imbedded pieces

While I slept you did this:
torn out, picked clean,
reverse so inside is out,
preening out the tender and pure,
leaving the dark,
angry,
BLACK,
that saw once,
but swallowed to prevent release.
Sewn up and all that functions is what you left in your
disgruntled surgery;
a Frankenstein with malice and sutures;
dark over my eyes, my mouth;
pickled poison smokes my tongue.
The cancer is complete and you like it that way.

"this is how it works, you peer inside yourself,
you take the things you like, and try to love the things you took.
And then you take that love you made, and stick it into some-
someone else's heart, pumping someone else's blood.
And walking arm in arm, you hope it don't get harmed,
but even if it does you just do it all again..."

Wedged between old things,
memories already breathed,
heats broken, mended,
pumping solemn and proud.
Slight displacement, space begged and received,
warm;
they find a home only to jump ship,
only to find magnets coming through your eyes.
Pulling, channeling within and its birth begins.
Blossoming out my throat, almost full;
leaps out of my mouth,
into the wild;
a round full beauty at last.
Looking at what I didn't know was there;
watching it take flight,
I miss it and admire its beauty thats not mine but ours.

before he's awake...

Yellow,
not quite though,
undimming slow and sure,
gentle rise and fall,
slight slope from shoulder to spine to...
your toes are warm,
tipping over some scenario behind your sleeping eyes.
Leaning over, close to smell your dreams,
warm breath,
content repetition that is my intoxication.
Sheets slip,
pillows pin me to this spot.
I know there are word for this,
If only I had them.

12/26

Straighten that up a little,
kiss it over to the left.
I plan on feasting on Friday til it's gone.

Offering from a stranger:
"The organic December reminds me of Nicki's green top. Only if her sweet personality reflected light on Riverside, the I.E. would be even sweeter"

Allyson's additions:
"Revel of youth! Amber taste of summer on the tongue, a golden hum in the bones, a hymn to endless nights. Surge of sound, open eyes that meet in public rooms, secret smiles, pleasant shadows touching under soft lights. Freedom from self mixed with that sort of illusory, unmarred, temporary love that exists between strangers."

Forgive the darkness, it slows your heart that resists rest,
makes things hard to see, but do we want to see everything?
i could name a few that I would rather stayed in the black of unknown.
Forgive those heavy eyes, that read a story but won't share,
that know the words but mouth only regret,
they know a truth and teach you with a gentle hand.
Open now to that strange road that feared you in your wilderness.
Tamer, as if by the will of your future, half eyes open,

something jumps awake,
that soft calm you remember in dreams you forgot.
tears, hot and mild fill that place that was defense.
flooding the bristle of anticipated destruction.
quenching hot anger, deflating remorse.
Standing here,
in the dark,
your eyes aren't so heavy anymore.

monday

writing among writers:
Once in a while, a great while, most whiles,
I discover that i am alone in a room full and thirsty for a joining.
Their words ring in some re-run past as I scream for tomorrow,
for when it's fair,
and they want it over already.
Stiff in their envelopes of self recognition,
I free leaf words into brief impromptu.
Finally, I can't, I won't let it go.

I think downstairs is best,
half blue, half red brick,
dim red lights light the page,
second hand decoration,
mismatched:
husband chairs, wife tables,
grandfather arm chair, creaking and well storied,
a grandchild mic
listening eagerly to hear and re-tell.
Can't ignore the great rock back wall
that supports the upside where the rest resides.
but we're down here, away,
writing, clapping, whispering,
waiting for something to click.
It always does

outside: wet cold on my feet, wavering around me, seeping into skin, shrinking what is firm and proud. Not like yesterday.
words: are thick today, disgruntled in rising, darkened by the possibility of failure. Friday was better.
my hair: tries to escape, a wild hare tied to a leash of fine iron.
fingers: don't, didn't ever belong to me, hardened, naked, to cold to touch themselves.
Papers: scream for milk

slow, slipping toward it, whether you like it or not

my handwriting gets smaller and smallest as does my voice in chances of disagreement.
but not today;
or tomorrow: wet cold can't steal away what's mine, a gentle reassurance that it's warm soon,
and the pages will turn, the switch is flipped.

I need you here today, not tomorrow or yesterday or some square in a month unforseen.
I want you to feel that surge that I feel, that takes control, out my fingers, into the world. I have a pretty good idea you know about it, but I want you to see, just the same. I want us to document, together, the slant and slang and slips that make no accidents. There is no such thing, they say, as a mistake, as a thing for no reason. Every note has led to you, but I love the melody. Can we listen to it together? Hum along, our unpredictable song, that leads to us. I almost have the words down and then they change to a shade of love I didn't even know was there.
I guess I can wait another day, another gathering of space between sun and moon. But I need you to know, patient though I seem, undeniably gathering steam, I'd like you there, as you would feel the same, to see it together, Love.

Poem

I tried to find a poem that was you. but not just you, everything that surrounded you was caused by you and the the little things that you touch as well. All that is inside, hidden, shy and strong. I wanted it to be what you left and where you have yet to go. I needed to include that taste you have, the breath you take, the clothes you leave lifeless on my floor. A small taste of your words on the page, entangled as lovers. Maybe a couple pieces of the hearts you broke, a brief stroke of your broken hearts, too. To much? But for people to know what I am trying to say, I want to include a few words you have said, and not said. Some moments that were stolen, shared, and sealed into what is now OURS. The tone can't be sad, because that is not what is you. You are that which is bright, despite. You make others bend with the pressure of not knowing your life. A room, without you is missing a part, or parts. If only they knew. Time rushes toward you. The music is sweeter with you, the food finer, the couch a throne, a bed, a confessional, a dinner chair, a movie seat. And bed, the bed is...
I couldnt find the right poem. But I want you to know, I really tried.

Stepping out, now, again, not tomorrow though.
Sitting square, a little later, tonight, kissing a hope.
Feathery, weak in ribbons of tandem dreams.
Unshredded licks of soft attempts,
delicate pieces of strong armed enterprise,
towering pages of whispered entreaties,
all wait in que for their streak, their link.
Fix, arrange to please,
you know whats been placed in your hand.
Now, how to spend it...

a flash in the pan is all that's left of you,
dazzling remnant of memory,
sticky stuck to the tin of my mind,
painfully aware of its brevity,
wishing it could stay and be here for a sit,
breathe in a bit and know what tomorrow feels.
The breath on the glass reads my sorrow,
static clung to a sweet remedy,
snapped in half by a faint, weary quarrel,
I climb back to the shaft that sleeps next to me.
Back to the endless dream of a second
chance

Slither back to defunct, to the solace of your turmoil. I'm sure you will be fine with your slick screen of memory. It will keep you company as you run from reality. Ankle deep with no where to turn but up, I pause; in disbelief, in awe at what thrashes around my regret. But you keep on running, spewing lies and malcontent. The poison is your partner, with you so long you don't notice the cut it makes and takes, leaving less and less.
I am tall and fine here, the level lowers and I am dried from you and the liquid I was trudging through. Tomorrow will be fair, the next better still. The fog was thick today, not so tomorrow.
Broken today will be merged, blood spilt will suck back in relief. A scab you left, a heart now healed, a soul now free from your toxic repetition.

I could never understand someone willingly causing pain to another. Could never see what benefit it has. Calling in the early morning to say it's over, calling someone a liar again and again,
drunk and angry, mocking and derisive, blaming, spitting, cursing; waiting for an opportunity to do it again. A sick sport with only one spectator that receives the down pour.
Not the middle of the night this time, but near it. He called and called and called until i was awake and raw. I picked up and wondered would could cause this rage, this break from rational behavior. Why does he insist on me? What gives anyone the right to make demands, at night, when I am tender and alone and ask nothing but the solace of dreams?
"I know you are lying." You must have been lying when you said you loved me. No one in love would throw these massive terms around simply in defense of pride. I hung up to keep afloat, cut the line to save the ship. Stress rocked my dreams, pushing me in to the submission of my failures. At night they line up and ask for bread, spare change, anything to get them through. But i am helpless, i cant even feed myself because you took it all. Work creeps in my bedroom, money lays next to me, strangling my breath, tumult and strain, together in my bed as I grasp at the slowing of breath, at a bite of surrender. Awake again, to more tiring tirades, more misappointed meanness. I can't do it anymore.

on paper it all seems so frail, not worthy of real life;
without the blood and guts it seems a paper back of a hard-bound reality. Sometimes I flip through old times and wonder what would have happened in an edit of the story. Had I found two days prior, would he have reacted differently? Had she showed up at his door an hour before I left rather than after, could it change the plot line? Had he erased that message from the machine, if he didn't have to stay late at work unexpectedly, if he didn't forget his cellphone on the coffee table? Makes the story seem too predictable the way it was, another replica of "cheaters" where trust makes eventual distrust far too easy. The words he used were also as the thin as the paper they were written on. In reality they broke in his mouth, they couldn't fly as far as my ears when the walls fell around me. By then I already knew because that piece had been stolen that is required for proper use. I had applied all means of remedy to the ailing apparatus, but it just stopped. I sat on the small chair and watched him paint his story in words and then he anxiously waited for the falsity to take root and grow into some truth in my eyes. Unfortunately, it also required the missing piece. Yes, flipping through memories pages you almost miss those words in words absence. Carefully constructed, like any thesis, I could make it a strong enough reality to validate a republication, possibly a revival. He is still there, planted in some form of pleasant perjury. I could rewrite the part where it didn't take root, watch his eyes light up as he sees my tears of forgiveness, hold each other as I scramble to reconfigure my self preservation, we continue on, buy cars, birth children, buy houses, miss something...
Meant merely for the page you see. Even on this page it seems gross fiction. Too unbelievable for the living.

