stay up with
me until
tonight is tomorrow
moon fading into a
sliver of
ice

opals on your
cheeks and cold
stars warm
from my hands

lie out under
the sky
keeping our
dreams safe in
whispers

the grass is
ours
and our outlines
can last forever if

we let them.

'be safe'
is a talisman we
carry with us when
we lack control

we 'touch wood' to
prevent the fall
of our skies.

look down, lest we
break our mother's backs

and pray
"Please God, don't let us
trip into
the
cracks"

we "don't worry" as
if it does

halt the thoughts

just like swearing on
the cross

pain lacing my
back is
normal these
days

pressure at
the edge of my
throat- an
old
friend

I am
strong I
am strength

a mantra
that's losing juice
like a
battery in

the attic late
july.

if eyes are my
windows,
I need new
shades.

all I wanted was
your love.
now all I have

is your love

well played,
Fate.

I don't even know who
to pray to anymore

It almost seems like an
insult to ask You,

when you're watching us
burn our world to
bits.

So.
Universe, I guess you are
holding the cards now...

There are so many volcanoes,
all burning Rome.

I suspect even without my feeble
wish,

You have burdens enough.

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they know who's laughing
and who refuses to sing

their beaks are listless
no longer in need of their eyes
their ears are long gone, past
so they don't hear the future's lies

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they see when I struggle
they see
everything.

I can't read that smirk
or why you made it.
I don't know this
path.

You have inches on me,
in my heart
I need stilts

The inside-lion looks in
the mirror surprised
she is a
mouse.

the force of my wishes
does not make me

a commander

misfit toys, I'll
be your soldier

made out of tin
(because lead is ill.)

if you stop trying to drop me
out of the window while you're

playing.

Or I will need to start
wearing a parachute.

I'm in my own
Glass house

We cast the stones
we all
Cast The Stones
spider cracks
at first.  and I
can patch those
I'm a pro

then a dent
we'll go to Windshield World they're
the
best

And when the whole thing just
shatters

you'll sneer-
Well, why didn't you build a
castle?

and I'll reply simply,

why did you cast the first
stone?

bones stacked up like
soldiers
in a living grave
you removed our bullets
Please,
loosen the bandages
for our breath
still stutters,
oh Great
General.

hitchhiker
on the road
to the
last restaurant

forgot my towel
lost my head

Don't panic.

Right?

they set me out here
on this island
with a fork, a spoon and a book

there was also apparently
a manual. it was lost
in the crash. my guides assured me-

a beautiful island. a bit scrubby
some wild animals, but admired by other
countries.

smoke signals will be
fine
they might not work
but of course- that's
what the book is for

in event of tigers
just use the defensive
position
words will be
enough

and if they are not
legs will suffice for
running away

did we mention
the sharks.

in the water.
please be advised.

you'll be fine though
monsoon season is only
a few months long
and it'll be over

before
you
know
it.

my fingers are bruised
left, inside contours, running along the point .

a dull smear of pain

accidental smudges
of my fragility are  just
there-
lightly traced
against my joints

outside injury
where did you come from?

either way,

now you match
the

ache inside.

I was born twice.
Once out of my mother in the late winter of 1986 at 1:52pm in the afternoon.
And then again
the day Samantha Li died.

That may sound more dramatic than it is or just as dramatic as it was.
I wasn't a fancy baby. I pooped like all of them. Was a little underweight. Up through high school.
"Pointy."

I didn't know her well- Sam. Just a sweet-faced angel with a cloud of black hair and questioning blue eyes who went to my
University. She always looked like a china doll unexpectedly caught in a sale at a vintage clothing shop. She played the violin.

When you lose a skill you've had all your life, things start to morph and mutate. You feel superhuman and alien at the same time.
Waking up with my right arm bones in pieces was the start of my evolution- I became wolverine- flying through the night to
have metal clicked into my arm.
I was lucky to be alive.

4 years later, a surgeon told me people often lose their arms from such an injury. The irony of receiving such news was to
want to punch him in the face with my dominant hand.
That guy dodged a time-delayed bullet.

I grew up with a planned dream woven from music notes and CD cases.
I wore second hand clothes, I drank milk drained from a food-stamp fountain. The kids laughed at me in school. They
circled constantly, questioning my glasses, my shoes, my speech.
But the music inside me was something they never had. It was my boat. Violin was going to get me to the far off shore.

But you'll find- as we grow our dreams change shape. They don't fit into the holes for the pegs our parents carved.
I shunned the 6 hours of solitary scales and Bach.
I sought the Cacophony of improvisation and orchestral arrangements.
You'll never make it here- he said. You want to help people.

