Privacy to sing;
             to think;
             to dance;
             to slice.

to be or not to be

left with my thoughts
let them stir themselves
like a spoilt stew
or limp, useless, worthless, rotten meat
that's good for nothing.
dead and left for
flies and worms;

i hath made worms meat of me.

deserted and alone
with my inner most thoughts;
                                desires;
                                wants;
                                passions;  

My sacred groove
My sanctity
My hollow alter and
Ceramic pool of most holiest
tap water.
Locked.

Where noone can capture
my hunchback, deformed, depressed
thoughts and passions
As I Cry
Sanctity.

where they cannot be killed
where i can bow so stubborn knees
but
not regret the effects of mine crimes?

help angels, make assay.

i am naked
i am relieved
i am pleasured
i am truthful
in this hollow tub of release
i thank whoever invented indoor plumbing
for my madness and sanity

for all that glitters is not gold.

She loved her mother.
She had been in love.
She'd had her heart broken.
She loved her friends.
She liked to smoke.
She enjoyed reading.
She enjoyed learning.
She believed in kindness.
She loved music.
She was only half a person.
She hated to be alone.
She was emotional.
She loved deeply.
She had no one that was hers.
She cherished her memories.
She liked to take pictures.
She remembered the unimportant.
She forgot everything.
She gave up on a lot of things.
She wasn't beautiful.
She cried a lot.
She was compassionate.
She wanted more.
She knew something was missing.
She hated herself sometimes.
She knew a lot things.
She didn't know much.
She got her diploma.
She continued her education.
She left her soul mate because she wasn't his.
She loved her best friend.
She didn't eat animals.
She loved her brothers.
She had tattoos.
She hated her job.
She got caught with marijuana.
She didn't go to jail.
She disliked the government.
She appreciated the small things in life.
She loved to laugh.
She knew she was mortal.
She didn't like to think about death.
She didn't know what to do with her life.
She could do a lot of things.

With her black eyeglass frames and sensible heels,
the psychiatrist is a contrived portrait of neutrality.
The timer on her desk ticks sickeningly,
counting off the missed opportunities for revelation
that pass with each minute.
I ask her if she has considered a Victorian fainting couch,
she does not smile.
I make cheap cracks about diet ads and the plight of the modern anorexic,
she scribbles something on a legal pad-
from where I sit, the only legible word is "questionable".
She is not describing herself,
yet I can think of nothing more dubious
than being paid to listen to another's tedium.
I spend one hour each week with my  hired companion,
and she, in turn,
spends her time relaying information
to another army entirely,
sending reports to the other doctors,
leaking statements to my family.
She is the informant, and I,
the gullible sap who believes in
"conditional confidentiality".
I pretend I know nothing of the arrangement,
and try to speed time by imagining alternate realities.
I picture her as a talking doll-
A string protrudes from her back;
when pulled, a mechanical voice says
"I see", or occasionally,
"How do you feel about that?"
I stifle a laugh,
and glance  over at her glazed expression-
there isn't much of a difference.

Disillusioned by the open market,
he polishes his glasses and stretches,
running a hand through hair made artistic
by the blunt scissors of the philosophy major
who lives downstairs. It was a trade,
he tells me. Short back and sides for a batch
of macadamia nut cookies. Barter economy.
He mutters about measured value,
divides a piece of paper, and breaks a pencil
while forcing the verses of quarter sheet poems,
recounting the night he stole four sponges
from a craft supply store in town,
a drunken ****-you to the establishment-
but also, he admits, it was late and
he had to do the dishes.
If you want to see how big the world is,
he says, take off your belt. Now
tighten it to the usual hole, put it down,
and look. You are a speck of dust on
the wineglass of human existence.
Don't let it get to you. You are smaller and better
than you think. Another quarter sheet finished,
he slumps back on the defeated sofa
and reads me Desiderata, putting on airs,
grappling with devotions to poke holes in certainty
just as I do now to the worn leather strap,
shrinking my claim to the wineglass with each punch
of the silver awl, and after years, still waiting
for the clink of his belt buckle,
the moment when, humbled,
he remembers he is only
a child of the universe.

i thought of him
and those hands
and that beard
dear god, he is ecstasy.

i thought of that laugh
and that smile
and those blue, blue eyes.
i cannot get enough.

the thought of his tie
and those lips
and the way he sticks out his tongue.
i sure would like a taste of him.

i thought about him
and his brain
and about what he thinks about,
maybe he thinks of me?

he must think of me,
he gives me gifts
and tells me he loves me.
doesn't that mean he cares?

maybe i'll never know.

Today I felt myself dissociateing,
I tried to avoid communicating,
look towards the ground.

When I talk, I never make eye contact,
or else I find myself distract,
forgetting how to be an undercover extrovert.

Today we shared a silence,
born between conversing violence,
as one topic broke to another.

My eyes picked out your stare,
that common brownish pair,
which slid into place around me.

The understanding pass,
as if I were made of glass
and you could see every ticking gear behind my skin.

You held my glance as one might hold a hand,
gently, delicately, without demand.
I felt safe within your eyes.

Comfortable in the bridge of your nose,
a hammock where I did't seem to impose.
For the first time, I'd be happy to meet your eyes again.

Hiding in the bathroom
until my fear goes away;
fear of what
absent minds think of me
between their grubby socks,
bad hair and alcohol.

I could have been alone today,
counting the minutes
of self-enforced bed rest.
Maybe taken a little time
to organize my thoughts,
made battle plans of how to cope.

I've felt the air too long,
I think I'm oxidizing.
I str e a  c    h
my thoughts to transparency
so I can see right through them,
analyse the funny creature
behind it all.

I wish I knew where to sit,
place myself strategically.
Fake mingle,
mouth dry with vapid sentences.
I couldn't stand it though
so instead, I've locked myself in.

Old papers always
had conversations with me.
The leaves would talk forever,
if I let them.
I never had to turn left
at the end of the hall.

I'm not sure how these things work,
but we seemed to come together
through conversations and mocking arms.

My life had an affair with me
for seven years. No one knew,
as I loved the mundane.

******* in the air, body in the water,
quietly, we inhaled through our noses.
After the army, we stuck together.

Me and the mundane
put our arms around each other,
and of course, one thing led to another.

The mundane became my coffee,
daily, unremarkable, commonplace,
and perfect every time.

Really, what business did anyone have
making our love about them,
when we were interested in nothing but ourselves?