before during after

I am before, during, and after you
in every moment I'm going through
I am feeling the years of life without,
before I could hope for any out
from what I had no idea was wrong,
except for the way it felt. And I

am strong in a moment so finally come, once
twice, and now always, I'm living there.
It doesn't seem real, how much realer it seems
than all of the shadows of former dreams,
and everyone who
I have died to have lost.
For once in my life, I have a care
and a love and a trust, where I see the cost
was a trifle to pay to meet you here:

A permanent answer to every fear,
A standing rebuttal to every charge,
A laugh in the face of most every doubt -
and a joyful laugh, not a nasty one.
Delight in a world everlastingly fun,
so certain it is that our troubles
are past, our struggle is through,
and as sure as we are, we have won.

Unfortunately, I also find
I'm alive in a world where I know
how everything ends, and nothing lasts,
I am taught too well, perhaps
by unfaithful friends,
and disaster without any fault or blame.
And in every moment, it calls me ahead to see
what is waiting for us. For me.

I get giggling fits at morbidness,
and you call my name
- smile mischievously,
my mind comes back to reality,

And you ask, would I care to explain?

to hoe

Every row is a tough row to hoe
if you ain't got a hoe to hoe with, bro.
Or supposing you can't hoe to save your life?
Not everybody can. It takes practice, yo!

You may think you're a rake and God's gift to leaves,
but you see that tough row? You ain't got what it needs.
Go down on your knees, pray for help if you wish
but them angels don't do dirty work like this.

Do you go boating up the river without the oars?
Or expect to find it easy, when you ain't done chores?
Go get yourself a hoe and just hoe, hoe, hoe!
Take the tough row first.
You can't hoe for shit, yet,
so it's going to be tough - and so will the next.
It gets easy as it goes,
'cause you learn as you go.

Every damn row is tough, 'til the tough learn to hoe.

A MURDER

Crows
filled a sky
over a house and the depression outside.
Their hundredfold caws overlapping like wings
played tricks - I ran outside
expecting to see geese
and was surprised
and overcome

immediately.

the problem of vile

We had some vile wine the other night,
and we had to get all the clarity from

ourselves.

That wine didn't help. But I kept
talking about its characteristics,
and you kept drinking it, I think

just to keep up, and object, and
rebut? Or not. Maybe

you were just being sociable, or
were trying to acquire a very bad
taste. Either way, the conversation ranged

from evil results, to their origins
and back from there to embrace their possible
good consequence? A thing in which you know

I place no stock.

We wondered if grapes had grown vile
from vile vines, in a vile terroir, or

if deformative influence was exercised
by a vile winemaker, vile vintner
- vile oenologist? What do you call
that guy?

"OR GIRL!"

- a correction to which I gladly agreed
in this case ("HEY!"), in my vile way,
which you excused to the influence of drink
- a thing in which you know I place no stock,
and proved it by shutting up on the point.

It's the exception that proves unruly,
sometimes. We decided the vileness

of this wine

was a mixture of factors, tag-team quoting Miles
from the Frass Canyon scene in Sideways
and left it at that, to recharge ours and each other's
glasses sadomasochistically with more than full
restaurant pours.

From there, we proceeded all lofty and snoot

to the roots of one of the most cosmic,
foundational, problems with reality
that a lot of people have:

The Problem of Vile.

Why, we decided, would an all-good and perfect
God, accepted for the sake of fighting the hypothetical,
allow such vile wine to be in a universe? Especially
ours.

We each took
a long slow draw
from respective glass,
eyes locked in squint and grimace as if
challenging,
as if challenged,
by the fact itself: yes,

vile exists.

And free will is no out! We were forced
to agree. Not for God! Not for this, we
mused. No excuse, why
even if God were a free-will freak,
a super-enthusiast for the stuff, and felt
compelled by duty and sporting interest to allow

vile wineries

to produce and sell such and as much vile wine
as they could, still!

Why wouldn't God start a winery Godself?
Making wines that were infinitely good?
Let the marketplace duke it out. Let the people
choose. There's your free will! The Invisible
Hand, as it were, that moves
each and all to their own

good and betterment! The argument

broke down from there,

amidst wreckage of points, very yet
to be made and potential objections thrown out

of gear,

by the fact that we saw

the wine was gone.

A miracle!

No, it was not quite that. We are confident science
will find a way to explain disappearances of this kind.

We deal in facts. It remains:

the wine is gone.

It was not for this world. No one
could drink it, or miss it, if drunk.

It will live in vile memory, growing and long.

You and I will agree to admit it was wrong.

the gets and the gots

I missed the point. But I still don't see what it is.

And I know I don't get it, but there's a lot of things
I don't
get.

The more things I get,
the more things I try, the more
people try to tell me I'm wise, which is nice
but oh, so funny untrue - the more things
I finally do get, the more things

I notice in the world
that I have never gotten, not in my
entire life. And never even noticed, either
how much of the world spinning by,
all the time.

The world, I mean, of karma. The world of how people treat
each other, each creating a world for themselves

of people who have been treated that way - and they know
by you.

And there are all these ridiculous, life-fucking tricks and
habits and ways of looking they all mostly seem to use. Which
do harm and no good, to them.

When I look around and wonder, I try to ask. What
did you do that for? What are you trying to get?

I never ask in the moment post-explosion, with it
blown up in their face. I ask in the ordinary
course of habit, as they go about its accepted use.

I ask in fun, good camaraderie, people discussing life
as a joke open to serious intent behind. They look at me

usually

like oh, we are at the zoo today. Let us make faces
at each other through the bars! But who is the animal?
What funny noises and moves you make!

Yes, and you as well.

My fondest hope is when the conversation is over, we will
go and the cage remain, empty of whichever one of us. Me!
Sometimes, but scarier I dream what if both of us are in.
Who will be blamed?

I didn't used to get it, either. I still don't, but
if language, and society, and offense, and sense itself

are bars, I will walk into every one. Bong,

and if I see you inside, I will offer to buy

you one.

the eye can't see

The eye can't see what you've done to me,
and I know it may be hard to believe.
If I told you in full what a fool I am,
and have been, and want to be again,
you'd agree with me. But on just
the wrong thing. And I can't see

why you shouldn't, love.

It's nothing to me if I live or die,
without you I mean. If I die, that is.
If I live without you, that's not
"nothing at all," it's excruciating.
And boring, to start. And worse
to go on, but I will go on! Still,
it wouldn't be nothing to me, to live,
with you gone.

If I live with you, though, that

is everything. I know it would be

everything that I want, and everything else
I am willing to take, just to find out
what else comes

with the plate. And you know,

it's nothing to me if I die, without you.
But I will go on, because I'm the one

who pretty much has to. Man.

