Shiny New Toy

And he'll say what he needs to

And he'll do what you like

And as long as it's easier

It's okay if it's not quite right

And he'll smile at the good times

And he'll be there for the bad

And as long as it feels normal

It's okay if you're still so sad

And he'll hold your hand at night

And he'll take you out to eat

And as long as you feel pretty and needed

It's okay if he lets you bleed

And he won't see the mask you wear

And he'll fade in the dimming light

And as long as you know somebody's there

It's still better than the last time

And I'll forget he was my good friend

And I'll be quiet when you pass

And as long as you're together

I guess I'm sorry that I asked

And if he treats you like he did them

As if I have a right to say

But as long as you are happy

Then I guess it's all okay

Anatidaephobia

Took pictures with my crappy camera phone in late February and posted them online only to discover years later that you too were fascinated by that particular water fowl. We discussed the unusual coincidence of our mutual attraction as we crossed the street away from the park. There we made a happy memory, framing ourselves between the bridge and the sky, backlit by a vaguely violet setting sun. Your half-shut eyes glinting a distinct reflection of some distant flame.

"They are my favorite," you said, once again bringing my mind back to the feathered boats below, and between that and the thing with the lemons, I was certain there could be none other in the whole of creation just like you.

"Really?" I asked, smiling to myself as they drifted along, cloud-like, and you floated by my side. You held my hand, then, for the hundredth or so time, but it felt like the first. Always did.

A whole year later, in a close, yet wholly different part of town, my hands stayed jammed into lonely pockets. Three marriages, in different ceremonial stages, posed themselves all across the park. Bludgeoning onto the scene here and there amidst the crowds, passersby with their own lives did something I could never quite figure. With their twisting pathways I watched as stories rewrote themselves in flirtatious conversation or silence filled itself with sunlight. In my hasty getaway, I nearly crashed into a chubby lesbian couple making out under a willow tree by the water.

Digging my steps in deeper, I shuffled along the edge of the pond. I thought of you then as little kids found the way to escape their parents' desperate clutches. One almost fell in had it not been for the sudden site of ripples across the water.

Looking out on the sun-glazed surface, I stooped, perhaps to catch a glimpse through younger eyes. As I leveled my eyes with the extending circlets, a wave of biting nostalgia nearly toppled me. I was by myself now, except for them, a small group of merry sailors in greens and reds and greys and browns. The bridge was gone and so were you, and this time I was not looking down from high above but straight into their alien eyes that belonged so much more than I. Your favorite, my favorite. I couldn't even get a good picture for my phone, not really, to post online so maybe you'd see. One emerald male got close, and I knew then. I wasn't looking at him anymore, not in the same way, but in that moment, I knew it was looking right back at me, it's wide-open eyes glinting a distinct reflection of some distant flame.

Sally in the Storm

It rained the day my parents took us to the beach and we sat in the car and watched as the waves whipped the rock wall and they rose up like hundred-foot-tall forests of mist and the sidewalk looked like a river and on second thought it was only dad who took us.

I remember now. I’ve got to keep the story straight because that was the day mom left. We got home, and I saw him waiting at the door, back way too early from work. He told Sally to get in the car and said grab the sunblock, so I did even though it was raining.

We watched the storm for a while, staring out from the back seat. I would point things out to Sally and she would smile and giggle, but we whispered real low because, well, just because. Dad just sorta sat there, not even taking off his seatbelt. His head hovered just over the steering wheel in between his hands. I don’t think Sally noticed, but I did.

A sudden bluish-white bolt lit up the dark grey sky over the city, like a glowing scar in the clouds. Sally squealed and Dad yelled a bad word real loud. He didn’t look up or anything, but she immediately shushed. He never swore at us before.

He was gripping the wheel so tightly. Whenever we would drive somewhere, I remember he would just barely hold the wheel, gently guiding it around corners or tapping along to the radio. He always said you had to be good to your car, and it would take you wherever you needed to go, said he looked forward to teaching me all about it someday.

The storm had gotten really crazy, the wind and rain slamming loudly against the windows and roof of the old red sedan. But as much as part of me wanted to watch the beach, my eyes were fixed on the back of his head. His shoulders shook a little every once in a while in a weird way, then he shifted into drive.

“Seat...belts,” I barely heard him whisper.

I turned to tell Sally but she wasn’t there. I checked under the seat but she was gone.

