chauncey, Jacksonville,
Trimble, Glouster,
Bonnie’s Home Cooking
Opposite British Petroleum
Exhausted loan office
Opposite Coal Miner Emeritus

Burr Oak: closed
Margin parking
Bathroom clothes
Tasteful vest
Bathroom tissue to brim
Feet welcome
Pass up close up camp spots
I feel a pull to the valley
Clearing: stop, rest
Crack, chug, more wood
Fire, crack, chug, more wood
Chat, crack, chug

Copper detuned chime
Of that ephemeral vibrato
Drone of nine-volt synth
Into kaput tape deck
& we sing & chant & cackle

Campfire chatter:
Bitter pill
Naïve philosophy
Crack, chug
Empathy
More wood

“So when I was seventeen still going to church there were these events they were called “lock-ins” we stayed the night at the church they took our cells our watches took down every clock & covered the windows so we wouldn’t be aware of anything only God & so there would be lectures & guest speakers & bible readings and discussions & also these ******* bizarre activities like they would turn off all the lights light a **** ton of candles & they would blindfold us and give us a little piece of paper and a little pencil and they’d tell us in a omniscient little voice to write down one sin we’ve committed on the little piece of paper fold it & nail it (still blindfolded) to this huge wooden cross with this little hammer & I guarantee every one of us wrote down *******.  

Now that I think of it the whole thing was about ******* every speaker had some story of how they used to ******* all the time and how they were released of the devils hold and that ******* is a sin and will send you to hell and all of us kids were boys and every single adult was a woman they all looked at us like they read our paper like we were sinners like we would always be sinners just slimy ******* who would always ******* (like we would ever understand what it felt to be a woman or what a woman felt like) & their eyes were gleaming with such shallow sympathy that you knew they were true god fearing Christians”

(All at once)
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug

Bliss

To whoever he chooses to love next,
Hold onto him tightly.
Play with his hair,
Fall in love with his dog.
Let him fall asleep on your chest,
Even if you realize the t.v. remote is out of reach and you're stuck watching reruns of old shows.

Learn to at least give a shot to his interests,
If you don't share all of them.
Magic, music, and dnd are his biggest hobbies,
I can't tell you whether or not boy scouts will continue to consume a good chunk of his life,
But if you've the chance, go watch this areas Mic-o-say tribe dance.

Love him with every bone in your body,
And hold him when he cries.
Shush him gently,
Remind him that no matter what his anxiety twists up,
He will eventually be okay.
Remind him that his loved ones are always with him.

Go and listen to him play or sing whenever you can,
Support him at as many competitions and concerts and shows as possible.
Never let his love for music fade away.

Bond with him over it,
Discuss a plan for switching off radio privileges.
Sing with him in the car,
Because even if you think you sound like trash,
Chances are he'll give you constructive criticism while reminding you that even with a mishap,
You will always sound beautiful to him. In tune or not.

Take him on adventures,
But also spend a good amount of time at home-
He's a taurus, after all.

If you go to his moms facebook page,
And even a few of the youth leaders, if you ever meet them at Westside,
You can find adorable pictures of him growing up.

Truth be told, he'll probably someday mention how he used to have braces.
It's not that important of a piece of information,
But it's something to look forward to in those younger pictures.
They made him seem extra nerdy,
In a really cute way.

Again, I remind you, love him.
Love him with absolutely everything and then some.
Love him even if he ever yells at you about not opening up if you have troubles with it,
Love him if he rushes over to you if he has the chance if you're feeling too unsteady on your own.

Let him hold you while you cry,
Teach him what calms you down while you're in the right headspace and he will always remember.
He used to tap my hand in 4/4 time so I could sync my breathing,
Just as an example.

Let him remind you that he's probably a bit more stubborn than you think,
Because even if he's going through hell,
If he truly loves you he will do anything he can to avoid hurting you,
Until the avoidance hurts you more than anything.

But I warn you,
Don't believe all of his promises.
If he says he wants to be there forever-
Unless he's graduated college and is finally settled down in his job field,
Don't fully believe it.

