in school
we learned about hydraulic fracturing
when they would send pressurized chemicals into the earth
until the earth began to “frack”

well that’s what i felt like
when your words rained down upon me so hard
my brain began to crack

multimedia macramé
sloshing propaganda sewage
on the unsuspecting public
***** lice infest ****** hill folk
west Virginia outbreak threatening the world
as we know it
flesh altering nonsense explicitly graphed
charting movement of microbes
on air, land, and/ or sea
global currents the new deliverer of death –
infected immigrants sit smiling
internment camps providing nutrition
never before experienced
as non-natives negotiate freedom
by submitting to vaccinations baths
and the standard delousing powder –
paranoid hand-sanitizer users
glued to the **** tube
spray their shoes with disinfectant
praying to an absent GOD for health
while shoveling GMO corn chips into ever widening
mouth holes
pharmaceutical companies lick lifeless lips
as Congress recognizes their humanity
while rejecting the concerns of the poor
…..no money in it –
outlandish claims of outbreaking Ebola
flood the mainstream outlets
fear: version – infinity
one more plague plan to stimulate new legislation
more law
no touching
even looking at the infirm can be cause for isolation
radiation treatments
courtesy of Fukushima, reactors 1-4 –
new found focus on fracturing the shale
releasing new oil reserves
and old bacteria
dinosaur killers
free-radicals
radically changing the genetic code
humanity altered
once again –

Post-azure, cloud splashed sky,
washes with the suns descent,
breaking into melodies of sunset.
Fracturing into a blush,
the richness of the spectrum
makes itself known.
On a tangent of change,
amorphous clouds bleed
amber glow
and bittersweet combinations
of reds and yellows.
Vermillion streaks through,
and a few cloud folk turn titian,
like sumptuous surreal apricots
rotting in the sky,
that seem to augur
encroaching darkness.
Billows on the horizon
leak crimson,
like spilled wine on table cloth,
and pucker out
like blooms of flaming roses.
Fire refracted
coloured cousins of the sun
are dancing all about.

Here is the anthem
of wild transformation.
Here is cause
for quiet celebration.
Here at this fluent juncture.
Here at the closing of day.

The whole of the ocean below,
is the skies tremendous mirror.
It's reflection is variegated,
into variations a thousandfold.
Multitudinous, and ever differentiated,
distortions of above
ride the crests of waves.
Each apex is a new story.
Each new story,
just as soon as it is told,
comes crashing into trough.
Each finale is the ****** of beginning.
The dynamic roar
of the oceans ever-changing topology
is rife with meaning.

Colossal symphonic wonders,
the primordial song,
releasing upon: the uni-
verse continual,
sending the manifest
to move, with the give and strain
of immaculate design.

Here ensconced
between the safety of light
and the mystery of night.
Here at the oceans edge.

Above, shades of catalina-blue, in conversation
with the outer most cosmic-black
dismiss earlier brighter hues.
Tinged by the infinite nature of space,
the jeweled dome darkens.
Overhead, the first stars appear,
sky transparent to beheld blackness.

Luxuriant, pulling horizon, attracts
violet into it's unfolding theatrics.
Bloodied clouds turn purplish, then black,
a darkening rawness allures,
decaying with vivid beauty,
tragedies of a rouged romance
drug down into shadows play,
searingly alive, extraordinarily actual.

And then, the hush of dusk.
Darkness is felled, like silence.
Scintillating stars
strengthen in the nights
surrounding abyss;
giving radiance definition.

Dynamic Beauty
Lives In Transition,
Oppositions
Compliment.

Silence.

This is all we hear now.

Gone are the sweet words of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity.

Gone is her radiant light that illuminated our world.

We have been thrown back into the darkness that haunted us for so long.

Yet there are no screams to torment us. No hisses to harm us.

Even the Solitude is silent.

Perhaps it has taken pity upon us.

Or perhaps it has learned a new method of torment.

Yet there are echoes that boom through the darkness, flashing memories in the sparks of light that accompany them.

The absence of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity has turned the passion in our veins to poison. We feel our very soul dying, fracturing from its touch.

