wayfaring

I don't picture you dawning 
in brightening sky, 
lifting you higher 
or even high
I don't picture you deepening 
darkling despair,
stern and unbowed 
with a painstaking care, 
or popping a curtsy 
with ironic mirth. 
Wond'ring what now 
has become of the rest. 
I don't picture you naked 
in splendid rebirth, 
or shining arrayed 
in whatever raiment
suits best. I don't picture
you really at all. Not
as such. I imagine 
such pictures can't hurt 
or help. I imagine you are
who you've shown, who 
I know, and I bet 
my idea of you 
has nothing on you 
yourself.

I expect 
pain hurts,
doubt gnaws, irritates.
I imagine you equal to any
such sums as could add, multiply,
exponentially better or worse. 
I expect that life vexes and bucks, 
but I bet you are up to such stakes,
pounding deeper or raised
in all blessing or curse, even though
you'd prefer smaller stakes to come.

I picture you not averse.
Just a little bit pissed, nonplussed, 
and reserving one's judgment on one
you can trust. Who is you, of course. I hope
you know: you can trust that one. I do. 
You must. Sure wayfarers grow unsure
upon unsure ways, but that's only
'cause that's the responsible thing
to have done. 
 
Only in ways made careful and sure
do we find and recall irresponsible ways 
are fun. 

archrivalship

We can't lock horns without a toot or two. 
Our grappling matches mostly just excuse 
how you pat my back, I pat yours for you. 

Our enmity, dependable as day - has grown 
enthused, infused with something gay.
A fondness, and a grudging real regard. 

Let's make this next step very fucking hard. 

whole cloth

We are made of whole cloth 
by our own deft hands. Bolts 
and reams of rough cotton and 
wool, raw silk, nature. And 
nurture: spanking gorgeous 
textiles and patterns, tweed,
houndstooth, twill. We feed 

and feel this warp and weft
in us, as we grow. It shrinks
to fit until we outgrow it and 
we split. We cut and stitch 
it tight again, each time. 

It splits again. We cut and eye 
and choose and find to shape 
and make what suits our kind. 

Our kind of one, we're tailoring. 

So much whole cloth. Such styles 
and tones and forms we make 
to be, each time we grow 
and split. So to begin.   

Apex

What if when we're eating meat 
the meat were still alive?
What if trembling twitch and squeal 
gave our savage hearts a thrill? 
And what then if additionally, 
we literally were lions and wolves? 
Could we still hold our heads up? 
Believe ourselves so masterful?  

Glad Reaping

So let us go a-maying, lasses!
Find our values in the fields.
Let us go a-merrying, like asses
we’ll assess the yield of grasses
and sweet wildflowers!
Let us go a-maying, lads!
All of us without dismay,
in disarray exulting glad
and reveling in powers fine,
to find ourselves sweet making hay
as summer sun beats shining skin
to brass and bronze, while shadows lay
their deepened plot to steal the day. Some
mother puts the kettle on. In stone and clay,
recumbent, caught, so flagrant and delicious
won, we’ve scattered lying all for naught.
In perfect pose and natural touch,
We all gleam cold and settled in.
The sun has made a monument.
These souls were so alive here once. 
These statues once had souls within.

my terrible imagination

From my huge coffee cup 
every time I drink deep 
I drink a slug. Because 
mid-pre-deep satisfaction 
sip - I think "a slug" "could
have fallen in there, and 
be drowning or drowned 
and poached besides, from 
the lingering heat. Oh opaque
dark surface tension of coffee 
bitterly delicious, unsweet, 
uncreamed - would you be 
so foul as to hide a slug 
or a bug from me, by 
your innocent physical 
optical properties? It 

would brush my lips
an invisible heaviness
in suspense! And cause me 
to go "EUH" like that one 
beloved ex-beloved of mine 
used to love, but dread to hear

