A slight confusion
of earth with water
of water with sky
enough for life

to be lived

**Irina Mavrodin

He's that guy that slays you,
    always charming, ready &
       eager to lend a helping hand,
  a garish smile tucked in his hip pocket  --
    he's your friendly next door neighbor,
         the quintessential serial killer

Or you, father, pointing down to a Sicilian harbour ―
its dark pincers compressing an eye-glass
of water

Or my skin, watered down by a lifetime out of your sun
yet thick and dark through our blood’s long curing
in white light

Or your silhouette, insect-strange on the black breast
of a Northumbrian hill, our kinship of shape lost
in the white flood-down
of summer

Or that sequoia glade whose green we drank: a tall glass
where dark sank as heavier spirits do, and stirred leaves
made a white effervescence
of sunlight

Or you, black and white, slumped in that wicker chair
mourning your father, steeped in a kitchen’s shadowless
fluorescence, toe-caps scuffed grey
by the glare

Or rain, elsewhere, as white horizons laddered with dark ―
rain as fault-lines slanting the light ― till, here, resolve
the first cold drops, steaming on your curved
back of earth

Mario Petrucci from *Flowers of Sulphur

i have no real dreams to speak of
i speak of my nightmares even less
i am just trying to reach the peak of
that mountain, where i am blessed

material goals aren't what i talk of
spiritual goals, i talk of more
i am just trying to walk the walk of
those spirits who walked before

Dear Layla,

Thanks so much
You ruined my life
Congratulations
I know you tried

All those mean words
They hurt
I pretended they didn't
But they did
And still do

"You're fat"
"You're lazy"
"You're stupid"
"You're slow"
"No one likes you"

It's fine though
You can say those things
It's a free country
Just know:

If I **** myself,
It's on you

Your love is like skydiving,
   an unnerving thought,
breathless & intoxicating
  elevations beyond exhilarating,
  as it transforms life's panorama
    nothing seemed ever the same,
         after the thrill of the fall