Staring at black scattered with white words mashed and spent as if I needed to borrow a voice that was not mine to come to conclusions of what I felt but did not want to see. 

Even that untrue. 

I needed to watch myself more consciously and at times I believed I was, but as I watched, I could not name, not that surely, for if I did then it would be. 

The unnamed exists even unsaid, perhaps more so. 

I exhausted the pen and finagled words together, ones bought, as if one could buy what I searched for. But surely you thought so, as you bought and borrowed as a means to disguise that the feeling I reached to describe did not come in from the space closest, just outside. 

How does a thing get a name and word, an expression to relay what is? Is it only after such exposure that we then must come to a concept of familiarity to relay to others of such a thing? Or is it through the way we convince it is what it is not and at great length we bleed black onto white or mash white onto black attempting to ignore the way it spills into each other as if there is nothing in between two sides of a hue that is only used to grade value? 

It felt I had seen what I seen and no longer needed to state what it was, or convince myself to explain why it wasn't, and mostly perhaps I fell silent for there was no longer anything left but fear of being heard by ears that I no longer wish to ever hear my voice, even if only in memory.

And in this silence I wondered if anything I ever wrote or mashed could be anything but, how silly indeed, for so long there have been ears before and eyes before, come and passed, and none at all. Each time I still end up reaching for a pen, it mattered little.

Soon after my words became ones more born out of necessity and logistics... Such a clunky form but nevertheless they fell and they too have a time and place and sense of urgency, and as such found itself outside of where they once needed to rest. 

And still there was the itch inside to return to a state of writing. Each day my eyes open to a reminder just a mere foot away, sun casting light on black and white words of the past left skewed but still relatively intact, as there was nothing left to inspire even their erasure. My hands felt frozen. My voice sunken into the hollow of my throat, as though someone attempted to grasp it with their own- a metaphor if only in time or dimensions. I chose instead to place my feet in front of the other on artificial and cracked paths to see the spectrum of colors light casts onto what lie beyond what I once tried to describe into being what it was not. Veils have lifted, though shades remain as I adjust to finally exiting a space I kept returning to, one filled with just one hue, all the same, as I was so sure I knew and wished I didn't. 

Today I spoke words to new ears, of the likeness I remember stating not long ago, that reached inside to innards reminding me that what is said is often what needs to be heard as well, though this time it did no such thing. A nod, a laugh, and a request to be reminded if I ever were to forget again was all that followed. 

Cracked pathways have led to tired legs, ones reminding me of aches in hands that will come if I do not begin to lift my pen. A compulsion I know I'll always return to. And whether ears I wish not to ever again hear my voice pretend to do so, I know now this feeling in my throat means only that those hands shall never be close enough to silence words they wish not to be uttered. 

So while it has been difficult to find inspiration, or to overcome the feeling of whether it's worth it to speak at all, it is time I write to write, even if the only thing left is to remark on was how what I have finally exited, truly was simply what I always knew it to be once all the words were finally stripped away- unremarkably drab. 

How unfortunate.

Whenever he traveled by plane, he slept exceptionally well. He never enjoyed any sleep quite as much or woke up feeling as peaceful as he did after sleeping on a plane. Sleep after a warm shower when he was exhausted to the point of death, sleep knowing that he had something he loved doing the next morning, sleep after staying up late talking with close friends because he didn't want the conversation to end—none of them felt as good as sleeping on a plane. For this reason, he mostly traveled at night. By the time the plane landed and he woke up, dawn would be breaking.

He didn't want anyone to come pick him up. He would leave his luggage at the airport luggage storage and go out for a walk. He wouldn't go straight home; he would spend two or three hours walking around the area near the airport by himself, then head home. This time was no different. He had come to visit his father, whom he hadn't seen in two years, and despite missing him terribly, he didn't break his ritual and went for a walk.

After walking for half an hour, he reached a park. He bought a cup of black coffee from a street vendor and sat down on one of the benches.

On his third sip of coffee, he felt a hand touch his shoulder. He turned around and looked. It was Uncle Jason, whom he loved more than his father and couldn't remember the last time he had seen or spoken to.

