I walked around the lake
but it didn't feel like a lake
anymore
my path was paved
the trees were shaved
and the water
was quiet.

a goose stopped to ogle me
and the other passers-by
it craned up its neck
and yawped
like a cry for help

Severing fingernails, so to, chopped the
toe’s, ate some berries and snuck in a nip
or two. I assert myself, “this drink’s if only
to steal, or seal one last scream,” but,
“decadent’s,” quiet for once; A calm
christened, “collateral,” the parallel plight
and pale ear nigh, if only doors down.

Left to my own devices, I’d imagined
every bad, “thing,” and how they’d
happen; Exact and unlike random
aneurism. So I checked on the plants one
last time. I checked on the only flower,
once again, if only doors down, and one
last time. I abide impatient and remain to
question eternity; This twiddling of thumbs
and silent sliver of sun peeking upon one
and opposing, my alien, “East,” –

I long for my only, “West,” and if only
home, but its love, the other love that locks
my only gate.

And with that I’d lay awake and be, a
guarantee, malcontent, remnant come only
one reminder; A twitch under my right eye
and promised son but days later. So
continued my sequence, my defiance, my
only anything; Come one, “Oh!” and two,
yawped not for Walt, but for me,
“Onward!” awake and in an awkward
avoidance of complacent.

Ensued, were the acts of rebellion, the acts
of life, the acts of desperation in the face of
an already dead incarnation. One day to be
labeled, my suicide, at ends wrought
insurrection and beneath the twin flags,
insomnia added anticipation – Perhaps my
last, should the wolves cull come the hours
next when beds are made, supper’s sooner
cold and once more, the stars are allowed to
sing for someone, for something, else.

I haven’t found, or fallen, for her yet;
     but then again, maybe I’d walked a block too far.
Maybe I’d crossed clay.
Maybe I’d sunk like a madman atop thin ice.
Maybe I’d forgotten as easily as I’d found,
     when the treasure’s a fickle little smear of red-lipstick
     and digits atop my mirror;
Mobius just a’gazin’ come mornin’
     to the tune of tequila slipping lip
     a mere moment and conundrum’s later,
     always remembered,
     always encountered and eternal,
     pursued atop the medium as fragile as I.
And speaking of pass or impasse,
     I still crawl from a tether towards tomorrow,
     approaching a promise,
     oh so fragile and soon to be broken like mother’s cookie jar
     amidst thievery;
A tall tale and titled,
     “one more enigma,”
      when she’s passed and parallel,
     “the,” way or beyond away,
      in the car that’s to the left and now left behind,
      or an image I’d once recalled –
Now masticated,
     the years,
     alone atop a mammoth pile and like an elephant’s carcass,
     ivory and soon to be rust.
So yearns the watering hole of youth and never to visit again;
An offered solution and her parting wave,
     a sincerity long gone over horizon.
I mull and move come this bravest venture,
     sooner to be,
     asp,
     dung,
     and maggot.
Futile when you call me,
     “Oblivion.”
I guess I’ve got a lot to explain.
I guess I’ve grown to use to the noose,
     aged,
     forgotten,
     and so very senile,
     the foolish.
And I guess, ******!
I guess, oh hell!
And guess I’m sorry for leaving when I had,
     where I had,
     how I had and more importantly who I had.
I guess,
     fleeing from forever atop epoch.
I guess,
     I guess,
     I guess I’m breaking far more than I’d ever been broken.
And I'd guess, never knowing.
I guess and I’d become the hammer I’d ‘ever agonized –
She guessed –
And the house yawped,
     “VICTORY!”
Again,
     as I rest twisted metal and in a state of parched,
     becoming the elephant seeking his first watering hole;
My dearest hope,
     you'd still be there.

*When the thirst of one kind destroys the thirst of another kind.

She tapped the glass,
wondering if she would ever break out of this
apocalyptic prison,
where society molded you.
An untrained sculptor forming
unfinished creations.
Playing God, but in a mortal form,
like last time.

Guess they never told you,
you’ll never be finished.

When no one came to see her,
she tapped harder on the glass.
She tapped out a plead in Morse Code,
a cry to be free.

No one tapped back.

She beat her dainty fist on the glass,
wondering if she remembered signing up for this.

No one heard her fist.

She cried out
yelled,
shouted,
weeped,
shrieked,
yawped.

But all that came out were bubbles,
empty words and soundless cries
for freedom that nobody would hear.