Here lie my hopes and dreams, buried

six feet under choices made and not made, a

fractured monument to mark their fleeting flesh,

stone too light to bear the weight of souls.

My dreams do not rest easy in their grave.

They haunt me- transient, transparent,

ever-present. A bony finger reaches out

and taps my shoulder, and I

turn to nothing but the wind. A whisper

in my ear, the half forgotten remnants

of a song whose lyrics I have long since lost.

I am haunted, I am hunted, I am going

to a field filled with flowers, white and blue, 

wild as all my fantasies. I pick some flowers,

tie their stems with a red ribbon, walk that

grassy path to that fractured monument. 

I leave flowers at the grave, and the

hands that muffle my heartbeat loosen.

how big do you love me

really

and if you say all the way

or completely

or fully

or “this big” with your arms stretched open wide

maybe I might just believe you

and if I believe you

and you also

just especially if you also

happen to be telling the truth

I might have to tell you a secret

I love you that big too

I sometimes pray

for aliens

to pick me up on my way to school

right off the street

before I walk through those doors

and somehow 

the way I pray it

no one would remember me when I left

I would not be gone

or taken

or missing

all I would be is

with aliens

and maybe I would sing for them

off key and too loud

but no one would know it

and I would ask to learn their art too

whatever they create

however they do it

eventually I would come home

I think

when long enough has passed

and this is the point

where I do not know what would happen

could I

would I

find them?

could they

would they

ever love me again?

I only pray this sometimes

the empty page stares at me

and I look away

embarrassed

“silly writer”

it whispers

“you’ve lost all your words”

“but I’m here”

I argue

with a small small voice

no one hears

“silly writer”

the empty page says again

the sun goes down

and the sky becomes purple

becomes red 

becomes pink

becomes orange

becomes black

and the stars wake up and roll their eyes

outside of the day

the empty page stares at me

I stare back

a stand off

the empty page calls me 

“silly writer” 

again

and I say “okay”

then I take my pen

on a mission

to ruin the page

to write

I am here

I am here

I am here

even if it is silly

Well, I’m from my mother’s arms and my father’s laugh, of course. I am from a rainbow tutu and pretend weddings at the top of the stairs. I am from the green stand which held the image of Max and Ruby and Wonder Pets. From the white stripes and pocket doors. I’m from the fish-tail braids that never quite worked with my head shape. I’m from rolling down the hills with Dip-n-Dots. From the ledge of my basement window with those sweet hands on my back. I'm from the voice of Charlotte, The Spider, by my first grade teacher and raising my hand to use the bathroom when she asked who the lefties of the class were. From "Lemon Meringue” and “dairy bananas.” Dinosaur stairs and John Deere brownies. I am from fuzzy socks because “we're sorry you're sick.” From helicopters to the fish store. The creak of her white porch swing and The Little Red Schoolhouse. From the girls night for the women. I'm from laying between them to stop the volume but only becoming closer to the speakers. I'm from talk radio on a sandy car seat. From the bubble maker that doesn't work. From the tipping of the lamp and descending on my butt. A parrot envelope opener and a Coors pool towel. I'm from Toys R Us and those damn robot bugs. Strawberry milk spinning on a chair. The yellow book in the black corner of the Macbook. I'm from Earth hour and racing mice to the kitchen. Calico Critters Critters I never had. Patches of violets and Ravinia tadpoles. I come from a four-piece kingdom and bee pee. A radiator to find comfort in and a whisper to be returned with a shout. I'm from PVC pipe telephones and her silly photo cards that would one day make sense. From black and white ink sending me over the edge and from loafers with a little snake skin. Bookshelves made into a home and sound effect buttons in tiger costumes. From her frog collection and the closet’s woody scent. I am from popcorn and a tire swing. A flower bed and a “b” bowl. Fairy dust and revenge cartwheels. I'm from cookie-ookie and “Who's your real best friend?”. From a journal that is vinegar and scribbles. The Jimmy John's all the way over there. From spinny chairs, grilled cheese and a paper cup of yuck. Those adorable slippers and stripes with polka dots. I'm from a house that looks just like the one next to it. I'm from a Lolly Barbie and “but they have girl toys. " A pink floral guitar and love. I'm from love, life, falls, and leaves. I'm from the veins that are my roots and the roots that hold my tree.

