A Life Behind Glass

I’m watching the roof soak up the rain my living room window kisses.
Buses sweep the ground in rapid thrushes at the foot of my bed.
Writing desk plays the role of a dining table when needed, and the
Sun is just moments away from alighting the colorful cave of the home
I built with pining strips of questioning.
Survival around the bend,
Success open to interpretation.
Sadly, not a hammock in sight.

Like An Amputees Phantom Itch - Rachel McKibbens

I recently wrote a review on Rachel McKibbens' debut poetry collection.

That volume of her work really pulled me out of a moment of darkness, and so I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Pink Elephant

I hope you enjoy it. More may be on the way...

Scarred Flesh, Salvaged Heart

I see you rising from below ground,
Knuckles white against the yellowed bronze
Of your suitcase handle.
See you smile as my hair swings behind me,
Felt our eyelashes kiss before opening,
Peeked a glance to find your hand waiting across the street,
Palm open.
Heard you introduce me to your friends in the distance,
Your footsteps no longer foreign.
Felt you scrape your nails across my breasts,
Heard you whisper persuasively,

It doesn't hurt,
It feels just fine...

But I never felt your smile warming my eyes upon waking.
I heard you yell, but
I never heard you sigh.

Its a transition of learning,
These trembling heartstrings being strengthened
by practice.

The truth begets the past because the present means,

He loves me just right.

In Flight

The body of water I passed was not an ocean,
and yet its expanse stretched on endlessly.

The sunset
A burnt orange pad of butter
Melting on an outstretched sheet of clouds.

My heart a blue so deep it came,
From the sorrows of my dreams.

We approach evening here and now,
As I sail the skies to a place
That will see the Sun for many hours more.

It's just a dream

Soaking his hand
Held over my mouth to still the screams
Not with tears,
But saliva as I licked his palms
Absorbing the scent
Nostalgic.

I knew these days were near done.

Looking across the street,
Her eyes caught my gaze,
Her hands reaching, ready to pull me in...

I'm not ready.
I suck my tongue, tasting the dirt
From a day in the Sun.

He sneezes, the hand holding my mouth shaking,
And I feel him crumble from inside.

It's all a dream, these trials
I know he'll release me soon.
Yet I urge him to hold on,
My eyes wet with the strain
To speak,and he turns
Finally.

I see his smile,
Wishing I could taste it too.

"Leaving this darkness behind..."

A man alternates between floor column to grass, to pavement, and the clouds feel dissolved with the night held back by the moon.
I still don't believe in sun bathing without a body of water nearby, heat escaping the pores without reprieve.
I believe in dogs, writing, napping, reading in the sun. Warmth.
His arms.

Daytime Constellations

You smell like something I could crawl into,
Sun rays in outskirts of reality,
The clouds carving their protection around sunrises.
Seems like that full moon left its mark,
Etched a door into my soul,
Ingesting sweetness in words,
Made of honey stuck tears,
Buried Fountains,
Watercolor horizons,
and hands.

Fingernails soaked in chocolate,
Dried fruit dreams
and granola crumbled
Sheets.

Your land has the makings
Of a summer vacation,
Sun never setting,
Clouds forgetting their direction.
I need to know the next step
This land will take me,
Its lakes so vast,
I forget where I began,
And all this tripping is so
Familiar.

I urge myself to stand still
To breathe,
To listen, and recognize
The pattern
These tracks are making
On the landscape my birth was born into,
I just
Want
Peace, from the temptation to
Run with risk, with
Sensualities wilderness,
With sand freckling the skin
In broken,
Drifting swaying breezes,
The trees bending with the
Falling
Sun.

Please lead me away from the fork in the road
My wandering spirit often takes
When the earth smells like rain.

I want to be here.
Present.
For when the stars return
The key to the door
In my palm,
Waiting.

Pretty ladies say What!

I'm here and I'm waiting.

Fucking freezing grass
Earth beneath it sodden
A sun that winks instead of glares
Away the chill,
I glimpse my future in a sunset.

You're too small to see me,
Too far on the map.
You've got muscles for acceptance,
but zero immune system for rejection,
You're a sore loser.

My self-reflection is somewhat smattered
Against the landscape of too ambitious goals.
Yet it's the norm to expect too much
When the canvas is blank.

I moved to a whole new land
Under a much vaster sky,
And all I want is a dog to play with.
A life to simply be
Beside me,
Its instinctive clock ticking
reliably,
regulating my heart.

There are no moments when
The ink fails to run,
The material my skin,
When the page is
Run
Through
By my anxieties.

I swear a part of me convinced
Itself there were no further
Steps to take,
So here I wait.

Cloud formations framing the songs
That shape my daydreams,
I don't sleep much,
Because the east shouts
DO!
While the west whispers
Listen...

Ginger toothpicks, and
A drawer full of chopsticks,
I'm confused.

Dancing is the only
Reliable
Option.
Move until the wayward rhythm
Smooths out my
Skipping record,
Stops repeating,
And slows
To a speed
Called
Relax.

Hungry Waters

I am an ice cube and
You are warm water.

