You said you'd call today, you promised
I sit and wait, I've checked all day
my phone seems to surround me like a kind of cloak
or maybe a straight jacket, that I can't get out of
This morning, hope was in my heart like a rosy fog
surrounding me, now the fog stinks like the kind right before the Bay Bridge
I remember from childhood, holding a city hostage in stench
My breath seems connected to your call, that isn't there
I know better, I swore off you like a bad habit, like you are a bottle of ***** and I drank
the whole thing, day after day, so I rejected you but then,
I falter, maybe I was wrong. And by then I was hooked, the needle hanging from my arm.
The remains of your drug dripping from the wound
My only hope: not to know your number, to delete it, and delete it,
but I've called so many times now, I can't forget it
This week, I dialed the wrong number twice, such hope was in me
that finally my poison was out of reach but memory shoved you back in my face
The phone, my own phone, mocks me in it's silence
Such a pretty picture on the front, such a smart, intelligent phone
So silent and above me...taunting me, refusing to give me what I want:
your voice, your faux concern, no need for anger because I knew better
You, who I wait for as if my next heart beat depends on it, are no good for me
One thing I've noticed, can't say learned, because here I am again
if things are bad once, they don't get better
a crazy man gave me that advice about another like you
a man with too many concussions who couldn't paint a bathroom stall in a movie theater
without getting fired
and why did I ignore his advice again?
And why can't you give me such a simple thing?  
I know the answer.

It was a stormy night.  
But our flag was still there
as the war drums beat
and the children came out
wearing plastic bags to protect
their instruments

Rain slanted in the Friday night lights
The fake grass field was slick like ice skating
Our National Anthem was dutifully sung
as we stood and worshiped our flag
and were reminded of the violence of our beginnings
and felt a surge of pride for the blood and death
spilled over two centuries ago
that has allowed this war in a small town
to occur on the territories once inhabited by
annihilated civilizations whose dead languages
haunt this place

The soldiers came out.
Young boys trying to look brave
When I watched my first war,
in my own small town
a boy was paralyzed from the neck down
and can today use one hand in a limited way

I am taking tickets and freezing
Getting a cold as surely as my body
feels as if it is freezing up
but there is no rain date this is too important
and the ambulance waits outside
Last week a boy's hand was crushed for this glory
into a little pieces
They have a new leader now and the show goes on
It is so important

It is our favorite sport
It is violent
It excites us, unites us
And when the other team scores I privately
cheer
So this can end
And wonder, what might be done
in the age of scarcity with the resources
that run this war
and how I wish, it wasn't so important to us

A student again, how cute it is and really I feel free
the thoughts, of life, and planning and how things could be
not tied down to a job and obsessing about my boss did this and that
and what does it mean for me now and why and
today I had a wasted day but that is normal

Because life is full of wasted moments, and
the most tragic moments are those we don't feel
The painful part isn't that we were at the laundromat
and put our stuff down to study and highlight in different colors
and a woman put her family there on top of our stuff with McDonald's for five even
though there were only three, and that there was nothing good at the Goodwill
Even the Rainbow colored sweater from Lane Bryant, which was way too big
and that the laundry from a month took hours and yes, we really do have that many socks

What is wasted are those moments folding the pile of shirts where we are not there
we are somewhere lost in mourning over a lost love and thinking,
he loved me more than he loves her, I just know.
Because all we have at that moment is this pile of a zillion articles of clothing
most of which looks like it could be hanging at the Goodwil and
a flimsy plastic chair and two times the amount of highlighters we needed because they were half price and we are hungry, but the snack machine is turned off and you can
only look at the cookies and hot cheetohs
and yearn for them and imagine the flakey tenderness of the vanilla wafer
crumble gentley into your mouth, and watch your creepy
neighbors walk into the strip mall listening to a song on a phone
like it's a boom box
and this is your moment to feel and live

"Berkeley is anti-business" because
the regulations about water pollution and
there is irony there because there is nothing clean
or natural about Berkeley, that irony I can see but imagine
how much worse it would be...
You surf in the ocean and would you like
to also be surfing with more chemicals
and other nasty by products of human beings?
Really, really, I don't get you...