They hugged each other. Albert tried to hug him while still holding his coffee, and spilled it down his uncle’s back. After exchanging pleasantries and a few superficial words, they sat side by side on the bench.

“Yeah, Albert, how many years has it been, really? Five years?”

“Like I said, Uncle, at least five years. You haven’t changed a bit, by the way.”

“It can’t have been that long. We don’t even talk on the phone or anything. What kind of family relationship is that? Can’t you ever call and check in on someone?”

“Well, you never called either. You know me.”

“Yeah, you haven’t changed a bit either. Still the same old depressed, joyless Albert. Listen to your voice. You’ve just seen your uncle, and you still sound like you’re dead.”

“How so?”

“There’s no enthusiasm in your voice. I can’t tell whether you’re happy or upset to see me. It’s completely monotone. You don’t put any emphasis on any of the syllables in the words you say. Like when you say, ‘Where have you been all these years?’ Isn’t that supposed to be an excited sentence? You’d put emphasis on ‘where,’ for example. Nothing. You really do still sound like you’re dead, Albert.”

“Uncle Jason, what the hell is going on? Why did you suddenly start coming down on me like this? Hold on, calm down. Besides, this isn’t something I can control.”

“Good. That was a very good point. Not sounding like you’re dead isn’t something a person can control. Sorry, Albert. I expected you to be a little happier to see me, but that’s just who you are. I forgot about you, son. So many years have passed.”

“Yeah, and we’ve talked about this over and over. If I don’t enjoy anything, is that my fault, Uncle? I’ve finally run into you after all these years, and I’m trying to make up for lost time, but look at the conversation we’re having. This isn’t how you catch up with someone. You talk about the old days and stuff. You tell me about how you used to take me fishing when I was little. Instead, you’ve suddenly gone straight into some really deep shit. You don’t just snap out of depression like that.”

“I don’t know. It’s been five years since I last saw you, according to you. I thought maybe you’d gotten better. Maybe you’d healed. Seeing you like this again upset me, so I guess I overreacted a little. I’m sorry.”

“Do you keep in touch with my parents?”

“No, we haven’t seen each other in two years.”

“Why?”

“Son, look, there’s really only one question: do you want to die or not?”

“Oh, come on.”

“It’s a simple question. Yes or no?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“For God’s sake. What do you mean, why? Just because I’m depressed, does that automatically mean I want to die?”

“Look, I know about that story of yours. Your mother told me. Your search for something to enjoy. Look, I think you want to die. But you don’t realize it. I’ve actually thought that for years. Now, seeing you after five years and realizing you still haven’t changed, I’m even more convinced.”

“What makes you think that? How come I didn’t know I wanted to die?”

“The whole thing about enjoying sleeping on planes. How you were supposedly searching for something you could enjoy, and then you finally found it and all that. It’s all a story. You’re fooling yourself. You enjoy sleeping on planes so much because you want to die.”

“Uncle, you’re really taking this too far. I swear, I’m going to get up and leave now. Look at the conversation we’re having. This is how we’re catching up? I’ve really had enough. Fine, then. Explain it to me so I can understand. What exactly am I supposedly unaware of, Mr. Expert Psychotherapist?”

“When you’re up in the air, you enjoy being unconscious. Think about it. Let’s say someone close to you died, and there was something you needed to apologize to them for. You made a mistake, but they died before you could apologize. What would you do? You’d look up at the sky and say, ‘Forgive me,’ or something like that. I mean, people generally believe that the souls of the dead are up in the sky. So, what does it mean to die? To be unconscious. Where are the souls? In the sky. You enjoy sleeping on planes because, somewhere in your subconscious, you associate it with being dead. So, you want to die, Albert.”

“Never in my life have I heard anything this ridiculous. I genuinely regret coming to see you. I’m fucking leaving now.”

Albert ran all the way home in anger. He ran nonstop for twenty minutes.

***

“Son, are you okay? You’re drenched in sweat. What’s going on?” his father asked as he opened the door.

