So let us now place monetary value on information.
Let us return to the source,
Mining & prospecting that fertile intel seam.
To wit: WWII and G-2 shenanigans.
Wild Bill and OSS-capades,
Artificial disseminations.
Partial recriminations.
And PSYOPS:
A literary nightmare--
THE CYCLOPS from The Odyssey,
For example,
If you lack your own,
Your own personal Bogey Man.
Or men. For me:
Allen Dulles or Richard Helms.

The Intelligence Community:
It was a small tightly knit crew,
Less than battalion strength in 1942;
A few myopic soldiers,
Who, although could barely type,
Were still too cerebral to
Waste as infantry fodder.
It was a huge converted Army-green warehouse,
Space strategically partitioned,
Sectioned off into cubicle-like spaces,
By giant 4-drawer file cabinets
Standing tall like MPs,
Sentinels & Guardians,
Monuments to pre-electronic storage,
Data relatively comprehensive, and an
Archive secretive & intimidating.

Within the Army-green incunabula,
Scattered throughout the intel landscape,
Here and there a few commissioned officers,
A smattering of college psychology majors,
Personalities with predilections,
And penchants for mind games.
These self same WWII vets,
Would morph into Cold War Mad Men.
Stalwart, stouthearted men of Eisenhower,
And J. Walter Thompson,
De-mobbed, as they say in the UK.
Consumptive.
Self-indulgent,
Particularly when it came to the kids;
Children of the peace,
Called Baby-Boomers,
An entire generation enabled & destroyed.
Who would produce little of value
Except medical marijuana and
Coupons, clipped by that sober ruling class—
Fat interest-bearing college-loan portfolios
Held by that neo-Calvinist Elect: The 1%.
Fat cats one and all,
Loaded dice & canasta cronies--
In concert a stacked deck,
“Una mano lava l'altra.”
The words of my namesake--
My grandfather Giuseppe--
His vowels reverberating,
Rattling in my dreams.
Not friends, but
Fiends in high places, like
The Fed and dark liquid pools.
Thank you, Barack, for
Fooling us again.
For giving us
“Belief we can believe in.”

But I digress.
It was when the Government Secrecy Act,
In all its transnational incarnations,
Embraced capitalism in a big way,
Elevating the ideology to whole-Earth saturation,
Systemizing the ethos of Darwin,
Into one global Moby ****,
One solitary leviathan,
A multi-level marketing labyrinth,
Where wealth is the end game--
Greed: pure, unbridled & unrestrained.
Bond--James Bond—
Did his bit, supplying catchy
Slogans & tag-lines:
“For Your Eyes Only.”
“On a need to know basis.”
“Confidential Information.”
“Top & Ultra-Top Secret.”
“Hush, Hush & a Bag of Chips.”

The sealed letter sits in a locked drawer,
In that stout desk,
In the Oval Office
In The White House,
“To be opened by my VP in the event of my death.”
Another staggering work,
Of achy-achy-heart breaking genius,
The culture commoditized,
A disease containing its own cure,
Assayed, graded,
Portioned & packaged.
Priced accordingly,
To a logic that goes something like:
“Anything this tightly controlled,
Anything the government deems to be
This illegitimate and/or & secret
Must be really, really God-awesome,
Must really be Da ******* Bomb.”

Brother Coolidge was right:
“The Business of America is Business.”
And INFORMATION:
“The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth.”
So said Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III,
19th Century robber baron, and
Consummate Fat Cat.
Get the picture:
We were smoking cigars and sipping cognac,
Mighty comfortable in leather armchairs,
Muted billiard clicks,
Punctuating the atmosphere
In this spacious lounge,
His East Side
Downtown & private
Manhattan club.
I, his guest, had not the slightest idea
Why I was there.
"By God, man," he went on,
My eyes speared by his laser gaze,
His bushy eyebrows,
His monocle.
His bulbous nose;
His thick wet mustache.
And those EYES:  
Those crazy,
Insane eyes.