I passed six Targets on my way there
a Lake was my goal, the best of the Bay area
I also passed Lawrence Livermore Labs named after one of the fathers
of the bomb
and I drove on, the pool was filling up quick
not with swimmers, but a flea market of vendors
a lady dressed in her own wares, rags sown toegther
So I thought I'd take my chances on the wild waters of Livermore Del Valle
I arrived and offended a ranger when I didn't believe the stuffed cougar
died of natural causes, there are only twelve left in the Bay Area
but that was 2008.  I couldn't take my eyes off it, the fur falling off
it was dead,
The ranger was sure I'd get run over by a boat
I could tell he had me already pegged for dead
So I went North, and walked on the trail and waded in
and it was green and murky just like the last one
and there were fake waves, made by boats going way too fast
and people fishing everywhere
waiting patiently, boxes full of wares
and boats for rent, guys all around
and the sun was going down and a little girl and her mom
fishing practically on the sidewalk, or the lawn
started yelling, something on the other end of the line
and a huge guy helped them pull out the squirming dieing thing
and drop it on the ground, now covered in dirt
And a group of guys with their mouths open wide said
"It's a cat fish.  So much for the boat."
And that was funny I guess, like the Dad who couldn't get the kids
to come out of the lake until he said "we're gong to do the cake"
But I went back to my car feeling sad
for the poor fish, lying there, dead
and I thought, I'll delete that fisherman guy online instead

I checked your hand when I first "noticed" you
That's one of the first things I do
When I feel that twinge of something for a man
People aren't always what they seem, so I do what I can
But your finger was bare, naked and pure
So I continued on, following your lure

You called me silly things like "dear" and "hon"
And you're my boss, so maybe that's something your shouldn't have done
But I watched you, wondering, trying to be indirect
I didn't want you to know what I felt, I don't want you to suspect

And you seemed to be enjoying the little ride
No mention of a woman in your life, or a wife
So then I thought you could be gay
I noticed a hole for an ear ring in your ear lobe one day

It was left over from the eighties: it was only on one side
I came home and went straight to my computer that night
I looked up on the internet which side mean straight?
I remember that whole eighties style, it wasn't great

After that, I knew you must not be gay
Sometimes you'd pay me a lot of attention, sometimes you'd stray
Months went by, and I still didn't know
And my feelings, I tried to not let them grow

But all I got from you was mixed messages
Sometimes you'd ignore me, sometimes you'd be aggressive

Until one day at a party, you were all over me
And I was confused, I couldn't see
why all the attention, was it the wine?
I was nervous, it didn't feel like the right time
And someone asked you a banal question about your house
And you went off on a riff and I was bored, wanted to run away like a skittish mouse
You were trying to explain some silly situation
with hot water problems, that to you seemed like the news of the nation
And what were you doing about it? Another woman asked.
Answering this shouldn't be such a task.  

And yet, you looked around agitated
Why is that question so hard?  It seemed simply stated.
But then your sentences were choppy, and I knew something was up
You looked up and down, and into your cup.

And then it came out, that word "we"
Something you had never mentioned before, that held the key
to knowing your marital status as I'd tried to find out with my subtle might
My stomach fell to the floor. It wasn't a good night.

Light, off-white, airy
Unblemished March in New York City
We arrive at the Citadel of Columbia
Dress and shoes perfect
Everyone is here
Waiting for the show

Too many

I imagined, getting married in a field
In a friend's  back yard
On the beach
More intimacy than performance

This is a production
Nervous like an actress back stage
The ceremony lasts a thousand years
I feel like a hundreds of daggers are stuck in the ***** of my feet

You crush the glass
In the small white bag mass produced for the purpose
We are legal at last
Acknowledged by the State of New York

I look into your eyes and see a blank, empty space

Nothing has changed
Nothing will make you
belong
to me

"They'll all want to read ******," you say
I am frozen
Strange words from a school administrator
"Or 'The Story of O'" says another man across from me

A long pause
You both wait
Eyes glance in my direction
What will I say?
I can hear you breathe
What do I think?
I can feel your desire to know like a touch
" I guess ****** isn't very much compared to what they have today"
An additional thought to give new life to the pause
What gets me going?
A silence has been layed out in front of me
to hint at what I like
Expectant breath, I am aware of
until the silence becomes dead
and the moment has passed

I say nothing
I know I would raise your blood pressure
And you're old

I'm into kink
and I don't read boring old books about it
I like to be in control
It comes from years of horse back riding