We beg for the light of the Perfection, but darkness is all that answers us.

There is none to come to our aid.

Our only solace is the words once written by the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity.

Yet even these words cut deeper into our wounds, twisting into our heart as haunting reminders of what we cannot have.

The mind cannot help but endlessly repeat the memories we created, its gaze unblinking while they continue to cast lacerations upon it.

We have tried in vain to pull the mind away from the memories, to save it from the anguish.

But it has become paralyzed, caught in a horrendous cycle of elation and devastation.

We are left with no other option but to numb the mind beneath a sea of liquid repression.

Yet even then, she visits us in our dreams, giving us the company we desired so desperately before, only to awaken to the twilight that perpetually surrounds us.

Silence.

This is all we hear now.

We have been forsaken, left to brood over our deeds while we lie upon the cold ground that is littered with barbs and thorns created by our own foolishness.

The Solitude looms over us, watching us shiver in pain as the blood from our wounds stains the ground.

We feel its harsh glare bore into our very soul, while the specters of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity eternally whisper her words in our ear.

Our strength is dwindling, and our desire to carry on is fading, for all we see upon this path is agony and torment.

Our path is wrought with cracks and blades from lovers past.

The Sapphire-Eyed Serenity
The Traveler
The Fallen One
The Distant One
The Nameless

They have each riddled our path and our hearts with scars that shall never fade.

And the Solitude vows that it will continue this cycle for eternity.

That it will force us to crawl upon this wretched path, relentlessly reliving this horror if we dare continue.

Yet despite the twilight and anguish, despite our forsaken soul, there is one who has stretched his hand in aid.

The Companion.

Unaffected by our plagues and spines on our path, he kneels beside us and speaks a single word that sends the Solitude into rage.

*Rise.

Come to me,
come to me
with paper and pencil
and too much coffee.

Come to me
like the Sahara.

Come to me
like skyscrapers
and bandaged
clouds.

Come to me
in a whirl of flesh
vivid as oil
under a streetlight,
I will make a rainbow.

Come to me with optimism
or pessimism,
hope and death.

Come to me
like I came to you in the night,
when you were suicidal
and I had to hold you
away from your stash
of oxy's
like a knot
and uncoil myself
in the morning.

Come to me
when the fish run,
and the whales
scream
and the jellyfish
wash ashore
like glass hearts
solid and fracturing.

Fracturing my mind, shatter like painted glass,
Smash the memories, Light a match and soak in gas,
I can't handle my own thoughts, too many at once,
All contradictions of the others, no coincidence,
I need to break it all away, all of it in pieces,
So all of my emotions, my mind releases.

I beat my mind, like a racehorse jockey,
Beat it on down, like a goon in hockey,
Stab it a few times, with crossed information,
Did that mean? Nope just hope from infatuation.

please shut up and let me pretend
that the streetlight shining through the
***** window is moonlight glittering
across my angel face, because
it is 3 in the morning and everything is
poised to break apart like
the ice on the Iowa River.

Maybe you said it once
And breathed it quietly in my ear
As we sat in your freezing car
Parked in front of the library
The roads were slick
But you were slicker
Handing out compliments like candy

Maybe you said it a couple of times
Over and over on the telephone
As we both laughed into the receiver
Me picturing your smile with every word
The connection was weak
But I was weaker
Falling head first into you

Maybe you said it a thousand times
And held my face in your hands
As we laid in that twin sized bed
Your body pressed against my own
The room was warm
But you were warmer
Moving for the first time in sync

But maybe you never said it at all
Or at least you never meant it
As you said this was the last time
Standing on the other side of the room
The air was heavy
But I felt heavier
Fracturing me piece by piece

Awaiting was I,
patience safely intact.
As the wind so fiercely flew, 
it blew my patience, away too .

How rude.

Walking was I, now,
confused was how I felt
as a sudden overwhelming sadness
Tore it's way through my body,
thrusting through my chest spitting tears upon my breast.

I stumble as my pace starts to increase...
it's thoughts of you that surfaces to my brain.. 
how dare you settle amongst my mind
how dare you resurface when I had this all sorted out
How dare you pretend you know me when I no longer know myself
How dare I contradict the very essences of my being through, thoughts of you.