the cause. I imagine my hand 
involuntarily flung away from 
my head flung the other way, while 
my poor body - caught without 
training or instruction, specifically 
pulled its ace spasmodic jerk 
recovery move - and my poor coffee! 
Flown all over, cup still falling in 
slow motion, beyond recovery - 

it will be dashed to bits 
and the slug will crawl out 

however, this is no news to me. 
I live like this. Every time coming 
in from the patio, the ersatz French 
windows, to be navigated with three 
things and two hands, it all goes sly 
on me. One thing tumbles then I
in deft reaction send all things
flying and hitting and bouncing
or breaking, as usual, as always.
But not yet. Always not yet 
it didn't happen yet so - may 
not be so inexorable, after all. 
We'll see. "HANDLE IT!"
sometimes I even say aloud. 
In affirmation, a command.  
Physical interaction with reality
daunts in mind - yet easy 
in practice! Forewarned

is forearmed. And with my 
imaginary and highly-trained 
four arms I manage all tasks 
with ease and grace, prompted by
a galvanizing flash of mismanagement 

- a premonition like a superpower. 
I love it, it saves me in the nigh-barreling
down future moment (which in the event,
misses by miles); alarms, dismays me
and saddens me in the present; and does
nothing at all to me in the past. How could it?
The past is made of what futures hit. This 

was another sweet miss, guidance 
systems clicking and flying on all 
cylinders, rotating and pounding 
in air, engineless and uncoordinated
but flawless in operation, "flaw" 
being hard to conceive in such 
chance unplanned undesigning ops. In close 

conversation now

with some withsome one who matters.
They say something, and of course,
my response is almost unimaginable horror 
and dread and regret food and fuel and I SAID
IT - to me, I did, it's obvious I did - 
the original hypothetical immersion
specialist am I, I am and I CAN FEEL
IT I said it

and I can feel why I did.
I don't know WHY why, but
I can feel why. Of course I would
say a thing like that, yet I can already
foresee such consequence. The fall in their eyes 
has found me out.

I am this terrible 
thing you know.
They now know. 

It is not pleasant, but due to canny
foresight and acumen it can be yet
averted by special means. In the nick
of this split stretched instance I step back 
soul ripping free from my fleshy skinny
clothesy back without rending anything
material, assume kung fu soul stance
and SNAP THAT NECK - my own neck, 
the neck of the offending one - from behind! 

Such relief and release. You jerk 
I judge, richly and with deep, dark 
tragic sad scorn, for - he was a good 
boy, once. 

Mischance averted like clockwork. 

Nobody's really better at this than I, 
as far as I know. I'd be curious to know, 
if they are. If they aren't, I'll know the reason
why, and it's one of my favorite things about
me really, in a sense. The coping thriving defense
mechanism I inhabit and expand to become 
when imagination threatens 

is fulsome and fearsome in one. Scary. 

I can PREVENT MYSELF suddenly 
and without cause dropping way too much
stuff I carry, by the merest laser-locked 
action focus of hard, paid attention 
clicked in. Taking over. Impressive

Oh, really? I never found it so. I deal
with it out of hand. Out of hand, out
of mind I say. "Oh, 

it was nothing."

new mind regimen

To increase your mind, 
I recommend listening 
to a new language, imagining 
what meanings might be 
- use intuition wildly, 
and find reason bound 
to imagination by speculative 

means.
Next 
perhaps fantasy. Fancy is too often 
too flighty, let your fantasy be rigor
and strict discipline, I mean
in logic
terms 
not
anything necessarily or consequentially
sexual. Perhaps romance is on your mind? 

If so, begin burly training of the mind's
imaginary muscles, especially 

the other's. In mind, 
test and extend, stretch
their limber lithe limbs 
and give them a real 
workout! Pay special 
attention to the butt glutes. 
Use 
this. 
Try repetitious motion! Then 
tell the other how they did 
in your mind? It could be 

time for brutal honesty. 

If so? 

Be fascinated by it. Exclaim 
things like "Logic!" when 
a true or fair point is made. 
Make a serious, stern face 

and stroke one's chin 
with erect index finger,
in a way suggestive of
potent thought. 