This poem took a depressing turn.

The way it started out, I expected something
with sharp pangs of romantic yearning leading
on to triumphant uplift, but apparently
"fuck that!" said the poem. The poem

isn't convinced that's where these things
lead. And I can't convince the poem,
on my own.

Will you help me?

All you'd
have to do is,
come running and jump
into my arms, and ravish me. The poem

would then be so ashamed. "Well, color
me wrong," the poem would cringe.

And we could go on
to do whatever we wish!
Secure in love's victory
over art, and its cynical certainties.

Wherever we'd go

from there, after that,

we would have to be pretty pleased.

sometimes

Sometimes I'm tearing my arms off with my teeth because
I can't reach my heart from where my head is situated,
and my heart is where the trouble is, and my head
knows what it needs. It needs to be torn out with teeth,
that's just the sort of trouble it is
sort of.

The trouble is, without you here my heart has too much
and nothing at once, and all the blood in my arteries
and veins is not enough to make up for it. The trouble is,

without you I can't reach my heart, except with my teeth

and they don't reach. But if you were here with your head
on my chest, I would tell you it's all okay. No trouble
then, no way.

Sometimes I'm smoking way too much since I told you
I'd quit, if you told me so. We both know I would,
we both know we know, and I'm just making up

for the rest of my life, and how long it's probably
going to be now.

Sometimes I laugh about it all, because
it's pretty funny. You could live your whole life

not knowing why. And sometimes I know

parfait

Parfait

would be perfect:
A tall, sundae glass
with layers of ice
cream, then fruit,
and then whipped
cream, all middling up
towards the top, layered
in, and then finally
topped,
with a tumbling
dollop of each. And then,

for before,

to begin:

Parfait,
of barbecue - pulled pork
in barbecue sauce,
potatoes so creamily
mashed, all hot,
and tart coleslaw
in layers, arrayed
in a tall sundae glass.

Parfait. That

would be perfect. Now,

whom shall we ask?

The kingdom of being in love

In a kingdom of the blind,
maybe they're all just in love?

And they can see quite perfectly well.
It's not that they don't see the flaws.
It's that they don't see someone for what
they aren't, only for what they are. And find
it is beautiful.

And it is.

When the one-eyed man arrived, he
misunderstood something. He thought "this is great!
They can't see

that I have one eye!"

And he made himself king.

They loved him for that,
unconditionally. In the kingdom
of being in love, it's like everyone's blind
but they aren't. They're just looking

to see all the best that they've seen
in you, every time you've shown. They can see it
in you even when you don't, when you're not
at your best - because they know.

They have you known.

You find what you're looking for. Sometimes,
you find it by looking.

They don't even have
to try. It's too easy to see,
now they know. So they look at you,
with those eyes of love,

and you think they're blind. Oh no,

don't make that mistake. They're not. No way,

they're just trying to trick the emperor
into
another of those parades.

Who you really are

What if everyone snubbed you
wherever you went?
Oh, they'd take your order,
but never bring it. And if

you complained, if you asked them why
- you'd know.

You deserve it.

It's in their eyes.

What if everyone you started talking to
- they'd join in at first, surprised,
amused, but soon cut you cold.
And you'd get up,
and go.

It's a mercy to you

that they don't know.

cut scene

Whenever you put that station on
I feel like something bad is going to happen
in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

We're just having breakfast, and
now I'm self-conscious about my stylized
ironic banter, but I know you don't like

the suggestion that something isn't right,
or ought to be changed when there's nothing
wrong. So

I smile all roguish cool and agree,
not in so many decorative words,

to play along.

dawning night

there's never been anything less than this
there'll never be anything left of it
once we're finished with our little series of talks
to make sure I loved you as much as we thought,
and to bind and determine how friendly we'll be.
There's never been anyone less than me
but in moments like this, I horribly know
I was right when I said I can't let you go

readers for the prize

They flap in and settle on shelves, to be read. Not
"manuscripts" - none of them written by hand - but
thank God for that. It's quite hard enough

to get through these stacks.

They've entrusted us.

"Submissions"
are the last thing they should be called,
insistent as they are, rife with demands
to be read,
loved, turned into gold.

Art for hope's sake, and praying to be sold
as if only

a gold medal applique, sufficient with glint
of prestigious renown could be affixed
to adorn a corner
of a cover as-yet undesigned - so

there's no chance of judging by that. But if only

a jury could peer at it justly, just so
in the light, and declare it triumphantly fit

- fit for something, with something,
in something, into
some great list, a roll
to be read out ringing in canapes, honors, champagne
splits and somersaults inside amidst the tasteful restraint
of cantaloupe-watermelon background white noise
from a bantering crowd,

well-watered and fed, and
content, no
happy to be there, no

here,

for this launch. Now. Everyone, may I just say...?

There's a long way to go from that
to this.

If only just one

from these stacks and stacks to be read
through by us, just us two

for the prize - would make us gasp,
and stop cold with skins tingling, heart
dropped out of its course for a beat
or two, and send sudden blood coursing washing away
all this inside feeling

of having been someone betrayed and betraying

someone. Some many
someones,

who've all shut eyes hard and smiled
- quite strained, and
after one last embrace, sent

babies to us.

In reed baskets, hoping we'll prove
ourselves
to be pharaoh's daughters, and not
crocodiles, oh

what we would do

in all of our years?

for such a prize

Shall we?

The hard part isn't starting; we've started
in fits and starts from a dozen parts,
and all of them fit in some master plan
that we'd either and each cosign
to continue from. The hard part

is what do we want? And do we want to,
and questions of that sort of form
and design, which we've never
asked. This thing has just seemed

so desirable throughout,
through-and-through,
that we haven't had to.

We have to now.

Or a little bit on, since eventually
it doesn't do, to wait so long. This thing

wants to win,

and it can't be prolonged indefinitely.

Or can it? There is, I admit a deliciousness
to delay. The hard part is, to

begin. To get down, to work
in the midst of such sweet

fair play.

creative difference

We can easily write this book.
The hard part is writing. Writing is
and needs to be wicked hard work. Who'd
be impressed if it wasn't? Even if what
you end up with is perfect and effortless,
what went into it has to have been hard.

Respect yourself. That much must be true,
but the story we have to tell

is so tossed-off and whimsical - geniusly so!
How can we put (in all conscience)
such effort in? It would be, it seems,
beneath us, at least, as we've set out
to tell this thing. A languid and effete
hypocrisy, to work so hard. On this

particular work, I mean. Given its themes
and ways and means, it should

proverbially write itself, or appear
to have done. Indecent of it

to wait so long.

incomplete list of things I don't have

Your love.