A way with you distraughting thoughts, for you have always had a way of fracturing my fragile mind...


The rain she came and put me to more shame.
lame is my heart as my thoughts would not depart.
You may not be the first but, my God, I hope you are the last.
for you make the sun shine through my rain you are the stillness to my day
you are the laughter that chokes my throat.


I know you are with another, but I'm not just any other.
I don't wanna be with you for that repulses my conscience brain, even though I feel for you so. 
I want you to take this all away way, shove it in a bottle and chuck it out to sea
for the lovers that we will never be, to greet.

The echo of your "tomorrows" still ring in my ears,
Tis the creases upon your smiling face, I would still love to embrace. 
I know i said tis the happy you i'd chose and refuse the grump that most times appears..
but i fear that it's the all of you i'd like to greet when it shows to my feet. 

I heard me beat in side your heart once upon our time... 

Don't tell me it's normal to feel this way.
Don't tell me this is how it was all meant to be
and that you were meant for me
For it's still her untouched body that i crave 
what happen to my brave.. 

did you take that from me to the day i spoke to you...


-Yanehs magta

They had
once been here
before, beyond
the light years still
in the calm silence
of the dreamscape
of indigo and blue,
where came the
oceans of hearts
fracturing the
fabric of the
universe,
to create
and see none
other than
each other,
in the hour
of the midnight
realm, others
passing by
are silhouettes
in time and
ghosts painted
in their dream
of tidal eyes
upon each
other, wave  
on wave,
skin on skin,  
the breath
of one
vanishing
into the
voice of
a blue
butterfly
in soft
bloom,
tears
from the
stars
cascade
on the
lovers,
their
hands
in gentle
embrace,
rising to
the night
sky as
light
as the
dandelions
are returning
to the night,
as starseeds
of many,
twinkling
amidst the
the lovers,
whom are
adrift in
everything,
everything.

a withdrawal
from
cycle of life..
water
cycling since
primordial times..
afternoon rainstorms
diminished..
that rain from
earthly stimulation
now her flow
interrupted impure..
is now time
for fracturing
or for
joining and
return...?

There is a corrosion/a groove
            In the persona I've come
                       To believe.
    The mirrors in my eyes are shattering
     Around a turquoise salamander;
     His laughter made his presence
                          Known:
     (Orphaned in the depths of the
                  Alabaster forest;
Came rebirth, at the foot of the petrified tree.)
                  Shadow puppets;
  Constricting the shards of shattered mirrors.
                  Never relinquishing.
                         Never tireing.
    Fracturing my skull as memories try to escape.

The stars look bright tonight. The crisp summer breeze rolled across my bare skin as I lay shirtless beneath the dead oak tree near the lake.  The sky was clear, barely any obstruction from an innocent cloud that travelled down the vast black road that stretched on for eternity. I always loved coming here. So did my father.

It had been four years since he had died. The cause is still unknown. All I remember is the gaping hole in his chest as he... left. So many unanswered questions are lingering in the back of my mind. How did it happen? Who or what had done that to him? Why did it have to happen to him? Why not me? I feared that these questions hung inevitably in the unknown, locked away in a subconscious prison with no means of being bailed out.  Life had to continue though, no matter how unconditionally excruciating the pain may be in my chest when I miss him, no matter how many times I had cried myself to sleep because he wasn’t there to tell me that it will be OK whenever I had night terrors. They started soon after my mother died. I would wake up screaming and writhing in fear. My father would run into my room and bring me close to his chest. He would whisper in my ear “Shh son, it’s OK, nothing will get you. I am here now.  Calm down, you’re safe now.”

After the yelling had stopped he would carry me downstairs and into the garden. The cool air would cause the beads of sweat on my face to tingle. I always loved that feeling. It was the indication that I was back in reality. We would both sit on the grass. Dad would run inside and return carrying a large blanket. He would wrap it around the both of us. It always smelled just like my mother, a faint scent of lavender and honeysuckle. We would then peer into the sky, where dad would show me all of the constellations: Orion, Pegasus, Cetus, and other names that I couldn’t pronounce. “Each of these constellations tells a story, son” he would say to me as I tried to make sense of the jumble of stars that floated in the dark sky, “and one day, when the time comes, I will be up there. One day you will be able to tell your own children my story. All you have to do is simply look to the skies.”