He means no harm by it, but when it comes to love like this he is so young and unexperienced.
If you can, guide him along.

If you, by some strange existance of happening,
Come across this,
And you think I'm just someone crazy…

I was, in his own words, his first real relationship.
And for me, he was the first boy I ever trusted fully,
Outside of my best friend, Kyle.
He was the first boy I truly ever fell deep in love with.

I have learned all of this from seven months,
Seven months of us clicking like puzzle pieces until it all fell apart,
Until I finally couldn't take the questions of whether or not he fully,
Truly, truly wanted to be with me.

To be fair- even with my lack of knowledge on why,
Knowing of his mental illness and the stress from everything he was trying to accomplish at the end of our relationship,
I can't fully blame him for shutting me out anymore.
For, chances are, just being too overwhelmed with trying to balance too much personal life,
With too much work life.

And after the breakup, and until I moved away from him,
I will admit I was.. Rude.
Distasteful.
Very, very angry.

I was angry at him.
I was angry at the world.
I was angry at the situations-
But most of all,
I was angry at me.

I will not hide that,
While I could go and apologize,
Tell him I'll possibly see him on campus if I ever get accepted into his- and my dream- college.

And truth be told I just want to look him in the eyes,
And say, for the first and last time with this meaning,
"Always."

Always…
Always will love you.
Always will support you.
Always will keep our memories together cherished.
Always will remember.

I will always remember,
My dear girl,
The happiness he gave me.

And I will always hope
That he can pass that happiness onto you.

He is a goofball.
He is loving.
He is so, so kind,
And usually very patient.

His best subject is math.
His two favourite go-to, warm weather outfits are either a polo and khaki shorts,
Or a tshirt and gym shorts.

He will wear long sleeved shirts with shorts.
I've seen it so many times.
He only wears jeans when it's warm if he absolutely has to.
His humor is either crude, cracking dad jokes,
Or mocking your whining.

His friend Josh may very well get close to you, too.
Josh is a good man. Do not take his company for granted.
He can offer valuable insight to his best friends brain.
They work very, very similarly.

His hogwarts house is slytherin,
He's allergic to cats,
and after going down to as much as I could see on his moms facebook page a few months into us dating,
I can even tell you his entire natal chart for zodiacs.

Even if he doesn't believe in that hippy dippy ****,
He will amuse you enough to listen to you talk about it if you are.

Send him cute little pictures. Whenever you feel cute, send him one.
He will lavish you with attention.
He will call you gorgeous and beautiful and every other sweet name under the book.

He will love you like no man has ever loved you because he is still so new to this.

My dear,
Love him enough for the both of us.
I beg of you.

I lost him completely already,
I've honestly not even a chance to eber reconcile the friendship with him.
And I have come to terms with that,
I have come to terms with the deep seated love that will remain in my heart for eternity.
So please,
Love him. For me, for you, for him.

Winter dies
Spring comes alive
There is no Autumn in Chicago
And Spring leaves as quickly as it arrives
Jolting us to what is always an uncertain Summer
That’s my city
Just like my heart
My love life
Chicago
I don’t have one without the other
Mashed up together
Yet separated
Segregated
Deep Love on the Northside
Lover on the Southside
Sidekick on the Westside
And when it’s all too much to handle
The East is my escape
Sitting on the rocks letting my legs dangle and toes dip in the icy cold greenish lake
I feel comfort in it
Immense and wide spread, like me sometimes
Clear but *****
Supposedly the cleanest water you can drink
After the city purifies it of course
Just like me, just like mine
My vessel pours clear and *****
But the city purifies me through cleansing nights
Through raised glasses of wine and music that harmonizes my heart
Kisses that clean and absorb
Tongue that licks off the saltiness I’ve accumulated
A thin layer
Its washed off and cleared from one moment to the next
Like the city skyline
And I’m ready for a new day
A new love
Or lover
I reincarnate in the Spring from what seems a slow death but was only a tormenting hibernation
Led into another uncertain Summer
Returning with scorching tenderness through cool breezes and radiating heart
Radiating sun
That’s how it feels in Chicago
That’s my City
Just like my Heart
I don’t have one without the other