Actually I do have that,
and thank you but still.
It's first on the list,
as you can see. Call it
honorary.

Peanut brittle.
Yes! Delicious, snap-crunchy
toffee-sweet peanut brittle!
With the subtle fresh earthiness
of those nutty, legumey peanuts. Allergic?

Not at all.

Just thought of it. Peanut brittle.
Don't have it.

See this list has so rapidly, over-
precipitously descended, in descending
order of consequence? Like a safe

plummeting towards a pedestrian
in a 1-panel cartoon, apart
from the consequence, which
- we won't know it hit him. So
let's raise the stakes, shall we,
a bit more life and death?

We started with life, or the meaning of,
so: death.

A peanut allergy.

And good riddance! Or whatever
the never-was version is,
of riddance. I haven't got it,
it goes without saying - it's
on this list. Not even
an honorary peanut allergy
have I. Good absence; good
ignorance.

Bliss.

Not sure if I want this yet, I'm
very into knowing at the moment.

A hole in my heart, dear
Liza, dear Liza.

No, not at all. Better than watertight,
it's even seaworthy.

A shark. Who has a shark?

Not I. But I'm willing to run the risk.

This is, as I mentioned,
an incomplete list.

to court

The next time you care
to press your suit,
you might want to wear
a suit that's pressed.
Such suitors
as you present
yourself to be
might just as well
show up to court
undressed.

Ah, bother

Do I bother you, my love
with my love? I hope that I do
in some sense that fits, but I know
you would say it's no bother, love.
And I won't know which.

morning again

The promise of a new day
begins to pall towards midafternoon
each day, if nothing destroys it
before, but

we don't know that yet. You're up
again early. Let's
get half-ready and go
out to the garden chair,

as cold as it is out there
with your hair still wet,

and the coffee you've made.
Let's begin the dreams that never come
anymore at night, the kind that tell what today
could become. In light like this, pale,
angled low, it's like

the bright-eyed sun doesn't even know
yet what could happen, or
what it got up for. As if any surface
of earth at all, with anyone in it
at all could shine below.

Let's forget the dreams that actually came,
to tell you each night will be like
each day that has come before.

What is it to wake to days like those?
Today doesn't feel like it will be
one. There's something different
about the sun, and maybe

we'll go back inside, and put on
different clothes.

mercy begins

Our hearts keep breaking for humanity,
and I guess we would never want them
to stop.

It proves that we care,
and feels beautiful, like something
that never goes into words.

If everyone
could be happy at once, there'd be no one
to feel sorry for
but ourselves

and what good is gratitude
if everyone's got it as good
as you?

and maybe you don't, but
you really don't have to tell

portrait of thoughts in a habitat

In your movement swift from one t'other
there's a mystery: how you brood over each
deeply, your wings stilled
timelessly o'erspread like Aegis,
even as you've fluttered on to the next,
settling on't to brood another moment endlessly.
And they all hatch, your thought a meditation
of simultaneity spun out
dimensionally into sequences
in rapid succession,
each moment infolding

an unfolding lifetime within it.

And they all hatch. Fledged
in an instant and flapping off,
already chased by cats

from the other half
of your mind more inclined
to pounce than flit.

standing invite

She likes to be invited,
but she never shows up. Except once,
and she imagines they've been talking 'bout it
ever since, after everything said

that she's done.

No, once is enough
for consequence,
and she wouldn't want to lessen
the total effect. Still,

she loves to be invited,
for the sake of suspense.

If they ever forget,
she might just crash in
to discover if there's
anyone left.

"return trip"

Please,
let her get down ok.
I know I don't pray how I should
so much. But
I'm making up now
for all of it,
if sincerity counts
like they say it does.
I can't get her down
myself, and she
is in no position
to give her help.
If you let her get down safe
in one piece,
I swear I will get her
home to keep, if she wants,
and hold her,
and take all the time I'd waste
to make it a place to stay.
It would be the least
I could ever do.
Just give me a chance,
and she will too.

amateur act

Even if you think

you wouldn't have asked
if you'd thought it through
just a little more first,

I am glad you didn't and did.

You give me so much chance
to consider for better and worse,
and to pick through better
towards best.

Whatever your questions,
let them come. It always reflects
so well on me, when I stare down your gun.

Like a limelit magician of bygone age,
awaiting the crack and the flash
as we both prepare

for the bullet catch. Indecision
is only a stage.

So take just one -
one very deep breath, between
us two. I wouldn't be standing here,

if I didn't trust your aim.

And you wouldn't pull if you didn't believe
it was all in hand. Well, just between us,

I always believe
we can make all the mysteries plain -
and people will think
it was always planned, and you
were a plant.

Or maybe I was? Either way, some risk
of pain. So who

is magician's assistant, here? Are you
aiming guns, or am I throwing knives?
Which one of us, trapped, is tied
to the wheel, or shut in the box?

And what's with the saw I saw you hide?
Behind your back - or else up my sleeve,

It's a little unclear who's assisting who,
but our outfits are clearly equally cute,

and it hardly matters what props we use.
Each gay misdirection points straight
to another truth,

as another clean sleight of hand
produces its proof, suitable to belief.
Not too far beyond what the casual mob
could understand,

with a bit of a reach.

kinds of damage

Are you the one? Who

wants to be with
me? For real, I mean.
The one who sees -
maybe not a future,
specifically, yet, but
a road ahead, at least?
To who knows where,
but you know,
you want to find out
wherever it leads - and
for it to go on, and to go
together with someone. Which
in your case, that would
be me?

If you're the one
wanting that,
I mean.

Me,
I know that if you are not,
the one,

If it turns out you turn aside,
and bid buh-bye,

I will give in
to despair! I will
give up completely
- privately, mind you!
Someplace well out of your
hair - Oh! God

I'll miss your hair,
but not so's you'd know
about it, though.
I would give, so
completely and discreetly,
up.

On you, love. And
on love. Just

'cause I always do?

So many times,
I believed
too much. And too
many times I have given up.

So many times, I have given
all, given completely
and all the way,

for the rest of my life, or
intending to. Then had

to revise that estimate. And too many
times, because of it, I've given
completely and all the way up,

for the rest of my life, or
intending to. But

so many times, I've had
to revise that estimate, too.
Too many times I'd have one
last try. One very last chance,
I would give myself, because
someone convinced me that I
knew what I was doing, and why. Which was no
fault of theirs! Quite the opposite.

Such people are scarce, which is fortunate
and regrettable.

