so close to free

my body is
an increasingly frail
cage.

But the thing within
knows not what it is
outside of the bars
and the bounds
where it lives

flaring

"Your nostrils are flaring," she gasped,

We stood close. Far too close for anyone
or two, who had just met
expectation - well, yes.

They are.

My skin
is palpitating as well. My eyes
are hyperventilating.
my vision
has become, and
the hair on the back of my neck
is desperately reaching
for air. In short, I
am a good foot taller than I was
just eight inches ago, but
I'm not really the slightest bit
self-conscious now, now should I be?

Oh.

You
are
substance

to this recurring dream
that I've been
having

to lie to myself about, saying:
no, no,
no.

becoming un-

the surge has turned into inertia
we could be unstoppable, now at our best

I'd like to see something or somebody try
to get in our way - just to put up a test

we started up slow
but we've steadily gained
every moment momentum increases
no strain

we are straight on creating an infinite line
and there's more force that's building up
hard, from behind

Any person or thing that comes crossing our path -
the direction we're heading is getting the wrath
the immovable object - there is one, they say! -
better
hurry
its
ass
to
come
stand
in our way.

shit for brains

shit for brains
is a good exchange
if you find someone willing to
take your shit

but a person like that -
their brain is apt
to be worth less than what
you paid for it.

sealed

our dreams have turned to dust,
my love.
so sprinkle them
upon these forms of ours. So still,
so pale we lie now side-by-side,
our lives struck down by bites
of apples known to us: forbidden fruit
of knowledge, life, and sudden death
with candy coat - enticed to stick
in lovers' throats

Enticed by love, we bit. Enticed
by sweet, our lips and corpses lie
in state - so still, so pale! In rich,
brocaded robes
we wait.

we die

since your kiss is the only one
true kiss, true love, to break my spell -
and since my kiss is your spell's key,
I'll lie here helpless, next to thee

our dreams have turned to fairy dust
so sprinkle them my love, dear ghost -
and think of wonderful, good things
struck down by fate,
we'll wait in love
on hope

toast

let's drink to all the reasons
that we absolutely "can't"
let's drink to all the reasons
that we're never going to work
let's drink to all the reasons
that we'd be fools, or that we
will be fools.

Let's drink to all the reasons
that we're such a bad idea,
until the shadows overcome themselves
in your glow, in your glow
well we're never going to work

- we'll be millionaires, as well
our prenuptial agreement shall state:
that each will get the other's.
And the mansion that they build for us
in hell, will be technically heaven
due to something involved, with zoning
laws - an error on the devil's part. Oh,

but we won't
move in.

We'll be gone - over
open seas, far gone.
We'll tie three sheets
together for a sail,
and you'll lie out naked
on the deck
in the sun.

Now let's drink
to all the reasons
that we can't
fail.

splashsplashsplash

I never mind you skimming me
to find the places to delve deep
my surfaces are there for you
to skip across with sidearm toss
until your smooth flat stone finds cause
to slow its path, some eddy swirls
and fascinates with gravity -
I'll pull you in with something,
girl

trouble

When I am in trouble, I am invisible
because
I am trouble.

lady miss monstress

she ate the girl next door
and moved in the week before
and then prior to that I saw her
more and more around downtown
she kept trying to catch my eye
and when she did, the shiver ran
straight up my spine, into my mouth
I coughed, and spat it out
it shook, and
died.

seasonal affective disorder blues

my body does that stupid thing
where it gets sad without the sun
I'm waiting on the solstice, now
dot dot dot dot
...days, get long

kit

I would have put you together
oh,
just exactly like this:
how you fit
where your lines and your curves converge
and your opposite surfaces merge
sliding up and down together into
this pretty little
urge

why,
if I had assembled you from a kit
that I myself had ordered out of a catalog
you could not possibly be any better a fit
for what I need
or for
my eyes, or
my fates and destinies, for
what I would have envisioned
if I tried.

Unfortunately - I didn't.
You came complete, as-is
straight off the line
and into my life. And I
had no part
in putting you together
so perfect, such art
I must concede
your virtues and faults
though they are just as I'd have chosen - had
I chosen - they
are not due to me.

I can't take credit for you

who I only managed to stumble onto
absolutely by chance
and snare

and I don't know why
but I kind of care

because you
are so perfect
for me, and I never knew it. You came true
where I never wished.
When you deserve
a lifetime of me wishing
and picturing, waiting for you -

to lead up to this

a girl named E

her name was an Epiphany
in fact, that was her name
that's what her mother named her.
She said that it just came to her
and no one could explain

supply

you
are
an
endless supply
of the best
there is.

You're an endless supply
of what life should have been
from the moment of born
and through each moment since.

You're exactly what we all lost faith in -
now, I'm re-convinced.

I was right all along! - kind of,
sort of, I was. Here you
come along now to prove
everything does have a purpose
and point

you won't ever deny
you won't run out on me -
you're an endless supply

wide

my increasingly-dizzy intellect
has been open
to poke, to engulf,
to inspect,
every perfect and imperfect
theory and thought -
I don't know, if I could
close it now,
or if I ought

with fingers crossed

you and me is
a bet
I refuse to hedge.