Make eye contact electric 

and note, "I am still thinking 

about what you are about 
to say."

Make meaningful rise of
eyebrow(s) at this point of
yours. A point 
as valid
as it may be provocative, 
so worry! Cross

your fingers of both hands, stoop
and stand bolt straight, stoop
and sway low. Improvise rituals
which may propitiate the other. Groan
low in somber ululation, if asked 
what you are doing. Throughout, 

keep making eye contact meaningful. 

In these ways, you will realize 
and come to understand why 
I recommend listening to a new 
language, in order to increase 

your mind. Because 

we kind of wandered from that, 
and that 
didn't turn
out so well. Back to basics is best, 

but judge
for yourself, 
and your judgment

reflects

weird bus

I caught the bus
Santa Cruz down town 
in a couple of stops 
we were in N.J. 
three thousand miles wrong, 
so I got back off. 
And the bus rolled away. 

I looked around. I was 
at my college again. 
And stifling, suffocating 
from all the clothes. See, 
that bus rolled off all happy 
and nude! As every single one 
put their clothes on me. So 

I trekked campuswise 
to discover the place, 
and how it had been 
since all these years. 

I could barely move 
due to all of the clothes, 
and everyone I met stripped 
to add their gear. I inferred 
from this, I was some kind 
of goat of the sacrificial kind, 
with a load sincere. I might even
be killed by the weight of it all! 
All society's clothes, stripped-nude
taboos. Which,

somehow 

I chose? Taken on for them,
all the clothes they took off?
Well, not to be rude, but
I really didn't need this on top
of all else. I don't recall asking
to be this way. 

I'm happy for the whole wide world, 
if so! But I'm dying in here. Wait 

what, no - it's okay. That's actually 
a cute outfit! I don't mind 

that one so much. 

It fits

the glasshouse

We live in a glass house 
surrounded by stones
instead of a lawn.

Standing outside, partly
cloudy sky, the reflections
are ominous bathed in light.
Then a shadow comes over.
You see inside. The stones

are gone.  

The landscaper hated the
architect. The original owner
thought it was fun, then died.
He was stoned. An overdose.

You and me moved in. 
The place was a steal, since 
the world can see all - 
so we try to wear clothes 
- plus because of the ghost. 
We have grown rather close. 

recipe for we

We only exist wherein we agree.
Where we don’t, ‘we’ divides
to you and me, who clearly
exist independently. Except

wherein we combine to agree.
We agree to align, combine or unite. 
We electrify difference and charge 
our fight in some same, good cause. 
We are on the sane side, with all 
disagreement along for the ride.
 
It is held between us as lesser
than this. Our deep high stakes,
forged in pain and bliss
- for we've come to abide
in the difference it makes.

Disagreement agreed in 
because it redounds 
to both our sakes.

one-way dead end

I drove all the way wrong down a one-way street.
When I got to the end, I saw the sign 

and I was surprised.

Nothing special down here! Why did the law
with its arrows and lines try 
to keep us all out? What were they even 
protecting, then?

And...

...how does anyone come to such end? 
Except by coming the wrong way 
down! Then I saw 

with the corner, then front of my eye

this tricky little side-slip squick of a road! 
A hole in the cul-de-sac, in through which
I guess
trickles every little bit of the traffic load
down this back-tucked away little
corner of maze. Finding the secret path into,
going all one way like a dare and a bet.
And getting out of it - who knows?

Do you?  

a loosèd carol

That vorpal swordish tongue of yours,
and beamish eye and trappish mind
- it's good I am no Jabberwock. Or
if I am, you cut such slack. Too kind! 

contemptuous is contemptible

Contemptuous 
is contemptible 
in every case. Those 
who rationalize and 
justify merely stratify 
to their own disgrace. 
Find metrics, criteria to exclude
and disqualify others: "To you,

One should
be rude."