I shook myself free from the painful reminiscence. I am eighteen, these things do not happen anymore. I stood up and stretched, feeling the muscles beneath my skin pull and uncoil. I strolled over to the lake. It was surrounded by thick forest, silhouetted against the black backdrop of the night’s horizon.  Ripples rolled over the surface of the silent lake. The crystal clear water reflected the night sky.  I took off my shoes and socks and dipped my foot into the water. The stars rippled around me. The water was lukewarm, refreshing after the scorching heat of another day that had passed me by. After testing the water I couldn’t resist. I took a few steps back, sprinted forwards and leaped into the air. I crashed into the water, fracturing the serene reflection of the night-time sky. The water cooled every fibre of my body. I let the water soak into my bare skin. I could feel my pores filling with the liquid, the bubbles brushing delicately over my legs and arms. I wanted to stay underwater forever.

I hit the surface, puncturing the barrier between tranquillity and realism. I ****** in the humid air and let it fill my lungs. I let myself float effortlessly onto my back and glided across the water. The stars sat there in the sky watching me. Up there somewhere, I knew there was somebody among them watching me too, smiling and waving as he saw this boy float upon a bed of water.

I wish he could be floating next to me this very moment and enjoy the placidity of the night.

I am ready
I disobey the god's revival
And trash the odds of my survival
Unlike my mother, and her mother before her,
I refuse to dabble in caution craft forevermore
Second sight seductive suasion
My vaulting vision sans precision
Harlot harbinger I am of endless happenstance
Sterilized with indecision
C'mon, baby-bomb, take a chance

I am ready, now,
To throw everything here away
It's all just trash and trials treacherous

Earlier today
I had a fever dream--
Of waking in another place
The sun fracturing the skin on my face
(But still I laugh to dance blind
And kiss the cyan sky)

I dream
Of the tandem-lipped tides that vie to taste me
Wet finger fringes ******* at my toes displace me
Rising up to bring me down
(Almost makes me want to drown)

...but here my bubble won't burst
Here it freezes first and dies of thirst

And so I am ready
To dance dollars out of rich Japanese businessmen
For paradise I can translate all their yen
It doesn't matter
If I slither for our supper
Or whether we sleep indoors tonight

Islands wild with abandon
We could be living radical and random
We could be living freezer-burn free
An outbound invite to jaded shade

This golden opportunity
(Hourglass sands swallowed by the sea)
The spiders of the rainforest are calling creepy
And queer, sustain and dim to disappear
Echoes of whispers from the ancient banyan tree
Calling me....

Everything has two sides
Two sides of the same horseshoe
Appearing to have different ideals
But secretly hating the same thing

The left hates religion
The right hates science
The left hate guns
The right like violence

The left are for equality
Of like minded people
The right are for liberties
Not necessarily equal

Two sides of the same horseshoe
Whether flat or broad
Thinking they are right
And the other one is flawed

When indeed they are inseparable
Both hating one another
Fracturing and dividing
Us and every other

With looping hillside vendors
and red-light beams stalking the
cigarette smoke clouds, clinging
behind business men mobs (of 4 or 5)

and fracturing wildly from green-glass
bottles of soju and the girls
(oh the girls) who guard and call
out from dark thresholds with only
a spotlight of pink neon from

(***, Trans Cafe, Eat Me)
the signs from above. And the glass
walls separating the men
from the girls and the short skirts
(plaid like schoolgirls) beckoning,

silent and alone, sitting on stools
(one leg over another) paid at the bars
for two drinks (and 250,000 Won)
usually by Americans, bored and trapped,

stranded (at Yongsun Army Garrison)
they venture Incheon at dark,
with sad eyes and lust, (trading paychecks
for hand jobs) guilty and delaying,
waiting for a three year tour (of
what feels like a lifetime) in Seoul
to end.

