We are all so very fragile.
Our sun kissed porcelain faces
are freckled with Achilles heel fault lines and chipped paint.
Shining through to our nervous nervous system and our tendency to over think things.
We hide so much inside of us.
Behind dance less masquerades
Our bodies held together only by cages of ivory bones
cages that cradle the thin winged heart beats of our chest
nervous moths stumbling around inside
knocking books off of shelves and
eating the sweaters that we use to keep our hearts from freezing over.

The autumn wind is cold like sad glaciers
and it's easy to break down at times like these.
Our bones ache and shriek like boiling tea kettles.
Making it hard not to shatter.

We are all so fragile.
Burnt out light bulb fragile.
Frozen lake fragile.
Defibrillated heartbeat fragile.
We are broken branch fragile
chronic alcoholics sobriety fragile.
The middles school girls reaction to the word “fat” fragile
We are the kind of fragile that set off big bangs.
We are, paranoid breakable.
And its got to the point where
we have begun taping up our light leak vulnerabilities
with perceptions of perfection and thoughts of rejection
spending our time in dark rooms as our minds just keep reeling
and trying to shut off feelings and unwind
but we have been over exposed to such ****.
To slides and slides of negative negatives

we used to burst apart with so much light.

but the sun isn't shining honest, the night sky is black
and its raining in all the wrong ways.
We're out of season.
sewing up the holes in our personality
with floods of insecurities and droughts of identity.
damning what matters.

****, its hard to know what matters.

But I am still trying to figure that one out
And the moths are still here
as the pendulum clocks keep ticking
eating the sweaters that we used
to keep our hearts from freezing over.

But we are freezing to the core.
The atoms inside of us splinting into half lives;
we haven't even lived half of our lives
yet we feel so ancient.
The dust piles growing on our slanted bookshelves shoulders
Our bright idea light bulbs flickering,
getting covered up by snowdrifts.

We are gas giants wrapping ourselves into open space darkness
hiding from the bright side of the moon.
Like a black cat superstition we are running from our own precondition
of lying about being ourselves
We pull dark black-hole hoods over our eyes
wincing at the light trails of shooting stars
though we, too, want to be brilliant.
We try to orbit the sun hoping that humanity is a symphony;
that being popular and having the most friends is what matters.
and we can be where the grass is always greener by fitting in and by being mirrors
Even though not being yourself is nauseating.

We can be nauseating, we can be mirrors.

Because we are scared that if we don't
hide who we really are
we may end up like Pluto.
Ostracized for existing.
floating around in space having stare downs with wormholes
A shivering rock entity with a complete loss of identity.

We already are so lost.
Our souls waning and waxing
Rocking back and forth
on wood beams and porches.
like an ADD moonbeam rocking chair.

But now its time to stop in one place and readjust our backbones.

Because I know that we are fragile, I know that.
I know that its hard filling in the cracks that have found their way down our back-stabbed spines
we all have our histories with being dropped and rejected.
But we weren't made to be cardboard box people,
packing tape and labels wrapped in all of the wrong places.
we are boxes full of wormholes into other dimensions
we are full of life and blood and bones,
full of oceans and stardust and daggers
There is so much more to us than our brown paper complexions.
So climb out of those kangaroo pouch caves that you have called home for the last few years
There's no need hiding anymore.
You can be safe in your own skin.
You can climb the Himalayas and scream out as many lightning rods as you want
we will all be listening as you burst apart into thunder claps.
As you bleed yourself into infinity

So, dim the lights

Throw your self at the world
and crash like waves into existence
you are perfect when you are yourself.
Grab that porcelain off of your face
and let your smile super nova fracture into a cosmic grin of constellations.

People will look up to you and be inspired.
A cardboard box rookie sprawled out in the stars.
Lighting up all of our faces with E.T. fingertips.
No longer hiding being reflective eclipses
There's only one person who can tell you who you are.
Only you can speak for yourself.

I know that your fragile
I know that.

