Sulcus

She traces tract lines

End plates

And unencapsulated

Fibers

Makes notes of how they

Quiver to her touch

Sulking and gyrating

Brains

Undead reproductions

Pinned and tagged for testing

Do clockwork sheep dream of Apples

Or do Androids keep them awake

Asking for a drink or a snack

Neither could enjoy

Cabbages times five

Splitting tunnels

The traffic in those tubes is killer

Yes Doctor.

Can you tell me again?

I wasn’t listening

Now I’m ready

But I won’t understand

Been far too long

Forgotten how to remember

Build the pathway, she says

Epinephrine crashing through

Eliminating the noise

Until it finds a new place to hide,

Growing its own new island

Welcome or not

That depends on

Your medicine

Not Enough Words

Changing words.

There are so so many I have. Would love to give place to play.

I can’t is simple.

Short.

It doesn’t hurt as much as an explanation.

Don’t ask me anymore questions because I’m covered in bruises. Cuts I to don’t have time to cover.

Blood it can’t be bothered to wipe away.

Unless you carry a first aid kit

Listen to I can’t.

I can’t

look it up. Grand words for grand life work in poems, not in shuffling savings to checking to keep the lights on.

I run in place for punishment

While others walk barefoot with snails for joy

Typing with one hand, stirring with the other

Roasting juices in my paragraphs

Might actually flavor the story

With something more than

Killing the hero because you have

Nothing left for her to lose.

I do not have the emotional savings to spend heedlessly on

Wrapping thoughts in pretty packages

So I don’t scare those with time and to linger and stare

I. Can’t.

I could if it had a Time Machine and could fly back and make a million new choices of

not that boy, not that night, not that class, not that city, not that job, not that medicine, not that friend, not that dog, not that apartment, not that wet carpet, not that road with all the traffic, not that friend who wasn’t, not that doctor, not that birthday, not that baby

Maybe I would have the luxury of resource to tell you how I might

So indulge in the gift bestowed of the chance to triple edit thoughts for perceived wisdom and palatablilty. Be honored as a creator and thinker of unsurpassing genius

Barely linking syllables, I will continue saying I can’t.

Because only I care to know the before and after sounds. And I listen if only because I can’t do anything else.

Slicing Sheen

Without scorching birth the dank long night to repose

To die and reinvigorate would be impossible

So she can’t choke out the sun

Seasonal affective my eager companion

Enthusiastic bed fellow.

So she’ll mock the heat

Luxuriate in indifference

Knowing full well

Her choice of ice embrace is

Without hesitations or bounds

A child of the harvest shirking

The scythe

Although she twists her back

Alone and weightless

Prepared but never satisfied

Summer presses her down onto her back

Uncontrolled heft

Disregarding consent

She reaches fingertips to her open window

Beckoning her dissolution from her sheen

Born one month

And then five decades too soon

September light sears

Pinholes of pain

Not made for life

Exposed

Until the comfort of cold

Consoles

Photo credit: Cru Kazmierczak

Surrounding Sunrise

Hidden away inside

Cheeks and hair

And too-warm wrappings

Tucking away

Sacred and unseen

Waiting for the worthy

Ready to reveal

An entire winter’s

Survival for a smile

Run fingers over weeds

Not pretty is not dangerous

Consider alternatives to crisis

Find a pond

Might show reflected

One most needing valued

The Left Behind

The slow into the curve

acceleration from the straight away

Moving in

Moving up

Moving on

Memories clicking in the rear view

Around the empty reel

Light shining white

In a black room

Soundtrack empty

Sound pulled out

Itching with blank space

Idling with routine

Baffled by dichotomy unknown

Blanketing under known

Picking and protesting and prostate

Then standing again

Missing not lost

Found not familiar

Delicious if you can but

Eat around the burnt bits

The left behind

Right ahead

Sandbags

A single drop

Cohesive with the

Loose oxygen

Clinging to the sides

Of the glass and each other

Trusting the current to fatigue

Believing waves will fall away

Even when the watermarks on

Your walls

Remind you

Paint and nails

Only dance over the damage

You still feel

Knew

Felt

Real

Historic

Etched

Waiting for dawn

Holding for space

Convincing yourself

Not again

A mist isn’t a hurricane

A thunder clap isn’t a hammer

Maybe the rain

Is only rain

And you have

boots tall enough

For puddles

Didn’t Ask

didn’t ask

not for your compliments 

or your suggestions

not for your beautifuls 

or your babes

not for your offers to do nothing

or your willingness to not share

not for your partial truths

or your outright lies

not for your illusions and daydreams

or your fairytales or future

didn’t want 

your pretty pictures, real as  resurrected infants

or your horrors realized

your nightmares in my bed

or your food on my screen

your constant commandeering

and then your secret retreat

your comparisons and your not quites

your so closes and your not enoughs

your second thoughts 

and your blind apologies

what is the ask

what is love and safety

challenge and respect

reality with petals and thorns

dreams with sweaty sheets

and a washing machine 

down the hall

given the decent truth 

not being told the clothes 

are clean

knowing

damn well

they are dirty

Bed Load

The dog slept on my soaked muddy

River clothes

Finding comfort in the rankest thing in

The house

Wasn’t much to choose from

Which could be better

Or worse

Unexpected

Wanting to punk out his white fur

With some sift and dirt

Named

Bed load

By those who know

I don’t know

But I understand

Wanted to surround yourself

Wrapped in thick, unctuous

Slick, commanding just

Skin and body

Rebelling

Compelling

What are you doing

Laughing

Pleasure

Looking so deep in

Eyes you fear you might fall

In the creases

And that might be

Delightfully frightfully fine

But I like that shirt

And I hope the river

Gives me a chance

To wear it again

Even if it’s still gritty

I like the scratches

Saints

The saints are beautiful

Staring behind stone

Some following

Some blank

Not yet bleeding

From hands and feet

That takes faith

More than

Blind turns unguided

By mechanical

Voices

Trusting a voice

No one has ever head

As you hear it

In the same twisted canal

Where that sound is born

I sweat under lights of performance

Not quite a soldier

But fighting

Only human salt

Less sanguinous

Only because of the breathing

Could belief be based

In something possible?

I’ve seen it

Touched it

Felt the air shift

And shivered

From the heat of it

Sacrifice and risk

Look at us

Writing stories

Where we

Dare the devil

To battle

With the draw

Of a heart

Still beating

Warmth I Give

Don’t know

What hides underneath

The fibers and striations

Only visible without a

Focused scope

What did you do with those scissors

Short levers for skin

Long forces for hair

Fulcrum neck

Pivoting to look

Anywhere else

Except straight

Or back

Make cuts where

You see they need to be

Anything to

Make cuts where

You wrote long

And wrong and rambled

Don’t let them look

Another second

Read another word

Make it go away

Don’t know

How another

Will ever happen.

Because I don’t know

How can you

It’s the rent in my

Armor

That makes

Me curse the arrow

Not the quiver on your back

But you draw

And hold

And hold

And release

You don’t know

Where the flesh is

Exposed

Because if you

Do

Let fly

Give the respect of

Showing my pelt

Pride of place

Thankful for the warmth

I give

Me

I can take the cold