Gee officer Krupke
my memories hold nunya well
dug the early grave and stood above

my soul still holds tunes and counter melodies
and my heart bleeds
it bleeds ooblee-oo
ooblee-oo it bleeds

pools like knives
belts and rocks
still bleeds buenos
noches

I will die in the Westside
On some corner with a beer
In my hand, as if holding the lost
Scrolls of Atlantis.
I will die in the Westside-
And I won't be ashamed that
I am a drunken mess and my liver
Has swollen like my heart for
My dear neighborhood.
     It will be a Tuesday,
I will go back and find myself
Within the aloness with all the Yesterdays
Behind me.

Dedpoet is dead. The world beats him,
Although he never fought back;
It beat him hard with a stick....

There will be witnesses,
Nameless and I will not know them,
Only the solitude, the grey, the cold roads.....

These old sidewalks
Are still being poured,
Uncemented in my mind's
Evicted memory,
   Still as I walk them
With regards to the past,
When everything is changed,
    I loosened the locks on
Memoires that fall off the side
Of cliffs onto
Some ravine no one will recognise as once up so high.
    Here on the street,
With knuckles clamped
As if another Street fight might occur,
Though the innards of
My seasoned being
Archive the rotation
Of memory's grip,
    Such a daunting thing
To be grateful for all
The pain,
    I imagine ducking from
Grazing bullets,
  Eating laying down in the living
Room, privately
     To my self,
The self takes refuge here.
    A silent thing that creeps
Up
When times seem bad,
    One cam remember the worst,
And that 12 year old
Would smile,
Laydown and have some
Dinner shaking his head
With a humble smile.
    I think it's OK
To walk the worst
When things are bad,
   It's being like an old soul
Waving at a new born,
Experience is funny
Like that.

twice read, I find
my points have mostly
been made in plain geometry, were I to see

from an imaginary Euclidean POV

pre algebra and zeros and pi, as fa's I know,

Euclid makes a point.  ping
do re me, too.

We need some assumptions. True.

Words, Logos per se, re
main the principle tool used right
by both wisdom and knowledge and, now,
under knowledge stand two parts

see likka bubble, zygotic go, knowledge all good

big ol' bubble, knowledge of good and evil,

both, and you know both's a real big
old idea to think at once,

gotta have a push and a pull,
a listing and a lusting,
a compulsion to explode
versa verses reverberating assumptive
implosive con ex in clusives ping 3
do re me
sounds of music all disneyfied hills alive
from the POV of a flea
in the bark of my favorite pine, aw a
crow
dream
alla this,
how sweet is that, you guys don't know what that might
feel like, unless,
you know: in my realm,
right try angles reflect light in odd spectra
bounced from assumptive edges of unknowns.

Euclid, yeah, he failed to know everything anybody learned since he died,
we all know more than he ever did,
though
his timeless thoughts
remain. ..
as mine to twist into art-intuitive
artificial intelligence.
-----
Stop inter, ah, this fits here (no where else, per haps):
an e-ruptive Voltarian pledge of troth from an old bet lost.
Spelchek can't tame the pen, truth emerges
twixt i and e, subtly.
See,
intell still makes sense con egence on the end
and has aright to slide meaningfully
past spelchek and
evil Grammerly Aiing me.
See, both religating and relegating, merge and link.

Right, we assume
we prove flat Euclidean right exists. Okeh.

Here is the handln, wir machen schnell zwei

ping ping points ping
there was there three,
we did not see one, firstime, missed a point,

now, we may see beyond the first assumptive, abruptive,
inter
rupture rapture at/to that lacred nacred sphere.

A pretty pearly gate. Eggish in shape.

This, I imagined was the proverbial NAND/NULL gate,
an old door into superbloom summer
manifested to capture your
attention please, breathe
the beauty,
sneeze,
let it be.
Please, your self has private interpretations,
so it ain't prophecy.
No prophecy from Jehovah and them other names
the supreme being goes by
in woke reality
with quarks in it--  
no
secret intended to hide truth
(secret is same as private here, no private
interpretations) from those who can't see times changed.