"I am talking about a profound change,” he continued.
“Back when the steamship
Gave way to electronic wireless radio."
He puffed smoke,
Removing the cigar from his mouth,
Holding it,
Examining it critically for a moment.
"I'm talking about communication,
Instant communication
With business associates, &
Cronies far away,
Way out there,
Far beyond the places we know well.
Picture it:
You're running a fleet of
Ramshackle Filipino banana boats,
Out of some nameless cove,
Indenting the south coast of Mindanao.
A cyclone comes out of nowhere.
Good God--there’s sixteen banana-packed
Coal burners lying on the bottom of the Celebes Sea.
Think about it:
You've got telegraph radio.
Everyone else has the post office.
Now, I ask you:
‘Who's going long,
Who’s getting rich on the
Caracas Banana Exchange?’
Good Lord, man, it would be
Like being omniscient!"
“This very conversation,” he went on,
“Could well be a verbatim transcription
Of a conversation right here in this very room,
Between people like: J. Pierpont Morgan
And some lesser Gilded Age nabob;
Some Astor, some Rockefeller,
A Gould or Vanderbilt,
Whitney or Duke,
Some Frick or Warburg--
To name just a few, old sport.”
He stopped suddenly.
He looked down at his hands,
As we both realized he had counted these names
Out on his fat curled fingers.
He looked at me and smiled.
I was afraid.
Why had I been invited to this meeting?
I smiled back at him,
Doing my best to mirror his
Carnivorous menace.

I knew it.
He knew it.
He knew I knew it.
Mr. Whitehead’s growling rabid jowls,
His slobbering canine smile held me steady.
“Okay. Touché. ‘Ya got me.”
He shook off the phony smile,
An absence, accentuating
His stare: lethal, carnal & rare.
“I never had much formal schooling.
I’ve been hungry.
Hungry enough to know for sure
That the correct fork,
Don’t mean ***** from shinola.
When I’m dining out, fancy-like,
Me manners is the least of me problems,
Far less important than
The dinner chit they
Hand me after I slake
My thirst & appetite.”
Again, he stopped suddenly,
Recognizing that, perhaps,
He’d revealed too much of his
Bedford-Stuyvesant pedigree.
He turned again and stared at me.
“None of that,” he said.
“None of that means squat to me, Boyo.
What matters now is I’m rich.
I’ve got mine, By God,
And ******* It!
Tough ***** on the rest of you losers;
The rest of you fecking whiners can go
**** yourselves over at Zuccotti Park.”
He pounded the armrest,
The padded armrest of the rich Corinthian leather—
( . . . ***, Ricardo?
Get your Montalbán
Mexicano ***, back in
Random Access Memory Land,
Where you belong.
**** ya’ Fantasy Island
Hospitality, Mr. Roarke,
Go be wrathful Khan Noon Singh,
Somewhere else.
Now is not the time, or,
Let me rephrase that:
This narrative will not allow your meme here . . .)    

Whitehead pounds the armrest again.
“My point is this:  
None of JP Morgan’s decidedly,
un-nattering lesser nabobs of negativity . . .”
BAM!  Again, he pounded the leather . . .

(Back in your ******* hole, Spiro!
Do you realize just how far back,
Just how far back
Maryland’s reputation
Has been set back by your venality?
Not to mention any shot at ethnic assimilation,
The rest of us grease ball non-Wasps
Have in this country?
You ******* Greek!)

I stopped thinking
When I realized Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III
Was reading my mind.
“So that’s what it’s really all about,” he said,
Rank smugness in his voice.
“So, I’m just a nouveau riche upstart,
A socially inept parvenu,
Yet they still let me
Join their tony clubs.
It chaps your ***, Boyo, don’t it?
I’m still Scotch-Irish, and
A WASP, Laddie.
Something your skinny
Greaser-Guinea-****-Spaghetti-*** ***,
Ain’t ever gonna be.”
But I digress, again.

So I joined one of Uncle Sam’s
Lesser-known clandestine services,
An assignment appropriate to my ethnic identity,
Namely GLADIO in Italy,
A NATO stay-behind operation &
Cold-War comedy.
I infiltrated the Brigate Rosse.
I drove the Aldo Moro kidnap vehicle.
I cooked minestrone for General Dozier.
I sliced off J. Paul Getty’s ear in Calabria.
Ironically, I lost my hearing during
The Stazione Bologna bombing.
I am consequently pensioned off,
Off both the radar and the payroll.
Years later now,
I live in one of those gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55, sunny southern California
Lunatic asylums.

