The Ah-Ha Moment.

Where do they all come from, these things that swirl around my ever blurring vision of myself like this vortex of tell tale signs in a horror novel. Coming together and pulsing and getting me all wrapped up in bandages and string; crepe paper draped over saturated crimson pinata bloated with candy. And the sweets are my doubt. And the bat releasing the inside is my search. And the kid that keeps swinging is unknown to me. The waking dream lets me wander into the foreground while the camera continues to focus on the background. I become all fuzzy and silly and there's this creeping sense of disbelief. A snapping back to context: I really am here where I was and now I'm not. A quick realignment: I'm me. The cardinal swings lazily in the wind without a care, dying and living all together now. Coming apart later when I leave. I look down and the pebbles I disrupt reach their present points where they map out prisms and geometries. They come together just this one time and I leave it alone. Because I wonder, "Is the smoke still all over the place?" Are we not solid but swarming the air like atomic bees? My thoughts like a bubble in a comic book above my head.

I'm Like a Mirror: I'm Nothing 'til You Look At Me.

So here it is: I don't know where I'm going and I wish for you sweep a flashlight out into the darkness to pierce the fog of where I'm headed.
Do you understand how close to you I am? Do you know how close I am? Do you know that I'm asphyxiating before your eyes? My face plump and ripe. Maroon with eyes like pinballs bouncing through whatever it is you've become. You look like this sighting of the Mother Mary on the underside of a bridge; a stain that we all hope is something with the attributes of mystery and salvation. You look like a brindled little expression of my aspirations two decades ago, where I spanned an ocean and looked up at the stars with a twinkle of bonfire in my eyes way off in the distance of my inner self. Like this set of plates slowly jettisoned into the pained sky with skeet in tow. Just before the pewter is shattered and the binged redneck with bleeding tattoos shutters with delight. You are a creation of my own. You are what I think people think I am. You are completely made up and yet I live my life by you. Wrens and larks keep flying in and out of the fissures in the sky and I don't see where they go or why they keep coming back. That darkness beyond this world is what we all put together; what we all work towards to self create our selves so we stop thinking our lives are going no where. The more I think of myself in this way, the more I become that way. The way, this ever winding path: like father, like son, like a rather excessive pun.

This Certainly Missed Connection.

Who
you
thought
I was,
I am
not.
Who
you
think
I am
I will
not be:








Oh so good it is to be like that one wisp of air
drawn across your lips so fleeting it isn't fair.
Just this one moment to be striding in your eyes,
at this age it has to be easy to sympathize.
Like a thin sheet of ice on river bend,
my exterior can be torn thin, set to rend.
I have a tenderness inside of me like small animal,
looking bleary eyed with hopes to run but crawl.
crawl, sprawl, it's all that my sensitivity can muster,
after all, this is a blizzard it survives, a bluster.
Coldness at every turn keeps it to its knees,
at times it lies down, but springs and careens.
When instead of my lips longing to be the gust of wind,
they are actually making connection with your grin.
That longing little creature keeping me alive,
makes plans for the future to strive.

A lost little thing written for you two winters ago. When I was first introduced to your smile.

Brothers, In a Sense.

I feel like writing myself into a corner. Trauma skin period piece: the size of a mouse with the weight of a gravestone. Dislike of specific people with regards to their passports and how they talk. Mental masturbation without climax bringing red eyed madness jogging often with presidential candidates and stopping for a slow motion fast food meal. The cash register appears to be malfunctioning as the buttons are greasy and the keys are jagged with the whetstone running quickly like some recent jailbreak. French people having animated conversations while the cold ekes into my arms. Everything seems to be happening together. Looking out the window of the internet I see that Tom Waits has a daughter my age. For some reason this inspires a vague feeling of longing and despair. As if her life must be a testament to my self worth. It's better over there and worse over here. A flash bulb explodes above the bouncers shiny dome of a skull and there you are. Waiting in a line for something that will bring shame and loss into your life. Street drugs lessening the blow and this is why we do them. This is why we let go of the reins fastened to our stampeding panting rueful waking dream. I don't see you out there, lover. I don't see you anywhere, lover. I don't even see the possibility of you. Lover.