Simple cellophane that kept me in place and away. I stepped through last night and those tiny pebbles scattered. Someone who was guiding me in their questioning slumps lower and lower, below my horizon. That sweet scent of dreaming won't pull me under anymore.
Firm appetite keeps me stepping in place and aligned. Hungry for more than a moments notice, needing the delayed gratification that only destiny can provide; that sweet string that keeps me.

Static blinding my eyes, sharp inclinations toward distraction and inefficiency.
I can see, between the interference, between the angry white lines, a serene picture of me; Stepping between days, no stern sweat on my brow. Taking in each with a steady, slow breath.
But the jagged interferes, making connection impossible, unattainable. Just dark and loud.
I'll turn it off and try again tomorrow.

Waking up aching in parts that dont have nerves. My head was heavy from the weight of troubling dreams and I choose to stay in my beds arms than those of the morning, for just a bit longer, until my alarm finally maganged to pry me away. It was as if the strain of my sleeping thoughts were real and I felt the fatigue of running and jumping and hiding as well as all the other chores that my tense dreams demanded without giving the allowance of rest. The morning sun wasn't awake, why should I be? Doesn't seem fair. Finally, one leg after the other I pulled away and walked to the window to see what I was up against. Low fog and lower expectations. I knew that something was dwelling somewhere in my day that I was dreading so i closed the blinds and rushed around doing my daily doings, skipping over the anxiety, hopping over to the imagined ending of my day where I would once again get a chance to surrender to the sandman. This time i would pay more homage and hope for a better midnight showing.
Fully dressed, appropriately caffeinated, I realize my reluctance as childish. Stepping through hoops and demands I gain speed and catch up.
He texted at lunch, someone I used to know, but how we seem to change under times forceful grip. Faces become monuments, ambitions seem idealistic, jobs are a habits. I could sense the tone he once had, that was dryly comical and inquisitive, interested. But it was hidden behind a fear of rejection or indignation. He would joke and then retort and then leave a question hanging for days, dangling in thin air kicking its feet for a place to land. This is the frustration with texting. One can never get a true sense of the feeling behind it. Whatever happened to calling when one was curious about someone? I admit to lazily typing requests when I am not wearing the right face to have a discussion with someone, but something is lost in this bargain. That human contact so lacking in our society that guides us in our daily interactions. Thus his meaning is lost in the hush of a silent text in the afternoon and I am quizzically wondering why he even bothered. My head still dreaming about dreaming, I push it aside and decide to let him make that extra effort as I am far too concerned with shirking as many duties as possible right now.

I could smell the cold of the water as I toed the shore. Once again we were shoulder to shoulder, pushing, wincing at the inevitable. I figured I should do as the polar bear and jump. But it's so warm on my shore here, with him to hold me at night, with him that I know will be there when I am not wearing make-up or when I am broke or aching from the strain. The water out there rushes and turns and seems to want to escape itself. The tumult of it creates an anxiety that could also be named anticipation. The clouds above are dark and lazy, heavy with storm; heavy with the formality of precipitation: part of it's job. For me, for most, we call this a dark omen. I am sure clouds don't appreciate the bad rap. They continue to roll above and I think back to last I saw him and an instant weight is added, like the weight of water in the sky. I feel thicker, slower, and I just want to escape; hide in a day when I didn't have to remember someone lying to me. Someone denying me the simple human comfort of unconditionality...
He walked in the door of my small apartment with his head full, so full that any unrelated thoughts couldn't squeeze their way between the scenario that he created in his head. The elaborate cliche story that played through his head all night had so many matinees that it was real, a true anecdote in his autobiographical fiction. The tequila hadn't helped to clean the falsities or add any sense of reality. He threw some distractors into our greetings to play off his intentions, but I read them like I read liquor on his breath. I ask the question that didn't need to be and he answers with "where were you last night". Realizing the motive I reply "I'm sorry for not calling you back but I was still upset from the night before". I don't think he heard or cared or knew any other reality beside the one that lived and breathed and screwed in his version. He seemed to visualize with his eyes open, me on top of some other man. The pain seemed to stem from blistered pride than the loss of what we had. It was part of his story, not mine. Into the night two sides clashed, an endless stubborn war that no one would win; the ending already writ.
Something gone, or always missing was the only solution and like a key to a lock, this would never be right without it. So I slept with half closed eyes and restless laps swallowed my confidence. Laps around the warmth of together, the calm of forever. Laps through anger and alcohol and absence. When I woke up, he was gone.
So the shore and I are more familiar than I would like to be, that thin line that isn't water and isn't earth, that isn't one thing or the other, that thin fence I walk in indecision. The shore is safe from loneliness, the water, a torrent of the welcoming unknown. "Brace yourself"

I can't think straight with country music on. It gets in the way, like a friend gets in the way on a date or an absent apology gets in the way of forgiveness. So I sit in the silence and prevent the music from taking control of my themes. I think we have heard enough about regret and disaapointment. Something that we have beaten into our heads without us even knowing.
I sat in front of her house for a least an hour waiting for the courage. She knew and I knew but we both didn't want to admit it. As if the defeat was a sign of our weakness. The heater gave off a faint scent of new car, despite the fact that the car was almost a year old, because it was the first time I had used it seriously. The rain added to the tension. Each drop a punction of the ending. We had met on a rainy day like this. I remember my thin work shirt clung needily to my skin, dependent on my form for structure. Sometimes I actually began to believe I was like that shirt, needing her to validate what I was. But it was just a shirt, wet, cold and not doing it's job very well. The flashback ended I shuffled reality back into place.
In the private, warm bubble of my car I was immune to the cold and the anger that was to come. This bred cowardice and notions of nicotine and Jack. But by now she probably noticed my car and was waiting for me to come and deliver. The anxiety I felt was eerily similar to the feeling I had before I picked her up for our first date and I was reminded what utterly simplistic creatures we were. What other feelings had I confused? What situations had been determined by mislabeled emotional responses? How many moments were spent deciphering, seemingly blindly "How I feel"? My thinly veiled procrastination came to its finish as I saw her standing at the window of her apartment. She had that look on her face, like she was bracing, busily constructing a defense. She was good at that; creating a sound argument out of next to no evidence. She even left emotion out of it which always amazed me. She would usually cry after, when the hurt of it all came down, like when the parachute catches up to the grounded skydiver and smothers him, sometimes even injures him. Seems ironic now that I think about it.
None the less, I unlocked my car door and tightened my body for the water.

She neglected her work in defiance, an meditated mediocrity. She sat in the corner, back, avoiding all eye contact and recommendations. When he would spring out of his two windowed office with a task that he was far to much at leisure to complete, she noticed that he tended to pick an employee whose name he could pronounce in one syllable, "hey Mick, could you type up the status of the Progressive report" or a suitable alternate within proximity of his office. Like a wave, his decibels would increase as he reached the climax of his request and then dwindle off to a whimper as he signified that it needed to be on his desk in the morning.
This is why she choose the desk, il-ly lit, by the fake ficus and the accountant with next to no idea that she had a mustache that pre-pubescent boys envied. Unfortunately, the moment Carl emerged from his sudoku to disperse another task was carefully orchestrated by the victims of proximity to be the moment that they were on the phone or elsewhere. So his stride, though of a much further distance than ever before, reached Jessica's desk with a sly smile and a tone of self righteous delegation. "Uh, Jess, if you could have this report typed copied and collated for our shareholders meeting by 400 today i would really appreciate it thanks" and before the gratitude left his lips and the paper hit her desk he had turned heel and walked to the sanctuary of his office. Checking her watch for the worst case scenario, she winced.

