The smell of salt water invokes the image of the sea shore.
The flush of red in lips makes one feel lustful.
A rocking sensation reminds one of the comfort of the womb.
But here in this bar, the sight of that Jameson bottle on the wall makes me think of nothing
But you.
You.
Unholy you,
With one hand brushing back unruly locks,
The other fiddling with a half-empty glass,
And that look on your face
Because you know exactly what’s going through my mind,
You.
And that green bottle perched on a shelf.
The bartender tries to hand me my gin and tonic,
But my eyes hover above her hair,
On the dim haze of a gleam on the dusty glass,
And suddenly the haze becomes hazier,
Blurry with the unexpected moisture pooling in my eyes.
Because it’s not just from you anymore,
The **** thing is a part of me,
Because I’ll never forget when you said my eyes are the color of the glass,
Your favorite bottle,
With your famous mischievous grin,
But a softer look in your eye,
So that I know what you really mean.
It’s not just that subtle bottle green color,
It’s the fact that you can’t get enough.
Drink after drink thrown back,
And just like your glass,
You throw me down,
And you say
“I’m thirsty.”
You consume me as easily as you consume whiskey,
And I’m an essence in a bottle to you.
Bought and sold,
A commodity to be replaced,
Because you’re insatiable...
But as I stand here with my eyes on that bottle,
I realize…
I don’t want to be your addiction anymore.

I want something to happen,
Something large,
Something new,
I want something to happen,
Something that will jar me out of this monotony,
Eject me into space,
Bursting through the atmosphere like a bird breaking the surface of the water on its way back up.
Red lightning,
Yes,
I want red lightning,
Unexpected and violent,
Something I’ve never seen before
A person,
A thing,
An opportunity,
A new start,
A something,
Anything that will throw me,
Launch me,
Startle me,
Change me,
Or at the very least,
Make me feel.
Give me red lightning,
Someone,
Anyone,
Find me some red lightning.

The boat bobs with the rhythm of the ocean,
And it’s serene,
The motion mimicking that of a mother’s womb,
Calming,
Out of my hands…
But everything is out of my hands,
Because I’m no bird.
Though not being a bird means
That no net ensnares me,
It also means that I cannot fly away from this place,
Right here on this wave,
On this boat,
In this sea.
I’m no bird,
And no wings will carry me,
No adventure awaits me,
I simply sit.
Alone.

Le jour où mon père est mort
I suppose I did a little, too.
Le jour où mon père est parti
A part of me left as well.
Mon père, il ne vouloi pas partir,
Mais ici nous sont,
Trois plutôt que quatre.
Le jour où mon père est mort,
Une l’oiseau a volé dans une fenêtre.
Il frappé une fenêtre.
Mon père guéri l'oiseau
Before his soul left the earth.
Et il a volé.

It’s time to talk about it,
It’s time to talk about the nightmares.
I’ve lived in fear of sleep for far too long,
Years,
A lifetime,
Struggling to make a home in my head
When it feels like a foreign country
A new one
Every night.

Something about my own mind makes me uneasy
Each time I lay down.
Something turns my stomach,
And I get a prickle under my skin.
I get cold and hot all at once,
And I can’t get comfortable,
And as sleep creeps over me like an island fog,
I shudder,
Knowing,
Feeling,
Sensing…
They’re coming.
The nightmares.
Nightmares…

Ironically,
They don’t only come at night.
They come when they please,
As long as my guard is down,
And my subconscious at play.
They jimmy open the windows
And crawl in under the shadows.
And when they’ve arrived,
They seize me,
And I’m trapped in slumber,
Awake enough to be terrified of what they show me,
Just not enough to shake them out of my head.

Odd lights swing about as if fixed to the roof of a dancing house,
And bizarre scenes are partially illuminated in the infrequent light.
My memories betray me,
Morphing into something monstrous.
The worst of them-
My arms in a grip stronger than mine,
Cold eyes looking at me flatly
As words come out
Evil and wrong,
And me,
Paralyzed.
My father,
Dying in the living room,
Everyone prepared,
But no one ready,
And me,
Knowing what was to come from a dream sent to me,
Gentler than the rest…

They’re not always memories.
On occasion
My imagination runs hand in hand with my fear
And I become a victim to one crime after the next.
The villain is anonymous,
Or sometimes someone I know,
But they’re always armed,
Grinning cruelly as they berate me,
Hurt me,
**** me.
Natural disasters destroy my home,
Wars commence,
And animals speak,
Surreal chaos reigning
Until the ring of an alarm
Or a gentle shove
Awakens me.

My head throbs and my chest aches and the visions continue to play silently.
The nightmares fade excruciatingly slow,
A faint reminder that they will return again.

In the dark of my room,
I lightly tap the pads of my fingers
against the smooth keys
of my typewriter,
Hoping that the gentle reminder
Will awaken my subconscious,
And the words will come.
The gentle trails of incense smoke
Drift drunkenly around me,
Like a haze of memories wrung out
And overused.
I sigh,
Accepting that I may require refueling,
Recharging,
Replenishing of the nourishment
On which my work sustains itself.
I stall,
Grasp for any last resource,
And when I find nothing,
I sigh,
Finally conceding.
I need it to write,
And I need to write to live,
And though writing makes it hard to stand the noise of human contact,
The ugly distraction of romance,
The sweaty, *****, selfish people,
That I have to smile at and touch.
I suppose I have no choice
But to face the war zone that is humanity
And collect.
I rise from my little desk,
Gather my coat,
And prepare,
Begrudgingly,
To go out and experience.
In the outside,
I must laugh with others,
Hold a man or two,
Taste and feel and drop into every pool,
A pebble of disturbance,
And let the ripples unfurl new strings of words,
Lines and lines of poetry,
Bundles of stories,
Baskets of characters
Floating in on waves,
A long awaited reward
For an unpleasant,
Detestable
Deed.
Forging love,
Flowery romance,
For the sake of pulling and picking what I need
To color the pages of my work.
Back at my desk,
Weary from company,
My hands revive to complete my purpose,
The reason for my distress,
The thing that moves me,
But makes me want to be still,
What a suffocating paradox it is,
The unfortunate requirement of my condition.

Ma faiblesse
C’est important a la structure de moi.
C’est la chair à mes os...
La faille dans ma structure
c'était ma mort.