Karma Mia,
Please don't be that way
What have I done?
I truly don't remember

Karma Mia,
Whatever it is, can't we just put the past behind us?
No need to keep score
You seem to be focusing only on the negative

Karma Mia,
Let's just live in the moment
A fresh start every day
I promise to be my best self

Oh, Karma Mia,
You hold my life in your hands
We'll be together always
It's fate

nobody gave you their seat  
your bag looks heavy
sagging on your round shoulder
with the weight
of twice and thrice told tales
none of those seat hoggers
likely cared to hear,  
in our penitent past
you
had to sit
in the rear  
perhaps your bag holds stories
that old, that bold,  
now you are front and center
tethered to the bus and
this world with a rubber cord,
a hanging loop, for those
who wait for simple seats
or their journey’s end
at some blurry stop,
where others climb on
with their own weights and woes  
and clasp the same old strap
that drew defiant blood,
the loop that once strangled
freedom’s cries,  but now
is only a handle to grab
for those
who have no seat
on the same old road

I should be asleep
instead of watching
insomniac cab drivers
wipe the blood and **** and ***
from their black vinyl seats
mobile priests
of the city, they
have heard every confession
in their yellow checkered halls
those who entered, fell from grace
long before they found this space
the penitence
for which they had not asked  
was not given,
the sacraments withheld
while the wine spilled,
the blood flowed, and  
the wipers kept time
like some mindless metronome  
in the Baptismal summer rains…
in his rear view mirror  
were all the stories,
the fallen, the ******  
ignored
while they lapped the asphalt miles  
their lives measured
by the c l i c k  c l i c k of the meter,
until
they made a guilty exit
and said keep the change

you said
we all
have the love of men and women inside us
you said
you were born to love men  
if we have two sides of the coin, who flips it?  
you had no answer  
you asked,
had I ever loved a man  
yes, we were young and he was beautiful  
but I did not tell him,
nor did I want him
you asked why,
as if…I was denying myself
some privilege with half of humanity
I said, it
would have seemed queer,
to be with him that way
queer like mustard on chocolate    
not evil, not sinful but queer    
like beer with breast milk  
you said
that was sad  
I said
I was not sad  
but not born that way  
two sides of the coin, you said?  
inside all of us  
but you knew not who flipped it
nor why

he has a house,
with books,
drawers of old clothes
and sacred secrets  
cluttering the floors and walls in every room
he walks to the library  
to escape the heat, the cold
and the treacherous terrain of his past,
to spend the day in the company of strangers
who don’t know he is there, mostly
their home is the alley behind the furniture store  
the windless spot under the bridge
or someplace mocking memories
have no place to hide  
he stares at them
hears their breathing half sleep  
smells them  
envies them
and how they can tell their story
without uttering a word  
he is afraid to be one of them  
after years of hiding from their truth