We all are..,

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute my tv
so I can hear
the pain reverberating
from my nostrils
like I am being
clamped together
in the fetal position
until blood squirts
out my ears

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute the dog by
giving her a bone
I mute the sun by
drawing the shades

I try to cry
but I can’t
this muted pain
it’s locked in the attic
deteriorating
I mute my neck by
taping it to the fan
I mute my breath
with my belt

roll down my eye
to my lips
I want to taste
this ******* stupid world
for myself

When you go camping,
and the world lifts itself from your shoulders
and the problems back home seem silly and irrelevant
human life, and
what you may have been trying to achieve
in your leather black ergonomic chair
and your dark polished wood desk
seems silly and irrelevant
The world is here, in the wood-pecker’s tap-tap-taping in the trees
the checkered calculated lines of the water being pulled to shore by the wind,
viewed from above
like the birds that push themselves into the tide and float
back to shore then push themselves out again.
the world is here, 
forgotten by the city, and the construction worker’s crack-crack-crack of the hammer
the calculated system of traffic guided by flashing lights, turning signs and abrasive horns
from behind the wheel 
where the man sits in a satin black suit and smooth leather car seat
sipping at his morning coffee, purchased for $2.25 and cradled by spring-loaded cupholders,
until he reaches for the silver handle of his glass office door, and stops
looking down at his brown-leather shoes that cut into the rounded bone on the side of his ankle
and decides,
time to go camping

You wonder why she loved you
Deceit lust and betrayal
But  she did,eyes blinded
Till truth unfolds with time
Love it fades in the face of reality
Bitter but real

Let her flyaway
Let her breakfree

Listen,the sound of drums
Toes taping in rejoicing
Hear  the the laughter of freedom
She is no longer your prisoner
Let her walk with her head held high
She is beauty,elegance and dignity

You wonder why she loved you
Toture disrespect and hate
But she did,Ignorance
She held on though her blistered palm
Knowing not her worth

But she knows today
See she smiles at her reflection
She is beautiful not because you say


Let her flyaway
Let her breakfree

By: Cedric McClester

You went undercover
Only to discover
That your big brother
Was watching you
There’s no escaping
Cos he was taping
Now you don’t know
What to do

You’re reaction
To this distraction
Has you packing
But they’ll be trackin
Where you are
Use your cell and they can tell
Whether you’re walkin
Or in a car

Nineteen eight-four
Came inside the door
And Orwell had it right
Like a doting mother
Your big brother
Is clockin you day and night

You feel trapped
Cos your phone is tapped
And your TV’s watchin you
The places you shop
At every store you stop
Has information too
The time and date
What you bought and ate

Nineteen eight-four
Is inside the door
And Orwell had it right
Like a doting mother
Your big brother
Is clockin you day and night

You feel trapped
Cos your phone is tapped
And your TV’s watchin you
The places you shop
At every store you stop
Has information too
The time and date
What you bought and ate

Nineteen eight-four
Is inside the door
And Orwell had it right
Like a doting mother
Your big brother
Is clockin you day and night

You’re reaction
To this distraction
Has you packing
But they’ll be trackin
Where you are
Use your cell and they can tell
Whether you’re walkin
Or in a car

Nineteen eight-four
Is inside the door
And Orwell had it right
Like a doting mother
Your big brother
Is clockin you day and night



(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

tap my bones
tamper my temper
tempt me on Tuesday
love me on Thursday
shut my rusty trust
trap my soul

I have had two opportunites to meet Muhammad Ali, once in Oklahoma City(1972) while working for KWTV Channel-9, and the second time in 1975,working for WAVE-TV Channel-3, Louisville, Kentucky, which is his hometown. On each occasion he was in town for some type of benefit appearance. At Channel 3, the sports director was Ed Kallay, who was to do the interview, and who just happened to be Ali's mentor when Ali was much younger and involved with "Golden Gloves", a youth boxing organization. I was a 'director' in the production dept. and it was my job to set up and direct the cameras, etc., during the taping.
He was a fascinating man, eloquent, extremely intelligent, charismatic, approachable, with a great sense of humor. When I introduced myself, he looked at me and said,"I've met you before, in Oklahoma City." Needless to say, "I was stunned!"
During the 'pre-taping' conversation, the three of us were having a cup of coffee. I made a comment on the size of his hands. I placed my right hand flat against his left, thumb to thumb, finger to finger.. He curled his fingers over mine, nearly hiding them. I sure wouldn't want to get hit by him.
He was, admittingly, also a 'bit' of a 'self-promoter.' During that conversation, he made the following comment: "A few weeks before a fight, I start shooting my mouth off, make a lot of people mad, but come fight night they really lay it down, (then took his thumb and swiped it across the open palm of his other hand, simulating the money bets being placed with the Vegas bookies.) let the 'show' begin!" And, did it ever!!

