caustic cleansers eating away at
caked on ash and peeling dead skin.
silent snowfall smothering wholly
dried up earth, a new, unmarked grave.

dribbling paint slathered thickly onto
walls erasing nicotine stains.
smooth-as-silk milk blotting out brightly
the emptiness of a clear glass.

merciful fluid starkly removes
sins of a pen lost from its thought.
What comes to blank out, smother, dissolve
the murky shadows in my head?

The battle begins in the dark.
With a stabbing inhale you rip me open.
Tear me from sleep--heart pounding,
     we wrestle in a distant corner of the bed.
             Wake no one,
                                say nothing;
                                              it's not his problem.

I know every trick in your book:
the immobilizing grip, poisoned gut wrenching fear,
the way you force my eyes open, pushing back fitful dreams.
                                  
                      ­            Yes, I know your tricks, but knowing hasn't helped me yet.

I can drown you with a bottle in the night,
               but your back before the dawn, gnawing my insides.
Should I starve you of sleep,
               your joint locks force and turn the choice against me.

After so long the war has become intimate--familiar and rhythmic--
                                                      ­                            our private, frenzied dance
                             ragged breath and fevered steps memorized
                             culminate in a flawless performance.

In this state I begin to imagine that I wanted it this way.
What would my life be without so practiced, so relentless a partner?

it's in bottles of bleach
piles of books to read
the twisting of desperate fingers.

it whispers in endless lists
screams through fitful pacing
scrapes its nails against stolen dreams.

begging for a crowd
to surround and drown
its hungry grabbing voice.
what would i do
to be rid of you?

                                                           ­                               apparently very little.



the alone sounds of
pen on paper
a turning page
wandering restless feet
speak to me of all that's
                                       gone
                                                empty
      ­                                                                 ­ incomplete,



when does it stop?
how does it end?
silence the wrong kind of loud.

"Get a Grip"
"It's Alright"
"You're Overreacting"
                               mantras i cannot avoid.

breath quickens
as nothing happens in an empty room
that spins for no one to see

no one that is except
for me
who cannot be left alone.



they said i'd grow out of it.

If laughter is the best medicine
then this explains why there are so many unhealthy people.
Too many people got the SAD's Condition;
                 It arrives usually within 2-4 weeks of compromising one's inner child after crushing up      
                 some sparkly dreams and flushing them in the *******.
                                        Symptoms include:
                1) A black-hole bitter disposition
                 2) Snapping at little things like having to wait 5 in a checkout line
                    or making dramatic sighs after repeating a question a few times.
               3) Reminiscing about terrible things and never forgiving and  
                   letting  go, like having your mom sign your life away to a cult or  
                   being told that your dear sweet Aunt who helped raise you kept
                   looking for you in the hospital every time your name was called
                   even though you never saw her because your family thought it  
                   best you kept your distance or hearing the morose silence of a
                   stillborn newborn.
                4) Finding your serenity at the bottom of a bar room floor inside a
                   gin bottle.
                5) Finding your solace in a married woman who eats all kinds
                    of colorful shaped pills for breakfast.  
                                      


And if a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,
how much can you add before the medicine loses its flavor?

They say truth is bitter,
yet I find that hard to believe
considering it feels so good to say.
It's like a cinnamon peppermint flavor on the tongue
with an aftertaste of jalapeno tears.

Maybe I'm so used to the processed hydrogenated extra sugar kind
that's why I go right for the pure hard stuff,
and maybe that's why a laugh so much.  
Maybe that's why people consider me a cuckoo fool....

slogging through squelching mud or
trudging over frozen, terse, tundra or
wandering aimless featureless freeway
where are you now, what do you see?

how's the view?
                    
                                 how should i know? how could i know?
                                                should i know?  why don't i know? what am i doing here?

is it beautiful, this sky, or strikingly malevolent?
do these colors mean roiling heavens
brimming with destruction
                                            or is that just the sunset?

do you tread lightly and enjoy the stroll,
sprintunstoppabledown the ravine
grapple with impossible terrain?
do i climb at all, move at all, progress at all?
                                                                                No. Too Lazy.
                                                                                           Too Weary.
                                                                                                  am i not? what if i'm not? what if i'm just
                                                                                                                  s    t    a    g    n    a    n    t
                                                                                                                                                                 ?
         Dead Weight. am i dead weight?
                 am i dead?
                                                            

The Trees were once beautiful here-
until I feared                                          fungus
rotting on the inside
eating out the inside
retching from the inside
                                         The Trees were once beautiful here.

"Am I at a Crossroads?" how could i know?
                                       i follow where my fear will let me go
                                                                my fear will let me know
                                                                if it's safe to go
                                                                                                                            only safe to stay, don't go.
Fears, Worries trip down the path,
                        strip away the path
                                           heigh-**, heigh-**, it's off to work we go

was the way always so barren?
what happened to my shoes?
what happened to my walking stick?
what else have i to lose?

Though mountain I would climb
glorious stream I would hear
see swooning vine clutch lover tree;

though valiant travels I would make
                                                  --crossing marsh, scaling peak, battling desert, traversing valley,
                                                     fording river, drinking lake--

bind my eyes, blind my eyes
no pathway i may take.

the way is broken when Fear and Apprehension rule the road.

winter-weary throat,
    sweet vanilla *** red tea
                                                                                                                                                    my cup is drained.

holding on to my paper love
folded and unfolded
again and again.
the words you sent me
mean nothing now,
but oh so splendid
when they did.
the worn folds
and turned edges
fluffed and whiskered.
simple words on a note
held for many years,
and what you wrote
lay in my hands
a thousand silent
times, and perhaps
a thousand many more.

dumb people can't speak
deaf people can't hear
blind people cant see
stupid people can't think
ignorant people can't understand
even when they think they can.

nothing is more inappropriate
or unjust
of a poem written,
than not giving it
an appropriate title
but rather disrespectfully,
leaving it with out one.