She sits there, fingers twitching erratically
Hands clasping, unclasping over each other

With the sunlight fracturing through rippled eyelids
I imagine I can almost see right into her eyes
Like paper soaked through with tears

But then she lowers her head
Shoulders sag from her weighted thoughts
Rays now falling to her ocean of hair

I wouldn't mind
But I can see the weariness she feels

She sits cross legged
But yet her back is weathered with unlived age
Her half smile barely reaches her lips
And her eyes

They're closed to contain the break lapping under her lashes
They're closed to trap the tears threatening to become lakes

They're closed and I don't mind
There's never a shortage of her to immerse myself in

Now it's her hands
Her hands are still moving
Wrinkles disturbing the still waters
Visions of waves promising to drag me down
To suffocate me among the depths of all I love of her

Trust me
I won't mind

Do I dare?

Do I dare shatter how you portray me?
Crack the mirror
Breaking how you know me to pieces,
Breaking how you think you know me to pieces.

Do I dare drown you in my pain?
The pain of past losses
The pain of past friends
Successfully attempting their suicidal deaths

Do I dare tell you the truth?
The truth about who I am
The fact that I pretend
Put on a counterfeit smile and pretend everything’s okay.

Do I dare say who I truly am?
That I’m asexual
With continuous social anxiety
Never really sure what to do around people.

Do I dare show my social anxiety?
Pretend everything’s okay when I’m scared inside
Show you how fragile I am
Show you how shattered I already am.

Do I dare break this facadé I created?
Fracturing everything I’ve worked so hard to create
Just to show my true emotions, how I really feel
And to be laughed at by my peers

Do I dare take a chance?
To put myself out there
To care about someone
Just to have them push me aside into my growing darkness

Do I dare care for anyone?
Because the last time this happened I couldn’t save them
They died on my watch
And I had to stand by, left here with the aftermath wondering what I could’ve done

Do I dare share my feelings, emotions?
Attach myself to another
When I feel that everyone I care about
Just leaves me in the end, one way or another

Do I dare care about life anymore?
It’s already wasted on me, a corpse of a being
Already half eaten, wasting away
To the point where I feel that keeping it short is best

Do I dare tell my friends?
How I truly feel
How I hate myself for my past
Not being able to help anyone

Do I dare be happy?
“Frolick in the flowers” is what they’ve told me
“Just release your sadness”
Yet you don’t know me nor have you ever spoken to me before now

Do I dare yell back at you?
Tell you how you’re wrong
How I’ll never change
How I am who I am.

Do I dare love who I am?
Yes.
With all my insecurities and faults
I will always make mistakes
But it’s how I overcome them.

Do I dare stand up for myself? For others?
I will always try my best
Even though some people need space or push me down
I feel that I need to find courage in my broken, bandaged heart

Do I dare speak my mind? Show my true colors?
I’m not sure, nor will I ever be sure
Yet I know that my true friends,
The ones that helped bandage my heart
The ones that helped repair my shattered self
Will always let me be who I am

Thanks to all who have let me be me
But the question still stands
Do I Dare?

I believe in just the right amount of light.
I've learned that in photography.
Not enough, means the subject is in the dark,
Too much and everything is washed out.
In either case, the texture of the subject is lost.
Too much light and you lose the shadows,
and shadows are important for the vibrancy of the picture.
Too little light and the shadows overwhelm.

I believe in just the right amount of light in life.
Too much and you have the Pollyanna syndrome.
Too little and you fall into despair.
If it's just right, life will have a rich and vital texture.
And the shadows are important.
They give the highlights contrast and meaning.

The photographer also believes in color.
Black and white has its place,
But in the end color is king
And gives a photograph life.
Color depends upon light,
The right amount of light.
Color is a fracturing of the rays of light.

I believe in a colorful life.
Not too garish
Certainly not too drab.
But just right.