He was also a great humanitarian, donating to various charities, youth organizations, and never forgetting his roots.

A remarkable man! God Bless You, Muhammad Ali!

richard riddle: 06-05-2016

I.

Up the stairs Suzann without an E went.
8" X 10" bright white rectangles dotted
the yellowing and dusty walls,
clean reminders of bad family photos.
Her parents, Bob and Theresa,
had picked out wallpaper. Lilacs
and vines and oranges. Why? She
didn't know.

She tossed her backpack on the floor
at the foot of her bed. Her senior book
was still on the night stand. Charity and
Faith, her sometimes friends, had spent
the last two weeks filling out every page
of theirs, printing hazy images on cheap
photo paper at their homes and sliding them
into the plastic holders or taping them to
the pages without.

They coerced boys they
had liked or still liked or would like if to
fill out pages. When the boys simply signed
their names or names and football numbers,
they guilted them into writing more. Give
me something to remember you by.

Suzann liked to look at only one boy,
Casey Stephen Fuchs, pronounced "Fox,"
though you know that's just what the family
said. She didn't want him to write in her
senior book. She enjoyed the space between
them. She knew what her peers didn't:
she was seventeen.
She knew she didn't know
the right words yet. She knew the heart-bursting
flutters she felt were temporary--enjoy them, she thought,
shut up and enjoy them.

Her parents set her curfew at 10:30. So
this Friday, like most Fridays, she stays
home.

She opens ****** in the City of Mystics,
a novel she's burned through. Fifty pages
or so left. She likes detectives. The methodical
stalking, the idiosyncratic theories and philosophies
that allow them to connect dot after dot.

She shuts her eyes and sends herself walking down
the streets of New York, where hot dog vendors
whistle and say, "Nice legs." She flags down a cab.
She sees Casey across the street. What are you doing
here, stranger? She waves the cab on.
The driver, a brown-skinned man from some vague
country, throws his arms up. "C'mon."

She cuts across the traffic, dodging a white stretch limo,
a black Hummer, a hearse.

Casey's straight hair hangs over his left eye. It's both
melodramatic and troubled. There's a small shift
at the corners of his lips, the corners of lips, this
is a detail she writes of often in her journal--why?

She can almost hear Casey ask her, "What brings you here?"

"Business."

"What kind?"

"None of yours."

He takes this as an entry for a kiss. Not yet, handsome. No no.

"Make whatever you want for dinner," her mom shouts up the stairs.
"There's stuff for nachos if you want nachos. Some luncheon meat too.
Only one piece of bread though."

"Okay."

"Alright. Just whenever. Dad and I are going to go ahead."

"Okay."

"Alright."

Get me out of here. Suzann's whole life is small: small town,
small family, small church, all packed with small brained, short-sighted people. She wants New York or Chicago. She wants a badge--no not a badge. She'll be a vigilante. "You're not a cop," they'll tell her.

"Thank God," she'll say. "If I were a cop then there'd be nobody protecting these streets."

II.

She's read mysteries set in the middle of nowhere, small towns like her own Kiev, Missouri. They always feel phony. Not enough churches.
Not enough bored dads hitting on cheerleaders.
No curses. Every small town has a curse. Kiev's?
Every year someone in the senior class dies.

As far back as anyone she knew could remember
anyways. Drunk driving, falling asleep at the wheel,
texting while driving, all that crap is what was usually
blamed.

This smelly boy named Todd Louden moved out of Kiev
in the fall semester of his senior year a couple years ago.
Suzann was a freshman.