It to be hot
That you'd find me just sublime
That I'd see you waiting for me
For just a glance or chance conversation
A little time in privatization

For you to notice I look nice
For every sighting to be  like spice
In my day
To have you in my way
would make me melt

I wanted you to seek me out
for a little private time no doubt
For you to forget everyone else
A huge smile at me
and I'd melt

But the lake just froze over
You run around like a busy mouse
Sniffing what's ahead, not looking about
Finished work, headed for your house
And for me, you could care less
And its making me a bit of a mess

Mother
You taught me
love is a woman across the room
reading, you yearn for her attention
she doesn't want you
be careful, she'll obliterate you with her words
gaze at her and feel the emptiness grow inside

Father
you taught me
love is, a man angry from work
don't bother him, he is stressed and hungry
he is busy with great works
he is to be seen, not spoken to

He
I see you, want your attention
Sometimes you give it, what a rush
Mostly you have your great work
You have other more important things
on your mind
I can never compete
I yearn for you
I am afraid of your rage
the pattern is complete

A title, from the "Best of the Alternative Press"
After reading
I realize I'm not a woman after all

She can talk about the cruel things
men do to women
**** and ******

Then discuss draperies
in the next breath
how to organize your closet

Female Genital Mutilation in Africa
and her favorite appliance:
a Panini maker
I am supposed to rush into my kitchen
to make sure I have the same brand

"She understands how much women care about their houses"
I look around
I am happy here but
A new cake of soap doesn't send a thrill through my body
A fresh towel doesn't make me ******

I could make a grilled cheese sandwich
The way my ancestors, male and female have done
In a skillet with bread and cheese
If I squish it it, it becomes Panini

I check the mirror
I'm naked, and I see
I am a woman

because men do that
have a long history of it
my parents lost their fathers because of it
and i lost my husband and dates, too
so what do you do?
its not something you can control
so chasing them won't help at all
soothe the abandoned inner child
because you are no longer her
and you don't need them, so let them go

Everything "adult" was new
And I knew what I wanted to do
All undergrads are really the same
We want to get naked with someone, go insane

For those of us on lockdown in our families
This was our first chance, to get some, finally

I remember the discovery of the feel of a fully naked man
His muscles were so hard, he was so hairy I didn't understand
How I hadn't noticed all these things before
What can you know through clothes?  You need more.

And I went through all the dramas
And I can remember all their names I promise
I saw, I experienced the beginnings, middles and ends
And I had my ups and downs, it just depends

And now it's not that I'm bored with it all
It's just I think I know how much it hurts when you fall
Everything seems to matter so much more
I'm not just a kid, living mostly on my parent's money in a dorm.

A big American auto dealership shining bright
Silver columns glint in the morning light
Displaying brand new cars at different angles and heights
It pops out of the dull landscape like a bright star at night
But it was not so long ago
That we were about to lose this all
And I remember the swan song before the fall
It's amazing it's there now, standing tall
I was living in NYC
Married, my husband and me
and it was all about the SUV
we saw no reason to conserve any energy
The rest of the world was thinking
Our resources are shrinking
Maybe our cars, should, too
And that was really the thing to do
But ask an exec back in Detroit
What to do right now, what is right
And bigger is better like might makes right
Would be the answer, a sorry plight
And then it all crashed and burned
would not work, like an SUV that could not turn
down a narrow street in an older part of town
made before we thought less of me and more of the crowd
And I'm not glad for the greedy execs
but it was really about American workers necks
I'm glad we helped the car industry
Will it happen again? We shall see.

It's condescention.  120 proof
And I am woozy, the room is spinning
and I feel sick like I have to get out of here
get out of this place
and you were supposed to help me, protect me
and can't you see I am going through
what you did?  can't you see?

My Facebook friend turned cyber lover
no, I won't send you any those kind of pics and
you say you like me,  then my voice on the phone
I forgot if I like you
we both like to crawl up steep hills but who
are you?
I am afraid, this just early stage or ending/beginning that
never went anywhere what is this? Silly cyber friend
so new to me and maybe in my worries I forgot to ask
do I like you?