So too many times I had one last fall,
where all was destroyed,
again,
for life,
and there I'd lie:
saying "Damn it, that's all!
I have said 'That's all!' just
too many times, by now! That's it!

I'm through. Enough! For me.

I am done." So, if you are not

the one,

don't worry too much.

I'm probably not either,
by now. We can see,
but I probably won't be,
and that's ok.

I will say
we were right to try. At least,
if you think so, too? It was
probably just as big a risk,
for you. Wasn't it?

Were we right to try?
To see how it worked out?

Yes I know! We're not even there, yet!
I meant, hypothetically. Because
when I look at you, I say "We'd be

some fools
not to take a chance,
to try, to see! However it goes, or
how and whether it ends,"
Well,

wouldn't we be?
Does anything good end
well?

I guess we'll find out, or
I guess we already are, or
working towards. One way
or (hopefully not!) the other. But
if that's how it breaks, despite
our current near personal best
intentions, shared interests
and mutual joys - don't worry
about me.

I'll be ok, at some point
considerably past
that point. Perhaps I will not
recover with poise,
with aplomb,
but trust me.

I've been there
before, and too many times
not to trust myself.
And trust me, my trust
may not, but I

will tend to survive, and
probably, go on. Too many
more times.

But maybe this one
will be the time - maybe this time
a corner is turned?

And I won't claim anything
special,
or final,
or permanent
has occurred.

And I'll move on,
as if it's all de rigueur.

heatbeaten (a haiku)

Licks her frosty fruit
ice brick, says 'shit!' as juice drips
to sizzle on legs.

sea-change

Let's go down by the ocean,
girl. Let's go in, let's give
in
to it.

We'll see
how it spits
us out gasping
and spread on sand,
some unknowable sea-change
worked upon us.

Lying there,
faces half in sand, half-gazing
half-knowably into our deep
ourselves, and each others
with minds washed clean
of everything but trust.

As waves spread out,
and up and in,
and half-over us both,
and we lay
there half-lost,

as the shallow waves
draw back, we wait
in a shared half-gazing
that goes on and on
between waves, and waits
between us

for the next,
to see what it brings
breaking over our toes,
rushing past our hips,
over random akimbo limbs
spread out, like shipwrecked
and washed-up mannequins,

dressed in the latest styles
to swim. Our minds swinging wide,
breathing grateful air
as the next wave breaks
halfway over you, just

- and finally, breaking out
in a shared and idiot smile

with you,
at us.

You
are something to see. And I

am something made to be seeing you.

There's joy
in finding one's purposes,
and in everything else
we will be so free
to be led
to do.

sea curls

The eddies and whorls and twists
and curls of your sea-drenched hair
have dried in the sun

into mobile sculpture,
wildly

and loosely hung.

Movingly
framing your angel face:
a reverse-night sky,
where constellations of freckles
twinkle
upon a cool veil
of milk.
I could take
forever and gaze
for days,
counting all of them,
and I'd wish on every one.

But instead
just now, I'll breathe in -

take your hair up into my hands,
and breathe through it.

You have caught all the sun,
and the salt and spray
and you,

in your net.

And it would take
a skyful of stars, and a lifetime
of nights to wish
for all of the sun,

and salt
and spray,
and you,

to fill
all the days
you want to come.

none the wiser

I could woo you,
as easy as speaking the truth,
I think. Your truth
is so congenial to me
that I speak it by accident,
believing it's mine. And maybe
it is. What
an exciting thing
to find out! Every time,
despite you would think

it should be assumed,
by now.

And so often you speak to me
what I've never noticed, but always
known, put into words that work
dark arts and my soul
is changed to light, or
my body to stone. Like a sorceress,
you always profess to have done
nothing smart, or unique or
strange.
I wonder if
you've been fooling me? Maybe
you have me completely wooed.

If so, it would have been perfectly
plain.

And nevertheless, I suspect
that I could, too. Woo you,
as easily as you
please.
And I'd never
catch on to you, and you
would never catch on
to me. We'd just go on,

speaking each other's truths,
not even confused as to whose
is whose.

"boat swain"

I spill too much water from my oar
as I cut this curving river
in ragged halves, my backswerving boat
overcorrects
with every stroke
I pull powerfully, losing half my force
to the splash, making eddies and whorls,
using all the wrong words
for everything.
I could use you now,
in the back of my boat,
yelling at me, and
so encouraging.

rule of belonging

Instead of leaping and reaching for greatness, perhaps
we should let it fall into our waiting and grateful laps,
where we'll find it has always belonged. Let it sit
on the tops of our legs and bounce, excited to be there
or nestling down and between like an eager puppy,
saying hi to the shyest of cats.

While we're at it, perhaps
we'll avoid forcing our metaphors.
Henceforward, let's make it our only law
to be graceful and easy and natural,

and let us be ruled as the winds that blow,
and bound as the rivers that flow

to the stars. Ah, there I go out again,

reaching too far.
As long as I've lived,
life has always seemed
like leaps and bounds
over anything dreamed.

I promise to be more grounded,
for now. I will take my shoes off,
walking far and around, and regarding
the trees, and the birds in them
from a proper place,
for a sensible man.

For I want to be sensible: making plans,
and laying foundations and building
on them. As long as I'm mine,

I will wish to be yours. I hope you'll agree
that's a practical cause. I will love you
in peace, tumultuously - and reach
for whatever you name and wish. And you

will not have to reach for me, any farther
than leaning in to kiss.

written-off friends

Take your shriveled little soul and retreat
to where you can feel comfortably under siege,
with esprit de corps because everyone

thinks like you: united in contempt
and hate for all those who don't,
and who therefore ruin the world.

I will join you,
whenever you poke your head out
with the rest of us,
here.

All your written-off friends, plus
everyone else who hasn't given up
on them.

I will miss you in the fight, but I hope
we'll embrace in the end. My shriveled
little soul

still likes to pretend.

storybook, ending

If you were the narrator,
and I was the protagonist,
I bet you'd rig the story
in my favor. To my benefit
- and even risk the story, conflict,
character development, and drama

for my sake,
To make my story happy.
it would take

a miracle:

Intelligent design, a narrator
somewhat unreliable
- unfaithful to
your chosen or appointed
line

of work, you would shirk

all codes
of narrative ethics
to the contrary,

and you'd insert
yourself.

Become a character. But I'd know
in an instant: you already were.

You'd sweep in, snap me up,
describe
the closing of a storybook:

"Happy ever after,
the beginning."

Could be worth a look?

cheated

Last night as I went more or less
to bed, it was like I could see
the approaching dreams. And they'd all

be of you.
But you never
showed up.