A few months after he was gone, people started saying
he'd killed himself with a shotgun. First United Methodist
added his family to the prayer list. They had a little service out
by this free-standing wall by the library where he used
to play wall ball during lunch. People cried. Suzann didn't know
anyone that hung out with him. Maybe that's why
they cried, unreconcilable guilt--that's what her dad
said.

Then in the spring Todd moved back. The cross planted
by the wall with his name confused him.
He'd just been staying with his grandma. Nothing crazy.
The churches never said anything about that. He was
just the smelly kid again. Well until late-April when
he got ran over by a drunk or texting driver.
They hadn't even pulled up the cross by the wall ball site
yet.

III.

You call it the middle of nowhere, a place where the roads didn't have proper names until a couple years back, roads now marked with green signs and white numbers like 3500 and 1250, numbers the state mandated so the ambulances can find your dying ***--well if the signs haven't been rendered unreadable by .22 rounds.

The roads used to be known only to locals. They'd give them names like the Jogline or Wilzetta or Lake Road, reserved knowledge for the sake of identifying outsiders. But that day is fading.

What makes nowhere somewhere? What grants space a name?

The dangerous element. The drifter that hops a fence, carrying a shotgun in a tote bag. Violence gave us O.K. Corral. Violence gave us Waco. Historians get nostalgic for those last breaths of innocence. The quiet. The storm. The dead quiet.

IV.

It's March and not a single senior has died.
So when she hears the front door open
around 2 a.m., Suzann isn't surprised.
She doesn't think it's ego that's made
her believe it'd be her to die--but it is.

She hears the fridge door open.
Cabinets open.
Cabinets close.
She hears ice drop into
the glass. Liquid poured.

She clicks her tongue in
her dry mouth. She puts
a hand to her chest. Her
heart beats slow.
She rests her head on
the pillow. It's heavy
yet empty, yet full--
not of thoughts.

She can't remember the name
of any shooting victims.
She remembers the shooters.
Jared Lee Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho,
James Eagan Holmes, Adam Lanza.
No victims.

She hears the intruder set the glass on the counter.
He doesn't walk into the living room.
He starts up the stairs. His steps are
soft, deliberate. What does he want?
Her death. She knows this. He is only a vehicle.
Nameless until. Has he done this before?
Fast or slow?

He's just outside her room, and she doesn't
remember a single victim's name. She hears
a bag unzip. She hears a click.

If he shoots her, Suzann Dunken, there's
no way the newspaper will get her name
right. Her name may or may not scroll
across CNN's marquee for a day or two.
If it does, it won't be spelled correctly.
This makes her move. Wrapping
her comforter around her body, she
tip-toes to the wall next to her door.

She hears a doorknob turn.
It's not hers.

He's going into her parents' bedroom.
They're both heavy sleepers.
She opens her own door slowly.
She steps into the hall. She sees the man.
The man does not see her.
She see the man and grabs a family
portrait. The man does not see her,
and he creeps closer to her parents.
She sees the man standing then she
sees the man falling after she strikes him
with the corner of the family portrait.
The man sees her as he scrambles to get
his bearing. She strikes him, again with
the corner. This time she connects with his eye.
A light comes on. "Suzann," her mother says.
He tries to aim the gun. Again she strikes.
He screams. He reaches for his eyes with
his left hand. Now with the broad side she
swings. She connects. She connects again.
The man shoves her off, stumbles to his feet.
By this time, her dad reaches her side.
One strong push and the man crashes into
the wall outside the room, putting a hole
in the drywall.

He recovers and retreats down the stairs
and out the door into blackness.

Her mother phones the police.
She pants more than speaks
into the receiver.

"Suzann," her dad says. "Sweetheart."

Suzann looks at the portrait, taken at JC Penny when
she was in the sixth grade. The glass is cracked.
She removes the back. She pulls out the photo.

"Did you get a good look at him?"

This photo. Her mother let her do anything
she wanted to her hair before they took it.
So she, of course, dyed it purple.

"That's right," her mother says.
"It's about half a mile east of the
3500 and 1250 intersection. Uh-huh."

Her dad sits down next to her.

"How long do you think it'll take them
to find us?"

There's a shift at the corners of her mouth,
and she nods, just nods.