“Dad, wait,” I said, sliding over and pushing open the door. I took a breath and dove into the cascade. Running to the wall that separated the beach from the parking lot, I was immediately drenched. Through the pouring rain, I could just make out her small form on the shore, looking so insignificant against the gigantic waves.

I ran to her but slipped on something soft and fell into wet sand. Looking up, I saw her standing, stoic, hands held high, a blank expression on her face. Her eyes were red but I couldn’t tell if she had been crying in the rain. She shook from the cold.

Standing up, I grabbed her shoulders and rubbed them, trying to warm her. Only then did the tide pull out, revealing hundreds of dead jellyfish surrounding us. That must have been what I slipped on, I thought, as I saw that where Sally stood must have been almost the only bit of unjellyfished beach as far as I could see.

“What,” I yelled, “What happened? Where’d you go?”

She just kept looking forward. “I killed them,” she said, “with my superpowers.”

“We’ve got to get back,” I said, grabbing her hand.

“I killed them all,” she said again.

“C’mon,” I said, turning toward the parking lot. I looked up just in time to see Dad’s car driving away.

“Him too,” she said.

Adult(?)hood

It probably would’ve been harder if he was taller than I was, but still, he was actually older. Taller was always intimidating, but only because it essentially simulated older. Actually being older was, I think, the worst of it, because before in my life, older had always been synonymous with authority. Adults were this irreproachably higher class of human, and no matter how much I matured, the glass ceiling of that hierarchy would always hang heavily above me.

We were both adults now, though, and I wasn’t standing here apologizing because I had made some childish mistake or failed to live up to some authority-figure’s expectations for me. If he was disappointed in me, I really didn’t care. My apology was simply an act of social policy, an attempt to smooth things over between the two parties we both represented. As he stared across (not down, for as I said, he was not taller than I was) condescendingly making attempts to correct my behavior, I stood as a herald, perhaps, or a messenger, not as myself. I was to convey someone else’s words; they were words I had come up with on my own, but they did not belong to me.

This is what I have seen adults do my entire life. They create aliases for themselves, paint stern, unwavering masks onto their own wrinkled faces, attempting as best they can to suit a circumstance in the way that is most advantageous for them and theirs. He had insulted my boss, my coworkers, my job, and though I didn’t care very much for any of those things in particular, he had done so behind my back as a way of getting back at me, and this put him at the disadvantage. For the most adult thing, I have learned, is always to be conniving, but the moment one is caught in the act of such petty slyness, one is become, yet again, a child. I knew this all too well as he and I stood toe to toe amidst the business of that room, a quick exchange of words communicating a thousand times more than was said aloud. His condescending rebuke and my even, steady tone, and for once I realized I was the one keeping calm and he the one intimidated by what I had to say.

In that moment, my apology became more than a polite gesture for some small misunderstanding. There grew in my heart a sincere sympathy for the poor old man who no longer held all that power over me. It hit me too suddenly that I had been taught my whole life that being an adult is to have power over me, never altogether realizing till now that I could accidentally have power over anyone else.

Grains of Sand (In the Shape of Question Marks)