So I left Siberia and took up my own vision. As we do.

Now my dreams are putty again. Melted play dough on a radiator shelf.
I have leapt through hoops ringed with fire, smoldering plastic and lies.
Filed the paperwork for a better life.
In 27 I see the lines.

They weren't there that night.
And now they're everywhere. On my arm, over the Adamantium.
At the crinkle in the arch of my nose and eyebrow.

A grey hair at my crown.

How will it come?
When they go? When we finally draw the bottom line.

And when the metal leaves me
and all my bones are earth. That will be the 3rd rebirth.

Try.

It's a small word
divided into three
it becomes mightier.

the power of shapes
against the sword of a pen
for it, the shield of
defeat

the two letter 'no'
you would think three would
beat two

you would be wrong

'yes' also invokes
yet at it's strongest,

really means 'no' too.

once again I hold
my cup and
again it's brimming

tears are locked down
no need for a wet shirt

in my infinite loop now
but I wear my smile

this is the mask- your
warrior face for
survival

keep your place
tap out the time
metronome ready.

measure it out,
or drown.

A string of diamonds-
it's not mine,
for I am a thief
plucking the jewels of Time

they rest on webs of cob
and grass
and trickle upon
the winter glass

but I need no gold,
nor silver spun
because I gild that which I touch
with the kiss of the sun.

Bad news here-
and I have to let it settle and
diffuse
sprinkle it over the surface of my shield
like salt.
lest the slickness not melt
on the bumpy road to their
Path and force a crash.

What I hear...
I can feel it-
want to let sink into my heart- but
To be their defender... must hide my eyes,
avoid their wounds.
Lest I faint, fall, falter.

So instead I send it
to heaven
Courage, Strength, Hope

Hope someone up there can...

is listening...

recycle that word
you were a 'the'
now you're a 'now'

I couldn't file away
'stop' yet
because I knew I would need it
later.

I threw out 'wait'
Yet I saved 'stop'
I guess in some ways
they are kind of the same thing

now the page is open to
'help'

what do I?


and no matter how many times I
try to shred
"wrong"
"I"
"were"
and "mistake" they
keep coming to the top
of the pile

but you're syllables
not tea leaves.

And lucky for all of us
I'm not a fortune teller.

underneath me
my metal river flows still

these are my scars
and you will not take them
away

I used to long
for an eraser

now I will slash at anyone
who will slash at me

double strike them
remove the metal

but you can't remove
the memory.

I was Loathe
to use a cliche
like 'dying
inside'

until I saw
the Ashes on the
snow

Alas-

this time, the genesis of
my own words
is  just not great enough...

having to reach out to the rhetorical masses might not have been the protective net I wanted-

but it's here to catch me,

unlike You.

smoother sailing
is the promise-
And the
Explanation,
The be all,
The Balm, salve, or
solution.

"I didn't mean to"
sometimes they did.
sometimes they didn't.

But I have no,
no real way,

to explain gravely
enough-
that in the real world
sometimes Sorry
just can't
doesn't
won't

cut it.

Most days they toss me rocks.
I open the door and they
show me The Desert.

chairs litter the stage
and I carefully go
pulling the thorns off each
one of my cacti.

'drum sticks for you.'
'did you need a pick?'
'try that sentence again...
without that word...'

Door slam. Louder than the drums.

And during that time,
I am aware of the danger.
But it's not the kind you know in the
***** of a blade against your neck...
It quivers on the surface of
my reptilian brain
like a polluting film.

I go on blithely.
dancing on the concrete
jiving for education
slurs rolling off of
me like rain.

it's any day, in the midst
of the early morning car ride.
tears slipping onto my scarf,
down, into the lip of my traveling mug,
that it comes out to
my Father.

"Sometimes I hate this job...
but then they talk a bout love songs."

it's professional roulette
from day to day-
whether this afternoon
the trapped souls
will hand me coal
or diamonds.

My body is not
a wonderland.

there is nothing
sultry about
A Cold.

'Come hither' with a
red nose?
Oh Baby...

Commentary on
Modern Music,
nearly halted by
an almost snot rocket...
Authority tempered
with a rasp.

"Did you know you could
DIE if you hold in a sneeze?"
9 year old anecdotal prophet's
looming outline, right up close to
my face.

messy  half-dreams under the
futile winter-hat Reality Shield in the
backseat of  Homeward bound
Economy Wheel Gathering.