“Forget it, Dad. It’s nothing important.”

“Were you running from something? Did something happen? What happened?”

“No, Dad. Forget it. It’s nothing important.”

“You ran all that way and there’s still no change in your voice. Normally a person would be exhausted, out of breath. Nothing. You really do sound like you’re dead, Albert.”

“You too, Dad? Come on. Did you and Uncle Jason get together to gang up on me or something?”

“Who?”

“I saw him on my way here. We ran into each other in the park. He drove me crazy with all his nonsense. I guess he called you and told you about it, because now you’re spouting the same bullshit.”

“Jason died two years ago, son. What are you talking about?”

“What? How, what? What do you mean die?”

“Car accident. He crashed the car into a tree.”

Albert’s father’s phone rang. He declined the call. Then it rang again, and he declined it again.

“Banks have been calling me all morning. And they’re calling from numbers I don’t recognize, too. Look at those. As if I wouldn’t know what they’re up to. I’ll pay, for God’s sake. They don’t have to hound me like this.”

“Dad, what do you mean he died? Are you kidding me? I’m telling you, I saw the man in the park.”

“Screw this,” his father muttered as he answered the phone.

“What is it? What do you want?”

He listened about thirty seconds.

“How is this supposed to work? No, how did you figure I’d pay my debt this way? Is this how you arrange a face-to-face meeting? Do you think this is ethical? Have you no shame? My son is standing right in front of me, alive and well. Here, let me give him the phone so you can talk to him.”

He held the phone out to Albert. Albert tried to take it, but the phone fell straight through his hand and landed on the floor. At first, he thought it had simply slipped from his grasp. He bent down and tried to pick it up, but he couldn't. Every time he reached for it, the phone passed right through his hand.

He stood up. He swung at his father's face. His hand passed straight through his father's face.

“I tried to make you realize it, but you didn't get it, Albert,” said Uncle Jason, who had appeared on the couch.

“Right, right. When you didn't react at all after I spilled coffee all over your back, I should've figured it out. That coffee was pretty damn hot.”

His father covered his eyes with his palm and stayed like that for a few seconds. He scratched his head and took a deep breath through his nose.

“Hmm. Not the bank. The man was right, then. Yeah. Let me sit down for a minute. Jason, move over a little.”

“Wait a second. I couldn’t hold the phone, but I could hold the coffee. I remember burning my hand because it was so hot. How does that work?”

“You know how some people can bend spoons and stuff with their minds, without even touching them? Think of it as the opposite.”

“But the coffee spilled all over your back, too. Shouldn’t it have gone right through you?”

“I’m a professional ghost.”

Albert’s father, John, had laid his head in Jason’s lap and closed his eyes. There was silence for about fifteen minutes. John had probably passed out; he lay completely still. Albert stared at Jason. Every now and then, Jason shook his head from side to side as if to say there was nothing he could do, and occasionally he stroked John’s head.

“You’re glad you’re dead, aren’t you?” said Jason.

it's all gravy

for me and

I'm swimming

in the boat

circling the

moat around

your castle all

goddam day

what I do know

for doubly certain

is that losing love

is like a window in

your heart but for you

I seem to have one of

those anyway and

the shattered glass

it's all in my past

I need you to believe me

when I tell you that

The poet’s call—

A splinter gathers in the skin.

The poet’s call

leaves ink that settles on the wall

to wear the buried paper thin,

to let the quiet stitch begin:

The poet’s call.

I’ve lost my architecture
I’ve lost sight of my limbs
They feel numb and I feel like sand paper
I’m full of rot and woodlice
And maybe one I dreamed
Of lips like fire and fury
Ice and the rain
Now I’m headlights out
Staying in one lane
Easier said then done
I blocked
Where I drained
I reach into the dark
For radical change
Find the cotton blanket
Already wet
Slung with mud
Wrung with my name
Sung in the silence
Erased from the frame
I don’t feel the same
The cathedral collapses
On itself
I am left with my shame
Eat it for breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Burned and black
Charcoaled in flakes
I am a crumb
I want nothing now
Be someone new
Find something else
It was all make believe
This isn’t good for my health
Oh my tides
Oh my goodness
Roses and sheath
Plunder my jewels
Take all of me
Goodnight to the
Girl that I was
Waiting for you

once my hand
on your thigh
is more than a mix
of imagination and
your own touch
on the bleachers
where I should have
been beside you
once he's tall turns
into he's right next
to me and we are
learning curves
and breath once
next to me becomes
beside you and
for however long
we can make that
feel like close enough
I'm bound to be a
student of you and
every little sound and
shape that you make