Most days I am drunk at 9 AM.
I fill Bukowski mornings,
Conjuring up Jane Fonda,
Jazzercised in camo spandex.
She is high atop a Vietcong tank in Hanoi.
Or Daniel Ellsberg
Enjoying a second act in American politics,
Praising Snowden & Assange,
& Bradley Manning,
I summon up the ghosts of
Julius & Ethel,
Benedict Arnold,
Rose of Tokyo & Mata Hari—
And Ezra exiled at Rapallo,
And John Walker Lindh,
A Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Born in Washington,
District of Columbia,
By way of Afghanistan,
Taliban Americano,
Kangaroo-courted,
Presently residing at the
Federal Correctional Institution
At Terre Haute, Indiana.
Spies.
Traitors.
Saboteurs.
And Poets?
No longer capable of keeping secrets.
Desperate now to tell
The truth.

I am a compound of knowledge
I accumulate stories of redemption to serve privilege.
My existence is portioned for a little while.
But i shall remain a kingdom not for this little while.
All my reign I've always became ones rebound; elevator. Their legs knowth no grounds.

I kept fearlessly hoping for much less
Ain't lesser than a new day.
And that was being brave anyway.
Clear blue eyes of my inhabitants statued high at me.
How courage and passion never stopped to be.
The storyline I had is still now a motif of endurance.
I gave up not, and show offered my perseverance.

Away, from my bitter overwhelming insight.
Wisdom is one great amigo, less than him I'm wiped.
Done so good to every heart, though I remained a bad part.
I opened all my doors to welcome each, keep my composure and listen to their preach.
My grounds grew a seed out of that;  everyday.  Their eyes tortured me to believe in what they say.
Direction sometimes looked clear on their paths,
Never knew success starts on a dark start.
I kept this in my sanctified upper room.
The future is bright,  all flowers can bloom. And this is who I am; I'm a compound of knowledge.  I accumulate stories of redemption to serve privilege.

What storms exist in a beautiful mind,
   never to pass us by?

Drawing the sun from looming shadows
To separate what is to be known in time
Portioned among swirling ridges of worry
By horizons that never forget to remind

He found the way was not the winds,
   but to walk within the eye

Drawing the calm from looming concerns
To separate might be from once was
Portioned among flower beds to be saved
By those who decided to live just because

Which doors did he lock, trapping forever,
   the Furies that make him cry?

Drawing the good from looming terror
To separate his soul from flesh that breeds
Portioned among those who have not given up
By those who are willing to plant new seeds

Which door remains open within his heart,
   knowing not to ask God why?

Drawing reason from random acts of evil
To separate destiny from forgotten lives
Portioned among those with the will to live
By those who carry on after silent goodbyes

Skinny like a Starbucks drink with zero sugar, zero guilt and full of almond-milk joy.

Skinny like a microwaved meal, perfectly portioned and easy to count.

Skinny like  two diet cokes and a cigarette for lunch.

Skinny like Adderall, a high dose for higher grades.

Skinny like late nights and random *** with strangers.

Skinny like virginity.

Skinny like binge-purge-repeat.

Skinny like perfection, like mints and sadness and tight little swimsuits.

Skinny like a disorder.

Skinny like control out of control.

Skinny like a diagnosis.

Skinny like suffering.

Skinny like her.

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

                   It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Life is a journey,
A hike through your own
Forest of pain and woe;

A walk becoming;
A trip through your time;
A course to fields of peace.

Walk well on the path
You have now chosen
And heed the age-worn ways.

Embrace the challenge
Of forging the Way.
The end is ever near.

On what should you feed
On the journey life?
Will you be nourished well?

How shall you strengthen
the you, becoming?
Feast on the Bread of Life!

Food for the journey,
Feeding the Body,
And nourishing your soul.

Love made incarnate,
Broken and portioned,
The feast for life is Life.

Insatiable
Tumultuous hunger pangs
Unrestrainable

The right kind of food
For the right kind of appetite
Serves just two persons

Multiple courses
Quite a feast for the senses
Divine, yet sinful

Best enjoyed while hot
Small portioned delicacies
Consume immediately

Top with a cigarette
Then realize: you are still
Insatiable

Good Morning America
Act Now!
For today the price is right.
Our American idols have been conveniently portioned and pre-packaged for your enjoyment.
The wheels of fortune have turned in our favor,
laying us down in our warm beds of satisfaction.
Dreaming of the X-factor that will give us our
fifteen minutes

A girl,
no more than sixteen
and pregnant
strives to be a top model.
Overexposed and underdeveloped
barely able to read or write,
she is paraded in front of a camera and lights.
And the studio exec will keep cuttin' those paychecks
as long as you keep tuning in for another
fifteen minutes

The education can wait until the spotlight fades
who needs class mates when you got fans,
as long as those lights keep flashing on your fame, you got another
fifteen minutes

Concept:
youlovemeback.