Yet no one 
whoever deserved
your worst 
can ever have deserved
the triumph of making
your worst 
be you. 

the making of a ruin

I just made 

that poem worse 

now I cannot take out that part 
the things put in to pull off-course 

are too true not to leave. 

Even though art 
must be uglier, less successful, 
failing by degrees to unite and 
cohere, from such inclusions 

too mindful, not thoughtless 
enough, heedless that instinct 
in this case knows better, drop-kick 
the gut which knows, punch intuition 
in the tits and wrench sense and taste 

out of whack 

derail small craft 

foundering now in too-high crest 
and tool-low trough 

of fact. 

Such crafts, alas 
were not made to run 
on track

total asshole poem

I'm such 

an asshole
I squashed
and killed a lizard
setting my computer down 
for a minute
and when the minute was up I saw 
underneath 
what happened to my dude 
and then
I wrote a poem 
about a lizard killing incident 
that did not in fact occur 
solely to horrify 
my one reader I know loves 
my lizardly love of lizards 
and my odd lizard poem 

and what this would do to me 
inside
and probably forever

like those two slugs 

when I must have been five.
 
"Yeah, cool story" you might ask 
"but if so why was it two?"

Some damage takes time
in mind to accrue, okay? Have you
never known this? Especially when
hatred and loathing of some horror 
we abhor is the excuse 

cut me a break I was single-digits man. 

such
an asshole yes, but 

please credit me for not being 
as bad as my imagination 
leads me to be. I called stop

I did not, as I thought to do 
describe the angle of his leg
which still twitched, so I could not explain 
"why didn't he bolt?" Dead already? 
Or the odd indent to only partial flatness 
of his torso. To a lizard, too, torsos are
essential! The tail they can lose and regrow
but this - this. Seemed strange, that indent, 
since I used no corner to kill him. Well, 

I didn't kill him

in actual fact he bolted fine. Which was good
since his camouflage on that chair was flawless, 
and 

I set my computer down 
so gently where he was

my position

My position is that of an ounce
in the metric system. I used 
to be so much more.
An imperial ounce, but
no one knew what that means.
Sick of explaining 
the difference, I gave up.
In resignation, I became 
an ounce. 

But 
something had changed 
while I had changed.
I was surrounded now
by centimeters and
decimeters, building up
to meters, stretching
for kilometers 

They didn't seem to mean 
anything about heaviness at all

which was all I knew 
how to weigh. So I gave up.
In resignation. And became 
an imperial ounce. 

the usual mess

Self-valuable and secure 
approaches to being are 
in shorter supply, the more 
we compete in shit contests 
with validation-seekers. "I" 

is the unit of participation.

In life, this is unavoidable, 
but we choose whether role 
or pose is our fallback go-to 
mode, and what we lead with 

is intent 
or purpose 
or goal 
or aim. 

Nobody knows which we chose, 
unless we tell them, as we stalk 
the world like antelopes, hate 
shimmering off us in waves, 
unabsorbed. Vile ego hounds 
think we think we're so special 
but you could've told us! We 

don't 
really 
navigate 
by that star. 

Who are we? 
The 
heathen. 
But never the infidels

something to stop

I need to do something to stop
what's happening here.
What's happening here?

I don't know! But 
that's not important. It needs
to stop. Let's focus on the known
effects, baby 

take it from the top. 

preference of directions

I prefer sunrises
when I’m back East, and
sunsets out West, but
the oceans beneath
are what I love best. 

heart react

Sometimes too much too full 
gets said to not say something 
wordless back. Some times too 
much, but anyway. I feel compelled.
To 
HEART REACT, just
HEART REACT
Was once a joke, but 
too much underneath comes true, 
when once you mean a joke too much.
There is no longer kidding you, me
kidding me. As much as kidding
can deflect, or gloss or smooth
or turn it wry, the jig is up.
The jig's begun to dance itself
to curtsey and to genuflect.
Well, might as duck-a-fucking
heck
just
HEART REACT a  
HEART REACT, 
if that's the natural response!
It cannot mean too much to say
too much, to show it once 
too much. To 
HEART REACT, so 
HEART REACT  
when once you mean a thing too much 
to put in words, too much won't do.
The heart wants what?
Just what it wants
It's long since past a joke,
with you