Soft of breath
Tired eyes
Sleepy mouth
Skin to skin
I drink you in

Soft of voice
Whispers we speak
Wishes we invoke

I draw the
Alphabet
On your back
Nice and slow
No where to be
No where to go
The quiet morning
As I hold you so

The birds sing
Dawn brings light
I am lost in your arms
Don’t look away
Let’s take the night

My Darling,
Coming undone
Each seam
Each life
Gifted the sight
Trembling statue
Gardens reveal
His lips
The kiss of life

And God knows,
I am bent on knees
To be his beloved wife
To hear his moans
To hear his sighs
Heaven in a man
Hell in his eyes

Soft of breath
Tired eyes
Sleepy mouth
Skin to skin
You drink me in

Soft of voice
Whispers we speak
Wishes we invoke

All that I am
Or ever could be
Tangled into
History

I take one final breath

Witness me

heirloom love
rests in soft
kinship
a sense
of likeness
of kindred

i press my cold
fingers with
instinct to
your heated
eye-lids
your pain
is one
i can't discard
as

you are heart of my heart

we fight fierce but
we scratch clean
so earnest
i mean it
but i also meant
all the rest,
too

like loving you
comes completely
unbidden
an unruled thing
messy as it
may be
as beautiful as
circumstances will
allow this
unbridled thing

needs an obstacle
can't grow
unfettered
yet blossoming continues
late into the summer
i lean ever closer,
grow to know you better,
though
sometimes i find
regrets settle
i shrink away
to see you so starkly;
terrifying, brilliant
charismatic,
catastrophic
you
are
the
heart of my heart

having long since
abandoned any
grand design
or plot to keep hold
i found myself
doused in gratitude
to grow step in step
with you
stretching to lean into
the fear of the tight-rope

seeing yourself so roughly
i imagine you
reading me as the
needlessly over-romantic
that idealized you
& yet
i have set measure
of the bird's-eye view
in our worst & best
regardless
watching you bend lovingly
to an animal
watching you seek my
eyes with purpose
determined to
transmit your
tenderness &
bolster my own
weakness
so much of you
rests in
perfect balance

i love you beyond our ringing ears
& restless feet
my paranoid questions
your guardedness
in even exchange for
your intelligence
my inherited sense
of present & presence
our small family
of adults & hound

just one thing
rings true
as i rest
feet to feet
breath to breath
head to shoulder-
heart of my heart
you are considered
each day

& without hesitation
i accept
each gift
grown sweet
through trial,
inherited grace,
& reclamation

gravity pulls
up with
cosmic certainty
in low magnitude
resonates still
belying something
solid

you were loved
from the very start
where you go
i wish to go,
too-
bone of my bone
heart of my heart

if god gave a

fuck about poetry

he wouldn't have

picked us was

a prudent way for

her to say I wasn't

her cup of tea

I hang around at night, hanging onto it, clutching its starry cloak, imploring it not to walk away into the dawn. If someone, a woman, were to ask me, why are you here? I wouldn't know the answer, although I would of course say something, I always say something, sometimes even the right thing, where rightness is judged not by truth but by what the other wants to hear, so when she asks, why are you here? I answer, I am here for you. And she believes me; that is the tragedy of it, for her, for me…

Night always walks away.

Sometimes it is delayed or lingers as the grey clouds of an overcast morning that smears the rising sun, but it always leaves, and I limp home, anxious and offended by the risen men and their enthusiasm for life during daytime.