Millions of drops of condensation
evaporating into the air,
and the destination is our minds
our mouths devouring words of love,
Lust
Splendor is our torment.

Because nothing digs deep enough,
not until my hands clasp you
my head in the crook between your
ribs and heart.

I see you hiding behind
telephone poles, messages in
smoke signals
I'm telling you,

I am a safe lock
and you are my conbination,
hidden behind my breast plate
inside my veins, coming out in
tears played in morse code.

Our love is an unlocked treasure chest
opened in each others dreams
our hearts
our hungry flapping tongues
lapping up tears in the air
from the frozen waters that I was
before I met you.

Knowing Heart

You were a gust of wind, and I a heated beam
Melting off all the debris, to find
A lion with trimmed fur, tame, clean and
Untouched. You burrowed your way into my heart
Smiling innocently, your claws retracted
Wrestling me to the ground with your
Strength. Cooling me down with your tongue
Lapping away my tears
My fear.

This was our beginning.

"Give me your hand so that I can betray your trust," she says

I see faces taking space on the subway with little to express but
Boredom. Winter does more than dry the skin to emptiness,
Endless rest of the mind, the spirit and all that withstands the
hallowed tunnels where we hide until its warm
again.

Where dancing harps on acceptance, and
optimism trods upon doubt.
The masks we wear until we cannot tolerate each other
again.

The colors gone west with the Sun.

Short Sentences, Long Winded

All that matters are the words,
It’s absurd, to think a thing as fickle as desire would
Clear out the field of players that wield axes,
Come from battles they lose,
Over and over, you know
I often don’t understand the terms you use
Though I love to hear you spin
Your story, beat by beat because
None of it,
Not you, not me
Ever had to make sense,
Tie me up and rip me down
I’ll just let you walk,
Knee deep through my matter,
I’m scattered
My lips are battered from
Chewing the words instead of
Telling you, I was here
Long before your arrival.

Don’t pretend, I amend
My story, I’m no downer
Except you keep dipping low
Where ups reverse
their flow.

When you get sick, do you prefer to go it alone or be doted upon by a friend, partner, or parent? Do you usually go to work or school or stay home?
Wow is this appropriate for me today!
I had a wound that was pretty well healed until a week ago, and now my body is pouring forth the chemicals of sickness and sorrow, and all that comes along with life's many tribulations.
Most often, when finding that a stage like this has approached the present, I prefer to handle it on my own.
Who wants to be around a sick person?

Even those that love me the most, wanting to lay in bed with me, or come over in the middle of the night to care for me are pushed away.
I miss them as I push them, but in the end I feel better, more empowered.
I write until I need to rest, read when I'm feeling well enough, and watch films of various foreign languages to keep my phonetic abilities in shape. I write sad poems that are open to inferences -which are ususally wrong- and test my narrative skills by jotting down the thoughts of a person without a voice, and theoretically fictional.

My hair's finally growing out. Grazing the tops of my shoulder blades, it falls softly in front of my face, and I smile because I'm starting to resemble the lovely girl with cascading ringlets I was just a year ago.

Everytime I ask a question I'm told to write.

Dear scribblers, artists, fondlers, and music makers,
I wish for you a lovely fast paced Monday. As for me, I wish for hibernation beneath the quilts with hot black tea, paper, pens, and books.

Melancholy Bloodstream

Sore heart I beg you to continue on beating.
The past bears the heaviest load of pain and I
Cannot carry the burden it unloads upon my present
I don’t. Don’t want to see faces in my dreams
Because the thought of love being ignored with doubt
With the ignorant certainty of finding a pearl in a broken clam shell,
Turns my Love to dust when once it was so alive.

A stomach full of flies and no butter
Feeding on afterthoughts like parasites
I plead, dearest muscle keep pumping and I
Will nourish you with hope,
Coddle you with sweet something’s,
Kiss you awake with unspoken promises.

The abundance of what awaits beckons impatiently
Missing you though it hasn’t met you
Yet.

Subway Syndicate

On a Sunday afternoon riding the subway
many things surprise me.
Ruffled heavy dresses,
Sweaters and Suits,
Scowling faces,
Unshaved legs.
Laziness is Sunday's motto.

An asian woman stares with heavily lined eyes
into a portable map.
Her mouth pursed in a concentrated ball
no longer seems pensive.
She purses her mouth much like a fish would,
when rising to the surface for air.

I keep staring as if my own will could
help her mouth relax.

Possible embaressment causes her to pull the map closer,
concealing her face.
Her lips relax.
They frown.

A woman in a white dress made
of cotton,
Silk,
and lace
chooses not to sit in any of the available seats.
Her body reads, 'I don't often take public transportation.'

Exiting at 23rd I notice she's wearing headphones.
Can't help but wonder
what she's listening to.

I exit the train at 14th street and pose
a few options.

How Strange, Innocence

Can we really be friends?

Part of this makes me sad.

The illogically natural feel to a friendship
that once included physical intimacy.

Sex becomes so trivial, and thoughts
of extinguishing the flame are no longer thoughts.

The matches no longer serve to ignite
but to prolong stifled chemistry
and what you once thought was
so unique, sustained by passion,
has died with the ease of habit.

