My eyes are clear
Opening my lash-eyelet curtain
A near-perceptible glacier-clean,
--thud-crack of thick ice
Forming two, perfect, transparent, oval shards
Convex bevel edges
Satisfying symmetry.

My brain is quiet
Waiting for the roaring, train engine, kettle-boiling,
punctuated by slight, syncopated,
tap-taps that,
-- so kindly, remind me, my mind be, relying
-- on pulsing blood
Still roarless
Still, roarless
Spline-smoothed
Blood journeys gently, cloud-style
Not muddling, befuddling, nimbostratus
Just happy little cumulus
Soft. Nice.

My shoulders are low
Cage only soundtrack here
Absence of intended sounds
Only the astral smooth void
Flawless, measured, even space
My ears can kiss my shoulders if I feel like it
--but I don’t feel like it
Comfortable.

My breath is even
Jaws are open pliers
Thoughts are photos in ice and midnight blue
-- no rue umber or regret beige
Muscles are liquid-warm wax
Palms are oasis-free deserts
Pupils are obsidian-shined globes
Skin made of moonlight
Heart matching the beat of the universe

I have returned
Back inside myself
I am here.

What was your crime?
Was it heinous,
Or trifling?
What was so bad that could leave you like this?
Was it hard at the time?
To sustain us,
While stifling
-- all of the feelings that couldn’t exist?

Was it too vast a weight
To be wielded
Unaided?
Or was it too great for an army to bear?
Too small to relate
Or too shielded
Spoil-shaded?
To understand all that was happening there

But I’m no longer small
Or at least
I am older
I’m ready to know what was tethering you
Or chasing you down
Like a beast
Or a soldier
With a thin sheen of orange, when green wouldn’t do

It’s okay to tell me
Exhibit
Or model
Emotions, by spoonful as heavy as lead
To let it all out
To live it
No bottle
For weeping, and raging, and mourning the dead

Still neither we know
How to feel
These things safely
The throat-ripping scream that may never quiet down
The full force of hate
That’s so real
To me lately
The terrible fury no bottle can drown

The shocking events
That founded
Those feelings
The violence and panic-lashed vigilance born
Their timbre makes sense
Compounded
Their meanings
No piece their experience doesn’t transform

But why such deep shame?
Some misdeed
Or error?
Your fault that’s a focus for manifest wrongs
The heightening frame
Of this need
Is as ever
Pointed internal where mercy belongs

It’s okay, I know
Self-kindness
Is fleeting
More tricksy than empty-glass, bottle-stirred glee
Emotions may flow
In rightness
Repeating
       The heinous, the trifling, transfigured care-weightless
       The self-sighted shame now silk-slightful and shameless  
The criminal pardoned and duly set free

If I remain quiet,

And do not trouble,
Those dear to me,
Perhaps I can be strong.

And if not,

I might seem to be.

At least for them,
If not for me.

And if it’s not for them or me,

Why then, do I keep on?

This empty soul,

It needs a home,
It needs peace.

Because every time I am alone,

I am reminded of who died.

And who I killed.

And who they became.

Every time I hear “my” name.
Every time I hear my parents,

Scoff at those like me.
I **** myself more.

So I can seem to be,
What they want of me.

If this is truly who I am.

If I am like this really.

Why does it hurt?

Why does it **** me inside?

Why can something that is me,
Make my parents so painful
To be around?

If I am to please,

And cause no pain.

I must get rid

of my disease.

When I hear a song
That reminds me of you,
It becomes my favorite

now months later,
I return
to the song that reminded me of you
and how I wish
I could hear it
as if it were new

A scratching on the concrete path
– thin plastic
The brittle kind
Slight enough to slide slowly, in a low breeze
A tiny ping as something caught
– elastic
A flabby find
Light enough to stretch feebly, then a soft squeeze

An eye-shock from the brazen tones
- the clown mask
The grotesque face
Bright enough to clash basely in the Autumn mood
A smudging from the thickest lips
- crazy cast
All ****** grace
White enough to bold highlight the ****** hues

I wonder why it’s lonely now
- lost costume
But just one part
Strange enough to fare poorly in the candy stakes
Bit too obscure for Halloween
- low volume
No candy heart
Change enough to read oddly, as jokes or aches

       Large, ill-set eyehole blues
       - hint at bacchanalia
              A single tear at sadness       
              The open mouth at madness
       Impossible to choose
       - with no paraphernalia

       Child, was your clown-face mask
       - giggle-shed or snigger-skinned?
              Too wet from crying laughter?
              Forgot to get it after?
       Or did you run too fast,
       and lose it in a gust of wind?

Or was it just too complex for
- your fresh face
All comic-dressed
Mixed enough to sit weirdly - no candy here
The others didn’t know to help
- save your place
They tried their best
Fixed enough to get through
       The single tear
       Perhaps next year

A drink; a drink,
Another for me!
And one overboard
For the God of the sea!

A drink; a drink!
Another for me!
A vision of ***,
A truth for me!

A drink; a drink!
Once more for the gods!
O, safe keep our ship,
From the men of the odds!

A drink; a drink,
Poseidon, he falls!
Dionysus insists;
His brother; he calls!