sits in the dusty room and slowly turns the
hand crank on the wretched machine
unfolding a hundred sinister faces grinning
unleashing a thousand bare feet knuckling the
threadbare carpet leading out to sunshine

dawn is almost upon us
and the truth i must face up to
is merciless
and it eats at the scarred surface of my soul
this factory of madness i must abandon
this pleasure palace of the sinister i must leave
this small world that i at least understood

i stand on the threshold and peer uncertain
out to the world that shocks me

how will i contain it
how will i master this vast place
i cannot even silence the fearful beating of my heart
i am alone in this world
i feel what it is to be crushed benith the weight of indifference

the paper with the hundred sinister faces and thousand bare feet
gathers raindrops on the bus stops floor
no longer able to unleash a power to sustain me
the paper is but a rancid cartoon
and weak reminder of worlds left behind
i shrink ever further into the shadows
hoping not to be seen
by the real sinister faces
not to be benith the thousand real bare feet
knuckling threadbare lives they rule
i am alone and afraid in the real world

I'm fatally dancing advancing with and toward

a slow zoom through hallways to the dark room

trying to shorten my strides or grip the walls at my sides gouging

a fingernail fear of mortality that makes out the shape

of the cursive-signed names of everyone or thing ever in a

not-so clever attempt to accept the thief that's in and is the night

I breathe heavily and wide to prove that I'm alive until my ribs

touch the white-walls rubbing along in a washboard song

that peels paint like turpentine with a rank smell wafting

from the room at the end of the line and time knuckling under

the backs of my knees scraping off of the floorboards slouching across

the adjacent door frames where exit signs should read thee

forehead pulsating expelling sweat to absolve me and for moments

the room might shine and I am still

>Want a thing? Relax
>into a script to get a taste.
>Fetishes? or repressed natural inclination?
>Roll a D20 to feel better, take fun and make it killing,
>with just enough free will to make it interesting.
>Nothing else can become reality so in the universe we got
>in the cosmic lottery, calm down
>and have fun.
>Find the most effective deformation — BAM BAM
>SHOOT EM UP — and life is real. Over the top?
>Or so aware that art is less than or equal
>to life, so why settle for realism?
>Say something the way that no one else can say
>it. Maintain a state
>of relaxation by white knuckling your partner until you forget to breathe.
>Fetishize white men not being racists.
>Lay it all out for your audience
>whose uneducation cries out to be fixed
>by you
>and you alone.
>Reassure them
>you get it:
>art is hard,
>so I’m going
>to speak my subtext
>and spice things up
>with some choreography
>just to make sure
>you get what it is
>exactly
>that I’m trying
>to say,
>because god knows you wouldn’t get it otherwise.
>(And this way, people will finally understand you, and you will be complete, and you will be satisfied, and you will get everything you ever wanted, and you will ride fulfilled into the bright new day of artistic enlightenment you lucky sonuvabitch.)

On a bed in fair mid-May,
Away from school, work, and play,
Lie a young boy devoid of joy,
Trying to break away.

It wrestled, fought, and struggled,
But fatal aims redoubled,
His iron will held them stock-still,
Neither could break away.

Motions were slow and fleeting,
Instinct and Will competing,
To end two pains in different veins,
Crumble and break away.

Strangling a blind reflection,
White-knuckling throats mid-section,
With fratricide, a part had died,
What's left to break away.

Downtown a young man stood tall,
Behind eyes, perturbing pall,
Lie a young boy devoid of joy,
Trying to break away.