LOST

Please take responsibility for this, because it has already claimed me. Don't say you don't know what I am talking about. Everything has a logic to it; even anger, even love. There is a definite map that shows us how we got here, what turns we took, what motivations we had for stopping, what hunger we had that made us turn around and go back. It wasn't without guidance. So sit here with me and we will trace the lines together and figure out how we have such dark words that we share. On the couch, turn off the TV, tell me why you hide there where I can't get you. Where you change clothes and wear disguises so I can't see you anymore. I desperately want to see you, I need to see you so I know that this is the right way. That I wasn't upside down and backwards, heading down a path that I know is a dead end. I want to hear you, past the angry litany and reddening eyes, the sweetened stipulations, the feelings wounded and forgotten in a woeful sacrifice toward this road we are on. I can see, when I wipe the rear view, where we have been, and then I will let it fog over again. But we need to keep the windshield clear.

Private markings of past affection, wedged between my daily doings. Sometimes they spring up and my level rises. I am skipping days already, waiting for the affection to be pressed into me leaving its brand.
Can I have a quick taste of what it will be like? Brief, sweet, demanding my attention...
Sinking into it I can't stop the chase. Too late to pull back, the current pulls me in.
Whisper to me, I will hear, tell me everything it will be, I will believe you.

The lock released
For so long, it clung tightly,
holding my breath,
stealing my prideful freedom,
my freelance nonchalance.
something clicked open
and i have that taste again
that i can do it,
anyway or how i choose
someone put my soundtrack back on
so the story continues.

Songs weave in and out and between heads that bob along or with some other far away dream
thats sits squarely out of reach. I bob along I am half here and half elsewhere, making me ineffective and strained. So as they define and converse I sneak away to where the music doesn't sink between but stands center. Where words command beauty, elequently, elegantly...with grace. This living that I make, I fear, is making me.
In box gaining speed...outbox growing lonely. Something is dimming and sadly I don't even remember what it is. Tragic acceptance, money pulls me along and I have become it's lapdog, begging for a treat.

I
Have
to
Escap
e
Before
its
too
l
a
t
e
.

Your hands are so innocent. They walk across tasks, checking for acceptance, applying for credit. Without disdain or frustration, they make mistakes and make corrections.
We were cooking, pasta I think, and it was something you had never cooked (which is pretty much anything beside Mac N'cheese and popcorn). I was watching, guiding, smiling as you chopped onions and tried not to cry. Is this sliced thin enough? What should I do next? Want me to grate the cheese? Your hands hold no sin, only gratitude for work.
Fingers finish their small jobs and wait for the next, articulate, anxious, eager to complete.
You joke that you know what "al dente" means, who doesn't?
I laugh in response to what bubbles over
I can't believe how long it took
I count on you
I couldn't do this without you,
without your hands.

Jumping across,
steps are closer together now
and I have a better feeling of my tomorrow.
I know that this is right.
I know that it can't be taken away this time.
I can finally sleep to dream.

Someone please read me, because my vision is blurring and I can't see it anymore. I remember what the lines used to say; when I was alone, when I was idealistic, when I sprinted through it all, weightless. Age bullies me into submission, pouring out the speed and adding more weight. So today I hold my hand to my head and ask you a favor, a service for the deserving.
My memory is a youth playing tricks on me, making the movie seem real, making me believe the circus was coming back in town. Fingers extend and through the illusion, snudging the smoke figures that dance in still air.
I guess I am just in an old mood today.
I should toss it out and get a new one.

I'm hungry. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it's an immense wave that seems as if it will overtake my breath, my existence if i don't feed it. Sometimes its a small voice in the back of my mind, finger waving, reminding me that "you better do something about this or else!!" I feel both waving equally. I know action is required. I know what I must do, but still I allow this hollowness to remain. Sometimes I feel like I am going to be hungry for the rest of my life and the idea of fulfillment, that carrot waving in front of my face is just a mirage sent to taunt me and keep me running, as Ellison would say. Though that last wave is immensely cynical, aren't humans cynical by nature?
What I always pictured, what I read about in books in my formative years was that this hunger has to be unwavering. Continue on with increasing speed and intensity and it will be satisfied. But it doesn't stop there. Gradual rising, like waves of pleasure; continuing on, despite climax.
You don't always know where that hunger will be sated, but who wants to? The sweetness is the chase. Soon we fall in love with the carrot and when we look behind us, we are amazed at all we have done. Soon we don't even need to be filled anymore for we are now a mechanism that fills.

Slippery slick between days and pages of insecurity. I want every breath to whisper, to shout some truth never heard before, some wisdom I didn't even know I had. I want to use it with a grace that leaves them wondering where I have always been until now. A fully charged first take ran through my mind, madly filling in blanks and gentle intelligences.
But that wicked agony of self defeat knocked down the door, knocking out the wind.
Couldn't blame them, the thieves, for wanting to make sure there was nothing left. I would probably do the same thing in their shoes. Greedy aggressors, take what your hands and mouths can carry. It will recover quicker than you can think of a witty retort.

Music dancing in the background,
an ill noticed show of admiration,
begging our attendance.
But attention is elsewhere.
Young curiosity weaves between our feet
demanding center stage,
meowing for affection.
But we cant look away.
Simmering, boiling, sauteed sustenance
threatens to be overdone if we don't watch.
Still we sigh in each other,
not seeing, choosing to be oblivious,
for a stolen moment
nestled between the two of us.
Comfortable, complete, contagious...

Loss

Angry maelstrom,
dark fingers greedily gulping me in.
I consent without words
but a baleful glance shows my surrender.
Moments before there was a calm,
a still hope for the hopeless,
an endearing endowment for tomorrow,
for all tomorrows.
All swallowed by this tumult, this storm
I have conceded to with arms politely folded in incredulity.
Sinking back to knowing nothing
as a quiet heart set the beat to defeat;
a common theme,
a known neighbor that borrows without hope of return;
leaving only empty.

2 Weeks

Flat plane, easy ride,
but still I sweat in my knowing what this means.
You keep pace and think to pass,
but a strong cord of respect,
a deep idea of our sameness stays you.
Quickly we wait, rushing towards patience,
nodding at mistakes with approval, knowing we needed them.
Eyes closed with perfect sight.
silent tugging at formalities tight grip,
peeling back the strict suffocation of games;
swerving past the agile manuevering around the hearts hunger.
Dust on the tracks of their disbelief,
The argument's lost in a hush of praise.

The quiet spot in between;
with high hopes and shy kindness,
we sit and await the connecting of currents
between today and tomorrows
that stretch toward that perch.
It looks over a mingling of mindful dreams in waking;
of succulent acceptance
that it was all possible, all worth it.
Waiting, so close the electricity strings us together,
closer,
closer...

Simple smile, a calm exists between days and high time heat.
A little closer daily,
risk growing duller with your confident caress.
Next to you and I am secured;
No longer dramatically searching for bottom, for an exit.
Walking toward, up a stepping slope of gratitude
and the kind personification of a dream.

Across the dark shaking room, I see you smile and I can feel you next to me. Bouncing up and off and all around, sharp sounds cut us to move. Short steps elongate toward your presense. High anticipation, secret seduction between lips of steel. You want me there, between notes and drinks and moments of velocity. But space expands and you wander to your idea of how it should be. i am in the parking lot, no longer in the pounding room but still my knees quake. But I wouldn't let that slip.

You seem to know and that creates a steady in me that I havent known before.
Caution slips below.
I don't remember to scan, correct and reject;
I didn't even put it on my list for today.
Keeping pace next to me and you are part of my step,
an easy rhythm that is constant but never predictable.
It all feels like it has been written before,
while I was sleeping,
before I was ever awake.

crazy

to chase something on foot that can fly,
to hope for a different outcome to the same experiment,
to think it's just going to land in your lap.
Makes sense sometimes to give your tenderheart
to one that seems to harbor a similar softness.
Maybe that is crazy too.

Before I awoke:

A vortex was created. A quiet fear in me ate at my calm, causing me to shake in its biting. Still, despite better judgement, we jumped in. Particles jumped from the center. Only when weightless could we see how far and large it really was. Floating, we were carried in the whirlwind. But without gravity our anxiety hung with us. Never knowing such things meant the outcome was just as dark and we waited with a type of excitement in our breath. The dark was sky, mourning the suns loss. The grey was clouds deformed in their anticipation of the storm and the sharp particles that danced and popped were stars awaiting their call back to the main stage. We all spun together and then the ride was complete and we grabbed an edge. We had to map this. But time had retreated and nothing was the same.

