I bought overpriced beer last night, as you scrolled through your too-good-to-go options.
We danced our fears away, threw my lighter into the pool of our wildest dreams.
That morning I dropped peach sorbet across your torso, your calves resting on my stomach.
I’d seen you under the supernova, and I swore I’d never seen someone so beautiful.
Dipping you down
Head tilts back and a smile on your lips
Lift and twirl
You can’t help but burst into a fit of giggles
I smile and hold your hand tighter, spinning you again for a gentle flare
I was told to be the leader
To be the one making the steps
The gentle motions of my feet against the floorboards
Yet I can’t help but let you lead
The way your hair flows with each movement
I follow your gentle steps
My feet move with my heart
My heart moves with you
You lift my hand and I twirl you
We smile
One
Two
Three
Spin with my left hand
Five
Six
Seven
Spin with my right hand and dip you down
You chuckle and hold onto my wrist
The smile never left my face
Cause it never left yours
I will forever follow your gentle footsteps
Each dip
Twirl
Kiss
I’m the leader
And I chose to follow you
I am never so concrete
as the meeting of hands
a lifeline in nerve stems
and the fragile bone above
nothing is so warm as the breath and body
the haven here where you reap fig
and orange in the summer
we cant have been
meant to weather this wasteland
without knowing the refuge found
under the press of open arms
this city’s winter can’t pass with only the open window
and purple light to keep me here
the snow on the lake melts in the lines of our palms
heartbreaking and fleeting
bombed red blood seeps into the soil
where green grass once grew
hope silenced by white blanketed ghosts
windswept rubbled remains
underneath gray skies tented
in a burning hells-cape
contrasting kings and puppets in red paint
applauding the flames
ashes remain ready for flight
humanity is it’s only point of light
breathe a breath of life
for phoenix’s red wings to form
grasping fourteen thousand seeds in it’s claws
and dropping them on our front lawns
see the white flowers grow
do you hear them whisper, Hope
they say, remember our name
I see shooting in the streets,
Men killing Men in other uniforms,
Risking their lives for bits of
Shiny metal
And fleeting ideals.
I see these Men cry
Clutching the red bodies
Of fellow uniforms.
I see bombing.
Advanced machines for killing
With the sole purpose of causing
Suffering,
Fire raining from the sky.
I see War.
I see Hell brought on Earth,
Death coming in waves of metal,
Thousands of rounds a minute.
I see the Genius of Man,
Twisted on killing each other.
But when the uniforms cant be
Seen, covered in blood,
We all die Men
Just the same.
The war came like a storm, sudden and fierce, tearing through their lives before they could even grasp the weight of it. She held her children close, breathing them in as if their scent could anchor her to a world that was slipping away. Her hands, trembling but steady, brushed the hair from their faces, memorizing the softness of their skin, the warmth of their little hearts beating beneath her touch.
“Stay strong,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she tried to hold onto the smile they so desperately needed to see. But in her chest, there was a storm she could not calm, a fear she could not hide. The world was shifting beneath their feet, and she could no longer shield them from the darkness that had come for them all. She kissed their foreheads, each one, as though sealing away the last part of herself with them. “I’ll be back,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure if it was a promise she could keep. Her hands pressed against their tiny faces one final time, and she pulled them close, desperate to imprint herself into their memories.
Her heart shattered when they cried, when they clung to her, when they asked, in innocent voices that could not fathom the cruel weight of the world, “Why do you have to go?” She wanted to tell them everything would be okay, that this was only a bad dream. But the truth was heavier than her love could bear.
She was a mother, and this was the hardest thing she had ever done—leave them behind, to fight a battle that threatened to tear apart everything she had ever known. But she knew that, in that moment, her strength would be what they needed to survive. She kissed them once more, whispering, “I love you” through tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
And then she turned away, each step farther from them a piece of her soul left behind. The world was a battlefield now, and the distance between her and her children felt as vast as the sky, stretching endlessly, painfully. She could still hear their cries in her heart, feel their tiny hands reaching for her, but she had to walk away.
As she stepped into the unknown, the weight of the promise to return pressed heavily against her chest. She would fight—for them, for the future that had yet to unfold. And no matter how far apart they were, no matter how long it took, she would carry them with her, every heartbeat, every breath, until the day she could hold them again
Crawl with me through the wormhole between the dumpster and recycling bin and
We enter a world where
Amicable chubby men run preschools
And are adorned with sleeping snot covered children.
Their lot is to grow old while each season brings babies to replace the older children.
And the men mourn at night, praying over romance novels read by dim LED lights.
These novels tell of a world where murder and rape are the currency of a lonely boring
interconnected hegonomy looking for a hero.
The harmonies are refined in the grade school choir. From the street you hear every meal and
subject change celebrated in dissonance and harmony, melody and ecstasy and sullen swelling
minor resolution. Sometimes children stand apart, on some mission to the bathroom or
delivering milk, agape at the beauty of it all.
There are no band-aids nor organic snacks but all the fairytales warn of monsters in the
trees, where the fruit grows.