Backstage pass of words I’ve been given
Her voice so soft, O’ how long it seemed I wished to hear it
Had doubts that should have never been there for she looked me in my eyes
On my heart and on my brain, a lie detector is strapped to my body
Brightest light ever seen is now glowing warm on my complexion
Interrogations now begin from a sibling trying to protecting their name
I can’t blame them for I’d do just the same
I told my story through my written works that he read
And then I saw him smile and with his hand he reached for mine
Embracing with a shake we joined as one.
No reason to get excited because this is not a joke
Partial board box zip tied with paper conceals your shroud within
Knocked on the wood for good luck cause the hour is getting late
Up from below on pulleys it is pulled
Locking latches to the left and to the right
locking the left like batting down the hatches I locked you in
Knobs are turned with fifteen minute increment you will go
Kissing the crucifix I powered it on
Kissing the cross again I try to wash away my sins
For so long nothing else has ever mattered
Nothing I tell you, no nothing I tell you again
I stand and scream can you hear my shouts
For I can’t wait another day to be somebody before the damage is done
Wanting a quick peek I then took a walk to talk to my soul departed brother first
Then they came and said are you ready it might look ugly are you up to it
Arrived to the same scene and something’s wrong, red lights are lit up
Nothing has happened while I left to pray and they wondered why
I know the answer for I hadn’t done my part till then
Again we try, this time it went off without a hitch
Then the sounds of a roaring flame overcame everything aloud
Window with a handle like having a periscope I took a look at the danger inside
Watched for a minute and suddenly you were consumed in a blanket of flames
Gasping for air, my breath was taken away and then I began to suffocate
Tingles throughout my body you did it to me so I never forget the sight yes I know
Closed the hatch and let you be praying even harder now I go white knuckling for thee
Outside the grave diggers looked in amazement for they were puzzled with the strength
Wanting to give a last respect I peer in once again
Feet first in your body did laid there, laid there in rest; I watched your face disappear
Ribs erected up like fingers reaching to grab anything it could reach
My spirit and my soul you did grab hold
raven on a willow, robin on a stone
Mother of mercy, angel of death, Mother of mercy, angel of pain
You are both the same Mother of mercy, angel of death,
We are all just players in the master’s game


(CARSr. 5-29-12)

She whispers lowly to me. This mind of mine is filled with Bipolar thru and thru.
Not one person I have let have a peek of it wide openedly before you now on this very day.
All see me smile at them normally yet in this mind of mine she is stirring.
I'm frantically holding, clutching, white knuckling her down as she tries to climb out the eyes of me.
She screams at me constantly piercing my ears I fear they will began to bleed.
I barely can keep her inside down me, this evil twin in me is wicked bone deep.
She rules over the demons that breath heavy on me as they are ordered to claw the skin from me to try to get her free.
This is Bipolar this is me. Welcome to my world.
Please don't stay very long she might claw at you all the while smiling at you. Unleashing her demons down into you.

The grip on my disposable razor
Is tighter than the grip of my own reality.
Reflection distorted by the humid condensation,
I still see my hands trembling as I shave.
I still see the designer bags under my eyes.

The familiar aroma of shaving cream,
Paired with the sobering twinge
Of the nicks from my razor.
The haphazardly spilled pills,
Horizontal bottles in the medicine cabinet.

White-knuckling the porcelain sink,
Decorated with dried toothpaste and the blood of my gums.
I reflect to my reflection
Distorted by drip drops of tap water,

“Am I still myself?
Or simply a prospect of my own delusion?”

second chances
  third chances
      fourth chances
     renewed trusts
replenished damaged belief
               pride and prejudice
hurt and sadness
           fifth chances...
      making up
               making out
        waking up half ashamed
             walking out half naked
     walking off the emptiest night of your lives
                      forcing a smile
                  pretending to be fine
         pretending to be fine
                                pretending to be fine
            pretending to be fine
                 lying            
                     knuckling under
                                       lying
                                falling behind
                          pretending to believe each other
               trustfalls
                   with
                      a
                 harness
                          trust
                         falling
                          apart
trust broken forever.
       sixth chances...
                 tears-----
          weeping-----
           sobbing-----
                    gnashing of teeth-----
   staring into the mirror blankly at 3am
               crying yourself up until 9
glass shard pressed smoothly
                                                     against your wrist
                                            total darkness...      
                               undoable sadness...
                      uncurable brokenness...
              unsatiable...
       irrevocable...
irreversible...
           -------seventh chances
                pain.
       ------eighth chances
           cries.
    ------ninth chances
        lies.
-------tenth chances
      more 'last' goodbyes.
              et cetera

cool, just call me , we are juggling our sanity and the days like paper lanterns on rivers being used as paper weights for a days wages never paid,

and the walking dogs have all their leashes in a knot, but do not fret, I got this thing on a bet and a prayer,

with some help from good friends and one heck of a pinch hitter,
who brings the cows home on the bases loaded and the football bat is all out of whack and did it with a whiffle balled mad  hatter.  