Quiet resistance to tyranny never worked for anyone. Especially her. She had taken the verbal hatred for nearly two years. It didn't anger her so much as chip away at her idea of fortitude, her ideal self. She had a specific idea of what she expected from this skin and bone and blood that made her. It was to be lean and efficient; intelligent and kind. But the daily neglect or words of duplicitous kindness, two faced agression, took a piece with them with each syllable. Soon she didn't notice the whip cutting and waited for the violence to grow tired of it's exertion and stop.

It crumbled in his rough hands. He grasped at the pieces and fooled himself for a moment that he could put them back together. But their fate was decided long ago, before he picked up the piece of paper that marked their place in time. The attic seemed to shrink around him, and he felt it's age like he felt his own. If he was a man who could cry, he knew that he would be right now. What lay in fragments at his feet was all that was left of her. Though he had the letter memorized, he still needed that artifact. Whenever he doubted the existence of their love, he knew that this was in a dusty box, in a dusty room and he could go to it and all that was past would rush back to him, intravenous memory. Kneeling, creaking, groaning, quick breaths as he swept with his clumsy fingers. It mixed with the dust and moth balls and spider's nets. Each foreign substance struck at him and he felt the distance increase. He knew that at 78 he was far removed from that past, but still his mind visited everyday. But now a small pile was all that was left. Everything that had been alive at that time was dead. Except that tree they sat under, their only company a cool breeze, and they knew without saying a word.

alarm

Fierce intentions muscle in between today and yesterday,
forcing reaction.
Something sleeping wakes, wild and messy;
happy and uncontrollable.
Memory jogs into place
and I see what I have been resting through.
Dreams can't beat the reality of living this life.

Thank you!

Standing now, timid at first, as beginnings tend to be; but without fear this time. Days gone are fragment postcard picture, retelling; past tense and without authority. The island retreats and I feast on new discovery, yet to unroll. Sails stiffen with time's promise. My hand shields the sun's critique. Thirst mounts as I near the destination. The wind carries regret and wipes clear all the haze that stifled my vision. Freshened by its speed, forward always, til completion; I wait hurriedly.

What is this valley that I cross, alone and tired? Why is it so deep when I need it shallow? So wide when my feet are bleeding? I can't place this weight that clings to me, or name it. I can't even see it but its a taste I cannot escape that taints all that touches my lips. The weight intensifies and takes my breath away, squeezing my veins, compressing my chest. Air escapes and still I push through. Some grab and pull me into their toxic dilemma. Slip out and walk through. It lightens more everyday.

Its heavy above my eyes, fatigue pulls me under.
I'm starting to hate everyone that smiles and says kind things.
I anger when they are right, I am usually wrong, you see.
Dry skin stretched over an upturned mouth that misses that sweet weight.
I remember how it used to be, without burden or worry; childish freedom.
A great divide keeps it from me egging jealousy.
Just breath

Another thrust of fading desire, but I keep walking.
Sharp edges aim to cut my straight lines,
to make them weep regret.
That black disease will not wrap me up
and take me to it's defeat.
I am no party to this.
Take back those hardened words,
I have heard them all.
They have all had a bite at my center.
Still I strive.
Regrowth stirs as you cower in disbelief.
You stab air as my gait quickens toward
that peaceful pleasantry of escape.

Colors crawl across the wall, music joins our conversation, loud but invited.
They enjoy a moment stolen from the week's leash as all sit and sip and laugh and stroke old memories of how we used to be; so nice to know yourself now and then.

Is it that slow and constant that controls my thoughts?
Can't I tell it to give me a short stall, a quick draw, so I can join in?

Circular usually, how they spin about illusion to discount reality. I see myself in their dizzy, wishing to be a piece of their parts.
But now they shake my calm and make me wish for the quiet of night.

Sitting in a crescent booth, high,
can see the world from up here.
High ball growing taller, faces smiling incessantly
as we discuss if love is a fancy or a feeling,
something held or merely lost.
Sips and skips and smoke and mirrors.
The Dj chooses music that I wouldn't have
but it highlights the awkward topics that bind our night.
We switch books and write and write the small things,
too big to be spoken. People must have thought
we were mute. But writing makes things
heard that throats might never express.

Please stop following me.
I can find the way on my own.
I don't need second hand.
I don't need you to understand me.
I want to walk through this with clean feet
and a new set of speakers
so they, so you can hear what I am saying;
This, all of this, this is mine.
Get your own.

I made a bug list of all the things that knaw at me and keep me awake. They take over the page and run around the lines, little Napoleans pretending domination. I grimace and force them to attention, despite their grumblings. On paper they aren't so menacing. They are words representing things that once were, but are no more; or things that will be fixed with times patient hand. Still they reside under my skin and create ulcers on my tenderness. So I keep track to keep perspective. Listed and de-magnified they have no power over me. Friendly freedom as the tyrants await my orders.

An empty pool, cool and confident, blue and lazily lapping me in.
The shade curves around and the sun desperately attempts to peek through, curious.
Stripping away cloth constraints I seep in, slowly, allowing my body to match water,
but still the skin rebels. Up to my sunglasses, I can hear the waters rhythm keep up with my heartbeat. My hair a rampant serpent, I listen as the filter makes an unearthly song and I melt into liquid.

"Like fire and powder, which, as they kiss consume"

Words flood away at the sight of responsibility,
like blood fearing air and turning red; embarrassed.
I taunt them, smile, fondle but for nothing.
Some truth slips behind them that they'd rather not share with reality.
They continue to make their silent prayers,
and I wait for the opening of the wound
so that it can heal.

Swell of days flushing down the stairs,
onto the street,
in my rear view mirror.
Re-adjust, eyes cocked, incredulous smiling,
I pick up speed and still I find them behind me.
So I turn up the music and swerve the curves toward you.
I see you smiling there and know there is no need for escape.

You can have your hooks back.

Couldn't sleep for singing. It wouldn't stop and my toes curled in tune. My soul is carried along towards my future. It was so clear I could touch it, walk through it, taste it in my waking.
I know now what I didn't know then and I am sucked toward becoming. Something once sleeping in me takes the wheel as I floor the gas.

A sweet unison between thoughts and actions, accompanied by bottomless affection. The kind of thing that inspires, but can only be imitated. You left specifically. You chose, though it was difficult, left others behind because there was something waiting for you and you didn't know it yet. An unrequitted partnership that will follow the flounderings and only nod and smile. Nothing will be required for a mirrored journey will explain the time apart, the passage of pain and only momentary pleasure. Superficiality will slip out, embarressed. Games will play themselves out at the door, pride will deflate to lifesize and 'fess up. Eye to eye, mouth to mouth, words ring true for the first time. A soft song plays along, the soundtrack to true love.

They call or write, asking for data and small details they hope will make it all make sense.

I glance at their requests and look away quickly. Every little misktake, every overpowered decision rides in my head and dominates small details, mocking them. I cant help but try to put things in perspective as my mind wanders away hoping never to return.

Paperwork and pen and structured curriculum wash away and I remember the magnitude I was meant to create.

But the taste is diluted.

My turtleneck is swallowing me whole.

They are writing about Romeo and Juliet and speaking quickly, with an excitement that only teenage hormones can boast of. They know something I do not. At once, I feel pity and envy. They are in the middle of a long ride to an unknown destination. Some may arrive soon, some may never. That unknown could drive some crazy, but the eloquence of their youth allows patience. A certain hunger allows fasting.
I wonder at myself at this age, what I expected, what I wanted.
A wide expanse has elapsed but there is still a soft desire that stirs inside of me, waiting.

Great access to a climbing success...
My apartment is a mess, my linens and jeans need washing,
my fridge only has condiments and beer.
I can't keep my plants healthy, they seem as orphans.
Shoes don't have their place, books lie next to used dinner plates next to half filled notebooks.
Sandwiched between cushions is a sock with no partner, a fugitive.
On the floor, pictures meant to hung, guitars meant to be played, weights meant to be lifted.
To no avail,
something preoccupies leaving all undone.

That thing that has always been, that makes you sweat, makes you tear through the day to get back here to sit and plan. Life makes turns around you as you procrastinate your future.
Beautiful how it falls around you and gracefully nudges your attention.
Cant ignore it much longer.
The dam's about to break.

My eyes drag across the screen, revealing words I have seen before, just in different tense.
Fatigued to repeat demands, reluctant to allow passage;
I have been awake too many years to watch them sleeping.
How can you not see what sits square and forward in front of you?
I made a list of demands, written on the palm of my hand
used to conquer the undeserving and leave them desperate on the lawn,
begging a second look.
Never let it slip again.
Dreams come along and visit, but never stay.
But its all so simple, the things that tick me along.
A soft warmth that wraps around and inside but never covers.
A day that begins and never ends, punctuated by moments of high sincerity.
We will find the time to see it all.