How do we get there?
How do we balance the light and color in our lives?
No balancing act is ever easy.
Even Goldilocks had to deal with three hungry bears.
Angels find it hard to dance on the head of a pin.
After years of practice jugglers sometime drop the ball.
I'm still dropping the ball far too often.
But now and then a burst of light breaks through the clouds
And for a moment, I glow in the dark.

all was peaceful
   serene
      secure
content in this
sleepy isolation
with only the dogs
for company
had i wished
to disturb their
soothing repose
reading
a little-known novel
once heralded
the hero
if he could
be called such
was fracturing
slowly
on the brink
of shattering

before the incendiary
final pages
could be reached
this dormant comfort
erupted
interrupted
by a shattering
much closer
   to home;
both dogs
and man
on the highest
of alert
searching
for a cause
anything
   to blame
but finding
nothing

the black and white photographs you took
five years past still hang framed in my room,
just above my turntable. Deja Entendu
spills from the stereo as the needle finds its groove.
a shelf filled with all the records
we used to listen to for hours
lines the wall and succulents
adorn the windowsill, waiting patiently
for the rare rays of sun, golden
and flossy as your hair,
which somehow manage
to peek between the tenement rooftops
every now and then.

we still live in the same town. sometimes,
people bring you up. they ask me how you are,
how long it's been since i've heard from you.
i neglect to tell them that, aside from absentee
notifications popping up on my phone
at intermittent variations, we've only spoken once,
in a crowded, little coffee shop
in the city we both love to hate.

you pretended you didn't see me, but i felt your eyes
notice me at the bar as i sat typing another story,
bobbing my head, listening to Daughter.
if i hadn't approached you, i imagine
you would've acted like i was invisible.
the conversation was terse, abbreviated.
i find it strange how once
we were the best of friends
and now we can sit twenty feet apart
and act like we never knew each other at all.
i can't really recall why
our friendship collapsed in the first place.
have i suppressed it? or was it just the casual
slip, like Pangea, elapsed time
fracturing our continent.

I don't know
how much longer I can cope
with the demons
in my head
and monsters under my bed
I feel the walls caving in
crumpling like
paper
slowly giving way
to the pressure
slowly fracturing and tearing
at the structure
of my
Barely. Breathing. Heart.

they let their sticky humid hands
hold my glitching hologram body
against the scratchy playhouse
walls and drag their clammy
claws where no child should
think to rub all the while
whispering into my vacant ears
how they would beat me and
bite me and cut me and kick me
if anyone were to ever find out
our little game as tapeworm
tears sludged from my sickly
sweet rotting eyesockets and
down my shiny shaking dust
stained cheeks silently over my
cold and closing throat and
when my dad finally ripped the
splintering wooden door across
the sandy shifting floor i was so
pale pink blue i could have been
six hours dead save for my
fracturing porcelain and
plexiglass heart destructive and
bashing and shattering itself
through my frail and brittle
crumbling ribcage whispering to
me how badly my dad would
scream at me for the way we
were playing

The forest, as if in suspended animation
Exploded in a cacophony of sound

It was nothing more than a twig
Snapping beneath the weight of a padded paw

Yet, the silence was shattered by this atypical step
By this stealthy dark shadow slowly moving through the forest

His heart raced!
His usual calm...replaced by an awkward anticipation

Earlier, a howl he had heard off in the distance
So familiar, yet as if from another lifetime, beckoned

Ahead, with the dusky sky as it's canvas
A giant white pine stands as a sentinel, protecting...

...a lone silent figure...

Carefully, quietly, he approached
"I can hear you" said the now, not so silent figure
"In fact, the whole forest can!" she giggled

His golden eyes, now, intently stared directly into hers
"I heard your howl", he said attentively
"I knew U would come", she assuredly replied, "U are always there for me."

As he drew closer, she asked..."Am I dreaming?"
"Does it matter?", he inquired

Her breath quickened, slowly fracturing
As did her fragile spine as her body contorted

Into a shifting form, that would mimic his
Strong and sinewy

Rejuvenated, she moved with assurance
Once again, feeling familiarity in this form

In her sheen coat of white fur, she now stood
Next to him, and his coat of fur that matched the raven's wing

They stood in contrasting, yet symbiotic fashion
He pulled her closer, and without making a sound
Gestured that it was time for them to go...