as we are all a tasted disquieted and alarmed silently outloud of the load of horse **** and bravado  of the slightly deranged considerations to any being ******* the dead for their secrets ,

so yeah. But with our werewoof feet , Mohawk eyebrows in the alias mode of method of obfuscation uni-brows and mustaches, cause lets face it, with such stage as to fain the rain of a stain,

we need to rewind the kine and uncage the page of line after line of sweet *** whine, wine and more time blaze all the rage when beards don't do the trick in landing the babe with the need for a tree of good root and a wild spine eyed fool all hillbilly and too schooled in the dark arts of **** knuckling bad ways and stays into a gifted consorted construct while she sigh the not so **** shy, yes dizzy and high, and say, oh ****, who whoulda thought,

,, still I thought you would have been bigger,, like road house in the dancing days of rolling thunder and pouring blames mane all to educate mine eyes and teeth as to what is real to eat and all that is plastic fruit looking all to bitter sweet,  

including all the critters of varied skill, poise and swinging lawn mower blades like, biscuits and mustard, pathfinder style, calculator not needed but ****** is optional, and never forget the nuts that bolt all us fools into a clustered fuckery all betty crocker and country **** legs spread , I can't believe it's not butter said in the voice of Otis Redding ,

Signs of that sweet smile and of **** some body going to get a ******* tonight look in them eyes as they tool away and hint to my silly day and keep me on point like the six tossing a bloodhound a big round steak of shhhh, we are hunting rabbits here,

never mine us six foot white rabbit all werewoofed and donnie darkoed in our get the show on gear, lol, but ****, all that in such awesome packages as the friends and things in my head, all keeping me fueled in the art of war on the undead.

now this my friend is a day in the life of the It Squad, and we hit the **** like you cant quit the **** sqaud, so have a coke and a smile, laugh a while, we got this ****. ;-)  

What, I'm just shakin a spear at a bad bacon boy all francis nancy like... so funk yo skunk up son.

oh, da boy got the lo hold on the roll Soul, ****, son, swing lo sweet chariot, commin for to carry me no mo alone and in a **** good tone with a nice private home to give the good dog a bone.

So, yeah, weak like a good weeks hard glazy nights, all sir and silly, but you cant call me a lil *** ***** with my good hillbilly goofy eyed and swilly, Mooooon Shine on me .

Say love son, Yah to the Jah , Alma. cause you got tha soul sols, and if ya don't get this, then you don't have it. but we workin on that, right?

Hear the motions of the engines,
Speed South to North,
As well North to South,
Care not they, the sounds they make.

It is a confession.
They speed in the land of ****.
It increases, then decreases,
As they travel past, the open window,
Winterless blast, a confession,
It feels close to spring.

Care not a bit that sounds, rude, to those who tomorrow,
Will wake up to snow, while the blizzard sounds here,
Are the rush of thoughtless trucks and cars,
Which are driven at speeds above the posted limit,
Even if they don't have to travel so far,
To get home in the drizzle, to their green grass.

Maybe snow would slow them down,
Or keep them off the road entirely,
No, no, not them, they are rude,
They have this attitude,
Drive like this, no matter what the weather,
They are better than the conditions, they drive in.

Another confession, they are in it to win, and no one
else knows there is a contest and contestants.

What a surPrize!

Hand him a sextant as he drives at night, after all he has to navigate,
Through Facebook and Likes and texts and bytes of downloads from
YouTube...would not want to be fashionably late in reply otherwise
Your social life, and status,
may die.

Trafficking bad habits,
Instead of "look out for the other guy or gal"
The phone and the life it holds,
can be dropped,
"worse than a dropped call",
is all the sirens wail as they go by,
Life in the balance, ghosts
White knuckling it with one hand,
While eyes are fixed, to a deathly white screen
And fingers dance solo in some sexless act,
The result is the same a distracted fact,
The mind is no longer in the car,
It has left the body already,
Waiting for it to die,
Watching from above and reaching to all
Who have fingers and a phone
Wanting to be ghosts and sticking to the life,
Which will make it happen.....by accident.

Drive defensively,
Leave your phone in the trunk.

Our sweaty hands grasped tightly,
white-knuckling, bracing for impact.
My paint-and-peel green nail polish
ruined by the last round.

"It matches the grass stain
on your white tights!" Cody yells
from across the yard.

I'll get you for that, traitor.

We call him over--
Time slows, cheeks redden, teeth clenched.
Our bodies bend with the sudden contact.

Too strong for Cody, we stand tall,
Grass stains and tears follow him home.

Her name? Her name is Generose, 
See now how her story flows

through the sounds of war anew,
our ruler coming out to say:
‘Bombs! Again! Away!’  Through 
minions mincing with regret
at what we need to do and why 
evil ones must die. 