The ingredients of cleanse
make their way
to your house.

There is

a

strobe,
two stones portioned off
a Ziggurat,
a present thing —
like wheels,
a teardrop,
nail clippings.

My father
would trim his nails
and bury them —
as seeds.

Stared
at that ***
all days and evenings.
Monsoons and
summer heat echoed.
Time circled back and forth.

Sometimes,

I would gargle
father’s beer and
spit into the ***.
Maybe it needed
Acrid, it needed
Strong. It needed
Disgusting,
Toxic. It wanted

wrong.

I turn 22.
The ***
Disappears. My father
too. Militants
took him away,
or so the chatter goes.
He wore Chinos, sun-dried
eyes, a hat.
Mice ate
the matchsticks
used for kindling.
The Queen Termite
Gave birth to more
hungry little ones
under the sink.
Dark, musty,
collapsing.
Memory, time,
fingertips. Thyme
rhymes

with mime,

I copy my father.
Trims nails.
Plants.
Waters.

Concept:
trytounderstand

This was only the nourish
he could give. It was
a copy of the nourish
his father could give —
Or so

The chatter goes.

Gather the stones.
Get the strobe.
Pound the nail clippings
and

an enzyme flows
Through, like tape recorders whirring
as they wind back to
play recorded confessions
one more time.

Free baptismals
at the church service
for hurried teens.
Free shirts for
the Insufficient.
Free lessons for
the young boy
who can’t read women.

Free at long, long last.

Concept:
fixtheheart

Crazy?
Maybe. Possibly.
In spite of what crazy's costing me
I can see no reason NOT to be
just a little bit crazy.
It takes a lot to amaze me,
but I'm amazed for days
at the level of insanity
disguised as vanity
that I see, individually portioned
smothered in bigotry and
dispensed freely, thumped
out of various ancient tomes
and called Sovereignty.
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
Invited Jim Jones out to lunch,
and I threw him a couple bones
dared him to spike the punch.
And his reply was hazy,
like a busted eight ball.
Something told me that guy was crazy.
But what was really gone
was how they all gathered on the lawn
to egg him on. Didn't dawn
that they were going to go
too far til they were gone.
Nobody caught on.
Crazy?
Yeah, just a little bit.
I'm what happens when the fan
hits the ****.
I've hit this **** and that, a bit,
and held the smoke of a thousand
miscreant rips, scales tipped
til we slipped out of the tray,
a gram shy but well on our way.
Hey, put that **** away,
the NSA is on the phone today,
and they hear you coughing,
keep coughing that way
and they're going to put you away
in Guantanemo Bay,
and there you'll stay,
for forever and a day,
or until you roll doubles,
or have the money to pay.
Monopolizing the cheap properties
with new hotels every day.
Crazy?
That's a matter of opinion
and in this day and age
opinion is public dominion.
Digitized before our eyes
and with a simple keystroke
we've broken the fourth wall,
and every imaginable flaw
has come to be our downfall,
gliding through reality
at breakneck speeds
then crashing into the firewall,
before we fall, right down
into the cold, hard ground
around the feet of what used
to be called discretion,
that is now open confession
coupled with cries for attention,
but don't mention criticism,
that's a schism! and we all want
to go down in flames together,
thick as a brick, but brains like a feather.
Crazy?
Yeah, but what can you do?
Look inside your mind,
I bet you're a little crazy too.
We're all just outright animals
in this ***** human zoo.
I'm a **** chimp, it's true,
I ain't monkeying around with you.
Just chilling, killing time,
instilling madness in the rhyme
to keep my mind refined
or just stick a finger in it from behind
stroke the cortex, bless it all,
now I'm blind!
I must be out of my mind.
It was a mistake to think
I could take a headache
out without some serious
long term repercussions.
No more discussions, as I've
left myself with a fingerprint
and a concussion.
I'm feeling a little lazy...
Crazy?

Why yes, utterly

I gave food the power in my life
and watch it completely destroy me.