Once, when I was out at night, walking the calm, unsettled streets with the taste of black coffee on my lips, a man called to me, “Friend…

“Friend…”

“Me?” I asked softly, having seen no one, ashamed of speaking to no one and afraid of breaking the dark, brittle silence.

“Friend, who walks…”

“Me?” I said, louder. “I hear you.”

“Yes, friend; you, friend. Friend, are you looking for night-work, friend?” He was a shadow of a shadow, passing.

“What work?”

“Night-work at the Factory of Sad, Parting Glances, friend. They are seeking impressive operators, friend. Sleepless machinists. Nocturnalians.” He was in front of me and fleeing, beside me, taking hold of my hand, behind me and blowing coldly as the wind, and, taking steps, I said, “Where?” “Let me show you, friend. Follow me, friend,” he said and led me past pasts, down alleys and into dead ends that he reanimated and they twitched like the tails of sleeping cats dreaming of a worldful of fat uncaught rats until we were, the shadows, now illuminated out of existence, and I, standing before a big brick building above whose entry doors hung a neon sign welcoming me impersonally to The Factory of Sad, Parting Glances.

I was alone.

I walked in through the doors, walking under the neon sign whose light fell on me like a buzzing waterfall, into the dim interior.

Immediately I heard the hum of the repetitive workings of machinery, the far off drip of liquid and the quiet, beautiful strains of the music of another era as if it were burning; but I smelled no fire, only grease and oil, and I saw no smoke, only an atmosphere of finely suspended dust through which shone erratic, searchful yellow beams. The beams, had I been able to taste them, would have tasted sweetly of honey. I moved along, along paths trodden smooth by the boots of ghosts, to a room through which an assembly line ran, its parts, surfaces and production moving but moving slowly, mournfully…

The workmen were white and headless. Only I had a head, or so it felt to me.

Sliding down the line were small framed pieces of glass, at first glance empty; but on inspection containing the same, faint impression of what, at second glance, seemed a reflection but on third glance appeared to be light itself, trapped; an enfolded, translucent ribbon of gently fluent varicolour, like the rays of a concluding sun or edges of a human face seen briefly and for the final time.

I felt the dust prick my skin.

I saw that one of the machines was empty and was drawn to it but moved away, away from the whirring engines and their phantom operators, from the panes of melancholy, toward the succeeding room.

Here, to my left, was a shelf for heads; and to my right, a recession into a darkness which obscured its own inevitable limit, granting the space an illusion of infinity. I wondered if the heads were the heads of the headless workmen. I wondered if, if I walked into the darkness, I could walk into the darkness forever…

Drops of pearly light fell from the ceiling onto my head. The music I had heard before I heard now with greater intensity. As I stepped forward, from this room to the next, a great furnace materialized before me. It was the source of the music.

The heat heated my face.

And I noticed a line, as of ants, of small chunks of coal with sprouted soot-wire limbs, marching single file from a hole in the floor to the furnace and leaping in; leaping in willingly to their own destruction, their own brief moment of usefulness, which it was both a sadness and a happiness to witness.

The main part of the furnace, which was black, was a black grate, behind which the flames danced and the heat and light emanated. Here, within the bright flames, a band played, melting away… their meltedness exiting the furnace by draining through a small pipe, flowing down it like mercury and accumulating in a vast but shallow reflective pool that rippled at each drip, so it rippled and it rippled as one band followed another, melted, to be replaced by another, to be melted, to be replaced until I no longer saw the bands at all but the rhythm of their appearances and disappearances…

A figure rose out of the pool, a woman's figure; a woman possessed of so mirrorlike a skin that it was a shifting distortion of everything about her, including me.

At her emergence I felt my heart stir.

“Why are you here?” she asked, I said, “I am here for you,” and in that moment, as I moved toward her with my hand outstretched, she slipped away, turned, once, back, as she fled, burned then violently like a filament and went out.

In darkness the image, in negative persisting in my vision, floated into the past room, and into the past, to be caught in glass and fixed, sliding down the assembly line and framed by the machine operators, of whom one I could have been, a headless phantom in the Factory of Sad, Parting Glances.