Echo Echo Echo Echo Echo.

Where is this going? This line of fresh daisies and acrid smoke. This line drawn taut like fishing line bringing up this total abandon and friendly parents across the street from the depths with the calm breeze of blue and gray. Crashed out with a streaming fire dolled up with blisters and cracks along the ever present freeway of your heart that circulates the longing and interruptions of freedom. This isn't going anywhere. Is it? I'm just gaining weight. Emotionally speaking, all this baggage. And the brain surgery didn't help. And these ink trails leaking down my sides: the dramatic dripping off me like pinstripes. Ah well. The emptiness is like silence and the filler is just a cacophony. If I could hear correctly I wouldn't want to anyways. Get it over with, take out the parts that aren't doing it anymore. Cut off my limbs and paint gaudy smiles upon my upper arms. Take off the lampshade and squint at what was dampened before. Feel along the underside of the crease. Fold in my heart where likenesses of foolhardy explorers were carved to the disappointment of me, myself, and cry outside near the casting glance of a river that fills up with the clouds all so blue and clear. Is it pink or blue? Is the mind a tone? A hue? Does it change color when it deceives itself? A procedure will be needed soon to make sure this doesn't go too far.

Is Anyone Even Listening Anymore?

Be careful when your fingernails stop growing. I am in a sea of milk: cloudy supine like roots growing around a baby's bottle. I am in a sea of ink: depths unlike the shallow bathtub blooming with slit wrist flowers. But different somehow, when the serene twilight looks down on you like a father. When your hair curls around your cheeks like my desire. When I lose sight of my want, there will be the moving of the feast from far away to right here. My hands all atwinkle and stupid with fright shaking delightful. The fingernails stop growing: yes, just be careful. I want there to be this unfolding mystery getting darker and darker with every light we turn on. I want to drink of lactating nipples and draw upon soils tasteless and auburn. But I want to stare it down as it descends and let the knife slowly enter my heart. I want the blood to pump hard and sear metal pins through me with a driving rain. My knowledge of my own mortality. It comes quick. It bears a fuzzy little pill that shuts down my very function. It lets me off softly. To just drift, oh, just to drift out there with the tons of often forgotten aspirations. This life is funny when you pretend. Just pretend. Say nothing when you feel yourself slip away. Hold your tongue. Like a fine catch upon a crystal hasp. Hold it there writhing.

Almost Museum Quality.

Crinkly: The only way to describe a thirteen hour work day after three hours of fitful sleep. These tender hands like frills on a rug and the body billowing without conscious wavelengths. Empty tender: sallow, creased eyes rolled up like dollar bills loosely piled upon something for someone with a predisposition for lamb destruction without a purpose. They're grazing upon the bedspread like tiny balls of cotton and my eyes lolling, looking out upon the expanse of tailored squares led to believe they are some landscape full of tiresome creatures made to grow hair and die. Made to blow fair and timely winds across this verdant patch low down on the planets waistline. Upside down and harpooned with the urban lightplay shooting up in my eyes I've realized the seasons are reversed and I'm having a holiday barbecue with someone I abhor. The alcohol is a calm hand upon my brow and the tears leap into the pores like pre-drowned kidneys all wasted up in the long forgotten inebriated early morning hours. Where someone drained a bottle and someone looked out upon a city landscape with a sentiment akin to infant gurgles. Where something fell without sound. Where no one heard: I've lost a good thing and gained a good thing. Where no one saw: I've severed a good thing and attached a good thing. Where there was an abduction in the woods and at that precise moment, the preteen debutante was released from her horrifying ransom grab situation into the loving embrace of her preternaturally endowed financial predicament. Some sort of arrangement must be made to keep a logical ratio of sleeping and waking lest the zombies walk out into the fields to become me in a moment or two.