“Does it pick me apart piece by piece?
Or does it eat me
in perfectly portioned bits?
Does it scarf me down?
Or does it daintily
pluck at me with lush lips?
Does it stay awake at night?
Or does it just
eat me completely carefree?”

I wonder why I gave it all this thought
and why I let it turn into such an assault.

Summer

Wind chimes and the clock ticks me away.
                     I am waiting for something,
                               losing other things,
                                   like my fingers
(when I pointed at stars to try and read them)
                            and my ribs, one by one,
             (trying to hold myself upright)
I don’t know what it is I am waiting for
but it has its foreshadow in the air
felt on the outskirts of my lungs.
                and now it’s inside my lungs  
                  and all the same:
I don’t belong to myself anymore.

I want to take the batteries out of every clock
because suddenly I can feel everything dying.
Running but running out of time-
but how do you even go about a tantrum
when you'll never get what you wanted in the first place.
        I must be a child or an idiot or losing marbles
        but can't help the crying, making a fool of my face.

Autumn

Hands pull me back into my sleeves
and blood runs back into my heart.
It was not something I waited for. It was someone.
                so I placed my bet on the smallest, sanest sun,
                      but still, I gathered frost
                       and shed my light
                     until refusal words were all swallowed.
They become enslaved stars
while I am realising that those I once read
had always belonged to someone else.

Winter

Gravity rolls its eyes and asks,
‘Why do I even bother?’
The universe came in and hungry
               when it expanded
                 and everything got eaten up
              until I was left with only these parts
        that belong to him
             and belong to the night-time
                and the lock.
My mind is in ashes.#
They have already been scattered.

But there was the bet I didn’t lose.
As it turned out, somehow,
in that lost state, I didn’t wage a war
that I couldn't win. .

Spring*

Love is portioned out and put in containers
and in the freezer on the bottom shelf,
next to something I made to eat later
before I can remember.
I won’t let anything melt.
I’m saving it for summer.

It is just a word,
This nameless tide
That we decide
Should give us pride
This piece of land
We portioned off
With weird
Property lines
To define
What is yours
And what is mine
Who we are
And who they are
It could have been
Called anything
The name does not
Make it distinct
Nor craft a creed
Of perfection
For the world to see
Because it is just a small piece
Of a bigger thing
With a different name

This man I am who coast before you is but infection.
The cause of all your trivial harm.
Incubus has but this face.
A single breath of fictional attraction I have fed.
Inhaled it all as the others.
The look on your face as I died.
Pleasant and calming to me.
I am but a secret of the balance.
A portioned blend of confession melts away
before you here.
Sanity is vague of definition.
Sleep pawn, Sleep as I watch.
Fearful and without answer I prey.
Weakness feeds me heavy.
All that I knew and all I believe,
all which I have taken, no longer comforts me.
Sleeping in your naive vulnerability.
Your mind is mine.
I will build who you are.
Love is but control.
I have it.
I use it.
I manipulate it.
An illusion of safety and home.
I taught you well.
A grin across my face and complete conquer. A tactic born to me.
Born to me, to end you.

I told You how I doubted You,
I threw it in Your Face.
I confronted You with anger,
and you gave me Saving Grace.
I spat on sacred scripture,
tearing loopholes in Your Word,
and You portioned me patience.

How strange the Peace I felt.
My conscience didn't bother me
after the jibes I dealt.

Instead I hear You calling me
to evaluate this life I'm living;
To reconsider rejecting You
because You really are Forgiving.

Instead of wrath and lightening bolts,
instead of a numbing void...
You were happy just to hear from me,
You don't even seem annoyed.

You crept up on me.
Slowly, then abrupt and quick.
You gave me eyes to see.
Clearly, almost intrinsic.

There was a time before you.
Or was there?
I feel like I'm born anew.
A golden heir.

The world bestowed.
Contained in your blue marbles.
Both show me home.
Both sensational and artful.

Time stands still in your gaze.
Portioned into hours and minutes.
Overflowing into weeks and days.
But I feel no travel, I feel no grit.

I feel humour and passion.
I feel life and death.
I feel laughter and spite.
I feel everything that's left.

“Hello,
I would like some poison
portioned over the night. Yes,
I would also like to stand somewhere
like a subway car, but darker and louder.
100 bucks? Wonderful,
will that also help me feel like **** tomorrow?
Great.”

“Hi, yes –
please cut into my face
for no apparent reason.
Yes, pull out my tooth
to quell an inconvenience.
Substitute it with a worse inconvenience,
and bill me $1000.”