Scratch the bones till no flesh remains

You embrace the tome your righteousness dictates

All alone your warm hands now suffocate

Hold the distance, hold the line, make them wait

Doubt me, doubt you
Doubt God, or am I not allowed to

Feel anything anymore

Hold the candle up to your eyes

If you can handle the glaring light

Declare your worth then deny mine

But there is no judgment in your fine print lines

Doubt me, doubt you
Doubt God, or am I not allowed to

Feel anything anymore

Show me the way to salvation
Rituals like polygraphs

Or is it in the hands of a beggar

Take my tithe to do the math

I'll subtract the difference from the print and what it makes

I was looking for a copy of the original, but all I've found are fakes

Doubt me, doubt you
Doubt God, or am I not allowed to

Feel anything anymore

Save me, save you

Where's God, or am I not allowed to

Ask for the manager of the store...house of hope

Anthills and Duck Calls

Slowly, I set fire to the mast and the sails

The waves above to echo those below on my endless ocean trail

I'm going down tonight

I'm going down

Just awake enough on this lonely street to see the headlights

Just in time to notice the sidewalk as a bus comes and kisses me goodnight

I'm going down tonight

I'm going down

Am I only a chain to you

To be so close then break away

I'll let you go if you want me to

Like the last leaves of autumn as they fall

and fade to grey

Slowly I walk, this chilling air tightening in expectation

The waves of clouds hanging on a starless sky like decoration

Are falling down tonight

They’re falling down

Just asleep enough to remember your face smiling at me

Just awake enough to know that I’m still dreaming

I’m going down tonight

I’m going down

Am I only a chain to you

To be so close then break away

I'll let you go if you want me to

Like the last leaves of autumn as they fall

and fade to grey

Watch as the seasons change

And wash me away like a stain

The Sound of Two Glass Bottles Colliding

I wake up choking in the night

I am alone again

I hold these memories inside

Till I am home again

There you go just walking by

I am alone again

But if you turn, you'll catch my eye

I will be home again

If letting go

Means you'll be free

Then you should know

You are free from me

But as I shed

This crimson hue

Tonight I'll break

These veins for you

See the silence stretching thin

(their eyes to stab out all that feels)

They say it is a wall that heals

(watch your mask get so worn in)

Or listen to the cursing mouth

(a crimson kiss of distant bliss, the midst of this the mourning sound)

And the blood-drenched horrors it reveals

(this bitter blade won't let me out now)

I contain your photograph with eyes that laugh back at my bad math

Adding up the consequence for every straying thought

A frame to fill with hopes I've dashed to cash in on wrath

All the while knowing he will hurt you in the end

You have such twisted friends

I was the worst of them

I was the worst

I was

There you go just walking by

I am alone again

Never meant to say goodbye

You were my only friend

The Close Faraway

We are essentially the abuses of our small bits of power

Granted enough to stray toward the edge

We are the ways in which we color outside dotted lines

And the leaking of thoughts from our faucet-like heads

We are not ourselves in cages

Boxed up and bowed up and set aside somewhere

We are not the caution tape around some petty theft

Nor the secrets whispered to the dark when none are near to care

But rather we are cracks of light

That disturb the cobwebbed room

The door that's cracked, the candle wax

We drip, we drool, we swoon

Interconnected at the edges only and just that

There is but slight attention to existence in our space

We are not full enough to be a shadow in the corner of an eye

But an after-image nonetheless when long empty, this place

Dream not of glory, then my brothers

Sisters do not vainly wait

For with all your heavy breathing

Not one single breath can take

Worse than a Nightmare

Blips of condensation reignite their frigid rhythm

Interlacing with the questions mingled on the outer edge

Traces of resentment for intentions once thought noble

And self-loathing to the point where I have dreamed outside my head

I mean, ever have the perfect dream

The one where you get everything

Every single thing your dead heart ever wanted

Then wake up like a sapling

Whose great redwood thoughts once hap'ning

Have hit concrete and realized it's all so stunted

Trips to distant nations on the tassels of a promise

Start by bracing your investments for a new cold-blooded way

While I will chase beyond the sunrise for a simple word from your eyes

And you're better off I guess for being the one that's meant to stay

I'll trip on the stairs that circle round and round

You were an exit sign for a better man that I could never be

Though I wish I was what you wanted

Instead of trying to give you that and ending up like me

Blips of condensation find their way across the window

Stripping down the paint on walls of grey surrounding my design

But frames are for museums not people

And phones are for you saying "no, not really"

Bad Wolf

Crack crack, split lightning from the sidewalk splinters

Bullet-proof artifacts of too many blood winters

Children of shadows and children of the skull

Flip coins the size of elephants

Then scatter off like gulls

You wear raven-red discrimination

Like counter-clockwise reflex

I shoot blanks with a stare

And hope nobody detects

That, y'know I'm...

Whatever, it's gilded now

Happily ever after is the most pathetic ending a story can have

It means there will be no more character development

Except for this

In fairy-tales, all plateaus slope downhill

What lovely teeth you have

Gilda

“Compliments from other women really do count for something,” she insisted, “I cannot create my new self from the void—not with any sort of confidence anyway—if I’m the only one on this station who thinks I’m some kind of wonderful.”

“I think you’re some kind of wonderful,” commented Mr. Martin Hague in his usual digitized monotone.

“You’re a semi-sentient computer program, dear. You’re programmed to think I’m wonderful. But you see I’m forming a whole new identity now—a human female—and for that I’ll need much more than the dry opinion of a floating hard drive, especially one named Martin, no offense.”