I'm putting tape over my ears so I don't hear cruelty,
I'm putting tape over my nose so I don't smell my own fear,
I'm putting tape over my eyes so I don't see a joke in the mirror,
I'm putting tape over my mouth so I don't say what people don't want to hear.

I'm taping my arms to my sides to avoid gesturing,
To articulate points that are certainly wrong,
I am taping my legs to avoid the shame
Of walking in the rain to the same sad song.

I am taping my body,
I am taping my mind,
I am through being honest,
Done with being kind.

It's selfish to die,
It's painful to live,
My solution is tape,
So I can't take or give.

With the nickname glow worm
A jingle jangle jungle flunky
Experiment gone completely wrong
Radiation Monkey

Ran out of the backdoor
This monkey on the lamb
Glowing footprints across the floor
Running fast this lab rat

See him in the hills at night
Swinging wild amongst the trees
Don't get too close cause he might bite
Radiation Monkey

With the strength of 20 men
He started robbing grocery stores
They say he has the brightest grin
Banana smudges left on doors

Where they lift his fingerprints
Taping off of the crime scene
Geiger counters loudly tic
Radiation Monkey

A menace to society
This florescent ape that's escaped
A radiating personality
Waiting for you to make his day

Wanted posters all over town
Doubling up the bounty
They'll take him live or in the ground
Radiation Monkey

Lessons lived are lessons learned
Latch the windows, bolt the doors
Mistakes are made then hard earned
For stupidity there is no cure

In the lab behind those doors
Is where genius and crazy meet
They might lose a few but they'll make more
Radiation Monkey's

Christ Rules Everything Around Me
C.R.E.A.M
Keep the Faith
Grace upon Grace falls

Let them fuccbois come
Ahem,
We call'em chicken where I'm from
Home of tha guerrillas because they the reallus
Goin harda than the Cannibal Holocaust thrilla
I'm a Jigga from the Van Isle Villa
Of Nanaimo, I give props to Hova, tho
When I say Jigga I mean a Jewish *****
Though you may say I'm whack
Because my skin ain't black
I ain't racist when His love be my basis
Life's quaint outside of time, hyperboelic stasis
See this wordplay is my forté go figure
These Psychedelic flows are my signature
I am Holy at One with the Inner Nature
Skin young drapping over a soul more mature
I hope that you're taping
This flow so yo' can be sho'
Of the Good Lo' Jesus' divinity
Drink of His waters and He might make a saint of thee
Gettin drunk off His waters and you might just see three of me
You know I pray to the Father you don't greet me as deity G
Do not mistake what you see as me for purity
Only the Christ is sinless amen that is my only surety
Lord forgive any vanity

Christ Rules Everything Around Me
C.R.E.A.M
Keep the Faith
Grace upon Grace falls

The title is simply
a culmination of my whims
like the whim that keeps me
glued to my screen
tap taping away
tap
tap tap

While my room looks like some monster's den
And I engorge myself on those chocolate almonds

My eyes grow hazy
As my waistline grows larger
The yellow light pierces my eyeballs

As I be tap
tapping
away

I spend all my time,
All my money,
And most of my remaining sanity
To stack together this perfect house.

Little pieces all fit together perfectly,
But there are thousands.
It feels like I could never, ever
Count that high.

I strain to hold it together.
I didn't think to get glue.
I'm about 1/4 of the way trough.

These matches break so easily.
I start to think I litarally brought the ******* matches available.
One wall falls.

I want to shout as loud as I can.
But I imagine what the finished product would be.
I'd probably have your name in books.
Multiple ******* books.

I rebuild the wall.
I push on, I don't stop until night fall.
I'm about half way through.

I take a cigarette break.
I look back on the hours.
I mainly remember the ****** parts.

A few cigarettes later I push on once more.
I build until late morning.
At this point I'm are about three quarters of the way there.

I again take a break,
Only this time to stay in what I have built, but not continue to build it.
I think back.

Why am I making this house of matches.

Why am I even here?

I remember your vision of the house.
I see you still have hours of work,
Easily stretching till dinner time.

The question is do I finish and stay at the house, or do I go home to make a nice meal for myself?

I went home.

When I came back the house was burnt away.
A frail, blackened frame remain.
No amount of good duct taping could fix it.
No amount of new matches could clean it up.