I’d trade a drunken uncle for five years of warmth
For a family rooted in chaos.
Your father recovered
But mine never will  (if I can still call him mine)

Envy is a deadly sin
a gateway drug
An invisible mistress

You have hand painted thighs from a boy who rearranged no
We both know him,
though you have been closer.
(LIAR)
But i'm still a fresh canvas,
Maybe a bit tattered, slightly greyed
But clean of self inflicted hatred.

I've never had to invent my own pain.
I know pre-portioned hatred
Another ******
Food lines
Bottled baths
Gunshot lullabies
Shoestring laced telephone wires.

I wonder how it feels to stand on the edge with everything to live for.
“We” don't do that
(even though I've only been halfway accepted as “we”)
I have someone to take care of.

I wonder if sleeping pills would help me too.
Packaged from white rooms with white lab coats and white skin.

I wish I could hide too
I hate that you don't have to
I hate that you'd abandon everything I’ve always wanted.

Married to the criminal;
Married to the saint.
Eventually the dreams are grinded;
Seasoning for the steak that
finds its way to the plate
Every single night.
When will I wake?, you say
as you take a bite.
'Tis all, I'm afraid, she replied
as she raised her knife and
portioned out her life.

A tear fell away;
The steak was seasoned, right?
Just another day,
A husband and his wife.

Queue the laughter.

I'm building a justified war-
Sorry little animals dirtied and poor.
Eat portioned joy you faith-filled fools-
Soured with lemons tasting of ardor.

Perhaps my beast feels shame-
Wither my ego or find he to blame.
Sink the crescent ship below blue-
Fill the sea with smoke and flame.

The dark woods are a bear's back-
Smelling breaths of heady lilac-
Rummaged pines sticky with lines.
Here, there rest no lies or fact.

To let you know of what's today-
We are breaking the yoke in a brand new way.
Sword-toothed sharks battering at our waves-
Keeping the skeptic fish at bay.

I step inside. The weight of past encounters shrinks the corridor. I brain-search for a safety behaviour to assuage the impending sense of doom. As if on a plane (‘count the seats between you, and your nearest exit’), I count the doorways between the entrance and my office as I walk forward.

Door one. Used all my leave days. Gone four weeks. Feels like much longer. Door two. Window ledges look unfamiliar. Doorhandles are strange. Door three. Was the carpet always this colour? Door four. The tight-wound wool ball in my chest clenches, the stretching yarn groaning like sailboat ropes in a north-westerly. Door five. I say chest, but to be specific, it’s the top of my sternum, bordering the jugular notch. Door six. The squeeze-groans are petulant reminders of why I went on leave. My omniscient manubrium warning call. Door seven. For the love of all that lives on God’s green earth, why are we back here?    

Why indeed. Door seven. Home base.

I sit at the desk and my mind crouches and crawls along the lonely, dark path. Back to the last time I was here. The last time I was hunted. Sludgy mud memories thickly bubble, burst, and liquefy before my eyes. So very thick and so very brown. Each pop a muted wet slap.

Then, another sound. From my computer. Just in front of me. I have an email.

My inner mud-bubble memory show responds. Now it scrolls through a parade of minor monsters. Possible email senders. My space and mind invaded by their correspondence. So very desperate and so very flawed in their attempts at functional adult interaction.

So very tantrum-primed, slander-keen, and gaslight-geared.

Mean-spilling, rage-channelling, drama-divers.
Breakdown one-uppers.
Accountability dodgers.
Monopolising guilt-trippers.

Lesser daemons.
Energy vampires.
Always thirsty.

This is where they hunt me. Door seven. My office. In emails, texts, calls, voicemails, and physical presence. High quality rendered. Dream reproduction ready. Technicolor.

To be fair, I’m top-grade prey. All squishy and caring. Softest-of-soft targets. The quintessential good listener. Ears for days. Psych-trained, chair-arranging, body language monitoring, tone-of-voice sensitive, feelings generator. Generous-portioned, silver-service dining. Tastes like sweet intentions, candied optimism, and bitter disappointment. Fear garnish for colour and crunch.

Now, I sit behind door seven. Waiting. Vibrating emotion...
I can feel them closing in…  

Please send instructions for establishing clear boundaries, guidelines for maintaining a mental distance, and chocolate.

Happy Halloween.