I woke in the morning, and kissed
your head and you stirred in your sleep:
you were smiling.

You made a small sound, like a pigeon's coo,
and stretched yourself lazy as luxury.
You opened your eyes - I thought,
guiltily.

I asked you your dream. You smiled

"It was you."

But it wasn't
me.

Every night some guy who looks
just like me, so you claim

has you fully, completely fooled

while I sleep and dream of a long
day's work, where nothing makes sense
and the day never ends

and you never show up
'til I wake

with you.

composure over nothing

The end of believing in you
feels so far off, right now.

But closer than it used to be,
And closer than I wanted it
to get to me.

It gets to me.

I know I never want it to.
This thing between is even better now
than it has always been. Which I believe
was always better anyhow than everything.
I don't know what is happening.

If life turns so
I can't believe in you, I know

I won't believe in anything.
I won't deserve to have or find a thing
I can believe again, with anyone.

Because I know that you,
much more than anyone, bring out
my best and favorite self -

someone you introduced me to.

Someone I'd never meet again,
without.

The end of my belief in you
would end the world I'm living in.

The last thing that
I ought to have
is doubt. Ok

Who's worrying?

threat assessment asset x

I'm running a threat assessment
on everyone in the vicinity,
area,
environment,
everywhere
they happen to be
where I can see.

Call it "people-watching." That's exactly what
it appears to be

- right up until
I observe
a threat.

And then I do

what I do best:
I flee

male gaze takedown

It isn't right
for a man to look
at a woman based purely
on visual.

As if those aspects
are all she is?
Just light reflecting
from surfaces

If only you'd think
you can easily see
she is so much more,
a totality

But you won't see that
from her face,
her tits her ass, her legs,
and personal bits
- which you can't even see!

But you visualize.

Try imagining her soul for once,
you guys.

coparenting

A child is crying at Disneyland.
The saddest thing that was ever planned.
Her bastard ex-dad deliberately failed
to get the right pass for the runaway
monorail. Lord knows it's her favorite
ride. Now she's on Instagram with the tears
in her eyes just to stick it to mom, crying out
at home, stuck.

It's sick,
the sad stories
that people make up.

wings of hesitation

we don't know any better
but caution feels like wisdom
There's nothing at risk.
There's nothing at stake.
but it feels like there is
it just feels like it is
with so much good
up so high up

we forget what our wings are made of

we forget there's no ground
below us now,
to break upon

and we can't crash
now, only dive in
from above on high,
straight down, cutting glass -
make a splash,
make a wave,
and drown

Then, with thousand-mile reach,
in the skip of a beat
that passed
we'd cough up on a beach,
beating each other's
heart, and breathing each
other's breath. Coming to ourselves

with a gasp,

and laughing at all of the caution
we'd fashioned to wings,
until time enough
was more than past

to hurl ourselves
to the wind
to the death,

and as if,
and at last.

Attack of the strangely familiar

You wouldn't know Deja Vu if it bit you in the ass
- but you'd think that you do. It would feel just like,
in the back of your head - there's
a memory, maybe
a dream, where

something happened. You can't quite -

find your way back. But it feels
very certainly, teasingly
like what just happens to be
happening, just about now.

What if the personified or demonized psychological concept
of experiencing a strong but delusive or illusory sense
of the familiar were sneaking up on you
- "I've been here before!
I know this scene!" - then, trying
to remember where and when, as elusive details misdirect,
slip by right and left, bearing no resemblance
whatsoever to whatever you are trying so forcibly
to unforget - and most importantly! To
reconstruct what happens next "AAAGH! WHAT WAS THAT?!"

Whirling round,

"Something just

bit me

IN THE ASS -

AGAIN!!"

- nothing there!
no sign!

there never is.

What was it? But

you wouldn't know, even then. Even though
you're convinced

that you did.

ovation

I was just outside
standing on the grass
looking at the stars,
clouds drifting invisibly over them
making empty shapes in the air. I was

looking around
and thinking, as I do, and I realized
a couple things that came together
in an alignment that made me wonder at life,
and how great it is. Because
it really is, though
some complain

(though we must accept
the possibility there's something
wrong with my brain
chemistry). I turned

faster,
trying to look around all at once,
and I found I was making these
motions with my hands, as if
encouraging everyone

to stand up in the stands.

And I was happy, but with
no way to share it, really.

Which didn't remotely matter.

keep close

In a lot of ways, you feel like a secret
I keep from the world. Not deliberately so,
just that they can't see. I'd keep you however
is necessary, though, long as you keep me.
And whenever I hear from you, I smile
and feel a thrill. It's a bit childish,
like a secret club with decoder rings.
We make secret pacts and plans and wish
for events that may never come,
'cause we know some will.

We take turns holding tin cans to our ears,
and speaking through vibrating strings.
Sometimes when we talk, I slip out in the dark
as you blink in the clear morning sun where you are,
and we speak of such things as would curdle the toes
of ghosts and let angels cluck their tongues
as they crowd in close - is it just me, though?

It feels like a lovely conspiracy, everything
we share every time we do, like a secret
the whole world knows it's supposed
to be keeping from me.

And of course, from you.

enjoying eating olives

I'm enjoying eating olives -
briny, pungent, green ones. Even though

they have pimento in them, peeking out
red from hidey-hole -

I know I used to hate those. Given,
this was as a kid. I always thought it was
pimento that I hated. And

scrupulously avoided ever since,
like it was a part of me: I hate
this kind of olive. It's the pimento,
probably.

This was my truth, through all these days
and years. Even though I knew I'd come
to be quite an avid consumer of olives
of all other kinds, including all shades
of green, whether empty, with pits in
(to gnaw around like a rat!), or
stuffed with who knows what garlic,
hot pepper, anchovy or almond - plus ripe
olives, black, or the wrinkly one they
always put in your Greek salad.

Always, the classic green with red in
was the outcast, hated and known to be
bad. And now I find out it's delicious,
much like these others. So what

did I hate? Has my palate changed?

Or have I grown up, and lost
who I used to be?
Lost my faith and integrity, down
all these years.

So now any olives will do, for me.

language

speaking
tongues
in
foreign
parts

alone
with
no one
there
to hear

the cries
that echo
softly
round

I understand
there aren't

words

for everything
you've made
so clear

it works
on levels
of my brain

I never thought
to use like these

a reptile mind
descending down

and lost between
parentheses

uncomfortable.

Do you ever feel like
you're being unjustly attacked?
Maybe they're talking about you
in front of your back,
and who will ever correct the opinions
they're going to form, before they set?
You wish you knew what they were, so you
could effectively be more opposite.