I was the better half to the whole, he said
To our friends, it's the polite and preppy thing after we wed
And when it came to and end
That slice down the middle was pain
And I limped off, half empty
Waiting to be filled again

Eight years later
some romance, a few letters
A lot of work, remaking my life
Can't tell you there's been no strife
OK, there's been plenty, it's been a struggle
And often, I'm in a muddle
But I noticed something yesterday,
That makes me want to shout out and say:

I am a whole person rising
maybe not complete yet
But I'd put money on it, I'd bet
That I'll finish the job one day
Yesterday
Walking in my old 'hood
Down on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
On the beach, trudging through sand
Listening to the melody of a day as I can
People having fun,
Their work is done
And I felt fine
I wasn't about to pine
for someone's witheld love
or untimely absence
I felt good, not sitting on a fence
watching a world go by
of whole people, living high
I was one of them I swear
Listening and breathing and really there

We listened to "Modern English"
Remember that band?
And people started dancing in the sand
When they played their hit from 1983
And I remember it, mercy me
I was feeling good, perched on a bench in the crowd
Sipping a foamy Boardwalk beer, eating fried artichokes, the  band was loud
And I felt complete like a total ecosystem
Fully functional, and happy, just one of the crowd and with them.

Most breeze through the Boardwalk Big Dipper Bling
Ocean Street Sleeze, and a walk on Cowell Beach and say
I've seen it all, that's Santa Cruz, as they cruise off on highway 1
or crash into the barriers or 17 but that's not all, at all
I love Santa Cruz on a bright sunny day in May as I
gorge on the Indian vegetarian buffet, available all day, by the way
And check out the O'Niel sidewalk sale, and then past the sweaty crowds in front
of the Cineplex and the sign in the window display at Camouflage that reminds:
May is National ******* Month, are you doing your part?
and at Pergolesi a homemade sign says "friends don't let friends drink Starbucks"
and there are two art house cinemas within 200 yards of each other
and there are lesbians holding hands and homeless people breathing the fresh air
with their shelter pets and I feel free
like anything can happen here, even me

You can ask why
But there is no answer
Why do some people
get run over by trucks
while others cross streets safely?
Why do some kids get cancer
and some have everything they desire?
There is only so much we can control
only some much to hold, the rest is a game of cards
and all you can do is fight hard at your demons

They look at you, even show horses, with eyes wild
eyes not meant to look around
because ears look around for horse and eyes see around
but don't move
but they do in a trailer when they wonder
why have you put me in this small box that moves
and you looked at me like that, with large watery eyes
opened up from their usual almond shape
why so frightened?

I can't carry this for you
because this is yours, this fear of me
this is is something I sense but it is not familiar to me
it is not me that is causing it
what is it? what is your projection

a phantom and guilt perhaps
and knowing you did not do the right thing
but suspicion it is my fault you hurt me
silly little man
I can't fallow your thoughts that make no
sense
never did
but I will not hold this for you
This wild stare
and what it means
is yours
not mine

I feel quite content
This single life doesn't seem like cement
locking me in
what bothers me comes from the outside
It's economic and I'd surmise
If that were to end
I don't know if I'd love again
I see men passing
The flirt, the passion
you can catch it online
Will there ever be a time? To love again...

When it is quiet enough
to hear
wind through Pine trees
and no traffic or sounds
of human destructive civilization
that only owns and exploits
and oppresses and extinguishes
then I know I am
high enough and peaceful

Pine trees are dry
as hot wind slithers through the needles
a soothing sound
far away and out of reach
of those who would take and crush
what is priceless

So tired
Back to work and then there's this social event and that social event
and the last one is the best one and I'm still trying to get over not having
last years job that was taken from me and given to you and still
trying not to even think about this because this is a whole new year and

Driving past Napa Valley's Wineries
Hotels, Buses, wine
Everything wine and I don't know where I'm going
My GPS broke, and the directions are drive straight and you'll see it

Suburbia has turned into true wealth
I've gone back in time, wine Haciendas on hill tops
like feudal mansions, waiting for the peasants to do the actual
work of wine, the dirt and the sweat of wine as the owners
twiddle their thumbs and worry about the stock market and their wine

I arrive at my Castle.  For a few moments I will be allowed to taste
the lifestyle of the wine and pretend that I too belong in this castle
watching grapes ripen and waiting for the teaming hordes to do my work
and the mechanical wine processors sit idly waiting for the grapes and I feel a tinge of
sadness and fear for the grapes to be processed like in a slaughter house
until I realize they are only fruit, and not mammals

And on the hot deck overlooking the beautiful, silent valley with grapes ripening before
our eyes the only chair left is next to you

I sit down and look to my right and I see the woman who I feared would take my job and now did
and I wonder how it is that this has happened that I've driven for miles in the hot sun
through miles of grapevines only to be made to sit next to you who jealously drooled over
my job and could never say anything good about my work and then you won.