This is me believing you and every lap your tongue makes around your lies.
Held in my hand for a moment, it melts with your conscience.
Slipping around your switches and flips you don't remember which way is up.
I lean back and see what you are too small to.
Can't help but pity your misconceived idea of trust;

We had an appointment to speak and reciprocate soft nothings, but you were laying next to a newer body and all memory was lost. Rolling in your head was a tight regret because you knew. It was being washed over by your rationalizing, by your swerving from the truth. Night swapped with day and your phone wore my missed calls like a badge of your indescretion, 1000 miles away. Finally accepting the work that must be done, you push that hard button. My voice was weak and eager to know what had been done. But you wouldn't let it leave your lips, as if by speaking it it became real because I would know. My knowledge made it reality. Hours missing from your story, sweat and tears and quick breathing and worry omitted from opposite view points. "Trust me, believe I would never hurt you." You really believed those snake like words.
Empty condom wrappers litter your mind, keeping you from clarity. Flying quickly home, at the door, in the bedroom. Lonesome flowers accompanied you, a rare scent, a scent of guilt.

I sat down this morning and spread the fragments across my desk. Next to each I lay the carefully constructed explanations. Piece after piece connects and tells a private story of why. The crowd begins to knock and then pound and then beg to come in. A slight change in breath as I continue despite their demands. Careful fingers pick up, replace, figure, fit, squeeze, release, try again.
As the clock grows dizzy the picture finds itself. The last piece fits in and the door crashes open. They laugh and wonder and quiz my time. I smile and reply, "Good things come to those that wait"...

The calender shifts again, a little to the right.
I got another idea of desire as he plucks at me while I sleep.
Pulling this way, I can't help but feel stretched and aching.
I can see the fading of what I painted and that lends to tears.
Dark then light and I want that fresh shake to keep me up.
Don't tell me how it should be. I have a good sense of it.
It keeps me up at night as it fights to be released.
Fierce and lovely, strong and uncompromising; as it should be.
Demands ignored, nicety overlooked for a picture too big for this screen.
You want, you rely, you think you know.
You can't have what isn't for giving.
You can't take what slips through the seconds of the day,
seeking the place to land and plant and become what waits
impatiently below the surface.

Someone said something, while I was away and sleeping.
Words that disappeared in the moment, forgotten faded.
But the great weight swayed across to me in the sea of open mouths.
My eyes snap up and demand editing of their versions twisted by malcontent;
their versions that stuck between the past and my dis-ease.
Face me and see what you missed.

Tight squeeze of hours between you and I.
I run on a schedule sideways and parallel to you as you rush to keep up.
I pace my short steps and your long strides make me sweat.
The long run you make in and out of lines and good intent
leaves me up side down and wondering;
what you hope to take from me,
what you give willingly,
why now when tomorrow is so obliging.
An itching nerve makes me timid and awake,
both eyes open and examining every minute you take
and leave;
every word,
inside every sentence,
beside me,
in the dark of newness.

Struggling to stay awake as it all rushes past in a mad dash for extinction.
I can't believe I swam through for so long and you just watched.
A sly smile on your face, you feel a tender agony so many miles away.
The water turns cold and my blood wakes from its slumber.
On the shore, as I drift, you have a look of regret.
I watch it pass, gaining distance, until you have no power over me.
The smaller you get, the bigger I become, grabbing my life by the throat.
The closer I got to you the further I felt from me.
Let it ride away from you. Let me be.
You can't hurt me anymore.
You can't care because you never really did.

You weren't there when I called. It just rang and rang so I figured you were out delegating or relegating. I hung up quickly and didn't leave a message, for I was much to busy to leave one. Or I wanted you to think so anyway. I wonder if it worked or if you just got annoyed at the mysterious call. Was thinking about you in a kind way, the way you think about people that don't think about you except when they have been drinking or when obligated. Your name is still in my phone and when I pass it as I scroll through the characters in my life it scrapes across my memory. If there were a score to be kept of those that call and those that don't, you are far behind. But I don't anger or sadden at this. I realize your life unfolds quickly and without pause. I figure you think of me in quiet moments when no one is around, when the sun is sleeping and you really should be too. So many things get in the way and decide our fate. So many things, small things decide something, this massive thing called our existence. I could get upset and kick and scream. I could shrug my shoulders and move on without holding a memory of it. I prefer to call and not leave a message.

You can't leave until you nail something down. It's a requirement, a forceful declaration. Don't restrain; tightly clenched to regiment and timidty. This is yours, slipping away as your breath.

pulling from you in a mad race to consumation, with you or otherwise.

Give me those quick words to document and release into the wild.
Don't keep them there away from everyone. I want them. I will make them mine, with a little bit of you. We can share them, between lips and legs and faces of delicate reminisce. Locking in, sharing eyes we see what one cannot. Give me your story and I will give you everything else.

Single slip away and I can't see you anymore. Its like keeping a smoke ring, watching it twine between lingering fingers and then fade. Peer around the corner and see if it's really gone. Soft face in the crowd of forgotten, but that strong smell of memory sticks aside. Responsible and steadfast in your escape from everyday, I laugh at your effort. I have let you go with the smoke that leaves my lips. Quick ingestion for a moment of painful pleasure. You are no permanent, no enduring residue. Only a moment among many that cant be sifted and returned for a reward. Only a bland taste that blends with life's fragility.

Why don't you step in, full forward?

3/30/08
It was swept away in a moment's neglect. Past words, link to a time I can no longer touch and breath and feel. All funneled out of the drain of reality to some soft shore to live out their days away from me.

4/6/08
He's not right. Imperfectly flawed as if to taunt my romantic ideal.

4/10/08
Waiting for me to begin that rush downhill. Hands free, wind stroking everything of me, blowing past regret, soft misgivings float off; the sky's prisoner.
He's chasing, distance increases, he can't keep up and his soft promises are the only thing the wind carries to me.

Moments swing by unannounced and lighten my load.
A subtle song plays in reverse to play to the end.
shift this way, to my side.
We can share some daylight, a bit of night.
Breath you in next to me.
I can't tell where I end and you begin;
warm mix of skin, blood and affection.
The jealous sun overtakes the night
and I pry away
Sensibly choosing sweet anticipation.

Curl over to me, deep breath of what is waiting.
Sly sinking between expectations and formality.
This game we play, back and forth and always forward,
scratches at the worlds low intent.

Between fingers, high velocity, skin on skin,
a kind sense of ownership.
Side glances, quick steps,
heart speeding, flurried short words.
I want your answer.

The night closes for business
as we stand eye to eye.
The rest just stops briefly,
extending us to this moment.

Soft light on a timid stretch of seconds,
Awkward but seasoned,
I dreamt of you.

Between folds, you miss that next to you, that feeling of partness.
Shabby imitations of connection, of warm residence.
In a loud place, when you lean in, eyes mirrored
just listen to the hearts soft lullaby.
Tighter, can't be closer, breaths pacing,
sleep takes over before we let go.
Same pillow, same shirt, same couch, same cup, same spoon, same sink, same beer, same heart.
can this be.
So is half missing or waiting?

Come a little closer,
stretch that chance to see the possibility;
that it might fit just right.
Through haze of days it seems so dim.
How could it work with so much that doesn't?
quenching of bottom
slitting of bubbled tension
the cover slips off the trick and reveals
the plain truth of it.
Tasteless and filling.
You love Fridays because the cut you loose
and hate Mondays because the reel you in.
Disconnect and see what pulls you this way and that
with the frivolous tide.
Take only what you can carry and join me
to tomorrow

I had half dried tears in my eyes, tiredly creeping down my face exhausted. I pushed them away for company, for the promise of forgetting... I dressed tight and nice, with a hint of green as traditionally acceptable. I picked him up and we drove the hour to Carson City. I made him laugh and he thougth about holding my hand and my face. He wondered if we would ever be naked together as we ate buffalo wing flavored dorritos. Sitting in the stands I felt odd that all the other players girlfriends probably thought that I was his new girl and I really wasnt. Like when you think someone is waving at you so you wave back and quickly force your hand down when the person behind you waves for you. The truth was I was someones old girl, recently removed. More like a scab really, itching and irritated. Not even a wound, a remnant. An ugly memory of the intensity of bloodloss. He scored 2 goals and everyone winked and knew it was because I was there.Numb fight to forget. He came back sweaty and smiling; proud. The guys gathered, undressing in an acrid circle and recounted the game. The girls stood on the outskirts waiting for the testosterone to subside.
Out at some bar, away from everything familiar was familiar to me. Green beer, baileys, irish nachos, tight smiling, quarters, everyone a little friendlier demanding that we do this again soon. Eyelids gain weight, beer warming, dvd menu screen, everyone recedes to bed, knowing what will happen if him and I are left alone. Oreos and old memories and "Im glad you came out" finally those half dried tears resprung and werent pushed away for company. They came deep and heavy, flooding his high hopes of my heart. Fine kindness as he rocked me to sleep in my wet regret. I couldn't have done it without his arms, a solace for sadness.