Such a shame.

At 19. "Reality's Destruction"

A weakness in human kind has always been the necessity
To support the desire of concealing the obvious

The fact that we must promote the idea that things can get better
When they are down
That the pain, however piercing
Will one day fade from our hearts

The possible reason is that we are all stuck on forms of idealism
The probable answer, however, is that no one wants to believe
The pain may very well become the thing that destroys us

So our weaknesses are in our avoidance of the real
Allowing each night to drag on
While the day speeds up with minor habitual inconveniences

Eventually, we each become our own *destroyers*
It's the wave of nausea, the pang in our guts
...Thoughts of age, and deterioration...
Accepting reality is too expensive these days
Even for the most fortunate
Likewise with words, lies have been made cheap

Who needs the truth when you can afford to lie...

Note: I love the naivety in this relic. Forgive its bad format.

Another little dittie from the east...

At night I dream of sleep while awake
Chasing stars,
Toes curling at the foot of a doorway
I see with my eyes closed.

A former roommate called me driving west...

He was getting paid to drive a truck from New Hampshire to California. It was a way to earn a few extra bucks, and while we spoke on the phone he described to me what he saw.

It inspired a piece I began, that was in an entirely new voice so foreign to my own.

I still dig it.
----

Burning with the lust for adventure, he visits volcanoes in California. Legs swinging, he sat beneath the hot springs liberated by volcanic oozes, magma, and geysers visualizing the boiling water beneath the ground. The lava erupting over one land; Part Wyoming, part Montana, and part Idaho. Fucking huge and out of control.
Mountains hold his gaze, and amid the floating wisps of twisted mariquana cigarettes he feels very much liberated by the open road. Gusts of wind meander in and out of his car windows softly humming over the sound of his world music. Cracking his knuckles to an invisible drumbeat, a mist of rain that he once tolerated begins to sprinkle upon his steering wheel. He’s been clutching the fourth joint of the evening between his forefinger and thumb. Surprisingly his fingertips are clean and uncinged; he’s been doing this for days without flaw. Through desolate highway roads, the soft music of Midwest nothingness, and the colors of sunrise and sunset blending into one even hue of grey.
For the last few hours the whoosh of passing cars has been amiss. Silently he aches for the metallic symphony of some other vehicle or the crushing presence of another pick up truck. In that moment he’s tempted to sway his steering wheel along with the escalating tempo of the chanting vocals in his car radio. Instead he settles on to casual head bopping. A ridiculous act that he secretly is thankful no one witnesses.
Purple skies turn a deep mauve, and from a very slight distance he sees the ominous shape of a buffalo; A comfort in the descending shadow of night. Clearly, the beast appreciates the quiet privacy of the road relieving itself in one still moment; Perfect for a single frame on Jeff’s camera. Slowing his truck to a smooth trailing glide, one soft click alerts the bull of his proximity. But he still finishes the job; the next stop is Nevada.
Stray, highway tires are aflame not too distant from the looming ashen edifice down the road. The ashenned brick, and thick black fence surrounding tells his intuition that it’s a prison. He thinks, making a few phone calls to pass the time wouldn’t be such a bad idea, might ease his nerves. With the exception that he’s called most everyone who would conceivably be awake at this point. Ah but text messages, his generation’s attempt at intimacy without the nuisance of actual voice on voice contact. They serve to pass the time; for the moment.
The hours of silence persist and permits paranoia to return to the scene, rendering him wary of any lurking bulls hiding in the shadow of the descending desert sun. Fatigue is barely replaced by caffeine pills, and he stares into that bucket seat between the passenger and driver with the longing for the warmth of a woman’s knee beneath his palm. It has been a long journey from adventure to the calming madness of solitude. Smothered by the silence of the open road he sifts his hand through the glove compartment in search of new tunes. Here is the point where he silently seeks a voice to join his journey on the silent road providing a roadblock of blood, sex and madness. His eyes flutter over the glare of his headlights though not from fatigue, but more a waking dream providing the great escape. The feat which has been so easily avoided begins to seep into his consciousness, and the realization of his final destination looms before him in the shape of a bird in flight.

Beach Play (7/12)

Laying on the sand, my girlfriend's feet above my head, toes gringing the sand up and over.
My right hand follows my right arm faced down, fingertips tapping.
My left hand holds the book I'm reading.
All of these sounds become slaps onto what seems like a hollowed cavity.
I stop reaching and listen to the collaboration of my hand and her feet,
banging on the wall of the beach ground trying to get through to the empty center.
It almost seems like below us is the Earth's core, or another state only visible when the earth turns and the Sun gives it It's full attention.

I'm certain I'm not the only one who's thought about this.

Children sit on the sand building castles while the Ocean's undercurrent threatens to tear down their creation; The whole time probably feeling the impact of the steps people make as they pass by on their way down to the shore.
It's surreal, the Ocean.
The build-up from far off, the rising, the curling, and the sharp edge that stands frozen before slamming into the sand with a pulse that flatlines and crawls to reach the toes of people there just to catch the breeze.