And we talk and I'm very clever and you don't like that because I'm supposed to be stupid
and it's supposed to be obvious why you got the job not me and not some seniority thing
and you say nothing nice, and it's only me keeping up a charade of conversation that
could turn ugly at the drop of a pin but doesn't due to my skill
and you then leave made uncomfortable by the evidence of my continued existence
and lack of dumbness

And it's only later that I realize in my imagination I wanted to hurl you from the deck
and into the wine press

1984, my new Macintosh 512K gleamed before me
So modern.  I was on the cutting edge cusp of the techno revolution
I remember the sound it made as you put in the start up disk
That disk was so small, like smaller than a 45 record and stiff like a credit card

We were all so techno.  
Everyone who was anyone in my dorm had ditched their IBM Selectrics for a Mac.
I couldn't type, so this was a total just plain survival
Being able to sleep through the sound of that dot matrix printer pounding out
a paper you'd just finished at 9 AM for a 10 AM class became a dorm life skill

I got an i-phone today.  It's so kool and modern
I am so techno and I look around the
Verizon store and wonder how quaint a picture of this place will look
in 50 years.
What will be new then?
This store will look like the computer that filled a warehouse to send astronauts to the moon.
And it's that technology that gave me the i-phone
What lasts?  
Ideas, meaning, poems, concepts, stories, universal truths...the same things
the ancients could carry with them from camp to camp

All our eyes politely averted, twitching around we inspect each other
Women's locker room, women's body

Endless variations but I'm always struck
by our vulnerability
Our body carries us, our consciousness
but is clearly designed for the use of another
Nothing much to protect it
Endlessly prepared for the act of making another
Soft and swinging, nauseatingly available

And I understand
how for centuries we have been merely chattel
with great potentials
because our body is so overwhelming
so obviously important
for survival and therefore valuable and coveted
and our own will
so easily suppressed
by a chance encounter
desired or not

Bleeding every month on it's own timeline
never very strong
An agenda of it's own
that easily co-operates with an enemy
A walking science experiment

And yet
It is ours
We put up with it
it belongs to us

If we can protect it
We can do as we like

Panic ensues, desperate OCD
I know I'm truly crazy
What to do with this **** phone?
The call I want won't come through on its own
I need it, can't destroy it
Right now I'd like to boil it
I need to be away from civilization
I'm not made for normal conversation
I tried to turn it off and it resisted
I had to press real hard, but finally it desisted.  
Peace.

How long this day seemed
Every minute was an hour
Every hour was at least three
the big question: how bad
And the even bigger how bad
would I be?
But after one day that seemed like three it
wasn't good, but not so bad
So there is still a struggle, a slight hope
And I feel like I am floating: it's over

I'm serious.  I expected more in a place so near the Bay Area, the most
liberal city in America, San Francisco, that
I would not be kind of ahead of my time but somehow agrarian culture, no matter
how high end does seem to breed a kind of conservatism,
how could it not when it resembles feudal wealth, with busy little foreigners
living in tents doing all the work, as the serfs of yesteryear, days bygone in another land
or not, bearing a resemblance perhaps to the South, well, at least they do get paid and
can't be beaten physically, at least not in public but I digress
my ideas, more than a few of them, from my female vocal cords, and feminine visage
and curves that fill out my dress and full head of hair which is becoming increasingly rare
in men my age still, here.
What I said, suggested, noticed, presented was only heard or appreciated when it was later said
suggested or presented by a male, usually about six at least months later in the endless chatter of meetings and chance discoveries
And I know this is not the place for me
where only a male voice
where only a male package between one's legs
a very primitive way of determining what gets heard,
a way that resembles that of dogs who sniff each other and not
humans who have frontal cortexes and high order thinking
had what I said come from the less shapely, thinner lips of a testosterone laden individual
I think
in this place
they would have been heard
and absorbed long ago