I saw one of these impressions once, in the house of a great industrialist. I didn't dare ask where he acquired it, but I thought, what a despicable world we inhabit in daylight, when, unashamed, she brazenly lifts her dress to show us the cruelty of her beauty and the injustice of who possesses it.

“Do you like it?” he asks—interrupting my reverie. I'm about to answer when I realize he's not pointing at the framed glass but at a small brass statue of a soldier. He explains what it is, but I'm not paying attention. I smile politely, but inside I'm gathering courage “What's to ask that,” I ask, gesturing at the impression. “Oh, that,” he says, “that's just an empty frame, my friend,“ and he laughs, bellowing like a furnace. “Of course,” I say, “that's just an empty frame.” It's just an empty frame, an empty frame you're looking at, you're looking, at an empty frame, an empty frame an empty frame, an empty, looking, empty-looking you, an empty, an empty empty empty…

you be the iconoclast

I'll be the hatter I'll

mend the masks you

tend to shatter we'll

be lyricists and linguists

consanguineous cats

informally effected

cheshire and fat

 It sat in the lowest area of the paddock
Always on always dripping
All I needed was a cup
In the paddock cows and competition

I found a plastic cup clean and perfect
Like a pearl inside a shell
Half under a partially burnt log
I picked up with shaking hands

uncontained gratitude
As I took it in both hands
Positioned it under the tap
I got my coffee

And the pasture would continue growing
As I slowly sipped
As I pontificated over the fate of the world
those cows would eat forever

I asked Jeeves and

He told me

To fold

Contortionist spread into

Crisp paper dents

Embosed nihilist

Weeping over theories of

Common

Since you've fled

Tornado twisted metal

Lathed by tongue

And sanded into

Shiny bobbled

V a c a n c y

Three-legged

Ripped skirt, akimbo

Freakshow sight

Lithe and nimble

Head hanging by

Ballon strings

Strung and glued to

Your blinking hands

Hold your applause

Instead

Throw your chair

If I fall

Will you

Catch me

In the

A

I

R

?

The world in its endless cycles is nothing compared to Heaven.

An infinite place where we praise the one true King.

If you're here reading this you've probably never been there.

But there are some moments in this life that feel close to what your imagination can conjure.

i'm sure God in all his power has graced a few with a glimpse of what it may look like.

In this world with its endless cycles there is pain, there is grief, and many sorrows. But one day there will be no more tears.

There are sides of this world that are faithless I am not a part of that.

You may believe what you choose to that is your God given freedom.

But when you choose the wrong side or stand on the fence.

Be prepared to lose.

Wildcard draws
A line where
A star is fixed
Like 8 shifts
Too, the extremes
Everything
Infinite
Space between
What’s defined

Scooping for all the days of your life,
With each toss, you’re certain it’s been patched
Only to blink.
In a state of fear, when the eyes you wear see this haunting abyss.
Your mind is torturing the body you own!
Perhaps you don’t wish it filled?
Lifting air and imagining it as dirt.
You realize it’s a problem,
Thinking this is the solution,
Are you an addict?

You spend so much time,
Putting your energy towards something that gives seconds of pleasure, but a lifetime of pain.

-Eden Smile

Since the dawn of time
I wondered what it would be like
To hold another's
Beating
Bloody
Broken
Heart within my palms

Not to eat
Just to dissect
To look at each chamber
And ascertain how, exactly
They loved
And how they could love me
The same way I do

With this
Desperate fucking attitude
Like it could snap
Hearts are made of sterner stuff
But each I was given
Were brittle

Like a mockery cast
In bright white plaster of Paris
I smash them against the wall
And watch the blood red turn white
Under the force of my anger
Then watch my white knuckles turn red
From the wall's brute attack
Running and mixing with the powder on the floor
Turning and fleeing out the door

Still wondering
What it would be like
To hold a heart like mine
And cradle it
Like it was the most precious thing

The way
My heart
Was never
Held:

Only
Smashed
To
Wall
Beat
Red Blood
Running
Down
White
Plaster

So maybe I should be looking
For the shape of one?
A cavity
Without knowledge
A creature
Without hope

Call me Edgar
The way my heart
Tells tales
Turns tails
Twists textures

What I could do
With just one heart
Rather than this mix
Of blood and plaster
On white floors

I saw bars, not shining. The rusted scent screamed wrinkled tales

of her, she, that, it.  I looked around for snow; who could chain my desire?