**** Man Voice to
telemarketers.

No sir, that's Mrs. White.

a snowman eraser smiles at me
smug, despite the pencil end shoved
elsewhere....
it's hard to believe that jolly lie
especially when delievered by
office supplies.

silence presents a focus
problem.

there's space to echo
clicks, slides and bangs from
a cliche school hall-
a distracting balm for
productivity.

the number of cups
of coffee I've
forced past my lips
does not add vigor to
my smile
no matter how much
it may taste of
synthetic vanilla.

I want to smash
this apple across
the knees of my employment.

since floricide is not
an option, I instead crawl
to the corner

and cower under my
dunce's hat,
and just wait
til the bell rings.

there's something about
'****'

not scatological.
the edge.

the sacred,
bitter, hit.

deliberate.

of someone saying it,
spitting the
syllable-

while wearing a stolen
black leather jacket
and red lipstick
stubbing a cigarette
and cursing sideways at
'men and their...'
back handedness.

from an artist's mouth...
maybe a woman's...

but the taste
it's like metal

it always cuts-
just right.

it's cold

having tested the
boundaries of this
knowledge
my nose retreats
rough brushed felt
the most likely home
hidden behind the buttons of my jacket
and scarf
jam red, spilling
up over the collar
into the morning grey.

I squint up
the road past The
Rooster, down to the
bus hutch, barely containing
the  Asian nanny
with pink-hatted Precious

this bus is not for me
nor the next

I glance down at
the slip of paper
crumpled, dwarfed by
my mittens,
I thumb the coffee stain kissing
the blue of the ball point pen scrawl.

42.
was I even sure that
was a route?
the price?

no change chilling
in the pockets against my jeans
a bent fingernail against denim
reveals I've also
lost my pass.

8:58 now

maybe best to just walk.

what was I expecting?
that the meaning of life
would really cover my fare
on the next bus? the
self loathing brought on
only by subzero, interrupted by


the scratch of metal
on the concrete at
my boot tips

golden.
flat.
I have won.

that's more like it.
I'd rather travel by
glass elevator anyway.
If we're splitting hairs..

I became unexpectedly aware
of a
magnet in my chest.
an anchor under my
breast bone.
soft, quiet, almost
unnoticeable.
until later pondered alone
in a dark room.

your polarity,
being opposite naturally,
drew me slow
through the aisles in
the theatre
past people carrying
jackets
into a park
where city stars
were streetlights and
our human discoveries
were serenaded
by the spring song
of homeless men pushing
carts up the street.

As our magnets gradually
synched
I felt the heavy slide and click of
understanding
coded into songs and on the fronts of
cards

and when I let you-
I saw colours in
your kiss,
noting that some matched
your eyes.
I found home in
your arms.
like a final orientation...
like being on a road trip my whole life
without even knowing.

Became afraid.

Because really,
who understands love,
when they've never been properly
introduced?

I walked in, careless,
to my ankles.
It seemed all right.

the water licked smooth,
around my lower bones.
the tickle of cold
the bump of rocks
silty sand,
squishing up into
the spaces around my arch.
another step, and the pull.
the tease of the tide, lap-lapping
like a hungry feral kitten at found milk.
the snickering of the current
told little lies to my calves
about the depth and its strength
seducing and tugging.
Comecomecomecomecomecomecome
I looked upriver. Dark sunk
into the trees.
Crows sailing up, over the line of evergreens.
Solid.

I awoke suddenly from my murky forward-trance.
Halting my progression.
In over my knees.
Violently chilled.

Clarity dissolved upon my senses,
Remembering my native element,
I spoke my rejection to the  liquid Rake.

'This is not my place.
as long as I have breath.
and I will not lie with you upon your bed.
You have no thumbs, for coffee,
you have no heart for truth, although
secrets, of this, I am sure you hold, many.
No mouth for reading,
and trust-
I already have circling my finger,
and am tied in my heart, to one with eyes and lungs.
Some marry the sea, but I have married a Man.'

So I placed my heel behind my shoulder,
yanking hard against the rules of the moon,
up-tripping
backwards across sudden boulders.

Feeling the sick squirm of a game
almost lost,
a hallucination perhaps of-
the gurgle of a defeated laugh
chasing me back to the bank
I pushed away.

On the  shore, damp-dry grass of another month
lay beneath my feet

The River showed me shimmering calm.
nature just nature again-
a  vast. sleeping creature with no possible interest in Eve. but
From the droplets of water on my legs dripped a separate truth.