Tonight is going to be the night.
humming next to me as we nod at the inevitable.
sweet surrender,
indignant anticipation,
all summed together pulling toward tonight.
Meant for a reason, meant only for me.
words said, repeated, crossed out, synonyms,
opposites pushing away and towards.
I can't wait

I was wrong.
I thought you had it.
Secure and in place.
I was wrong
and you were right.

Footsteps in the hall,
an echo of a phone,
that soft look he gives, seeps in me.
Coincidental satisfaction,
sifting between people, drinks and reality.
Motionless beckoning,
without words.
Across this blue, sent through
a dense desire, heavy with affection.
Lines eagerly await you.

Gone now, slipped into some silent past.
Eyes full, closed, waiting to expell.
To know that it is forever
can be bitter.
To be the one left standing,
on an old corner,
watching the recession of love
can stain.
Walking can be shaky too.
Like the steps off the plank,
swaying with the water and regret.
Distance and time and then sweet again,
for another display,
another documentary of
determination.

I got rid of it you know.
Most every piece that drugged me,
dragged me,
dripped on me when I was peaceful.
Kindly solitude as you fade to yesterday.
You are on the back of a slow moving train
that is leaving town.
You have that sad gaze of one who knows they
have lost.
Flakes swirl around your cheeks
and mine
miles apart.
The wind chimes forgetfullness
as it melts the snow in its tracks.
Around a final bend and all that is left is
a soft breath of poetry that lingers on my page.

You are nothing for me;
but a place I got through,
A song I know the words too, but don't feel in me anymore.
I can see your face in a vague collection of pieces,
pieces that don't touch one piece of me.
Your hand reaches out through the memory of your words,
words so easily spent.
I gulp them in;
ingestion is ownership is over it.
So I walk down the sidewalk and smile and lean and sway.
Can't help but know it can't get nuthin but better.
Tried to convince myself that I deserve what is used and old;
No good
But it was a losing battle.
They walk beside me taunting,
inviting me to their masculine trophy case;
to watch me through the glass.
I just sway and smile and say;
I'm waiting for the A train, doll.

Up

I create anew, each day as the sun lightens, lightens;
slowly but surely as the fuzz grows from a peach.
Rise with new reason and smile at life's decor;
ambitious moments of solitude,
humble twine that ropes my days in place.
Soft beginning of cliff diving into the morning.
The candle is lit and I spring from the warmth of my dreams.
As the nights funeral ends, I sigh.

Don't look at me like that, with your feet askew, pointing in different directions as if to point me the wrong way. Look at me and disagree, don't sideglance your argument. I want to hear and know how you can't underestand this, this that I have measured, marked and cut. You are wrong and don't want to say, so you say everything else you can think of. Wounding words, sharp stabs at esteem, confidence crackers, you throw these and I catch them in my net of Disbelief.
How can you not see what is laid out in front of you like a hot meal waiting for your mouth to consumate it.
I can believe there was some fork in your road that hinder your ability to resolve conflicts, like a fork in your lifeline at some alteration in your journey here. I can't believe that you force yourself into this lonely corner of rightiousness. Do you keep a blanket there? At night when the past whispers what you know is true, do you listen? When the sun comes up on another chance to change and release your hold on stubborness, what is your ritual? Is it such a habit that you don't see it? Cancer that surges through and strokes your chances aside. Tomorrow maybe.

Body and Soul

given without a secret reservation.
Taken in one gesture with plans and sweet intentions,
long winding ideas of how it will all work out.
Days painted on walls yet to be built.
Trees planted from unborn seeds giving shade to our sanctity.
Smooth waves take control and the current sweeps us there.
A big red door opening to warm memories yet to breathe.
Bones mended, fights forgotten, surrendering to summer in peace and lemonade.
A's posted, teams trophied, hot soup seeping into cold corners.
I can hear the laughing and forgiving and all that rings a life given and received.
Clarinet swings through the air announcing without words
what you haven't said to a person
you haven't met...
when we begin the beguine.

Tell me something, in the dark of night when no one can see, why it is that this cut still bleeds?
Seems like it has been long enough. Seems like tears are dried and words are a violent memory.
Shaking has past, black alone, lids sealing in weak sensitivity. You are walking down the street breathing in the night with someone else, a quiet replica. She cooks from a box and skips syllables. Drives manually and expects neglect. I can feel all of that there, I can see you nodding in approval, in your tiny victory over feminism.

Clear your throat...

And I will tell you something. It bleeds because you are alive to live. Seeking the day that leans toward a humble beginning. A gentle future of family, friends, ferns, fundamentals, free.
Tears are the moisture of your soul, the by product of a body working towards an end result with no end. He is there, waiting. Not that old but one that knows and sees and loves. Peel away that thick cover for the fresh skin to take shape and reply to the outside.
Hold it there, soft and sentimental, caring and converting all the water to wine.

Soft suppression of forbodding, of knowing what I don't want to know. But it slithers in between deterents. Another rendition of self defeat. I have seen this show before. Towering balconies showering rejection, a young prince looking the other way as I pass, so many cinders and my broom is worn. Rain some more, pour on me so I know this is real. Keep the sacchrine memories of when things were good. I prefer the bite of breaking. Watch the blood escape in a mad rush toward extinction, watch the girl gather it back up and display what used to be in a fantastic charade, doting on illusion.
Tug me away from that dark past that searchs my pockets for guilt.
Sink me into an intoxicated romance.
Blind me to open my eyes to what there really is here.
I will follow you there, no questions.

I'm right in front of you.
Why can't you see me;
silently screaming,
violently whispering,
waiting for you to see
how every step is toward you
and your destructive affection.
Side steps are forced to protect
fragile necessity.
Smile, smirk, watch it all collide
into place.
***
Leaning in for one last goodbye
I could smell the unmatchable mix
of cologne, deoderant and wool
that only his chemistry commanded.
I lingered and let it seep into my memory.
I had to remember this.

Procrastination

The walls are moving in place, coming closer and I can feel their dusty breath. Light flakes off the windows and creates a shimmy of memory down my side view. They keep playing the same songs like my heart keeps playing the same tricks. Repetition creates a soft strength, one easily sucked away by weakness. Things stack and build across a feeble waffle of idealism. Past mistakes make a quick sprint across my vision. Wince if you will, won't do any good. Everyone does it.

To whom it may concern;
I am writing this because I am concerned for you. You seem distant. You don't see what is in front of you.I don't know you. You have no idea who I am. Does it matter? When you have to say something it doesn't really matter who you tell. There is a list of names that I don't want to see again. There are flashes of memory that make me cringe.There are moments that I wish I could rewind and repeat. There are some people, some folks I wish I could wrapup and keep in my pocket. There are words that I won't even share with myself. Softly I will lay across my days, from here on, and know what it was all for. Winking at what was raw, sighing for that deep living yet to come. There is no word to describe it, roll it up. So I will just say one, Love

Awkward twisting, squirming out of surrender.
Don't give up so easy.
Strain, sweat searing of desire,
dreams a melting sticky sweet,
Tug o' war with necessity.
Knashing at time
Gnawing of oral tradition.
***
Catching the bus, a little late a little too common place. Skirt needs shifting, one more button to go, coffee forgotten. Once her breath is caught she looks around at the staring patrons. They must be somewhere else where there is no smell of urine and something shinier and more singular guides them to work. She recedes to her own version of reality. Her's is one of a bigger place; office, apartment, car, shopping list, dating pool...family. The sun shines bravely
through the unloved bus windows and a foggy light illuminates her face. At the next stop an older lady with a market basket bumps down the steps and releases a seat for her. Steady, as the bus takes off she claims the seat and she feels that she is getting what she paid for. Knowing the office is 6 stops away she takes a few deeper sighs and releases some of the knots that her job creates because it is still 24 minutes away. She thinks back to yesterday; performace review day.
It's not that she doesn't care about her job or how well she does it. But something keeps putting its foot in the door as she tries to shut out distraction. Maybe she is allowing the foots intrusion. Maybe she doesnt want continuity. Yet she recieved a mediocre judgement, another pale comparison. It made her wince that a man that wears mostly brown and combed over a bald spot in a hopeless attempt at salvation was the one that was telling her she was commonplace, average. Yet there it was on the yellow form infront of her out of 7, two 3's in productivity and timeliness, one 4 in organization and a 5 in professionalism. The numbers seemed to bounce around her head the night after and wouldnt leave her alone. She snapped oper her eyes and noticed immediatly that she had passed the exit and jumped from her brown bench. Shit

That day that lonely hearts look to validation and for hidden souls to come out to light and admit.
Its today and as the day passes it gains speed. There is a time approaching that settles on my anticipation and sets up a restless camp. It feels so well to know that he is waiting too. But what of this day that hearts look to? Does it signal something monumental? Those three words maybe? Or just the flash of a true soul. I sit and wait and wonder what the night will bring. Quiet tradition sits in my lap and pants for a Valentine to come, the one that I looked to as a girl. A saint that will cash in his ticket for the rest of my lonely heart days. They will be his. I will timidly take his ticket as if it were gold, as if it were real. Then it will be.