“I do not have the capacity to take offense,” he replied, “though that was my grandfather’s name.”

“Oh dear, you do know that you don’t have a grandfather, don’t you?”

“Oh? Well, you have no face.”

“What?”

“How do you expect to be complimented at all without any kind of face? ‘Oh my,’ they’ll say, ‘what a lovely stretch of skin you have over your cheek bones.’”

“For a program that cannot take offense, you can certainly give it out a fair shake. Though I do have nice cheek bones, don’t I?” she said, catching her reflection in Martin’s reflective surface. “Hmm,” she paused, tensing the muscles through the front of her head in sequence, a web of golden lines mapping itself across the outter layer of skin from beneath. “Let’s see what we can do about that.” Within only a matter of moments, one thin line widened then plumped into two lips, parting with a bright yellow glow between them. Then two widening holes were overshadowed by a bump in the center as it took shape into a workable nose, and finally, a pair of eyes—first one, then the other—blinked themselves into existence, revealing shining, golden irises and pupils that widened profusely at her reflection.

“There,” she said, smiling slyly, “Now what do you think of that, my dear Mr. Hague?”

Martin played his best replication of a sigh. “I think you are perhaps aiming for more than just other women’s compliments,” he said.

“Well, of course,” she winked, “You yourself said it—I am some kind of wonderful.”

Four Words

"Empty mailbox," she said

"No one loves me."

"You stole my mail."

"You hoard it all."

"You ate my letters."

"Can you check it?"

(I hate my job)

"Thank you for helping."

Eight dollars an hour

"Oh yay! It came!"

"So nice of you!"

She walks by smiling

(I love my job)

"Empty mailbox," she said

I'll write a note!

I'll make a point!

I'll make her smile!

I'll make them think!

I'll make them stop!

Talk to the mailman

(I'm not a mailman)

Not really, I mean

Not even a person

She told me that

Because of the note

She told me so

She called me out,

"Empty mailbox," she said.

Blackmail

Words are doors and the walls are climbed with orange vines

An orchid shaped thundercloud circles in lithe obsidian on the ceiling

Pant all you like, the sweat stings your eyes

Children with their stories hide

Wisdom for the senators

The room is on fire,

idiot.

Oh Fortunate OneZeroOne

I have to believe your sunlight stare has melted the golden walls

One simple, passing, honest glance at the polished facade

And there is a question within your brilliant eyes

The answer to which can shatter chandeliers

There are shards of diamond on the floor

With a thought you cut them to dust

Then shrug off the shining ashes

Calling yourself nothing much

But in rags you are grace

The perfect elegance

Eyes that conquer

Crystalline form

Yet cannot see

Their own

Image

Why?

Breathtaking or Simply Suffocating

"Beauty crowds me till I die" -Emily Dickinson

I noticed the other day, while wallowing across the intersection, between practically nameless side-streets on a busy city's saturday swing, that there are seriously countless almost attractive people, basketfuls of them, libraries stacked of them, tin cans overflowing in rainswept gutters with more than tolerable people. They all have stories worth hearing if I happen to be in the mood and eyes with which I could catch myself accidentally, casually making quick contact, and it wouldn't be quite romantic, but not quite awkward either. For a moment we would stare, but not stare, per say, deeply or profoundly. We would skim the tide of each other's softly summarized soul...But anyway, a sea of personalities, y'know? Each bobbing its head above the whimsy of circumstance, colliding like rubber ducks in a three year old's bath tub hurricane, politely excusing themselves. And of course that secret look. You know the one. It happens between you or I and her or him. When paths neither cross nor perfectly parallel but sort of just acknowledge one another. And those paths are pages. And those pages recall separate accounts of the same shared sequence. Like when I saw you in the midst of a hurried, scattered lie of life, and we were both interrupted from our day, by the way, by the simply inconceivable though utterly temporal discovery, however frightening, that there were actually at very least two distinct persons in the world.

And I, oh my, I was only one of them.

Used To (Part One)

I used to think that if I was right and you weren't, then you were wrong. I used to think that there was a list of ought to's and should've's to check off before I died. I used to think that there was a committee of grownups who I had to please, whose tests I had to pass. I used to think if I pushed hard enough for long enough, whatever was in my way would be obligated to move where I wanted it to go. I used to think opportunity was synonymous with possibility.