the garden of cleansing knowledge

Catharsis and Epiphany 
were walking close, as sisters 
do. Catharsis duded up in studs 
and latex, looked askance, askew 
at dear Epiphany's sheer robe 
afloat in wake, diaphanous.
Revealing everything so shy, 
like breaking light through
cumulus and leaving just 
imagination to itself, with 
all shone real. Catharsis 
laughed. Epiph looked
up, a smile of "What?"
"Oh I dunno, sis. What's
your deal."

old haunts

I frequent the past,
not quite in my mind. 
I frequent our future haunts
laid-out, we never did find.
Are you here, too? 
I feel your presence
in the air ahead. 
It smells like baking
and sweet cut grass,
and musky earth
with pressed blossoms 
from books. I sense
your presence each place 
I look, but can't quite see 
everything we took. 
You feel my presence 
in the air behind. You are 
in here - as I know now, 
know. I can't catch up 
to you this way, though. 
This isn't the way
the future decides
to go.   

beauty wearing through

I was born on the Day of Judgment, and they
postponed it seeing how pretty I was.
You're welcome, I guess, if you love 
this life. Or I'm sorry if you do not, 
even though I reckon that it was less 
about me, now that I'm grown, but
that sweet baby there isn't one single
picture of! Apparently no one could bear it, 
placing a camera between their eye
and that face of love. Babies,
you see, are in general a kind of
a special effect. But by all accounts, 
I was born on the Day of Judgment, and my 
sweet face threw the schedule right out.
Correct. So I've always been somewhat 
surprised as I grew, first gorgeous enough 
(though I didn't know then), then weathered
and rugged-wise, finally softening to coot 
of zen, and supposing it's all a subjective scale
- surely uglier now than I was brand-new?

So, maybe the derail was more long-term? 

I don't think they'd see any reason to wait 
'til my beauty has worn clear though. 

origin destination

My life had nowhere to go,
and it got there a long time ago.
There wasn't a subtle or jarring shift. 
I looked up and saw all the clouds adrift, 
and I realized I've always had nowhere.  
To go, or to stay. I might as well care, since
I always have. It has served some well! Besides, 
I don't know how else to abide or dwell,
or journey, or put down roots, or root 
in the mud making feasts of shoots 
and grubs, or grinning as friends 
reach out for weird cahoots. 
It's nowhere to pout. 

the balloon show

What was the name 
of the children's tv show where 
every afternoon, grown adults 
would be sexually humiliated 
by balloons? Not attacked

by balloons, just 

the presence of balloons. Sexually
humiliated by it. Walking into a room
- oh god -
all these balloons here. Everybody sees
Everybody knows, they see me 
and the balloons! The connection's
transparent and now they all tell 
what I'm for when I'm naked, 
and - because of these balloons, 
it's fun to them. They laugh! Is it
at me? They like it. Just the ideas
these balloons bring, my shocked
face, my fluster - borderline tears
I've never been so humiliated
sexually in all my 

life,

but then

the children 
come in. To surround and reassure 
the adult. To explain to the viewing
audience. "They're just balloons!"
"There's nothing sexually humiliating
about balloons." "It's okay."

It wasn't always balloons, that was
just one show. The lesson was about 
being comfortable with yourself, 
and with everything okay - no matter 
what tried to sexually humiliate you.

It would be something different every 
time. And here come the children again, 
denying trauma and agency, dismissing 
boundaries and concern. Meant to be

educational, but 

I feel we may all have learned some
of the wrong things

from that show

The Suspect

Every week 
he's accused of a crime. 
Wherever he goes
someone turns up dead, 
and he's smack in the case.
The cops like him fine 
as the number one suspect
to hang it on ace. But
they always admit, once
he gets down to work 
to clear his own name 
by doing their job - 
he looks good to them.
But not as the perp,
in the end. "Oh,
I understand, detective.
Happens all the time." 

transferable

My affection for lizards is deep and fine. 
From a distance I dote from respectful mind, 
noting difference in each, and letting each be
as so many lizards make room for me. 