If it comes in,
I am set for life

punch my ticket I am gone
like a lottery recipient

If it doesn't

then

there never was a chance
for me to be as happy

as I now

finally

know

I can be.

by no stretch

this world is finite,
but, I'll bet -
we can fill it with the infinite.
- and it will fit

spout

The hand-soap dispenser
hair-trigger, spat out
a jet-force shot - splurt
off the palm of my hand
and now I've got an eyeful:
in the mirror, I can see my shirt and tie,
stained with a wet, pearly pink ribbon
of sanitizing, chemical-scented jism
curling and dripping. So: maybe
I pulled the lever too fast.

But come on.

They
really
need to look
at re-angling
that

spout.

the fist

from now on
anyone who fucks with me
gets this

(holds up fist)
from now on,
this is my answer.

People talk and talk about how
"violence doesn't solve anything," but
it is a fact that violence
has not solved much. In terms of problems. But
it is a fact that violence
is rarely given a chance
to solve a problem! Most problems -
violence is never given the chance
to solve them.

How is that fair? To judge violence
and to give it a poor grade
for problem-solving
on problems it was never given a chance to solve?

from now on,
this is my answer.

the fist

my twin

If I was twins
then I would have something
that no one could take away
unless I died. Or he died.
Or she.

But where would my twin be?
would my twin be back there, or
here, where I've chosen to live?
I guess

my life would be totally different, if
I had a twin. Studies would show that we
would both have become firemen
by coincidence

or she would have become
a firewoman. Or I would have

but given all that
I guess I am glad that I was not born
a twin. Yet still

it sometimes seems unfair
that I was the one with the chance to live - that he
or she

wasn't given.

forward

I want to write a book with you,
so we could have our way with words
and find new ways to keep the rules
improved by our exceptions, blurred
by lines so straight and clear, we'd draw
- then back, erase, and fill in black
with sketching chalk, and charcoal,
all chiaroscuro - bright as fact
and dark as fiction, intertwined
we'd work and weave our way
straight through.

'til story leaves the book behind
we've always had one plot
in mind

flexible plans

There wasn't much left when our train took off
we had two valid tickets, non-refundable, two cups
of hot, sweet coffee (black) and: two full bags
jammed cozy, snug covered by our jackets on hooks,
between your favorite magazines and my self-imposed books,
plus a couple of rags (like the Wall Street Journal, and
the free fun times weekly of the city we're about to leave)

- packed inside the tall narrow closet of our passenger compartment,
behind a flimsy lock on the inside of a sliding door,
set in a long drab-carpeted corridor
that was all pulling off,
accelerating away

You looked back to me, smiled and said:
"Let's stay!"

the memory of demons

my demons are strong,
and they've learned to live on
they have learned to move on,
and to live without me

they've gone out in the world
I will see them sometimes
but they're not in my life
the way you used to be

when we chased them for fun
and we caught every one
we wrung each one for every drop
of its juice

when we'll see one, sometimes -
it will shriek and fly off!

they remember us well,
from those years of abuse.

indescribable (alternate version)

indescribable, you are
though I try,
though I keep falling short. Though I
will make a life's work of it,
if I have to: I will

capture you

in words, in a flow
like creeping amber, but
before you are drowned in that slow,
golden tongue of honeyed language, liquid
hardening to tomb, embraced, preserved, killed -
- every time I think I can cover you! You
keep bursting free: a faerie dragon,
from her chrysalis

a winner is you!

does anyone want to win
three whole weeks of happiness?
I'm thinking of putting together a contest
for people to enter and win - but guess
what the grand prize is! Yes, you know best -
your chance in a million, three whole weeks blessed!
by complete and uninterrupted happiness -
mine, that is.

At your expense.

working towards

Because there is always hope.
Because there is always hope.

She still has time for this to come true.
She won't be waiting for it. She will keep
working. Towards, towards,

towards.

She will keep working towards,
For as long as there's Hope, and

there's always hope.

"While there's life, there's hope."

Whoever said that
is dead.

But if it was ever true, its truth
lives on. If

it was ever true.

And
she knows there's hope

because she has it. And
she still has time

because

it hasn't come true.

yet,

wine half-hangover beautiful

my head feels stuffed with wadded cotton
pleasantly full
and a big improvement
over that yellow, wet spongy thing
that generally sits in my skull, on its ass
thinking wonderful thoughts
as the world roars past

for me,
right now:
we can sit outside
in the sun, in the chill of a day going by

that we woke to, bright; too bright
too fast

now we're sharing the last of this one last glass

oh, this garden
needs its weeds.
And there's nothing
I'd rather do, but be.