I used to think everyone was inherently good deep down inside. I used to think everyone was inherently bad deep down inside. I used to think there were good people and bad people. I used to think I was a bad person. I used to think I was a good person. I used to think forgiveness meant we could be friends again.

I used to think if I followed the rules, the reward would eventually start to matter. I used to think there was something wrong with me because I wasn't just like them. I used to think there was something wrong with me because I wasn't just like you.

I used to...

White Roses Painted Red

I see the road now

As the sun starts to rise

Reflecting the starlight

Still caught in your eyes

Here by the marshland

Where we stared into night

And these granite hillsides

That I’ve tried to fight

As we walk in silence

Both happy and sad

Your words speak of good times

Your silence of bad

But either way, you say

That you’ll always see me

Even in my brokenness

There is a growing peace

To hold up the promise

That can never be said

As leaves hit the ocean

Like white roses painted red

Mars

Tracks ran up your arm

But the train was broken down

Tried to push your ribs back in

They'd come out when you fell down

Kissed your eyelids closed

In the open alley air

Heard the screaming sirens' sound

Your silence held my stare

They weren't coming for you

Not like you're going anywhere

Shadows drifted by your face

With a street lit blood-red glare

Static

Villains are the lonely ones

The tragic hero just one misstep away

We all have reasons for living

On either side of the line

But not all of us, no matter the side

Can find much reason for living sometimes

Oftentimes

Remind yourself why the smile surprised you

In the first place
Remind yourself why you reacted that way

Statues point fingers

You lifted your hand against the sky

And for a moment, I was your substitute for happiness

As you dwindled in the shade

And replaced even I

The rocking horse that kindling made

Fire's nice, but you can't eat it

Only cook by it

Grand Theft Grandfather Clock

Take the time (by force, if you must)

Steal the now (before they catch you)

Burgle it away (and get yourself outta town)

Then hide it deep-down-deep

and Secret

This moment is yours

Pick-pocket the pocket watch of the world

But only for a second

(make it yours, make it good)

Be selfish with the temporary, seriously

That is...

this instant

This breath

But only this

One inhale

One exhale

Kidnap this Tick

this Tock

but only

This

Right now

It's all you have

and all you'll ever get

Anything more does not belong to you, so

Please, for all our sakes:

give.

it.

back.

Heal the Burn

You know that place

Where your heart was gone a while ago

But your mind kept you held tight

And those few bits of heart that were left

Were all you needed to justify staying?

What goes up, well, you know

And eventually it's true

But also, what is pulled can push

Though everything that's lost isn't always found

In fact, more often

What we end up finding

Shows us what we've really been looking for

After all,

The system exists because it works for some

And works just enough for most

But it can't work for all

And it doesn't

Really, though

I'll miss you

So much more

Than I'll miss this

The Actress and My Box

I sit inside my box
Sitting silent i stay
Silently sitting inside my busy box of gray

My softly solemn solace
Disturbed by a play
As I sit silent from my box to see the masquerade

The actress acts the parts
In three acts those parts she plays
Each part she plays an act displayed I see from box of gray

The audience is I
And before my eyes displayed
This perfect play, this masquerade, as I solemnly stay

Yes I sit inside my box
And am carefully away
Removed from play and fair display and yet I see her face

The actress and her colors
To paint the pliant play
And then display, by masquerade, a contrast to my gray

Why inside this box
Reasons I cannot say
The logic nixed, I am transfixed, and long no more to stay

you said, "find your dreams."

you said, "follow your heart."

you said, "use your head

and forget that other stuff i said."

but it's about time

that your plans all fall apart

and i know before i'm dead

i should try somethin' else instead

so don't think i'm not scared

but i've gotta believe there's something better out there

Errant Ambition

If I could burn the world

And write it all anew

It would be so much worse

'Cause it wouldn't have you

'Cause I can't write you right

Like I can't right these wrongs

No song I sing tonight

Can make you sing along

But the voices in my head

Challenged me to duel

A battle with my wits

And maybe the golden rule

'Cause I can't do for you

What I want for me

If what I say is true

It's still not what I mean

I can look from the ocean

And see your work in the sand

I can follow your footsteps

And still not know where you stand

‘Cause I can’t undertake

To dig this shallow grave

To walk along the wake

But never catch the wave

And you’re so far away

I would reach out if I could

If I could burn the world

I would, I would