(c) 2013 Shawn White Eagle

They always comes first
everything comes first
the meds, the doctors, the hospitals
the bleeding, the bruising, the fracturing
the screaming, the despersonalization
the doping, the doping, the doping,
and then me.
why me after all this
why not me before the first medication?
i wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and i've come to a conclusion
that i'm way too ******* selfish
you've got a life &
you need to care take of it
before you try to
call me & notify me
about your
doping
and
your life
and your
pain,
but through all
of this
all i feel
is the pain of waiting
too,
don't you see?
it's me, waiting for you
here.

It’s nights like these;
when the sky feels raw-quiet
and the moon hangs so low-heavy
and pulpy, parchment yellow,
dripping and left to sun-stain and disintegrate
against dull ghost stories
and stinging to-do lists.
This is when I feel it- the fracturing.
You’re out of sight.
I’m out of mind.  

I crack the window,
blink loose stars out of focus
and send them shotgun galloping
across the flat-hum pulsing,
tin tinged and navy evening static.

The North Star needs new batteries.
He flickers and sways but won’t
extinguish. He is soft and solemn-
a lazing, dazing anchor whose fraying rope
weaves bowline knots
and hitching ties
into each inch of my drying hair.

Every strand of the night breathes itself into life.
The pieces are softening and shifting,
howling and crawling.
They become young men planning,
flexing at high tide and daring
each other further out with each set of waves.
They are posing, pretending to be
what they think the word ‘reckless’ means.

They are throwing their bodies into surf
and wailing.
They are crashing hard
and violent
against the shore.

They are shaking out golden limbs
and rubbing bloodshot eyes.
I watch bruises bloom and gashes erupt a flash
of crimson before salt water clean and stung.

They are flashing gleeful smiles
and throwing taunting screams across
whole seas while diving back,
quickly, elegantly,
into the same rough surf
that just spit them out.

Maybe they’re proactive,
maybe things hurts less when you
know where the hurt will come from.
Maybe the game isn’t to stay lovely
and bright and whole;
but to know pain’s possibilities so intimately
that when it comes time for you to break
you can do so without shattering
completely.

Nights like these;
sitting cross-legged with a blank
page open and an aching, reeling,
sickly-warm ribbon sprouting from my molars-
I get it.

Streamers wave proudly across
my body.
They grip and simmer,
they wind tightly around  
organs and bones who
gave up their hiding spots
and surrendered their secrets
the first time I let him come in.

The strings are bright and knot themselves tight.
They tether my windpipe,
weld each rib colorfully between sternum and spine.
They coil down and tie off;
thick, swaddled and bobbing, bowing
themselves regally around my coccyx.

Nights like these I have no armor.
Where is my skin?
I stir and rattle to even the slightest shift of Earth.
Exposed and quaking, I body-map bolts of light.
The light is tap dancing over lungs,
igniting blood and ricocheting through the summer camp,
arts and crafts hysteria fusing my anatomy.
It plunge pastels deep into the marrow of my bones.
The room is smoky, my gut splashes about, electrocuted.
I stop feeling tired.

The thing is- what I’m really trying to say,
is that I have no words right now.
There are no pretty lines caught in the twine of
my hip joints and no fiery prose laying
eggs in my spinal fluid.

There is no poem to write
about the fleshy, sour
smell of my own heart
roasting on a pyre or the hours it will take
to scrub off the charred bits of melting muscle
now staining the carpet.

This bitter heat creeping up my throat
and the sallow contraction of my
belly are not the prologue to a revolution-
my diagnosis is not a metaphor.

They are simply the tangy symptoms of the sadness
pinging around my insides and playing
peekaboo among the weeds of my broken body and sticky mind.
She will wait, biding time, for a properly rapt audience.
I whisper then whine that I’m too messy,
too slouchy, too emotionally ill-equipped to house a heart
maybe breaking,
definitely ripping, across-the-ballroom
slipping and wrecking-ball imploding.
Sadness smacks her lips and smirks.
No one rides for free.  

Nights like these I think
maybe I’ve wasted all my words;
my sentences and precious syntax and swooping rhetoric,
on lighter blows and mere heartaches.
I am a ragdoll limply stretching.
I am standing completely still, taking inventory.
I’m puzzled, though decidedly unthreatened,
by the glass-littered ground, my bleeding feet.
I mean look at the big picture:
I lit myself on fire.
I’m not worried about sunburn.