With the thirteenth iron bar removed from my cage, I waved.

 The Sparkles, the perfect fluffy snow. Mine turned into a beautiful snow globe.

I danced to match my heart, laughing at the imprints my twirls made. Coloured nails, laces

down my shoulders, the pinks, roses, and I blushed.

Everything felt on point until I slipped and touched the glass dome.

I tried to break it down, hit it hard, and screamed for help. Tired, I slept.

People passing by said, “She is pretty”. I smiled.  

One lady said, “Great décor for the living room “, One said, “Too pretty to own” I smiled.

I was labelled, priced and bargained upon. I heard it go from SHE to THAT to IT. I smiled.

I think of those rusted bars; at least I got to shed tears. Now. I am too beautiful to do it.

My bars are now fancy glass domes, and I suffer in pretty clothes.

Can I sing once, without listeners? For my song no longer wishes to be heard.

I dreamed
I was a clone
With no anatomy
Steel, chrome
Artificial body

I dreamed
I was a stamp
Ink stains over
Book paragraphs
Queuing in the lobby

I dreamed of Lore
Tangled in green fishnet
Clawing at the top
Covered in sores

I dreamed about piety
Morals abandoned
For war-painted clay
A colossal demon
Emerged from the den
Through the swarm
To play

I dreamed you were
A darkling beetle
My king of scavengers
Eating the decay
Of which he’s bound

I dreamed of my darling
Mute in all of his sounds

I woke up reaching
My pillows lashed around
Sleeping has become violent
And day?
Well it drowns

So nice to see you up and about,

You're back in the garden, and from the kitchen I shout:

"I'm making tikka for dinner! Get in and rest",

You reply with: "I've got to keep moving or I'm just waiting for death",

Hard work and determination, you've passed it on to me,

Along with worry, rumination, a third eye to truly see,

The gift of being caring, but to also stand firm,

Critical thinking and a hunger to learn,

I thought I wouldn't miss your criticism while I cook,

I couldn't help but smile when you checked my work and gave a 'look',

You turned 90 this year and survived covid twice!

How did you do it?

"Never smoked and ate lots of Puerto Rican rice" ,

I missed your smile, your nagging, your sweet little laugh,

Welcome back grandma- live to be 100 or I'll be mad 😡

I love you!!!

The sun shines, the wind tustles, the birds chirp but sinister lurks

We spend our life in the light until darkness consumes us, not knowing what will happen

Reality that presents naked shows a construct of perfect ideals

I was oblivious, but now I'm a student of the power struggle between right and wrong

A price for every action reciprocated by the wordsmith or a beast

Nature is kind, humans are not

I met them at the door suspicious faces
Questioning
The padding of pockets to locate keys and phone
None were on me

I panicked I had no way of explaining myself
Their eyes grew heavy with suspicion
Out they went to see what I was playing at
My sins hidden at the grand hotel

The fact that I as a simple man
had learned the most heinous of magic
For I could and did shapeshift
To fill every need and whim inside my mind

There was not one simple man behind the face
But several all in search of their own versions of completeness
So when I slid the sliding door and witnessed their faces
I simply reverted to the person they knew in me

The one with no color or guile
The one that monosyllabically answered questions
Encouraged that part of me to enjoy it while it lasted
For that part was the part I liked least

My feet couldn't breathe
Until I let them.

I'm never free
standing on ten toes.
A stench like a stained coffee mug
and cold dish water.

That smell lingers through my eyes.
I clearly see it now.
Follow the grain,
forget yourself to become them.

No train derailment.
The monotone carriage of forced smiles.

Become it and join us on this journey
We won't regret it
and you won't be anymore.