I forgot part of the question
                                                          what was it?
Learning                                  history                                your
she  was too young, so was I
need a good grade...am at the coffee shop...drank the coffee....ate the cookie
wasted time on FB                    the question WAS
It pulls on me and someone puts on Death Metal and there's this gutteral gravely synthesized voice
and (what was the que--)
being pulled, resisting, but it's too strong
and I'm in
floating in memory....the question
to answer I have to slit my chest open and let some of the contents run free
as I ... it wasn't all books and pencils and how dare you ask such a question
my life wasn't a hallmark card
she was only 10 and she was my best friend so that means I was only 10
My learning history--how can I even think...we had a psychic bond we did a test
and it showed and she was a little chubby with golden skin and
her father was creepy and he left out his copies of Hustler for me to see and
told me beauty was in the eye of the beholder
but to **** a ten year old that is vile
I remember...a day or so later, going over to her house where she showed me
what she brought home from the hospital
(chalk and teachers, and winning jelly beans for knowing state capitals)
and she had coca cola in her fridge and all the latest appliances from Sears because
her father worked there, like a push button phone and a washer/dryer with a digital display
and clocks, too, like that and when she told me what happened it was like
being electrocuted painlessly for about three hours and I had to leave
because...books.  drawing things and teacher don't give a **** about anyone
and today, children are much more protected and people talk about things
but then
(my learning history? I remember desks, and boards and being nervous)
and how can a grown man take a ten year old he knows and tell her
they were going to find someone and instead
stop the van, just looked like her father's van
(today we are doing long division)
demand she goes into the back of the van and take off her pants
and stick his tongue in her mouth
and then kick her out
bleeding so she ran to a vet and they called the ambulance
(and she never came back to school)
and I started piling on more clothes, layers.  
You can't show those ... what is happening to you
and my learning history
I can first give you this
caked in blood and no, it's no longer bleeding, thought it was
I have unearthed something
there was something in the way and
that's why I couldn't answer the question

Crunch time, life time always in the way
Going through all the drama day after day fall away
things are never smooth,
I thought, I had an apartment, for my next move, now not
and I drive, hours and hours and fill out applications for threadbare little places
in a student's world, and there's a process and suspicion and a guy walking a dog
with a million tattoos and a beach about five minutes away and just give my this apartment today
So I can write, finish my great tapestry, my mastery of this storyline that has been in my mind
for ages, needs to be fleshed out, so I can get it out, of my head
and stop this disease, so please, let me stabalize enough inside and out to make it
put it out, on that computer screen,
until I have that, I am nothing.

It's a curse to have these ideas flitting around inside your head
Begging to be written down and fleshed out and understood
I start going on it, I try, and then I think this is no good
just stop and I fight through that because the ideas still come
and it's so hard because writing is thinking and it's all a part
of me, damaged me who is insecure and battered and confused
and anxious and filled with ideas and creativity so I return
to my script, my painful birthing process that must finally be done
but it's so hard, and my mind muscles tear and want to run away
So I must be strong, I must stay

Yesterday I was your shining star
Today to you I'm nothing
Yesterday you smiled at me ear to ear
I felt so honored, to have you near
I was overcome by that seratonin fix
Today I went around in a deficit

I called another one of you last night
He's the one I used to live for
And honestly, I just can't get my fix from him anymore

Tomorrow maybe you'll look upon me kindly
Or not, whatever suits you nicely
It's clear it doesn't matter much to you
What exactly that I do

There have been many of you
Won't give me the attention I crave
Never have, never will
That's why I picked you
A moving target
a mirage
You keep me hungry
Today will be no different
Or tomorrow or next year
My child's mind tells me to pursue
Of this, I must let go
turn away, on to something new

I saw you today but I must not dwell and not
get drawn in again by your enthusiasm for me
that lasts only as long as I become interested and then
disappears

You are a mirage, a man I see and can only wonder about
and now you sense my distance--how hard I've worked
for this distance--how much therapy meditation hypnosis
and now there you sit coyly beckoning that if I
answer it will disappear like a mirage

It is not real
You are not an oasis in the desert
You are a fantasy rising from the wavy heat of
my worry and anxiety and sadness
which blurs my vision and makes me vulnerable to
your sweet little smile and sidelong glances
and the feeling that you'd like for me to
flirt again and feel excited to see you every day
only to be avoided as I reach out
I can't go back
I must not go back

I gaze at you from far away
How you used to brighten my day
I looked forward to meeting
feeling my heart beating
the warmth of your smile
kept me going for awhile
wondering what the next day would hold
it never, ever got old
now you are still within reach
but I might as well be at the beach
I cannot approach or touch
no one notices, it's not much
but to me it was everything
and now it's gone, like my old wedding ring

Right now, you know your truth
You may be separating from yourself, one half on the roof
the other half with the fool you're trying to impress
Is he really different from the rest?