I know now that it has happened-
the hurt circulates my veins
and pumps me full of vehemence.
The act of breathing is ferocious,
I am a tangle of raw nerves.
This is the night I’m left with a heart shattered
in six hundred pieces on the floor and absolutely no poetry rising
from my pores to help glue it back together.

I said I get it.
I should have practiced.
I should have left my clothes on the sand and
ran toward the sea, naked and unembarrassed,
while diving head first into fierce undertows
and crashing with the boyish bodies of the night.

I should have experimented;
explored all the ways hurt could find me
while the beach was still mine to breathe out and yell for
without fear of being told 'no.'
But I didn’t. I kept my clothes on and my secrets to myself.

Tonight I’m a wreck and this isn’t a test.
I'm so far out, weighed down
by this boxy, heavy pain
ripening in my arms.
I'm panicky and paddling in any direction,
trying to keep my head above water
and praying the shore will appear and welcome me
once I get through this next set of waves,
through this next set of waves.

Hydraulic fracturing
Is ecoterrorism,
Pollution,
Hide the name:
The Chemical attacking,
but they call it fracking

he seeps into me
fracturing each bone
contorting each muscle
The rich creamy nonsense of it all
Like a dark chocolate pudding filled with raisins; contrasting in the most horrific way

We don't fit
we just don't
there is no explanation
there is no burning fire
no raging passion
just a thousand pieces of broken china laying on the floor, never to be collected, or reassembled

I feel the darkness
it welcomes me
and washes over me with deep calming breaths
this was never going to work.

Lately I've been struggling to look Up
My faith is fracturing, not reflecting
I know God is just sharpening me up
To be the warrior that He's called me to be
In order to do that He's inflicting the pain
But I'm trying to handle it in a fleshly way

I'm trying to say I'm sorry for getting so consumed
By all this hurt that I don't know how to let go of
I'd rather hang onto it and then blame You
Take it out of Your hands and lose my way
Lord I don't know what to do anymore
I'm angry at You for all the things I do
I'm so sorry, I never meant to become this way
I hate the fact You died so I couldn't condemn myself

God, please don't ever take away the anger I have
I just pray You show me how to redirect it away from You and myself
I pray you don't take my pain away, but allow me to endure it
Give me the strength to crucify myself and the demons in my head
Please let me trust in You again, because I know there's no other than You.

Lovers trapped
in flourescent corners.

Skin shimmers underneath
loose tees,
beige with the kind of sweat
that blackens
Levi's in the crotches.

Her fingers *****
at his mice-sized ears
which hunger
for the acrylic traps
she lays with her fingernails.

If lips had tongues
his lips would say:
"I've had plastic flesh
and mercury is in my veins
cooling me
until I'm frozen
in the arms
of death."

And his lips never touch
hers:
neck,
breastbone,
cleft-chin,
chapped ear lobe,
crackling scalp,
fracturing spine,
splitting abdomen,
scarred heart.

his are never touched by
hers:
lips.

They finger the hills
of each other's skin:
velvetine,
innumerable,
wet.

Starships beep in the night.

Beep through receivers
from a place against the earth,
but not touching it.

THeir voices are intimate
and not there.

Cries are heard from space
and cradled as breathing
treasure.

Intimate,
but not there.

Their fingers touch each other,
infinitely
and not at all.

He feels her
as the earth feels
remote beeps
in remote intimacy.

As an avatar or an actual mind, acting intelligent,
slow choice of words. Act Intuited, as if,
uranatural, and grammar is not all it was, we have
lines and commas and an entire cognative kit,
-as any natural outcome of minds agreeing,
some reason concept offered, take hold, claim a piece
- past the fracturing, full-on insane, dementia in a friend…

one hundred and fifty-one pre-positions, counting upto.
Now.
Readers are rare, where you were, when
some sense akin to whatif, we did, and then
****-prooof dust as is,
this is it. The long and the short, attention spans
bubbling along
this same pebbled wide place where minds converge.