Here with you,
we can slow this all down,

and see.

theory

God made the world, you know -
but science made it
round

deft, and adeptly

I've got a mind on me
like a ton of bricks
and I'm not afraid
to toss it around

do you want to play catch?
here it comes, all at once
hey, you're pretty damn good!

what a juggling stunt

indescribable

indescribable, you are
though I try,
though I keep falling short. Though I
will make a life's work of it,
if I have to: I will

capture you

in words, in a flow
like creeping amber, but
before you are drowned in that slow,
golden tongue of honeyed language, liquid
hardening to tomb, embraced, preserved, killed -
- every time I think I can cover you! You
keep bursting free: a faerie dragon,
from her chrysalis

GAY

he holds that thought

he holds that thought
of you
so tight
the thought has flesh,
and warmth, and skin, goose-bumped
between the palms and fingertips
(of mental hands,
I mean)

impasse

you and me,
or as you put it -
"you and I,"
- we agree,
we can see
that we've had our differences,
but we've always been on the same side.
But now,
I can see you yawning at me
from the opposite cliff of this yawning divide.
And for once - we can't meet half-way, this round
because there,
there's no ground.

Just a long way down

disillused

God damn it, you
hang the toilet paper
the wrong way!
I knew it
I knew you weren't
I knew you couldn't be
perfect

deception

sometimes I wish
I could not see auras
I hate the way
your whole head lights up
when you lie to me.

the worst part is,
you know that it does that.
you want me to see.
you keep protesting that you don't believe, but
the last time you said so,

your whole head lit up.

plain pasta

Lately I've been craving plain pasta.
Cooked in water.
Store-bought,
with a boring sauce.
I don't know what it is,
or why.

It was the only thing
that you cooked for us.
I'm not craving the lovely
dinners out, or my
rather elaborate recipes
that I made up from scratch
with a pinch of doubt -

just a simple thing, hot
that we both could eat.

half a thing is a thing.

half a thing is a thing.
half a heart feels
full. It just won't beat
as well. It just can't hold
as much -
just as a glass cut in half,
is whole - and it
fills twice as fast,
but your lips will be cut

an easy fix?

she'll never change, no.
Except
you just bet your life that she would
why did you do that?

there are some leaps of faith
that just cannot create
the safe place to land on the other side,
no matter how hard you pretend
to try

and I wish you would ask your eyes
I wish you would have consulted your mind
because next time is already lost, you know
there isn't going to be a next time.

you'll be stuck with this time, till she breaks down
and cries
and tells you why. Another lie?

it'll be alright. Because people can change, well

- how can a might that might never occur
make up for a now that's as bad as her?

sweet as sweet

I just found out
what sweet is, sweet
as sugar on your tongue
learns for the first time
how it tastes

guardian

so despicable are we
that we see every lime-streaked,
liquified corpse
of our self,
that we've killed
and thrown down this well
as they soak in, and settle -
it isn't enough. There is worse on the way;
we need more.
No, the world is not safe
yet,
from what we hold in store.

Down this almost-bottomless well
where we live, carving sigils
in hard, rounded stone
that curves round us in circles
protection, protection
for you all, from me
we've perfected a method
to raise these walls higher
from down here,
you see that the top isn't high enough yet
to be safe, absolutely
we'll never forget
what we'll never forgive
and can never explain.

Encircled, alone,
we make bitter, pained,
desperate efforts to hold -
to enchain,
to imprison
this thing that we know.

For no one else can know
(though we try hard to tell)
no one else can protect
no one else sees the hell
that is waiting to spring
on some bright, ripened life

- we must wall it up higher, now
wrap the chain tight

for there's no one else, dear
who knows how deep and far
we could sink, we could go,
yes, we know what we are
oh, we know what we are

and

we'll keep you from harm.

No one else here can save you now, love

move along.

(as if pronounced "Cal-i-forn-EYE-AY")

we drove into the sunset for a week
trying not to make it go too fast
when we finally got there, we could see
everything was beautiful at last

California
California
please don't go away
(stay with me)
We lived to see the day
in California
if California holds together
so can we

every night I dream that it's the last
panoramic vistas crashing down
tons of gleaming metal, mirrored glass
I wake up to wrap my arms around
you

California
California
please don't go away
(stay with me)
We lived to see the day
in California
if California holds together
so can we

I left behind the world to be with you
we started to create a world, ourselves
if you can't stay here to see it through
the fault beneath my feet goes straight to hell

California
California
please don't go away
(stay with me)
We lived to see the day
in California
if California holds together
so can we
if California holds together
so can we
if California holds together
so can we

If wishes were stitches

I want to apologize
to everyone, for the way that I am
that I cannot change
and that will continue to be:
a tax upon your patience,
and a frustration to your attempts
to get some kind of broad, shoulder-shruggy position across
in the face of my specific resistence,
or specific insistence,
or simply my specific
existence -
which I know has been quite unfortunate
for some of you
to deal with.

I realize
I take what I understand to be true
and I score and slice, and whittle it down
to the hardest core and clearest point
that I possibly can,
(given my limited abilities)
and then,

I pound,
and pound, and I
pound, pound it home.

Which can smart, a bit.
I know,
some people are a little tender
where they live.

But you know what? I can't do any better
than to try to give you what I understand,
to the best of my understanding,
the clearest way I can.
I do it not to show you
up, or to shut you up
or down. I do it
So that you can do likewise, and -

then we can see where we stand.

So while I want to apologize to everyone,
I feel that it would be hypocritical of me.

So I can't.