---logos logic force, forces chaos into a bubble boing being
--- a peer pressure surge urge dopamine don't fail me now
--- devise a device depicting the mergence,
--- a logo for reality, in a word.
--- one artist made a circle, another formed a square

so many
interruptions, if you could only know,
you could be live, Euclid,

scary thought? no. a hope. an arrogant philosopher's hope
carved in stone

In the beginning == you know, right, everything must mean some
thing or nothing remains to measure worth,
as knowns unknowable for the effort
that you don't make
--- like Tristram Shandy, the marbled page, we few ever knew,
--- first gentle, re-cog-nize justify, ify ify yourself

Wisdom-******* children,
magnificent in countenance, as winners
of the won war fought before the peace.

--- easy treated, like "no sweat" a
--- Jeopardy version of Leela, the big show. You still die. it ain't scary.

resume the assumpting pressures
peer 'em up
umph, try

delta delta delta force chuck-nors negate  negate

dive dive dive

We must be read
y
we got us a bubble of being, in real life poetry.
Tha's deeply memeingful.
Here abouts. A bit o'breathin' room in the long dance.

But Euclid pointed out what I see from my old couch on the porch
on the westside of a piece of land
that pro-truded
from prime-eve, a fractal level a billion lacred layers
time-wise, geo-time-wise ago
yond hither, whence we was words a playin'

silly songs children read and sing along then seem to forget until

some go mad in our dotage and become as little children, once more but

we know now how to learn anything we wish to know.

This could be heaven,
according to the description I was given when escape from hell
was my selfish desire.
Self formed from scraps I over heard as a young'n.

A point remains to appear made in the assumption.

Ah, hey, right tringled triangles.

sit witme, see star one, assume natural numbers a re-able
one two 3
iii --- signals scramble-ble
see we have two brains

two whole brains with minds and minds and minds of their own

and you love simplicity.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Pick up on one and leave the other won in a spoonful o'luv

look from my eye to that star,
consider this, Euclid winks, too. One aim alone is right,

thus there is the edge of the sphere of my visual known universe,
the bubble of my being.

Eat me raw or don't eat me at all. said the bull headed god somebody
influential in reality
killed

A bullheaded being, a rampaging ****** slain by some named being
a hero, not me or you…
though new legends lien in wait, eh?

ah, time shift assumption, Euclid POV, nonessential,

flatness is a fractical impossible unthingable thing, plainly stated

imaginable, non-re-alizable.

Spread as spilled milk never cried over, take heart, hoped for
evers come to be
noticed as they pass, plenty people pass
these days,

endurin' to the end is all it takes.
Euclid don't matter and Jesus done cared.

We look like bowling pins the same old boring things how does fame reflect on all of us like the strike went out we are having a girl night out

Morning to morning
Buellers day off
But Crueler did
777
Hillary Huff
Puff unlucky
Wolf hurting
Minty Clean
Mournings
Waking up mean
Minty Pearly whites
    *    *    *

Hawaii lava
Drained her
Used her up  
The next Diva
She's raining
mad
Hey Mo
hallelujah!!
to our wives

You will
remember
our names
$    $   *
The rest of
your life
That setting
on the
(F)
(A)ring
(M) finger
reset (E)
The game= fame
timer

Your meeting
The fame
drive
Fox Five
You dive
Minty
Mind of
MoJo
Warriors of
the bounty
JoJo
The
Gods when
you need them

Presidential
Trumpet
comments
$   *   &
Don't get
your spirit
down to
be busted

Not to be trusted
The game
sharper
Never stoop
lower

Move your
body like you
never danced
get your palate
wet and drenched
You could tell a
person by what
they eat but
fame is
not a taste
that's always
sweet
You feel the
side effect
be exhilarating
F-Fun A-Ambition
M-Minty E-Eternity
His humanity switch
Turned off

You're visualizing
Or he's criticizing
The white shirt
crispier laid out
on his sleeve

But Meany
Just a tad
snappier
The camera
moves closer

The fame is the
crucial time
Ritual you pray
Day by day
Singing
courthouse
Judicial
Fame so primal
Fame should
be better
training