I still see the ash pile in my mind from time to time.

Next,
I tried a house made of fuses.

I found your letter today, and I went to the woods to read it.
Autumn robbed me of solitude in the tree-cover,
The wind eventually would chase me from the fire-pit.
That broke, then the snow fell accordingly, seasonally.
The solitude returned in the white and cold,
chased everyone else away, to drink and dance in their homes.
I bought my first overcoat before I caught my flight back,
a woolen grey to hide dirt I’d sit on to hide the tag.
In it the inner, right-breast pocket, I held you’re letter.
I remember its first reading in my room, on the coffee table,
taping the scissored quotes from the envelope to my mirror.
I have yet to do anything out of fear. That, I recall I laughed at.

You’d be the reason I move back west,
you’d be the reason I go backwoods,
go suspend myself between roadways.
Albeit, though, despite & regardless,
was my thrill for fear made me wanna talk,
***** the desk drawer for my metal box,
savage my skin on the lonely walk.
If fear is as atomical as you say,
a lie on the tongue of every cell,
then, I could, if you’ll say, meet
every mote as it falls—
put my hand out to see
my first snowflakes.
they are not like this,
they are not like this at all,
so crystalline, back west.

Was fear that hid me this summer from you—
true, I used to fear the way you’d kiss me.
On the dock of the lake drinking wine, I told
that I was terrified then, then retracted,
said I was discomforted by myself.
Back then, way back when, ha,
feelings came thence beyond me
like the King of Pointland dethroned—
“What It thinks, that It utters;
and what It utters, that It hears…”—
myself was suddenly not mine,
I moved unprovoked and unprovoking,
finding myself in my bed
then on the porch smoking,
later then, sitting in your café,
later still, giving you my poetry,
but then, the levees break
and I wake in bed alone and
you’re on the floor in a heap
or, worse, gone soundlessly.
And here I find myself full-suited
in the mess of snow storm,
your letter in hand.

Trip tip-toe step walk into snow; a depth unknown;
trying to light the dark spirit eagle cigarette.
I find a tent in the wilderness and pitch it.
I spend two hours in there, wet, watching snow
build up until the roof gently pushes me out.
I still don’t know if I can read it.
It is only a rereading, but it’s weighty, regardless.
I emerge from the woods to the hill overlooking my life,
embanked by a line of pine. I stop here, relight myself.
The ash blends with the snowflakes
and the snowflakes melt when they touch the paper.
Have you loved? God, it’s an assurance I want.
Really, though, could I doubt it? if it is
only my love that I deem insufficient
to recquit the typed affection before me.
I kneel and read further.

To my surprise a golden-furred dog ran up to me.
He licked me, he smelled your letter, he smiled
and asked me to pet him and to not despair.
Leave it to an animal, beast in the snow
to so recognize, too, significance.
“How do I feel?” The beast frowned,
nothing hurts more than being asked
what you mean.
I got up and left when the owner’s whistle
called him away from me.

Walking back I found that I was missing a glove.
I looked behind me and I saw –against, -down the hill
the left-hand black-leathered eyelash in my tracks.
It was the same hand that you dropped from the dock
into the water this Christmas which I fished out and
fought off your apologies with. How I loved you then.

Then I must re-emerge onto the surrounding fields
and am hit with the wind that I hid from so well
in tree-cover. Then I must grapple with the life
I only half-cherish. Must think in sentences
and hyphenated-words—and dashes! ****** them.
Then, then, then! What happens next! eh?
In the steam tunnels with Carter, smoking, I said,
“I am ruled by fear. Even now I’m palpitant.”
I wrote, in the movie theater, whiskey in the soda cup,
“I am addicted fear, or so I have surmised.”
Hush, hush, hush!

If I fear I cannot love, I know that much.
If I love, as I believe I do, then I am only in denial.
True, small enough to see pure perfection, molecular.
Like the snowflakes back home which, too, are crystalline.
But it’s not visible to the naked eye, thus inconceivable,
given you’ll probably forget it. So it is dead to me.
No, God's not dead he's just not that kind of guy.
Brr, the decisive breeze. Well, then.