I turned away from the leaves and fish.
drying and donning shoes.
And went all the way back
a Flower still,
to The Land.

Everyone's in therapy.
Treatment for this-
Support for that-
Guidance for her-
Counseling for him.

As it turns out-
Life requires a jacket.
But for the people who help out,
And keep the others afloat-
How do they not drown?

6th period ends, and
my heart is full and hurting-
the honey ache
of knowledge departed
accidentally
but at the same
time-
Entirely Intentional.

The epitome of a New Teacher in an
Old Trap-
Blind, yet
leading the blindfolded.
distinguishing their candles,
then, Extinguishing them,
allowing them to walk in the dark
giving them permission to
feel the way.

In "Treatment",
Truth is found-
In the falsity
of the environment.
A globe as small as an egg
cradeling the daggers
of one entire county
Shaken, not stirred.

To dump, re-mingle, mainstream.
will they ever?
should they?
can they?
It requires more research-
Now-please turn to page 3 and read aloud.

Push and pull
like a wave
tides to the moon
the way she goes-

All equators
on the line
in balance
and yet the colour is
off.

Twists in the
branches of fate
may break, fall in the
road, shatter on
the fork.

but with my plate
so full, I cannot clean
it.

I fear starvation
I worry for the coming winter
I cannot store
for I am already frozen.

A stone cannot hide
For it cannot
Feel.

I am not a stone...
But I wish
I was.

smash with your fists
bash the drum
slash the strings

hit harder
sing louder

turn it right up
but for the love of
god don't stop

I don't want to-

accidentally hear
my heart.

so...
I catalogued it-

You asked-
sorry...Assigned.
here's the sheet.

name an event, puzzle through your own
tumbling thoughts and
show me the reason.

right here, line three
it was a bad day.

line four shows my
neurosis.

will laying it
all out be
the cure

the fixer?

I've made lists,
but no matter how many I make
for you

for me
the

writing is still
on the wall.

pull your head out of your own-

you're not perfect
you'll never-

So be Just Enough.

that's all. it's not
a competition.

because we all
eventually still

end up


behind the finish line.

45 minutes to go and-
their kisses are
ours.
I can't look I
know,
but my eyes follow
and seek like hot stones.


I feel their stories-
their
distances stretching-
the burden of
their own loves sinking into
my chest on top
of the open chasm
left by predawn at greyhound.

I hate every time
I have to
say it. I
crave the return
so so so so so...

Stop.


Dear Soul Anchor,
leave me in the Hall-

but be my port
cover my heart
with an oilcloth

so that somebody
else's farewells
will no longer
leak in.

This storm of
our own,
is Heavy Enough.

When did I start
writing 'Woman?'

Always a ******* the
Inside.

Took two
glasses-

To See.

outside of myself
currently.
smoking a whole
cigarette in the icy night
pretending to Be.
The shell of
a woman wearing a grown up
coat doing the rules-
paying the dues of
a liar with a book,
a quill and a crown.
the liquor holds my lips
open and-
I feel hollow and full
in my head...
and I wonder where I'm
supposed to be.
and am hoping that maybe in this state
I will be able to tell
myself the answer-
since I'm telling
all,
Anyway.
My hair smells like
ash,  my fingers cold on
the filter.
The stars are too clear.
I should probably...

reality snaking in
to remind-

I'm
getting too
old for this.

I'm teaching them
how to write
the things that I-

can't.

I am a full cup
balancing on the shelf
constantly testing my surface tension

just waiting for a little jiggle
to break the slack.

and When It Happens
this camel is gonna start running.
and she ain't never looking back.

when sinking
you make a redundant buoy
a faux bolster
the worst kind of cushion

the water boy [woman]
for a fake league
where the points don't
necessarily matter.

but even if you can't
reach the top of the
board, you still have
to accept the apple and
leave it on your desk

because christopher columbus
has started to
run out of ships
so now it's your turn
to start claiming
land

ring around my finger
your kiss it lingers

in your eyes and on my hand
watching me leave your land

standing out by the trees
cold autumn-threaded breeze

so far I'll miss you
I risk even this too

living apart now
trust our lives
to our art

when the toll's paid
groundwork, road laid

I'll walk the bargainer's path
we'll make it there,
and last.

the thrill
of you races
over my skin.

two equals one
-say the words
then it's done.

we'll start
at the beginning
of  an uncharted board
game

the directions are fuzzy
but everyone's played
it.

so much better,
though,

than Monopoly, don't
you think?

I Do.

Russian stacking dolls.