Through the soldiers jumping to; 
through me, and my kind, left  bereft 
behind, nowhere to be
except here, hoping to woo 
a person like you.

I hope you can you come with me 
I need us to get to a place 
far from here, where four or five 
million...? No. Let me begin again... 

Let me start with yesterday.
I was clearing my house,
‘and not before time’ 
is what you would say if you’d seen it. 
I was making two piles
– to hold or to go? - 
when I found it: the book. 
Lying open, face down, waiting 
for me to return. 

I shrugged off the me who likes 
to think she can think 
herself safe, and picked it back up 
where I’d stopped, and dropped, 
down again into that wood 
where four million people once died. 
(Or was it five?) 
Yes, genocide.

One woman’s name was Generose, 
see now how her story goes.

When they’d hear the trucks of the killers 
roar in, the villagers would grab the hands
of their children and flee to the trees. 
At night they’d lie down on dead leaves, 
knuckling dirt into dreams. 

One day Generose and her family 
were too slow to go. The soldiers 
came in with machete and gun, 
hacked her husband to death, then
made her climb up to lie down
on her own kitchen table, 
in front of her daughter and son.
“We’re hungry,” they said as they 
cut off her leg and sliced it 
into six pieces and fried them 
up in her pan. 

Yes, name her name, it’s Generose. 
Listen. Listen to how it goes.

They ordered her children to partake.
The boy knew how to refuse
and was shot on the spot. The girl,
in terror, attempted to try. I ask you:
can you imagine? Not the family 
so much as those soldiers, 
the teaching it took to create them. 

(Where this happened was already famed
for kings who came from afar to take 
what they would. What one liked 
to take was the hands
of the men he’d enslaved, 
the ones who had failed to bring in 
their quota of crop. And chop 
them off.)

Consumed by the sight of the girl 
trying to force her mother 
as meat through her mouth, the men 
somehow allowed Generose down
from the table to crawl from the house. 
And so, somehow, she survived. 
And so, she has heard, did her daughter. 

And so she believes that some day 
she’ll see her again and she works 
every which way for that day. 

Why tell you all this? 
May I reverse the question, 
Ask you how you feel when you
hear it? That’s why the poet 
wrote her book, though to regurgitate 
that leg made her sick for weeks after,  
to show how how the same choices 
call to us all. Kings will do what kings do, 
soldiers too, and if you don’t 
want to know, I won’t keep you. 

Let me back to the book that knows 
what to own, what should be let go.
Let me wait in the place
I’ve come to call home 
with those who decline
to oppose.  Let me hold to my hope 
that the girl might be found, 
and enfolded again, with
their two mourned dead men  

so we all might recall what we’ve been 
taught so well to forget: 
the long-lasting hold, the cast iron 
caress of the mother. 

Her name, this time, was Generose, 
and that is how the story goes.

Life is good
Life is swell
Looking at you
from the bottom of my well

You say relax, sit back and smile
I say I would if I didn't have to shovel this pile

Razor blades outside my skin
repel your love cutting me within

My tortured mind takes over reason
I try to hold on white knuckling the season

I didn't invite this darkness to enter
It barges on in, knocking me off of my center
I pull from my bag of miraculous tricks
Meditation, Deep Breathing, but nothing sticks

The hardest part is what this does to you and me
I cry I'm sorry Babe, here is my apology

I'm awful to be around, to talk to, to love
I pray for your patience
and strength from above

I've lost the real me it seems to be
My sadness and nerves are my identity

I know I'm still here, plugging along
Playing Mommy, cleaning house, but without any song

Please reach closer when I push you away
Not easy I know, especially some days
Your love and tenderness ground me to home
You by my side shows me I'm not alone

Scrunched in my darkness
Squinting for light
Reach your hand out to me; say "It'll be alright"

My distance is really a huge shield of shame
I hate myself, loathe myself and take all the blame

This is not really me; messed up thoughts inside
I want to purge it all leaving my heart open wide

I love you, I need you, I want you near
It's so hard to ask you to wipe up my tears

*Today's reality, skewed and blue
Tomorrow may bring sunshine
And Me back to You.

she rambled through midnight,
shoes more white-tar *****
than black leather,

avoiding destinations,
washed palms
not unfamiliar with
stakes being grounded
near the wrong type of hearth.

standing half-drunk,
on scorched oxygen epilogues,
her cheeks deserted,
feet knuckling homeward,

wrists unveiled by calamities,
she’d pour shrapnel
into her scrapes,
wrongs cast in iron,

and
he would trace
her scars like
a roadmap,
but always left
by morning—

twilight strangers
in a cold, perfect sunset.
freckles holy,
lights heady,
moon painfully
indifferent.

Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its' brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?

He awoke with a start, the weight of a restless night leaving him suddenly as it was the stench that hit him first. He shot up in bed, still covered from the sweat of his nightmares, and began dry heaving. The thick odor assaulted his senses, causing his eyes to water and his nose to snot. It smelled of decay and death. The strong sickly sweet scent of lilac mixed in as though to try and perfume the foul smell.
It was too much and he vomited onto his dusty wooden floor. Wild fear then took him. He knew what this was and had smelled it before many times. **** the Gods, he thought, He never thought it would be him. He stumbled out of bed and half-ran, half-fell through his small shack. His constitutions wavering, he threw open the heavy pine door and looked to his feet. He found that could not scream as fear tightened around his throat and his blood ran as cold as the Nordic Winds.
The black charred bones of an infant elk lie at his door step. Frayed and rotting twine held the thing together haphazardly and he could feel the Evil surging from the remains.
He had been Chosen.  
He grabbed at the banister, white knuckling the railing, and bent over double once again purging himself out of fear.
With bleary eyes he stared down the road at the plot of scorched earth that marked the remains of the last house that found The Mark at it's door..
This would be his last days on this Plain as a man

He sat next to the Mark and sobbed. Great tears rolled down his face as he thought of all he was about to leave behind. As the Day broke he watched his last sunrise. He muttered his thanks to The Gods, however grim the morning was, it was glorious sight. Just the other day the sun had been met with Falls overcast skies, promising evening storms. Today, however, the sun broke through great white clouds. Brilliant rays of light charging the sky with its intense morning golds and blues.
The light stretched across the forest town of Wilds Watch. Creeping up the dirt roads and casting long shadows from the various wooden and clay structures. Morning dew began to steam from the thatch roofs and tall grasses leaving a gentle fog on the town. The forest in the distant seemed more ominous than ever.
As he thought about the horrors he would soon face doors began to open as the suns light reached out and through the windows of the weathered houses. The people knew what this morning brought. "It" had come ti claim another sacrifice. The unspeakable horror only took strong, youthful men, the rumor being that It needed them to add to It's unholy keep as The Walking Dead. They wore masks with lemon grass, flowers and pine needles stuffed inside and poking through the edges. The unholy stench of The Mark crept far from his house and would linger into the sobering weeks to come.
Their eyes held pity and sorrow. He knew they also breathed a sigh of relief from the scented masks as they had avoided It's Mark for another year.
"So, I am doomed to join the Walking Dead." he thought aloud with spiteful and ragged breath.

Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?

I admit.
I am your utterly
disillusioned waste of space.
I play the prominent part
in a lavish masquerade
of all the world's lowly taste.

A fiasco
in my past state.
A ruin
in progress.
A vision of demise
when tomorrow commences.

Sheer disappointment,
I caused to thee.
Holds back from life,
my destiny.
Knuckling under
the dull moonlight
all of my dreams
as they lose from sight.

It's true,
I've been a fool,
making lots of awful tunes.
Wrapping up mem'ries
with shabby rhymes.
Hiding under the rubble
of my shattered life.

I then concede.
I ask you all to plead
from your many gods
forgiveness for a soul
who had lost all control.

Truly,
it was nice
to hear a plentiful
sorrowful
terrible cries.

But no matter what goes on
in the head of the overthrown,
I had to slowly surrender
and give up my own disguise;
it's a new lease on life.

But I hale you all to listen.

For my words are sacred til I die.
But not when I tell you
not to believe when I try to guile.
'Cause while I'm your silver-tongued girl,
I am willing to tell more lies.

*But words aren't much sacred;
never, until you die.

Not exactly that swan
lifting white grace
to the heavens
Nope
but thud and tug and ping
and whipping thud again
taking flight out across the highway
in my rear-view
Scuttled dust  
fiberglass flattened
by the truck behind
White-knuckling wheel while
       mentally    compute
split-second sounds and feels for damage...

I guess?
everything's
okay...?