Only girls have extra curricular activities. On pedestals, they are clad in padded uniforms and
whispered mantras by college educated women. Teen boys sit on bleachers with open math
books and talk of simple things. They do not swear. No,
They do not swear.
First grade teachers silence the classroom so they can concentrate on their own studies;
volumes of worn trade magazines and maps are the table cloth for messy hand-carved
manuscripts. The boys and girls silently revere the teacher’s desk. They don’t understand it,
nor does the teacher, but maybe someday there will be a masterpiece. Lego towers fall like
Babbel and are rebuilt over and over. It is quiet here, I can think clearly.
Fall harvest;
the rocket ship failed to launch… well it cleared the hops trellis and the Maypole, but then fell on
it’s side and gasped fire. Better luck next year. I hope the monkey is alright, even though we
are not allowed to speak of him again.
Mr. Brown lost to Mrs. Woyzeck in the boxing match. When she smiled, blood streaked her
handsome teeth. She took the medallion and put it in the trophy case with the others.
The highschoolers teach the middle schoolers because we learned long ago, Middle School
teachers were mentally ill. The highschoolers are paid by owning the debt of their parents, who
have trouble keeping jobs for they are often to be found in clearings in the woods, respectfully
disagreeing.
All law and foreign policy is decided by the annual 3rd grade poetry writing contest. The most
cynical drunks (principals) have to look away when the results are printed. They look away and
mourn their wasted lives of desperate reason and ambition.
This is no utopia; those who can not prove an absolute need to continue schooling are cast out.
They work at this and that until they lose everything in a divorce and return to work at the school
for minimum wage (Minimum wage was set some years back by Moureen, the 3rd grade poetry
contest winner, as only clean clothes, no food. Food is to be stolen from work so no dares to
quit).
The children of biological difference pine to be like the ‘norms’ and unburdened of their
invaluable gifts of perspective and empathy. They didn’t ask for this and how they wish to be in
the bleachers with the boys, talking the repressed economical dialect of anxiety.
Oh and how there is War. Global, regional and personal. The many grief counselors help you
plot revenge with whiteboards and colored markers. Gender is brutally defined by which organ
hurts the most when struck. We nearly beat the Russians last year behind 3rd grade Monica’s
rhyming quintuplet “Socket Fuck.” Eliminating weapons from global conflict made everything so
much more brutal. The human bite recovery ward works around the clock and only the best
pupils can dream of working there.
Come to the forest with me and describe the world you are from to the idle parents. They won’t
believe you, but they’ll let you speak. They’ll ask gentle questions about IEPs and nuclear
weapons and pity you. And isn’t that the scariest part of it all? In your sick fantasy world, trying
to heard is the most vulgar thing you can do.
You may re-emerge from the dumpsters to your old world, and even speak freely of this place.
But who will listen? Who will care?
I.
How heavy the tires that drive you
Through fireworks in the street.
How plain the lies that hide you,
The blood and myth behind you
Is nothing new to me.
Beautiful I find you,
To wrap two legs around you,
Surrounded by the safety of my fear.
Steady, love reminds you
To hold the tongue that binds you.
Silent grow the graves beneath our feet.
II.
Some of us wait in the sun
Of the new world
For an old word,
Nostalgic for its
Nonchalant intimacy
With death.
We straddle the splice
Between yesterday and tomorrow,
A moment ago and a moment from now,
Falling in love
And falling asleep.
We know that while
Our two eyes
Gaze each from either side,
They see one image,
The vision always shared,
A projection at the other end
Of the cone
A lone moon which,
Even on its fullest nights,
Is only half so.
III.
Sometimes it nice to imagine
Living in a big house with (),
Having things,
Like a boudoir,
That you don’t want,
And losing things that you do.
It’s ok to think that
You will be happy
With a compromise
Submitted to the arbiter.
You learn the long way
That the only promise of companions
Is to let go together.
Sometimes it’s funny to step back
And watch time in her performance,
Illuminating yesteryears with a present, single word.
You see how to be
Is to be bound,
She knows no future now,
And the past is still unfolding.
IV.
My father is a dark lord and his minions bring me dinner,
Making me a coin that never falls but
Flips into infinity while
My candles leave a tubal-cain
And the rest of me tries to save
The sounds of a mother tongue
From drowning in learned language.
What is left over
Walks in the mornings and wonders:
If we create the word (for love)
And the word carries meaning
And the thing (of love)
Becomes the meaning of the word,
Then what came first (by love),
The meaningful thing,
Or the word?
In each day’s sun or storm
Lived two hearts, to each other sworn
In all joys and sorrows, they knew
A bond unbreakable and true
But as time passed, life took its toll
Challenges arrived, out of control
A storm brewed, from within one heart
Tears, anxiety, and sadness, torn apart
Mental health issues, unseen and strong
Distorting the thought process, all along
Innocent love turns into a battleground
For reasons unknown to the other, profound
The once-clear skies, now a misty path
Shrouded in darkness, a lover’s wrath
Fears, paranoia, and insecurities dominate
Love, dwindling in a sea of hate