Even though you know, it's neurotic
for you to concern yourself
about things
that you can't intercept
or control. And it's just as well
they concern themselves about you,
to such an extent, at all.
Assuming they do. You suddenly wonder,
uncomfortable.

less to say

How can I even tell you? How much you mean
to me - it's so easy to put
what I mean and feel
into words, they may as well
be lies. It comes out true and strong
each time, some perfect small part

of a universe that may as well be
fictional, for how little it touches
of everything you

have already put there, first. Before
I had even noticed, to pick it up, astonished
to say what it means to me. I am accurate,
but it means so much more - I am more
or less belittling it, to tell the truth. Or
it feels that way. Sometimes I wish

you had given me less to say.

Summa Yourself

Summa Summa Summa yo'self
Take all of yo'self
and summa your parts
under summa the hottest sun
you've ever felt,
girl

summer yourself, go
summer yourself

It's so much more than just
to summa some parts
in the summa all things
need to simma a spell
for a start, let the sun
come shine in on all -
let the whole of you go
get a glow get a glow, girl

Summa Summa Summa yo'self
Take all of yo'self
and summa your parts
under summa the hottest sun
you've ever felt

go summer yourself, girl
summer yourself

And don't forget cha togs
cause you want to go in!
Not just to be beached -
let the sand and the skin
and the salt get soaked,
it'll feel like sin
and religion eloped
with the waves crashin'

Summa Summa Summa yo'self
Take all of yo'self
and summa your parts
under summa the hottest sun
you've ever felt

come summer yourself,
go summer yourself, girl
summer yourself

make sure you use sun cream
though

ambitionistic

I picture this whole thing wrapped
in soft wings,
waiting to burst forth as song, metamorphosed
- my low borderline-melodic semi-staccato
delivery as suggested in this first line,
only with its sing-song allowed to breathe, expand
and stretch out into the verse

- nothing show-offy; a voice understated melodically
like a wryer and wiser Bernard Sumner, only
with poetry to sing, instead of

New Order lyrics. The music, too
could be drawn from a sort of New
Order style arrangement, only not hooked
up to its usual EKGs of sequencers, bleats
and sound affect, but rather: pull the plug,

make the body of the tune jump up
from its sickbed drone on acoustic strum
deep thrum and gong - improvised instruments,
such as a genius might cobble and clang together

from a junkyard and record an album with,
for a change of pace.

But sorry! I got carried away, this is a poem. A poem
is not just some potential set
of song lyrics,

as if roving packs
of disemvoiced songs were hunting
the countryside, the rockside, the discoside
even, seeking to devour any reasonably rhythmic rhymed
quatrains they can track and bring down, assuming
they can choke them down. A poem isn't
an aspiring song. It is already song. A poem
doesn't need music, because it already

is.

Nevertheless, I'd like to give that album a spin,
it sounds

kind of interesting.

beautiful when you're

Could beauty but wear a wry face
more often, so many emotions
would be redeemed.

Each time we felt spasms
and pangs of annoyance,
we'd feel how our faces
were pulled towards yours,

and loving that look
would lift
how it seems.

pact.

You're something like I think you are.
I know I don't know well enough
to say I know
or know you well, but
everything I think of you
comes from the stuff and consequence
you've given me,
which gift has been epiphany,
enormity, and tenderness.
I've taken it unquestioningly,
and questioned you with interest.
And you have answered me
with nothing less, seriously
and generously, from everything you are,
I guess. That guess keeps getting better, best
- and you possess and understand
the sense of me I've given you.
I'm adding to it all I can,
and you can ask me all the rest.

And all the time we're giving in,
we come to know for real and true
something for sure. We don't know all
of what it is, just yet, but we are
whetted to investigate, explore - and
we know we want the so much more
there somehow always is
to find.

We've known each other ever since
beginning to, since you
are all you've ever
given me, and I
am all I've ever given you,
and you know
you

are welcome to
the part of me that's mine.

explicit

I got turned down for sex.
I'm glad I asked though. "Sex?"
I said? She was like, no thanks.
She didn't say it, but
she was like that. What
she actually said was "Female."

I said I think you mean gender.
She replied no, that's a social
construct ("I know!"), I meant
biologically ("Oh."). So

I felt relieved that we were
clear on all that, but also
sad. And then we proceeded

not to have sex.

It was amazing. Amazing is a type
of confusing. The eyes, amazed, confuse
the mind and we're dazzled, basically
- although this was more verbal
than visual. She said

look, I'm going to want your
unambiguous verbal consent
not to have sex. She wanted it
clear. I was like what,
is this a test? I refuse! Now

what? We were up an impasse
with no way back down except
backing down, so I said "You

don't need any man's consent

for that." She said I don't want

any man's.

I want yours.

Of course, I melted all over inside
when she put it like that. "Ok! You
got it!"

I capitulated, which sounds like
a complicated, tricky maneuver.
She was duly impressed, which was
not very, but I'll take what I can get
in a case like this, which is
not much, but such as it was
I pressed my luck. I was pretty
not sexually confident,
by this point, which
was more of a line,
and we continued
on it. We were not having sex
like a couple of wild animals
by this point. Then she said

"Stop!"

I did of course. Suddenly,
like a pig or a wolf will stop
in the middle of not having sex.

"Yes?" I asked, but I was looking
another question at her.

She determined to answer both:
"Yes and no."

What does that mean? I wondered. Where
do we not go, from here? Do we continue

along Not Sex Avenue, or duck furtively
down Sex Alley?

It was like we were out for a walk.

We were, in fact, though whoever named
the streets in this quarter seems
to have had a prescient sense
for poetic irony. I nodded my head
up at the street sign -
clear enough, as signs go. "Why don't

we amble along down thisaway?"

She agreed most pleasantly, "let's"
and we slunk
down Sex Alley,
holding hands and conversing
in hushed tones
we each supposed

were dulcet.

The alley was blind, like
love is blind, but we didn't mind. It
ended in a sort of a culvert. "Say,"

she said. "It's pretty back here.
Like a mossy grotto." I had to agree;
she had me there.

It felt like a place to make a wish. And I did,
but it isn't the kind of a wish you share.

We ambled back out, and continued on
from there - she, still refusing me
sex in every gesture, even though

I wasn't asking! I was cool to her
charms by then. I was in the "friend
zone" - the only thing that mattered
to me now was hanging out and hearing
her problems! But she hadn't any.

This was a mixed signal, but I didn't
know how to interpret it. What
does it mean when a girl
has no problems, but keeps
hanging out with you anyway?