America going
National
Just stop
complaining
Her fame is
turning
hot furnace
His face is
looking
muscle stiff
Singing on
a Cliff

Whats on my stove
Your heart didn't
crack my love

He will never
come back
Like my lover
vanished
Meany Pino Mo
my fame list
Having a drink
lime twist

So Lovie and dove Vee


The fame chair
Lyrics
overdressed
My nails
graphically
cool art
but forever
splitting

My mind got to be
The underdressing
The big fame
Over-dying
Is anyone so
amazing
out there!!
My body
pushing
Am I overreacting
Birds chirping

There Meany Mo
  singing
Catch a tiger
by the toe
Like a peeled
banana
I left so quick
I split
His Pomsky
The sky
I will fly higher
than I ever will
Not the minty
motels
First class hotels
All models  
the ordinary people
Meany  Minty Mo
Hostel

Hagan Daz
Morsels
ice cream
they made it

"Cherry"
Baby top
Fame can be
so hostile
Going, East Windsor
The Westside story
Other people
are living in
Ramble fight
missiles
When you're a
Jet mobile
Fame starts
at birth

Fame ET
earth
Oh! Eeee T
so alienated

My cubicle
Meeting every
September
Taylor me Swift go
Racoon fur
November
The sugar
more ******

MoJo JoJo
riot
Let go of my
Eggo singers
with Ego's
Going to freeze block
I need a diet tick tock
Rolex
Time flies with
company
The Vex
Fame-***
That fame clock is not
controlling me

Taking in
my ownership
Eeeny Meany Mini Mo
Give me a Bellini
sandwich
** **
What a fame her
lips
Powersuit baby
blue tips
The lucky strike
Personating
copying her
lips singing
Dusk
Wake up
Dawn a task
Reading (He's) snoring
Changed singer wife
of Frankenstein

She had a date
with the brain
Sickly Green Minty
** Mo please no
Jerry Seinfeld taking
an NY train
Coffee cars and fame
The money is not
everything
One fame step
beyond
And fame takes
you so out of touch
from reality

Your comfort zone
Twilight zone sanity
We will never be over
And fame will
never stop

Even a tombstone
The singing heart will live
on beating
But how we hold
that closeness
to our mothers

Overthinking of our time
and time after time
Where did it go-?

God Bless the Europeans
All talk Islander Carribeans
S=S Seance Superstitious
The cool pledge Americans,
Suspicious regions secretively
scrumptious Gummie bears
legions

Rambling computer dummies
Those dragonflies showbiz
Dummies the crew
Zazzle S to Sparkle
Pickles and pregnancy
The Hebrew National

Nathans Franks contest
Are we missing the SS
without the ramble, it will  be
someone's gamble
Not many things to impress
Those little bites to nibble
The bigger bites stumble

All words over Google
Too much rice or noodles
All Gods foreign hot rods
With their lady poodles

Ramble words at the racetrack
All talkers hail to the Queen
The King deck someone is all
talk watch your back

Without the poise
Well mannered words
They will never be back
Backing up her timeless rose
Holy Grace SS for Serenity
smoother sail rephrase

Deep contemplation
Ramble on the
crossword mission

Rambles but silently
Like her meditation
So many changes new
revisions of more
accusations
Up-words like the
Moonwalkers

Show business SS- Abby-Abyss
Access summer dress more or less
Abrasiveness  love blindness
Aggressiveness to kindness

Rambling on words
The plethora
Traveling in Space like
Dora the explorer
True love confessions
Being subjective way too
submissive
How do we live without them
The right words to say to them
To live with someone
Not talking to them and
holding them
The wanting feel the loving
Time so in the needing

Rambling for lust well being

But bust to bust
All she got was ashes
All layers like a desert storm
So alarming like clockwork
Ramble words again and again
They were all deceivers
To Ramble or rambles on
like her last will OH Bill
What a smile ****
Double **** good cheater

And  those hope words
they named her

HOPE SS Smashing table setting
But silent words like
a deaf-mute accidentally wetting
How do we cope to
fly like a kite
The last testament to my
Savor S to be
(Blessed) to be visited
Her **** Chanel French lips
with nothing to say Oh! No
Her French skirt rips