To the Legacy of Addiction the Runs in my Blood:

I knew you in my bones before you even had a name in my brain

I learned about you in classrooms, but also in how certain people had to stay away

I felt your hot breath on my neck and in my heartbeat

Sludging along with my pulse, you’re slow but quick and

You slip into the glue that sticks labels to bottles

You’re that one inch of foam held in frosted glasses by models, on TV

You wear camouflage

But I feel you in the shadows when that one person is looking for their vape

That they left

On the DVD shelf when they’d been looking for Up

Or when that fifth glass of chardonnay is poured 

You are in that arm that grips that cup

As you sink into the lines of my mother’s face

A reflection of the intervention invitations she’s written letters for

The letters I now read like historical documents

I can’t but do understand how people could love someone so much 

When that person is rarely themselves

And I feel you tickle the back of my own mind

When I have trouble putting down a good book

Or turning off that show

Or eating the pretzel chips out of that bowl

Because in those miniscule moments I make-believe myself

In twenty years

And I don’t like what I see

Because you run through my veins

And I’m scared that one day 

You’ll catch up to me

What kind of music do you listen to? 

A bit of everything, really. And you’re just like that, a little bit of everything.

It’s raining outside, the perfect weather for a day out. It’s quiet, I’m comfortable.

When your face rests, did you realize your lips naturally frown? I think I'll point it out. 

Watching people is beyond entertaining with your company, my day is more entertaining with our budding rapport. 

Do you want to stop by there? 

Sure, why not?

Could you hold this for me?

Thank you. 

I don't know how to properly express what it is I'm feeling. Security?

I trust you—I might cry, 

How could someone be so charming?

My mom is here, I’ll tell her you said hi.

I feel like such a sap, I need a nap. 

I smile in the backseat 

closing my eyes, content. 

                                                                           (I) 

Yes I want you, I do, more than I need myself, I want childlike adoration. 

Paint me please, embittered glimmering bathes in your cool minted silks,

Dance the rigadoon with me from the ledge - a single step jumping off the balcony,  

Keep telling me things you’d like to do, I only care for being young beside you, 

There’s no use getting over times we’ve talked through; it’s pricked, pinned, 

If a pair of strange arms ends up wrapped around my wearying figure  

Rest assured - loss won’t obliviate our CinemaScope screen of lidded zeal.  

Closed the auto-mechanics shop, carved brilliance, tiptoed onto broken glass,     

The neighbors funneled dry groans, it’s you and me back at it again, 

So I, daunted by myself, so I beg send a fabled owl to know their mystic yellow,  

Bravery powderize in lines, o let this burnout hit--the onrush of numb a milkbottle,  

Here the mirror doesn’t help to manage, I might be far too much for it,  

I’m a heretic, I’m aporetic— I bleed war through my cellophane-capped brain. 

Perched on a windowsill at the apartment complex where weekends satisfy,  

Your mother gifted it, hoping you’d leave this life crutchless someday,

Misunderstanding the mathematics of antipsychotics and scotch, are you, 

I snag sips of strung out fat glacial gusts; o take me in tow, as I am, 

Constantly wondering if this’ll always see the light— the onlooker is sickly,  

Their optic apertures pirouette catatonically, lured by ulcerous relations. 

Do you sense me, like the whorling lustre of a moon-maned valley? 

Faces turn smelling of melted leather boots— a wordless incarceration,

The aching minutes compress to a lozenge like plasmatic drainage, 

I seem to my love to be a pile of kaleidoscopic and gilt seraphim 

In this amnesiac comatose we take our turns with; abeyance now ablaze 

95 MPH snaking down the freeway to - electrifyingly unstuck landings 

Beneath the arabesques, the mosaics at the architecture of you and I.

Where am I in the lymph and syrup - at this drowsing necrosis?

Asleep whilst yelps soften seizing, immured in devilish memory - I sit vacuous, you’re 

Tethered to a chair, asphyxiation dwindles a deafening silence astoundingly  

To the patriarch mauling dearest brother, it’s biological--a must-watch 

Father clasps a hot branding iron - to his lastborn son’s delectably limp frame,

Straggly and metallical screams ripped from his tree-stump-scruff - rivered by vein-strewn tears,  

In time a spine rooted, I’m glad your brother shot and killed him at the ole slaughterhouse.