First it was that blowout
Then one by one
the hubcaps lost their grips, their minds
and went their ways
to join the trash
of butts and chunks of mattress
fast-food wrappers, road-****
by the guardrail
of another day

Most recent--
Antenna disconnect
Fixed with tape 'cause
Gotta have that music
heat, AC, tires, breaks
Ya know-- important things
like that steady humming engine

Destined to be--
buckboard to the beach or heaven
whichever's first
by the time its twenty
Much nearer than I'd care to say
Ode to Car and Driver
who get there--

in all good hope, together

             :)

I wish I’d met you in a different lifetime
further down the line.
In this hypothetical lifetime,
we’re stronger and smarter, quicker on our feet,
Full of grace and thought, ready for anything.
a life quite close the end of it all, perhaps,
When we’ve learned just about all the lessons
Conquered almost all the demons
When we’ve found ourselves **** near the best that souls can be,
So close to eternal bliss we can almost wrap ourselves in it.
I wish you had found me a bit more evolved,
A life in which we’ve found a perfect niche for our respective selves,
We could spend these long days on our own cosmic plane,
Sipping herbal tea and
contemplating the complexities
Or the simplicities
Of it all
where we go from here,
And how it could be possible that we fit so nicely into one another's
Grand schemes,
How lucky it is that we found each other just in time
For the end of our journeys, whole and full.
I wish we could spend these moments in peace,
Where we can count our combined spirals and
questionable decisions
And painful memories on one steady hand,
Where we don’t have to weigh
Who needs more in the moment,
Where we don’t have to fight so hard for happy,
And we wouldn’t have to white-knuckle it when we have finally get a momentary taste.

It’d be nice,
Wouldn’t it?
To love and let love
To know the answers and let the questions
Roll over us without a care,
Without getting stuck there?
To just enjoy what the universe has made of us?

But then again,
on second thought,
I think I’m quite glad you’re here, now,
Somehow,
Maybe this is lucky.
Maybe lost and hurt
and ages away from where we’re meant to be,
Unsure and certain that we must missing some essential thing,
Something everyone we admire seems to have found,
Something they keep tucked away for only the elite to know,
Some compass or map
Or fountain of youth
Or maybe we just haven’t read the right books
Heard the right songs
Gotten the right diagnoses
Had the right conversations
Visited the right places.
Regardless, I think,
This lifetime must have been meant for us.
Maybe,
I think,
I don’t so much mind the white-knuckling and
Trying to understand and
Asking too many questions
And tallying up the ones that are ever-unanswered
As long as you’re doing it next to me.
The getting there, i’m beginning to think,
might be when we need one another most.

a.m.

They eye me the way I once
did you, reminders of red wines paired
with seared cuts,
sugared plums, spiced ***,
and saccharine frosting
whipped to delicate peaks.

They are stringy and shiny
with bulging green bellies and
for a moment I imagine them
bursting free from their pods and
spilling into the aisle—shining like
wet eggs under the fluorescent lights.

White-knuckling the cart and chin just
high enough to gaze at the produce
from the corner of my eye, I push
past, I push on, I push away from

You know I can see you watching me,
you’d said that night when I tried the same
move on you, voice like a snake
and mouth red with merlot
you moved to me and you whispered
your song; eyelids flitting like moon
dusted moth wings, and guilty, wet
heartbeats blooming across our faces—

In another aisle now I release
my breath. Ribs unfurl like sails and
nothing ever happened.

I never called you back.
Symphonic excursions and gourmet
paranoia ceased, and as time moved on,
so did I.

But I will never cook with fava beans again.

He doesn't say my name anymore; not since the first time around. I am baby girl, angel, gorgeous. He hasn't said my name since that day.
"Well, ---, I don't think this is going to work."
That was the day I drove to the boat ramp at my lake, cut the brakes in my car, and waited.
The day I quit my job, dropped out of school, and deleted all of my social media account.
The time I dedicated all my free time - and time was all I had anymore - to researching how to recreate that fire in me and then how to treat third-degree burns.
The day I learned that time melts like chocolate when you hold it long enough, and it looks a lot like blood on my hands.
The day I learned white knuckling memories doesn't mean they seal the fractures between my fingers.
The day I learned some things just aren't mine to keep.
I've been touchier since that day; just one poke and I'm black and blue - yellow is rare, but it happens sometimes.
The doctor gave me some pills to help with the ache, and they keep me pretty full, so I don't know why I still have that gurgle in my stomach almost all the time, why I still have that itch in my veins when something is almost but not quite.
I tell myself constantly that a substitute can only hold off the craving for a little, but I need it now, and I never learn.