She tossed her head with a bell-like
laugh and began gamboling coquettishly.
It felt like some kind of veterinary
emergency. "What are you doing and
what do I do about it?" I demanded,
gravely like Raymond Burr. It worked
a treat! "Come gambol coquettishly
with me," she sang, so I nodded gravely,

and together we gamboled down the street.
It was a risk I had to take, not knowing
what her game was. People pointed
and laughed as we passed, gamboling.
I'm pretty sure

we ended up on the internet, not even
trading naked pictures or anything, just
gamboling endlessly down the street! I bet
we look ridiculous.

But it felt pretty good. Liberating.
What more
could one ask

from a girl like this? Anyway,

like I said at the start, I'm glad
I asked. It's good to know she knows
it's the kind of thing I'd

ask her, and it's fun to guess,
but much better to know
the answer

"momentous"

What does it mean to be here? Now
is the only moment. When we find out,
we will wish we were there. Then,
we will know: it's too late
to care then how now will go.

adult content

Sex is the stupidest secret
we try to keep from the whole wide world
of everyone who knows,

because there are children in it. We must
keep them from finding out where
children come from.

Children are the key to the whole thing.
Not our own, necessarily - others'
work just as well. As long as there are
children
to think of! We have our excuse to protect
and preserve the dignity of the process
from being examined.

It's a grunting, slippery, damp
and laughing, ridiculous process,
an embarrassingly awkward
fumbling push to excruciating joy,
in a helpless and united struggling
against and for and against and for
the moment and its ending.

And sometimes it's awful! At least,
a mistake - you blundered it! That's not
how! Can't even look at each other now
without laughing. Maybe you should -
it might be amazing to admit

the ridiculous.

Other times
it's the sweet,
sweaty core of life
itself so amazing and beyond expectation ever
- but then, when you're done, lying there
glowing,
pulse slowing, panting
to deep breaths to relax, and
stretching into and along each other,
limbs thrown over absently
in a sliding and finding and settling clutch

- surely
it's even more
embarrassing, that
this ridiculous process

could be worth so much.

What does it say about you? About us?

We can't let all that be openly
acknowledged and known. Oh, everybody knows,
but as long as we have children - the excuse
they provide, to pretend we don't speak
or think much of such things - we can
salvage almost all of our dignity,
really. Imagine if we didn't have

the excuse of a worldful of children
to keep our secrets shameful from.

Children are a conspiracy between adults
to keep from ever having to openly admit
how hilarious much of adult life is. Shhh!
The children must be shielded from this!
Until they've matured enough to grasp
the veil of awe and mystery
we've swathed and swaddled it in,
and deduced from that: it's serious!
And treat it as such. Respect the veil
and leave it in place to be judged

grown up.

Imagine if people, to be grown-up,
didn't agree to all that. Picture people
picturing us wanting and doing all these
undignified things - enterings and clenches
and pervasions and cries - or worse:
us not. Especially don't let that
come up. Because we have to.

It's our shameful duty:

The adult content of our lives.

Whether in practice it's great or good
or awful doesn't matter. It's really much better
for everyone, to agree
let's leave this undiscussed.
Only spoken of
in giggling whispers,
when we've looked around
to make sure it's clear. Only just
us here - no children to overhear,
and giggle and whisper at things
they can't understand to treat seriously.
Only this way, we're safe with how serious
sex is. So serious it makes us look ridiculous,
by comparison.

We have to keep the whole thing
shushed, dismissed, deferred - "Don't ask.
When you're older you'll understand,"

No you won't. You'll just grow up, like us
and agree

We must protect and
preserve our dignity

from the children. We

who know full well
they know better than we
how funny all this looks, and is, and

ought to be.

comforts and commodities

You're so sharp,
so smart, so yourself
in too many ways to tell,
and every day I'm deeper
into you.
I can feel myself slip,
like I wanted to, and maybe
like you want me to as well?

Not to have, or to hold,
just to be sociable,
and to know that whenever
you've given up,
there's someone you know
who'd buy your soul,
and never expect it
to bring him luck.

Evils of Absolutionism

Evil, how they talk about it now,
is fake. And it kills real people,
Like fake orange juice can, if

It's fake enough. Let's get back to real
Evil, which also kills people, but

At least you didn't have
The competing chorus of moral
Idiots and intellectual cowards explaining

It away with reference to nonexistent things,
Or the lack thereof.

Back when they knew what evil was. They were
Dispassionate about the matter-of-fact

examples:

The avalanche
or tsunami that crushes
and suffocates. The turn
of cards or markets or heels
that wipes out your fortune
or seals your fate. The blow
from above behind cracking skull
and back, whether dealt by
hand, club, act of
God (or gods, or God's duly- or
unduly-appointed representative), or
falling eucalyptus branch. Enough

Examples. These all and many
More are evils.

Evil is what befalls us. Some greater,
Some lesser: all are evils. And,

Unless you happen to live in moral
Idiocy or intellectual cowardice

(Both evils, by the way - devil
Take the lesser),

Are evil.

Evil is and evils are preventable and inevitable;
deliberate and careless; natural and artificial;
amoral, immoral, or moral; justified, rationalized,
impenitent or unnoticed; utterly random or cunningly
wrought.

Evil is and evils are very easy to see, recognize, class
and define. Evil is a useful, productive concept, and evils

Are senseless, destructive things. And

They do not lead on to good and better things.
Good and better things lead on from them.

Away from them, cursing and aggrieved, always
Away from them. Not from them. Past and through
Them and on, towards more to come, but hoping for

The preventable kind. With eyes
A bit wiser, to recognize.

Evil people

Do exist. They account for only
The smallest, or one of the smallest
Portions of the world's evils:

Deliberate, and see if you find
You think these people, or
These evils if you prefer, are

preventable.

honey pepper beef

You have met perfection
and so, don't expect to again,
not by chance - you know
how long it takes, to run into it
that way.

And so you say
you don't expect it. But you're sad
when it doesn't show up, secretly
you think "How hard can it be?
To get it right! For me." Someone

has shown the way, and forever
you know what perfection tastes like.
You don't expect it, but
willing to be surprised,
now that you know the possible

you look for it and ask. And

they bring you this. It is just
ok, it is good enough, if
you hadn't known. You smile, sad
and enjoy what you can,
which is mostly good.

And maybe it's time to try
new things. For now. You don't want

to live in the past.

weightless

There are times that will come
when the plans have been made,
where the means are laid out
and the ways have been booked,

and all will be set, in time
and in place

and we'll just have to wait
for it all to cook.