(II)

Makes me think, if I take my life, can my astral body crackle forever … god, I’d like so much,  

It doesn’t matter; nothing does the way I’m in love with tar heroin adherent, redolent attention, 

The cleft in your downcast chin, I a subsidiary wart, the centre congealing, you 

Whispered, “It’ll be alright baby, because I dreamt of you tonight for free.”

A name sung insane, orotund - across sanguine cobweb ornamented eyeballs, 

You wake up naked— me, trying to extrapolate my place - gave you a floral blanket.

Did black blood entertain burdens, when you wore my skin? 

Jovial even maltreated into a pulp by your great, polarizing walk,

Silhouette amongst my dull soul - deflated by that sweltering approval,

Outstretched as a wet handful, past the village and flattened dewy crocuses,  

A salient bloodplay waxed a gluttonous ear, I’m all us— I’m your drunk, 

Purity captivated leitmotivs, whilst it belies your honest concern, 

I stamped the stubbornness you’ve seen in friends; self-imposed ghosts.  

Tinderlike footsoles snuff windily, could you come back - to me?

Your elder sister whose car slide in circles ‘til her head hit the windshield, 

And your childhood confidant - who dragged a smoking round into his own chest,  

Can’t forget Michael, umbrella of death; barely knew the kid yet it - terrifies, 

You almost hung yourself when we met, three days after Christmas at 1:00a.m.

It keeps on happening, keeps happening— cognac is my starry liquid soap,   

Downing cocktails of spirituous telomeres: I feel peacefulness, accomplishment.

Anything hungered for is fine when I’m not--I am mercury in a pillbox,   

Moments juiced as revenue, breath cupped and anchored smilingly,   

An antlike etymon--it’s just edifice of real connection,

Carrying one another; promises crystallize present day, creeps from distress, 

I’m through with the gobbledygook, the things to come— time is vampiric, 

Within matrimony to blackness-brewn bolus, we’ll reign resonant. 

There’s a certain itch with a nauseating burn churning like tabs of acid,

We spew the same insipid, common phrases; still they stay anew, 

I heard you’re heading back to Georgia, and if that’s home let me know, 

Feed me scars and lies; however it happens, don’t mind, 

My unfadable brute, glued on the blackboard— you scare me, honey, 

Happily hexed by the ominous phosphorescence in the future; enough said.

All I want is some needs to fill, to freely depend on you, on you, on you. 

✥

The days seem to pass in a 

Roar

It announces itself in an applause 

Of disappointment

Regret doesn’t seem to come these days 

It sticks to its trees 

Because the leaves have already come off

You told me

Words 

That I can’t seem to remember,

We shared lives 

That now feel like a distant trench

That I can’t walk to

Because my feet are shattered glass 

And The Gringos have already bought the land 

And if I try walking there alone 

Not even the crow and its enemies could look into my eyes

And whisper, 

“You are the world you have built for yourself.” 

“You are the child of the golden sun.”

Aphrodite’s love letter doesn’t erupt from 

a tree of bees and blossoms 

Persephone did not build her sky from the land of freshly popped tulips and emerald vines 

No, these vines cascade into veins and turn our ambrosia 

red wine 

That always seems to leak 

And snake down 

And cry 

In the moments that your body bows down to freedom 

So your chains keep it standing instead 

Here's a toast to freedom 

A concept that fails to project itself  

In every wall, face and ceiling 

Anywhere, but in our heads 

Our heads that hold the blood of a beating heart that can’t stop pounding 

Because these days words give up the will to speak 

So now we are left to roar

How words from your mouth will circle their way around until they’re in my mouth to yours, repeating. Nothing you say remains hidden forever. You must not open your lips in the shape of lies.  

Muted murmuring seeps into the curtain

Confident the velvet will bury sound beneath it

I can smell the rotting of the unclean fabric

Where your voices once leaked sewage into it

Greywater.

It’s murky and polluted

But the water continues to flow from your sink to mine

And the tap filters it before it reaches my hands

It’s clear to me.

— — — — — — — — — — — — 

You can tiptoe past the creaking wooden stairs 

But your footprints will emerge through the dust 

I saw the shoes you were wearing, I recognize the print.

How much sadness must it take in a person to suck the joy from others? To take something as beautiful as happiness and taint it with mockery. I have not written, truly written in weeks, but I am a writer. Am I stricken with passion, which fuels my art, or am I riddled with pain, when my writing emerges clearest?