For a time I will love this one as it grows, 
and behaves in its way from its favorite perch, 
'til one day I confuse another for it. And I love 
them both, but I'm not sure which. Sometimes 

I have grieved, as some flash-black snake whips 
way up the screen where my buddy had sunned, 
or a bird starts acting all comic berserk! Flown 
bonk off a wall, thrashing 'round for fun 

- 'til I realized: death. There was nothing I did. 
Maybe nothing I could have done. Poor kid. 

Maybe God's like this. Through infinite eyes, 
It tells us apart by behavior and size, until 

something occurs to confuse the scheme. 
So fondly we're loved interchangeably, 
in a love that transfers generations on down.

Watch out, bud. There's snakes
here, and birds
around. 

Meanwhile, do pushups and preen for sex, 
and catch and eat bugs. And each other,
I guess. 

What's next?

overfishing slowly

I want to drag it out of you - 
but only what you choose to give. 
Which limits me in crank and pull, but
O! Resplendent, iridescent fish!

Well-worth the pull that I don't do,
to land such monsters of the deep 
as swim in you with eyes alight,
'til not a secret left to keep. 

You'd like to drag me out of it. But 
just so far as I shall leap. The boat 
is lure enough, you nod approvingly.

Such fish as weep unhooked, uncaught 
upon your uncast line, they have as much 
of time as seas can hold. You'll wait for those

who, bored of life, perhaps have
grown too bold. 

To say we drag, or pull at all 
is pure hyperbole. We measure time 
by pondside cues, so passive and intent
are we. There's never been a rush at all, 
and more's the pity if there was. For greater 
still, do fishies huge swim strange in us. 

And what if we had filled one net,
in one huge drag and sweep, to catch 
up every one, and leave no spawn?

For no because more just than
just because, we'd find 

our fish are gone 

engineers

I think your mischief
plays in all the ways
you're conscious of how things
we're saying easily could slip
or soar or tangent-track afield galore,
and so there's almost childlike glee
in holding forth on obvious, intended track.
So easily, we see we could go somewhere else
and back. 

Pour Some Sugar On Me: A cultural impacts analysis

The thing about Pour Some Sugar On Me was,
it really was Pour Some Sugar On Me. Other 
songs weren't. They were like Hey! The Music 
It's Too Loud, or Don't Love The Stop Love. 
Culturally that clangs dissonance, especially 
by comparison. It jars bells awry, when you 
compare the heart mind message and this 
song info coming in. Pick a metaphor, people! 
That's when Def stepped up talking 'bout some
sugar. Saccharine, whatever. They weren't picky, 
just pour some granular white and sticky enough!
People en masse tried it at home. Kind of fucked
up, but it worked. It worked a treat! Yeast infections
soared (the point of the sugar substitutes, arguably
- Def once again on-point in the women-wise areas),
but overall people kept coming back for more 
like a freight train, jonesing to be backed up,
stacked and packed and freighted with sugar. 
No other song really did that before, and since
- why bother? What's done is done. It's the 
simplicity and directness of the request, I 
think. Pour some sugar. Ok, where? 

On me. 

Oh. 

Well, then 

marketing ops spotter

If they sold cans of worms,
a lot of people would buy one
just to have a metaphor
to hand people in those situations.

role and roll

Is the idiot you are
just a character you play? If it is,
than you play it to perfection,
let's say. 

One time, a friend of mine

One time, a friend of mine
told me I let what people say
get to me too much.

I can't figure out what he means.
It was haunting me for years. Finally
I asked him what he meant, he claims

he never said that. What,
so I'm the crazy one?

matter of fact

You were in my mind,
without any clothes
and I asked you why,
and you said
"Who knows?"

bother groveling

Why bother groveling? They
only beat you anyway. Chain 
your spirit, leaving body "free"
as if you had some say. As if 
free speech
without free heart 
and mind could say
a thing of worth, of
guidance or of consequence 
that's any good upon this earth. 