Tall stretch of skin, scraping the top of my consiousness.
Why do you follow me here? I want to be alone.
Always whispering care.
Tell me again that you'll never leave,
maybe I will believe you this time.
Outside your grasp, between these covers
You smile but cover something.
I am curious but not enough.
I think your past is crooked and slant away from me.
I shake at what happened, what you won't say.
Sweet words dilute the poisons
but I can't risk it again.
Holes can't fill holes.

Note to self:

Kissing means everything
Windows looking over lights and oceans can signal bliss
Words not spoken usually multiply with time
When the sky is blue how can you be?
When it's your song, you must sing it, no matter who is around
Take a minute, just one. Take it and it's yours.
Challenges are opportunities
Excuses are a bottomless well of fear
Today, you should do it.
Tomorrow you will feel better.
When it seems like what you are looking for isnt around,
look for something else.
Untold wisdom is unspent wealth.
Fall
Laugh
Sing
Dance
Speak Up
Slow down
Get Up
Smile
Cry
Don't forget why you are here
You will get hurt
But it hurts more to think of what might have been.
I love you

I can be everything you love.

A vibration alert and he begs an entrance, center stage.
I smile and bow;
glancing back only to nod
at the ragged hurdles I dominated.
Rising higher,
no more drag,
seeing the residue slough,
seeing clarity personified,
seeing where I was born,
where I am.
Walk through and feel that tug at what you are.

Clown Fish

Don't know what to say. Washed it all away. Documented it somewhere and let it go back where it belongs. I won't regret you. Seems bitter in the light of day. Soft edges removed and true rugged shows its face; not ashamed but rough. He veered out of control and hit me stationary and willing, with open arms. Let it be what it was and walk away.
Write the next...


Drops of emotion on the page, my ink tears smear the perfection of innocence.

out of order

Can't get my mind off of you because you won't let me go. You keep pulling me in like a disgruntled fisherman. "Smile on me, take me in from the cold for the night only and leave me tomorrow." Sweet and narrow, deep and brief. Cascades of laughing recession as I crawl back where I started. I can't take it with me. Smiles get further and further until only a subtle curve shows through. Crooked shapes fill your absense and soften under times steady hand. It's level again.

I left you out.

Don't ask why or for how long.

You were something I wanted to see take shape.

You were something I saw Daily.

Just leave with your soft words

and failing intentions.

I will sit and wait for the numb to come back;

my partner.

Brick by minute seals you alone from me.

Mortered by defunct hopes and late expectations.

As the wall climbs the sun rises and I roll towards that good again.

He sees her car pull in and feels a quickening in his body. He has been through this routine countless times and has been through it even more often on his days off. She finally finds a spot in the back of the parking lot, away from the caffeinated comings and goings. She thinks no one notices that she changes in the parking lot, but he knows. He imagines from behind his counter her pulling off the thin work cloths and uncomfortable shoes and slip into old jeans and older shoes. He can see the tight squeeze and the lifting of the pelvis in the drivers seat as she pulled up the jeans that laid dormant during the long work day. Finally equipped for comfort she enters his realm. He watched from the side as she entered the loud and bright coffee shop. The other patrons lift their anxious heads to see what is disturbing their psuedo-intellectual conversations and lap-top conferences. She seemed to smile at the room, at no one in particular. Approaching the counter she doesn't notice the menu but does notice the glass case that she will never order from, but is daily tempted by. He doesn't even pretend to not know her order; large coffee, extra shot, add some ice to quicken delivery. She smiles at the familiarity; as if no one knows her as well as he. Her smile is so genuine he actually starts to think that that is true. But someone must be waiting for her to come home, counting, sighing for her presense. Every day, she might not notice, but he comes a little closer, smiles a little bigger, tries a little harder to coincide his releasing of the cup with her attaching. Across the counter, across that small moment, he can connect with her. For that split second they are not alone. She retraces her steps and he watches every one. as he does he imagines his tomorrow; he will wear his newest workshirt and those black corduroys that he got from the thrift store during high school. Show her that he doesn't address the need to pay hundreds of dollars on what Macy's thinks is appropriate. He will wear the black bandana over his shoulder length hair and the Chuck's that had seen better days. He would have energy, that carbonated idea that he could do anything. Everyone would see his smile and want more of it; especially her. She would walk in right on schedule in nice tight jeans and an old, tight blue v-neck. He can picture her putting them on in her car and he feels warmer suddenly. She would feed off his energy and smile and flirt and the moment, the right one that always is readily available in romanitic comedies but flailing and rare in real life shows its face, right down the center. He grabs it and says, "We have to stop meeting like this."She smiles and he feels a foot taller. "Where do you suggest we meet then?" He knew she was perfect.
The real tomorrow arrives and he sits perched at his coffee throne and waits for 5 o'clock. 5:15, 5:47, 6:13. He takes off his bandana and curses the thing that changed her mind.

They move right through you;
no catching,
embracing something softer than rejection.
Dismissed and I am still missing something
omitted or never added to begin.
Blank staring at closing credits;
still can't figure the ending.

blue monday

Tumultuous again, after all that steady.
Thought I owned it then they come falling back in the picture again;
smiling and promising without words.
I silently accept the bargain forgetting the smoke I will meet in their place.
Such a beautiful illusion it is that fools me every time.
So sweet that ends so sour.
Climb back up and accept it all for what is is;
sobering of drunkeness that you call love;
the dream of love anyway.

I think I can make an excuse for you and your raging motivations. I will dip down, scrap around in the dark and figure out why you did it. At first it cut deep and made me look at the wound, at the red and black of it. I saw the blood escape and questioned its rush. Now I see no reason for it.
I could even find you on some dark night and ask you why? Face to face, no electronic middle man. You will shuffle uncomfortably in your brown shoes and whisper some apology, some strong willed regret. But I dont ask to make you uncomfortable or guilty. I see now. Just want you to see the human that was pushed about unkindly. No remorse or anger sits around waiting to strike. Just a questioning logic, asking questions of the illogical. The heart can be dizzy sometimes; most times.

as if

there will never be time for dark. So I keep up speed toward you. You enter through the back and I almost don't notice. But that soft smell of desire gives you up, pulling me toward you, I can't help that pull. A delicate cord connects us and sways with the days. Weakening and strengthening and swelling and stretching as you recede to that life you know. I am here speaking to you across the distance. You are listening between pictures. Simple tastes of you stick to my memory, they handle an intensity deep in me, rendering me weak. Eyes roll back, a flash of breathless and a slight dip in heartbeat are all thats left of you.

Sacrosanct juncture; to me there are empty spaces, should be free places. He said, he wants, he waits for the nod. Which nod do I give today? Once given my pink heart stands naked in the crossfire for any one of them to whet their appetite. I'll stay at the cross roads and pour myself a drink. Now isn't as bad as they say.
***
Rambling across thoughts,
mindless thinking.
Sit and remember the details.
Make them stick
so they matter.
***
Different shapes of resistance
funneling toward futility.

"When you caught my eye I saw everywhere I'd been and want to go"

Lids disguise a silent production of where I see myself.
Far from now and yesterday.
Next door to and across the sea.
Hope relies on those lashes,
a swallowing stress,
a jealous moment
squeezes between top and bottom.
Open and a whole is electrified
as a crystal joy shows itself.
Nothing clear, but everything certain.
Anywhere you are,
those flashing moments follow as I go too.
Always, til tomorrow;
I am here with you.

Hallelujah...

For just that stingy moment. Imperfect broken, shattered happy. The pieces still make sense, still worth the fractures. Put back to shape, they are fine and heavy in love. There is no taking that away. Cold but true, under; hidden, found, lost, something that all miss, something that all have a place for whether full or a yawning hole. Sigh in dreams for that lapping in of suspension; floating abduction; close-eyed ecstasy.