Say Yes! to LUV she rambles
on and on just dream on
Like a recital play
Her rainbow sky
of the skittle

Who needs this
midnight rambler Joker riddle
At midnight he talks and his a
certain physique

He does have lip smacker
Fruity trustee puncher
He's the mighty hot roses
Bless S for her sanity
There she goes
Rosemarie eating Italian
Calamari for dessert
Tiramisu with her
Tiddly dee TUTU

Her cousin mumbles
Eating leftover
Campbells soup
Feeling like a chicken
without my words
I will crumble

There she is Robin Rambles
Hot Scrambled eggs
What about Rod Stewart
see those
rocker legs
Hot mouth rambling
Light her fire with
Apple mystique
candles

Her body angles showing her
good talking samples
She had the best cheeks
and dimples

Loved her Chinese food
Veggie steamed Dumpling
But jump for the love
Her or him to Babble
Westside story Maria
Word fight rumble
So cosmic her coffee moon-shiny
talk of the comic funny bones

Ramble like a song I tunes
The midnight traveler what
hot body fuel

Why is this world so in shambles
I need to find a smooth talker
The nocturnal
Writing so many words in
her journal

Roll of  words SS SCENIC -SOUL

The greater expectation
The poem of philosophy
Birds and the
Rambling Robins
Biology
Only one word saved them
(***) she rambles 69 reasons
Why her voice should be heard
Hour of rest full bloom season
Her rambling head
The French chef brioche
baking
The bed post was shaking

SS>> Sensual-Seductive new
awakening she worked hard

But he rambles forget the
S- Solitude words we
have no peace
And sometimes
Road less traveled
Full of maniacs with
arrogance
Let's not take the fun
out of the resistance

Ancient Grecian times
of swords and more
Sensual Roman words
A love decent she is
rambling
Like her first love
delectable
Like her first taste most
recent words can also
come and go with a stroke
of her paintbrush

Her most important words
can be deleted
Do you really feel blessed
Another (SOS) SS? save me

Traffic light refraction , glass store fronts pan
the main avenue
***** , bluesy , defeated people in line for liquor ,
beer , milk and lottery tickets
Navy skies grow red to the West , streetwise
pigeons work overfilled dumpsters and city cans
Bus stops return workers from Atlanta , the-
local grocery methodically stripped of its inventory ,
children playing games on side streets beneath working-
yellow lamplight ..
Fire trucks fly by , no one even bothers to look up or wonder why
Porch lights irradiate the Westside , amber hues build -
over the interstate , cars travel South , bottlenecked in the race for home ..

I walk the Westside of San Anto,
The place I buried so many.

And the dead do speak
As they are in my words,
My very poetry.

Some have gone decent,
Others waved their final colors
With a kerchief ,now rest immortal.

So then I go back for them,
But move forward doing so,
To remember where I am
And where they shall never go.

If I am just a lucky guy
Who made it out alive when so
Many could not,
Then I cannot regret because the
Dead have no memory.

But why go back and visit
The desolation, the addicted
Nocturnal, the names who have
No faces?

Because I cannot reject myself,
The pistol I once lived by,
The nature of air and hope that
Escaped all in the ruins.

No, I will always return,
And my heart has not the words.

Now what?
Flowers for the dead and walk
The slab of names to rejoice
In what once was?

No, I come home,
The same as you,
As anyone,
Superfluous as this may be,
The return is necessary
If only to find oneself again.

Sweats flowing like falls
She fell

She fell-
             inlove at first sight
From that day on
            you became her kryptonite
Your cries
            made her petrified
Your smiles
           became her home at the westside

Sundown.
Dark town.
Beneath the twinkling stars
She craddled you in her mystic arms
Singing lullabyes of rainbows and charms

12 in the midnight
Child, don't be terrified
This is not Cinderella's tale
The magic won't be gone
Lift up the dress's veil
You'll see
               - the one who fell
Your lady in shining armor
              - the fairy god mother
The one who stays
                        lifelong
         till the hourglass breaks
She'll be there
                    forever