Today, all the cupboards
are cleaned-out bare. There's nothing
to throw together and see, and I hang
on a hook like a slab of meat
that doesn't fit into the recipe,

or the heaviest rock in a depth of space
waiting forever for gravity.

There are times that come only once in your life.
Where all the close calls and the lessons learned
too late to seize chances flown past, ungrasped,
in so many days of feast and fast,
pull together at last - and reach

for the pieces to pick and turn,
and move into place - filling up squares
of calendars. And all will be set, in time
and space. And finally, we

will be ready to wait.

And boy, that is going to be hard
to take.

"She's giving up Pad Thai"

She loves Pad Thai! But I guess that
it's "loved." She'd eat it all the time.
She'd even take a picture first. Her,
in front of a beautiful steaming plate
of Pad Thai, beautiful. Her face
with the most fathomless look. A look
of utter seriousness, as if "I must
investigation this dish."

I loved

those pics. So much devotion
and dare I say passion, in them.
Or passion about to be. Mind open,
primed by expectation to know perfection
is not to be expected, but hope in consummation

of what can be. Perfection sometimes.
A good and proven reason, for serious hope.

She kept eating Pad Thai, but
at some point she left off taking
a picture. Which was fine - it was
a whim to begin with! But I was glad
to have witnessed that look. So intent,
so into it. So interested. She kept eating
Pad Thai, kept mentioning Pad Thai - when
I ate Pad Thai with her, I think I saw that look!
But maybe not. Maybe it was always just a look
of concentration, taking a picture. Maybe that look

was her already knowing, even then, she'd be taking her leave

of Pad Thai. "My investigation, so deep and ongoing,
is almost complete. You've given me all you can,
Pad Thai!"

How can she give up Pad Thai? How
many favorite foods can you have? Food isn't
like music. Get sick of a song, sure. But food
becomes part of you! And you need it.

Food isn't like a song. It's like a person
who's part of your life. How

could you walk away from a plate heaping high
with an unending supply of what always seemed
to be your favorite?

As all the Pad Thai in the world, so
confident, happy a moment ago

watches you go?

I mean, it's fine, it's ok. Pad Thai isn't ME,
and she's free to eat what she pleases, or
what pleases her. Whatever she thinks will.
I don't want her to enjoy what she doesn't
want, just to please me. So I could say, "Ah!
So good to see you eat your beloved Pad Thai
you love so much! An enduring symbol
of constancy as its own reward." I don't
want that - I would never say that!

I might get that look.

The look that can't be fathomed,
but you think
it says "Here is a thing for deep and serious
investigation. I must continue. There

is always more and good to find,
in this most interesting and satisfying
dish. An absolute favorite,"

but maybe it says, "I wonder how much
more there is, that I can get into you?" Or
out of you.

Or maybe it says "do I look like a fool
paying so much attention to this?"

Or maybe it says "I hope that you don't
make too much of this." It's just the most

perfect and beautiful noodle dish
in the world. As I learned,

to my woe.

Big deal, they don't even do it right
half the time. Big deal

What did I even see?

in this

by halves and wholes

I could talk to you forever
about stuff like this. But

I could be wrong. What if

at some point we figure each other out? And

so help each other

figure ourselves out,
and there's no more to talk about there?

We'd have to be pretty full of ourselves,
then. Rightly so, and
there'd still be all the world,
all those other people to figure out,
and class them and categorize them where they fall,
between us. Which they surely would,

even if we have to switch
our stances and change direction
to get them all. Then there'd be the cosmos,

from quantascopic to multiversal, for us
to toss between in test and play, copied out
in miniscule and majuscule in what we say,
understanding it or not as we go, remembering
where we left off, and picking up

again,
because it still sticks out. And every thing we learn
would give us cause to go back
and review or renew everything

we knew,
or thought we knew.

I'm not worried about all of that.
It can take care of itself, but
let us care for it, anyway. There's more

than enough there
for the rest of a lifetime,
and twice as much for two.

Shocking List of Tipoffs for Narcissists and Psychopaths

In general,

you shouldn't be walking around free

trying to identify your friends, coworkers, even family
members as psychopaths and narcissists. To do so

could land you in school for a very long time,
trying to make a career of it and you can skip

that part. But be aware of this shocking list

of tipoffs: have you ever noticed people?

Is one of them apparently empathic? Tipoff.

Narcissists and psychopaths are notorious empaths.
A genetic mutation, they can sense emotions of others

and this is why they don't care. Tipoff number one.

Has your lunch been taken with no sign, from the communal
fridge multiple times by the same person? Tipoff number two.

That person is a sociopath. He (and it's always he
with these clowns - not sociopaths, the lunch thing) should have left

a sign!

But we're not focusing on sociopaths. That's tipoff
number three.

At this point you may be:
avoiding eye contact,
mentally rehearsing stories,

fidgeting with your left hand only, or your right hand
if you're left-handed, or both
if you're ambidextrous -

these body language cues can be very illuminating. Thank you.

Do them. Don't hide

who you are from me. That's tipoff number four,
if you do but I can see you're not. Therefore

I'll let you off with a warning: you may

be having an off day, and not
have a pathological problem.

Go on about your existing business - and watch out.

Somebody around here's a narcissist

or a PSYCHOPATH.

And I know who it is

She glitters

She glitters,
she shines,
the light loves to bounce
everywhere that she does
sends it curving around
her, and shifting the spectrum -
the prism breaks wide,
all the colors
catch wavelengths
and scatter to hide
in her eyes, as she tosses
her glorious locks,
she surfs away gaily, and I
wake

in her wake,
and wash up

upon rocks.

damaged goods?

damaged goods,
you could call me.
I wouldn't see much
to correct you with.
I couldn't correct you
if you were wrong,
and I am damaged.
By years past, by loss
of faith. In what,
I'm not sure anymore.
But if you ever thought
I was goods, I'd take

or put
stock in that,
and open a store.

The thought of you consumes

The thought of you
consumes me sometimes, like I
was pad thai and the thought of you

was you.

I don't need
to say "except in a good way,"
because that's already a good
way. Other times

the thought of you uplifts me.

Like a forkful of pad thai
to your oh! God - open lips.

Still other times damn it, I'm
hungry. And I want some PAD THAI

Something horrible has happened

I woke up to people

talking about it already.

With a sinking sickening and a
nod
-shaken head,

grimace face, I gave them
to falsely know
I was already clued in, so

they wouldn't feel the need
to update me breathlessly and
blow-by-blow "what we know
so far." And really, my cynical
organ feels sure I do already
know, and wants to see

how many of the details I can correctly
guess,
racing the sad awful dreamlike-familiar moment
when I can no longer say

the truth has been withheld from me.