I'm afraid too
I afraid that the only thing
Holding me together
Are all the broken pieces

I have spent so much time
Taping the smashed splinters
Into place
I have spent so many hours
Balancing all of the dust particles
On top of each other
Wedging them so carefully
So that each one supports another

I'm afraid that if I pull one out
And show you
They will all come
Tumbling down

If anyone told me when I was little that when I was older,
when the leaves fell down I would be so sad
I wouldn’t have watched them spiral down with such wonder.
I might have even taken the liberty of climbing to the tops of them
and
taping them to their own branches.
The younger version of myself loved me more than I do now.

There are a small collection of us fighting for our lives,
as extinguished lights all we look for is more darkness to hide with.
Among empty red seats of an all but abandoned theatre I found my reflection.
A mirror in the shape of a girl.
Cries of help can be only mere whispers if need be
and
I have many secrets I do not wish to shout.

She spoke to me more with her eyes than with her mouth,
in turn I found that we spoke the same language.
Maybe I was too afraid to ask her where home was
but
she did tell me that she went to bed early
“and not like 8 pm early, like 6 pm early”

I wondered if that was because she was in love with the darkness or her dreams.

You don’t ask questions like that unless you’re prepared to answer them yourself.

What I can tell her is what I know:

We are electric.
My lips aren’t quite frozen
and
my battery is not yet dead
and
if igniting one another saves both or neither at least we tried.
I will use my words as a defibrillator,
shocking you, shocking you, shocking you,
until I once again hear the sound of fire, keeping you alive.
I won’t give up on you so you better not give up on yourself.

I will bring you back to life.

*Illuminate the darkness for me darling

The excitement builds before the show
Appearance anticipated, let's go
Out comes 2llen with applause galore
Crowd won't quiet, stoked for what's in store

Must say Ellen is such a **** dude
Whoops, oh...she's a she, I'm extremely rude
Ellen dresses with such casual care
Not a piece out of line, her fancy hair

Ellen completely involves her crowd
The silly shenanigans make them loud
She dances to the music everywhere
Famous for her moves, she then heads for the chair

She straddles the table with practiced skill for her advanced age and without a pill
She moves on to a famous brilliant guest
Uncommon talent to bring out their best

Music for the show picked eloquently
Ellen and staff almost always agree
The gifts she gives, the audience adore
Generosity leaves them wanting more

Cute that her mom's at every taping
Even stays awake and keeps from gaping
Ellen is actually my favorite host
Please forgive me, this little roast

If  you're in the mood for a real good time
Tune to Ellen at three, on channel nine
You won't be disappointed, far from IT!
It's world wide known that Ellen's the "****"

I am outside a high school party with a cigarette in my hand and my sweater trailing on the ground. I belong to the night; to the teenage desperation you find right through the front door inside every single one of those boys and girls eyes. It is dark outside but I can make out everyone's faces simply by the light of cigarettes. I close my eyes for a second and inhale. I can barely make out the silhouette of the person I wish was in front of me. My eyes open. You are not here. To my left there's an alley and a short boy is throwing up the 22 shots that are tallied on his forearm. His best friend is video taping it. I don't think I'm really here. Is this the alcohol speaking? I didn't feel this attached to you 3 hours ago. My mother thinks I am at work. I don't feel bad at all. After everything I have done, lying is simple. I've become accustomed to being a lie. A boy is trying to get two girls to make out and that offends me. I'm not here. I'm not anywhere. I'm with you. I matter to you. I matter to someone. I am something.
I open my eyes.
A guy is handing me a beer, so I take it. I should be going home but that girl looks like you. There are four boys to my right free styling. One of them is actually really good. I try to weave through the people to find a familiar face. I find one, and he's handing me a bottle. I don't know what it is, but I drink. It burns.
I'm outside again sitting on the curb. The streetlight that shines above me is a dark shade of yellow that glows off every wall. It reminds me of the night. The moon is looking at me with an intensity I've never seen before. I have a text from you on my phone but I don't want to open it. I don't want to be able to feel this much. I go to find the bottle again.
I'm laughing a lot now. I found the bottle. The familiar face is laughing too. Her boyfriend broke her heart last week.
Your silhouette is standing in the corner. It's beckoning me. I open your text:
do you need something?
I close your text. I close my phone and my eyes and my arms and my heart and I throw my empty beer can at that silhouette of yours.
I'm outside again. Familiar face is going to take me home.
The cigarette is glowing orange and I'm dancing to her car.
You don't love me. I don't care.