Good to be

us
alone
intact forever

"Without you I'm not me".
I can picture that being said outside of a window, in the rain. The other side of the window doesn't agree. If it does, only slightly as some pain or fear holds the reins. The outside of the window has tears hidden, perfect disguise. The car engine is running because they are expecting to be sent back to their dark porch of regret. The engine seems to know better than the outside of the window and your heart cringes at the thought. Trees bow in empathy, the cold wind resists blowing icy drops in their face, hoping to add no more insult. The curtains are replaced to put the final nail in the coffin. The outside holds it's breath on the off chance that the inside is running to the front door in a sudden release of emotion, something they had been withholding for this exact moment. Minutes pass, limbs start to feel the cold as they are improperly attired in the mad rush to this window. A heart beats slower, trees bow deeper, wind stops but that old rain keeps on the symphany of despair, of irreparable breaking. Eyes close, open, seek shelter, shift to drive and head back to not being themselves. Its going to take a while.

From so far away it doesn't seem real.
All commonality sinks back with the others
in a frowning show of disillusionment.
A phone conversation echos in a distant past,
tickling a wound.
Turn the music up so you can't hear.

Friday

Must be stated, but with excitment because it doesnt happen often. I type fast to keep up, but I know i will fall behind. Typos wont hinder comprehension becuase it was a feeling that the illiterate understand. When bodies lock in, like eyes to target and then they are permanently connected. That was how it was; exactly. How can you see these things without speaking? What is it that creates these ties that bind? Perhaps they were created before we walked into the establishment. Fine flirting, skirting the issue until later, when we were unnaturally brave. Say hello, new face, fresh for the taking and keeping in a safer place in the memory. Take me inside and we will sit at the corner of a crowded room and nothing else will come into play. Tell me about you and where you come from and where you are going. Hint that you will take me with you. Make me laugh, make me show you who I am. I think I can see you. Laughing was a game, a competition that punctuated our excitation. Hours pass, drinking games, Doritos, warm next to you. Wake up, we have to go, you'll be late, but it's worth it. All worth it.

Ready to set foot again. Maybe I've never really done it before; to open the latch, just the idea sets something ligher in me. A burden shifts and my eyes seem a little more open.
***
Where I'm going (.) You can't come. I want a piece of forgiveness, a lick of heaven, to know it's real and not a liquid mirage taunting my frail optimism. Those soft lullabies were for me; a charmed life in words and pictures set to music.
***
He walked through the door as if to claim a prize and his image was a magnet to my eyes. He just knew it had to be. He picked a chair closer to the front than the back and a soft part of me groaned silently because he didn't pick closer to me. I feign poor eye sight, squint gracefully, excuse my human frailty and decide on a chair close enough to him to smell his clean cloths.
A part of him relaxes with the proximity because closeness was comfort to him; like warm feet and homemade cookies. A heated body breathing as he, looking as he (with a bit of a squint) with smooth skin and shiny dark hair, being akin made him aware...

What I waited for?

This could be both ways, and you did it on purpose. Sly self importance as I wait for the reality of it. Doors are knocking around me but they lead to other people's versions and not mine.
Continually I walk on, blindly but with an odd sense of faith that strings me along with a smile on my face. I am reliving memories that haven't happened in the sense that nothing can be better than the present, therefore the future is something bright and mighty and deep in resolution.

But allow me to sink in to fantasy for a minute, like a quick breather, and think that he meant love as in everything that it should be. Love to know every part, every inch, every second of the me that is showing and hidden. He was curious what I was doing last Friday and next Friday and every Friday after. That he didn't want to share. That he wanted to bring it all as well. That he can smell me when I am not there. That I sprint through his mind often and without his control.
Just for a warm evening, let me think that it was all with purpose and definition. Searching came to fruition. Pain was the cost of some type of rare bliss. All those sweaty days, lonely eyes, blank black nights, missing pieces were for an unseen cause/ wrapped up nicely and meant for me; only.

Teddy

If this person were an animal, which would he be?
A humble bear who knows the best place for warmth.
If he were a flower, a violently orange Lily that seems thirsty for the sky.
If a tree; a young, rare variety of oak that knows strength yet flexibility.
His color would be a subtle mix where the lines are indiscernable.
A food that is him is what you are satisfied with as soon as it is eaten, leaving you warm.
His country is Italy where everything is foreign but friendship.
A body of water would be a clear pond on a summer day where fish know no danger.
Porcelein: A coffee mug, full, waiting.
If he were an article of clothing it would be a soft, old sweater that always fits just right that you never will get rid of because of all that amazing times you had in it and you know they were amazing because you were wearing it.

1/22/08

Baby I'm amazed at the slice of me you take.
Ashamed because I give it willingly, you smile as you sink in.
Blood runs through and out issuing forgiveness but none for you.
You had your share.
So let me slip back,
away from your fragment flashbacks
that seep in forgetfullness.
Have your day 500 miles away.
The snow can't touch me here.

Patience

Dark and heavy lines across the night,

drawing me back in to drowning.

My fists pound at my disobedience.

"WAKE UP" shrills through the hollows of my insecurity.

They can't have you back once they sent you off.

Would be like asking for a second injection,

more lethal please, maybe without the anesthetic this time.

Obligated to disobey because you're split in opposite directions

until you decide to sew back the seams and let it.

Light

Every little hungry absense feeds on me,

eating the antidote.

With the key locked inside my reflection is pale,

but a strong hand reaches across through the ripples of illusion;

through the burden of remembrance,

and I step up to the light outside.

All he can say is...

I told you so.

Jittering left and right because I know what's coming; sacred tomorrow that waits for me like a pen anticipating paper. Kismet always reminds me of kis s. Justly so, no words surround your face in my mind. Its just a shape waiting to be painted by your presense. Vague swirls of color rush around inside and the sealed envelope is pale next to knowing you. Calm takes over and the feathered thoughts gracefully make their way below. The day settles and fate levels with the horizon.

Slender forms appear in the shading, creation is revealed.
The face gains features and is human.

Begin and it will take shape. Slow configuration as the sky grows dizzy. We sat somewhere mild and covert and wrote what we saw; humans in their feeble beginnings with shaking knees and ice cream tainted fingers, young pairs smiling and sighing and not minding the wait, gray ones that had been there since the beginning when imagination was the key to advertising.

Mad dashes across the page, eyes wandering like vagrants begging for inspiration, small laughs escape, memories come in waves with each testimonial...
sitting on tall shoulders, legs becoming tired but to no avail, we had to see the lighted figures dance across the sky; small ecstatic bursts pounded the ink ceiling and each greedily took our breath.
Small steps back seem to bring me forward, delivering what is really important.
No other place can really do that, besides home. Its a living memory, that breaths and gives and takes and consumes and exalts; a place marked in our histories where there was only one requirement; happiness.

Small ropes thrown out across town, tugging at old times.
Call me back so I can remember.
Right now I am tied up and can't bring it all back.
So I need you there to tell me about that one time;
when we laughed and laughed.
Also, when we went out and a boy fell in love with me.
There were soft kisses and loud words.
Can you find that time that I cried until my eyes were swollen,
and that time you tripped and fell but noone saw but me.
Disneyland maybe? San Francisco!
A little bit of college, when we were young but knew everything.
I hope it's not too much to ask.

Hurridly clicking towards my future, all things considered at once. A flood of ideas and a new path opens wide, hungry for me to take the first step. All the dissarray was for a reason, that awkward birth created a steady footing. Each day of my life has whispered one word of a narrative. The intro is finally done.
Today I decided to be someone new. I disregarded the pessimism that clouded my action. I put on a new coat that had seen better days and walked down the stairs to my impatient truck. We started together and I turned the country music down. Looking back sometimes, you see the truths that people desperately tried to impart to you and feel that rush of naivite turn you warm. I thanked them collectively, loudly, all at once. They heard me I am sure. Turn, turn, turn again and I am on the open road; so tempting to go the opposite way of responsibility. Something that used to make me cringe, now I see it is was gives me freedom. But I take the road toward tomorrow. The road was wet, like in all those car commercials and my truck felt new again. I remembered when I first drove her off the lot with all the windows down. The smile seemed to take up my whole being. She was mine, I was hers. Nothing could change that fact; the beginning of permanence, of adulthood. I can still smell that moment sometimes, just a young girl with her hair blowing through a pickup truck. It felt like we had a comet tail that couldnt catch us. Now that feeling flies next to me with my warm coffee and low music on my way to work. Laughing for no apparent reason, trek the freeway, exit, up the big hill to youth and promise. The students give it to you for free, no strings attached. Talking with them, yesterday doesn't really matter. This moment does. The day flies by, tiny accomplishments.
Pack up, look around see what really counts in the grand equation. Take it with you. It's yours.