Oh, I've been all through it
Those beautiful beginnings, just be receptive, don't stir it
Make like he's the best,
Like his conversations are never less
important than what you're thinking of
Bury yourself in it, let it carry you off

You can live like that for years, even your whole life
You can hide all the conflict, all your inner strife
You can submerge yourself so deep
It would take a detective to find it, and then it would be asleep

But you know what you know
That will always be there
And if there's some kind of friction with reality
You have to care
You have to listen and honor this for yourself
Otherwise, you'll spend your life gathering dust, numb, and hidden on life's back shelf

The internet is a dangerous place
For the likes of me
Man addicts

My fingers quiver, like on a trigger of a gun
to search or not
anxiety tells me the pain will go away
if I know what you are up to
one more time
find out the latest
and then I'll be satisfied

As my grandfather would tell himself
one more drink and he would stop
and all would be well

All the yous, mind you
Because there have been many
Who I loved as much as
I like my mother
which isn't much
and explains the attraction

Mining my imagination
on a storytelling journey
I could so easily slip
as I become tired
or afraid of this task
or feel unworthy of it
one small click and
I could be gone

I don't need to know anymore about the yous
yes, plural, even though we don't have that in English
There is nothing more to know
Only to replace them with something real

Is precious, should have a "handle with care" label on it
Guard against defamation that comes from the outside
But most especially support and protect what is true on the inside
Align with your true self, strengthen it, learn to love it and you will always be OK

After we talked
Your glance
down my naked leg
like a feather
a cool breeze
I felt it

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

All beginnings are beautiful, the French say
Maybe that is why betrayal stings, a finger in a light socket
a lasting burn, like a blister on my foot, my pace is made painful
I walk wounded, stop to try to salve the wound, protect it with the gauze bandage of
"it is over now, he can't hurt you anymore" which bleeds through and needs to be
changed, reminded, advice and commiseration of friends is the antibiotic salve

I look at you and remember a one time mentor and now I watch your behavior
a plastic bag in the wind, your opinions and pronouncements tossed here and there
hour by hour, depending on who is there at the moment to influence you
Shapeshifter you are, talk is too dangerous now
my resentment bubbles over like a hot, shaken, warm soda, even if I try to keep
the cap on, once the froth commences, there is no help, I can't hide it as the liquid
radioactive anger spills forth onto my hand and onto you

So hard for me to accept the death of a relationship
You are still alive and breathing, so how can it be that something is dead?
But there is that dead space between us and a fear of you
in me, and memories, like little sores, in my belly of your abuse
of the wetness of my tears that destroyed the art of my make-up
washed away the eye liner on my bottom lid, as if it was my dignity

Frightened, you looked at me
your prize, your student
a good study and agreeable, too
making good progress
Now pushed aside

From across the interstate of your desk
You stared, impotent
A decision from above, no choice
for me
or for you

Your mood slides down the *****
You panic: you must not feel bad
The brain must save itself from hurt
You say things, rationalizations
zoom through your brain and spurt
straight from your mouth
no censorship for my tender feelings

The next day
you are slumped in your power chair
glasses dripping off your nose
eyes stare vaguely at nothing
The pulsing electric screen
forgotten

The next day
your head in your hands
oblivious to your surroundings
Should I check your pulse?
I didn't want to offend

I was wrong
It wasn't cruelty
It was just a scared man
trying to save his own feelings

I miss our conversations
the attention
you who made me tremble
I miss the rushing heart beat
My compulsion
makes no sense
I want you

You say, I love your body
You only have a picture and I liquified it to make me skinnier
never thought I'd get a notice, now you invite me
It would take me out of my loneliness
but can I expose myself to the pain of
seeing me for real? what a stupid predicament
Oh, my body, I changed my meds, gained even more weight
God. The softness of vulnerability
I want to take your invitation
should...but I am sealed over
plastic veneer breaking, want to reach out and touch
want that human warmth, to destroy me