Flames behind me
the smoke blinds me
the fall in front of me
don't wanna jump, not for the life of me.

We've all hit our expiration dates
Johnson dangling, entangled in a wire
he's 68, he was about to retire
a burnt child dreads the fire
and he's a lump of charcoal.

Up many storeys
the planes hit precisely.
News helicopters flying and taping
there's no escaping,
the fire's approaching.

I need to jump,
no slow death here.
Here we go,
Geronimo!

Fire caught me in my fall
God's doing his roll call
pain in my legs as the ground comes closer
I move quick, I cannot breathe, my lungs are squished
Did I tell my kids I love them?
No, but I wish.

exhaustion
drifting through our days
taping eyes open
shaking ourselves awake
all this starvation and deprivation
of today's nation
yearning for another minute of shut-eye
while staying up staring at screens
late at night

I’ve been struck down again,
fully aware it’s my own doing.
Do you have a heart you can lend?
Mine’s drying from the taping and the glueing.
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
oh my sweet Clementine,
are you smiling or are you snarling,
more importantly are you mine?

Outside the window seasons blend,
the temperature holds no meaning.
I notice the change and the trend,
to ignore the withdrawals from weaning.
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
oh my sweet Clementine,
you’ve been avoiding and been barring,
but you can’t severe this line.

The stronger the initial fear
usually means the most is at stake,
and trying to prevent a single tear
can lead to the worst heartbreak.
Those who leave the best memories
usually leave us with the most hurt,
you know we can’t just live life with ease,
there needs to be some blood on a white shirt.

You can try to completely forget someone,
but putting that effort in means you’re actually fixated more,
and after all is said and done,
honestly who do you wish to be behind that door?

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
oh my sweet Clementine,
is it cleansing or more harming,
to live in denial all the time?

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
oh my sweet Clementine,
when it’s finished it’ll be starting,
and I’ll stand under the Montauk sign.

1.**     Plant yourself in his mind, the smallest, hidden seed,
        slowly growing roots, winding noiselessly round his arteries.
        Begin to sip from his water supply, soak up his minerals
        become another branch of his being.
        Eventually he will cling to your cancerous leaves like your roots cling to his soil.

2.     Send him on a scavenger hunt for the many shards of your heart.
        Forget to give him the map so he stumbles through the coils of your past,
        ankles sliced open by jealous thorns, neck gnawed to bits by unseen insects.
        Grant him a thank-you kiss for bringing them back to you;
        watch him as he’s taping them gently back together.
        Don’t tell him that he is nothing but an aspirin
        swallowed to aid in healing a gunshot wound.

3.     Keep him grasping at your vagueries.
        Withhold comforts of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ even as he shivers in the downpour of your cynicism
        instead slip in and out of his arms like silk sheets.
        As his weak trembling hands try to pin you to reality once more,
        remind him that you blew in like summer, and leaves have begun to rust.

Flutter flatter flit flip flap
Clap chat chapped lips
Leaking secrets
Speaking softly
As the world whirls by
And faded faces blur together
On panes of plate-glass windows
Strolling silent streets and
Dreaming of anywhere but here

Pitter patter pretend
We’re on the
Tip top of everything
Taping together
Our own reality
Far removed from truths that
Could tear it tear us apart

Flash frame freeze forget
Flit flap free-bird fly away

Fast fly far from
Tick-tock towers
Click-clack-clocked lives
Empires encircling
Pretty-please prepackaged people
Dipper dapper dressed-up doves
With withered windless wings
Locked-up longing lost
And just
Looking for anywhere but here

And their

Haunted hollow heartbeats
Wind between our whispered words
Weaving these tangled tapestries
Tying together all the
Maybes memories melodies
That we carry
All the struggles and scars and
Shatter-glass shiny bits of
Hope-light heart-love

That we call a human soul