Why bother groveling, when
you
never
can
hit the mark they aim? It makes

no sense that you can see. You try
your best through cares and pain,
and strain and strive and break
and fail. You tried
too hard
to please

to no avail. Authority, as all approve,
is not best pleased by what
you try to do.  

It wants the groveling.
Why bother? Take the hits
that come, and see 
what's yet to come 
in being thee. 

For others will get used to it. 
Eventually, the ones who stick 
will fit. 

foundation aloft

Remember the time you wanted to die 
and I wanted to help. 
I did not ask why

Remember the time you needed a friend
what you got was me. 
This will never end 

Remember the time you questioned my love
"What's that?" I replied, quite 
eager perplexed

It adds up to one undying trust 
like two birds in a nest 
getting all the worms 
so effortless, prepared
for what's next 

leisure critic

Cats are better 
at folding up into themselves 
in novel and beguiling ways 
than dogs are. Dogs 

are okay at it. 
Cats seem really deeply 
invested in the process, 
though. There is art
to it. The self-origami
of feline nature, highly
advanced. A performance
aspect. With dogs, 

usually, 

it seems more haphazard. 
This'll do. What?  

curse of cute

When you grew up cute 
it's a curse with the worst 
'cause you grow up cute 
and then you die cute 
while the whole time through 
people ga ga ga goo 
'cause how cute you are 
makes them happy it's you 

And does anyone take you seriously?
Hell well sure, okay, sure they do 
But they always take you cute-seriously 
You're not sure at all that's the same,
you see 

'Cause you grew up cute 
and you knew the whole time 
it was so damn cute
just whatever you do 
it's a curse with the worst 
that you have to live with 
'cause when you lash out pissed 
people think it's so cute 

And does anyone take you seriously? 
We covered that. Already, come on. 
They find you so seriously cute for real 
But you're not sure at all that's the way 
you feel 

tragic incapacities

People don't understand what it's like 
to fly 
unaided, without apparatus 
and ascending in the sky 
only not like a bird. 

People don't understand what it's like 
to move like a fish in the sea 
as if that shit was air 
breathing easily, 
like a bird in the sky 
only not like a bird. No, 
nor like a fish either, though 
by your smile you seem to say 
so what 

Here is so what. Here is what you can't
understand, or seem to anyway.

Because to really understand, people 
can't be birds. Or fish. Then I'd have 
to say "birds completely understand 
what that's like," or "fish" and frankly 
- where's the aching yearn? Who cares 
what those superpowered freaks 
understand? We form no justice league 
with such entitled assholes

it's got to be us 
it's got to be us 
to understand that, but 

people can't 

empathy confused with general incomprehension

People don't understand what 
it's like not living up to, embodying 
or exemplifying cultural ideals 
of the beautiful. Or of the intelligent, 
or the sexually attractive, or impossibly
wealthy. All traits held high and 
revered, glamorized. Anyway,
speak for myself! 
I don't understand. Except 
the impossibly wealthy part. 
I understand what that's like 
not living up to, embodying. 
Exemplifying. On the other hand 
I have an excuse. It's impossible. 
Imagine the others! A living hell 
people don't understand

Misreading you

Misreading you
So much to say 
on everything you didn't mean. 

And yet you take it anyway!
And run with it, 
with glee obscene. 

It seems a fair fun game to you, 
with whim and fancy playing catch 
- your realist throws all missed 
by me. I'm chasing after phantom 
snatch! From empty air! I grasp
by hand - and pivot now, triumphantly!
And juggling one too many balls,

the other dropped and lost.
The one you truly threw, 
in such good cause. We'll see 

that as we run, it starts to be 
a truer thing, not wrong. Because
you play, you catch, you act 
as if you were that all along:

Becoming you-I-see. 
It was a trap.