I layer like a jawbreaker
Folding one face
over the other.
My hello, smile, freeze frame.
Molten sugar shaped into points and curves
for eyelashes and lips.

In the days, flourescent and white
I lead, I direct, I juggle

Night spent, curled in the orange glow
bracing against the pain of
distance, wiping childhood away,
being the proverbial 'strong'
picturing your eyes
and mouth, both of us
mimes and mirrors for the other.

Conflict- do I open a portal
to the distance,
and
nod to our promise and hug you
with my heart

or fixate it on it, decline
and hold the refusal
in my mind, whispering into the pillow
consoling the dodge of not
trying to lie about salty cheeks.

'balance on the wet stones,
continue your creation.
You made this construct,
and you know the way through.'
-this is my feverish mantra.

But...
In this dimension I fracture my soul
to live forever, only to get through today,
this year
this week...
while we are on opposite ends of this
fearsome Bridge.

And when the lace comes, the celebration
the toast,  I ready myself to take our bright flare
the kiss, and our promise, back with me to my painful, green cave.

and hold it in the dark, cover it, too
in salt.

and pray with every bone and fiber for
the place where our timeline can
converge.

manage the-
measure the-
beating worry
surging- the tickles
of dread I didn't
really Don't
welcome.
if I love you
and lose you in the daily...
that
fear of leaving you sleeping.
what do I do
when they really shut the door
and we're
cut off.
when I'm here
are you,
still there?
can my love -its
armor
is it strong
enough?
vs. the world
I worry.

and it is undone
plucked from the snow

with the glasses
of a rose
back on the bridge

I saunter on
til the next doubt
comes along
and tries to *****
my thumb.

beautiful orange
globe of fruit

golden juice
sunshine summer cup

offered to me
on your finger tips

shut/open my eyes
blink
and the fruit is

cold and tossed into the snow

what did I do to change
your seasons so?

I can see the weakness
in my own words- their
weary Translucence,

even as I
wind my euphemisms and parry
****
snip the comma off,

attempt to catch my thoughts
before venom leaks out
of my em-dash.

but I can't.
Won't.
take back any
noun I flung

And So.

as you
walk down the hall

I see my adjectives
Just-
dripping off your
neck
rolling down the corridor

fat, black
and innocuous

and somehow feel
that I have
completely failed

at English.

you're too young to know
[should be]
so how can [it be that] you feel  [felt]more
than me?

how could you have
lived so fast?
[already]
spent so much of
your precious essence?

already felt the cuts
that fate whipped across
your soft, powdery cheeks
[barely marred, maybe, by hair]

your hourglasses already
half spent
sand dribbled out strewn

like ash from
tipped onto the kerb
in a blaze of colour, sound and
mellow confusion
a dangerous sway and crush
[that I'll never understand]

how it could be
that

You've already all become
so Old.

or is it my life-
was it so different
A gift your generation
just missed

because Maleficent
got to
the party
Early.

It's 1:15
you could be asleep
so I don't want to call-
and wake you

or maybe you're lying on your side,
restless.
imagining the quiet form of your
other part
while I sit in state
and do the same

our fingers waving over
the sides of our separate beds to grasp for
the phantom warmth from a month past-

one puzzle piece in the north
another in the City.
there are holes in our existences
that we  can't seem to fill
without both our shadows pressed together

I see our future-
the promise of colours,
jokes, clasped hands
and ***** dishes
So full and ready to be picked ripe
off the tree

but on the other side of the glass
the window's not yet
primed to be broken
Impatiently you hammer
perturbed, I tap.

'Please', I pray.
let them make spider cracks
so I can just
reach you
halt this nonsense,

and be with my Love
again.

Seriously?!

I'm a ****...

Wait. No you're not. Hold on.
I can't find...
I can't find my *******. Help me look.

blankets flung.
nothing.

You're...
you're laughing right now?
How could you not?


Can you see that
we're standing in a
giant pond of
ridiculosity.

a glasses lense
popped out.
hair a nest
of invisible
rodents.

his belt
all askew worried
face pursed
lips.

shirt tails- a crumpled
facade of the pressed
summer evening shadows
outlined behind
the lawn sprinklers from
the night before.

and in the cab
to work
phone almost
dies. 37 degree damp
heat pressing
against the car
like a monroe-type
kitten from the
50s.

the morning world
bustling awake
the driver asks
'you work this
afternoon?'

shake my head 'no'
slowly working the
knots out of my
hair

brace for the last
day.

And I'm
still missing
my underwear.