The Book of Weston

My vain attempt to unite

every loose part of me,

every strange, finicky strand,

tie it neatly into a ball,

appreciate it, burn it.

Poetry is a purging,

a means to an end:

oblivion, I

absolutely emptied out,

integrated, exploded

into this swirling, silent moment.

I had him imprisoned; I had him contained:

the one who disapproved of our marriage.

My eyes were not on him; they were on you

as you danced, as you undulated my mind to madness,

to self-forgetfulness. My mouth opened

and out came promises I couldn't keep,

things I didn't mean. I thought I meant them,

but as soon as they flew out, they dropped

to the floor like so many dead bugs.

I saw them, disgusted, but you

loved them. You smiled down on them.

You opened your sweet little lips

and requested a beheading.

I refused to believe it. Surely these words

could not have come out of that pretty head.

But there they were, hanging in the air between us

like some beautiful poisonous flower -

the request, not demand. Oh, no:

it must be voluntary.

You waited and inside my head, a thunderstorm,

my crown slipping from the sweat.

I must decide. I must -

run down from the throne, down

into the dungeon to his cell, sword in hand, ready.

But I could not do it. The man was miserable,

blabbering. He barely remembered himself,

curled up in a dark corner.

I dropped the sword and set him free.

We fled together, merging at the horizon,

and your absence was a small price

to pay for that reunion.

on the inside, words bubble up,

fleshborn. we make tunnels between our faces,

ferrying meaning, paths between brains,

tubes of thought tearing soft reality,

burrowing into flesh.

so building futures, protecting pasts,

we fight to keep the meaning.

we strain, but it will not hold.

our story is our burden.

we practice relaxing our faces

as if it's not a chore to carry a person

every second of every day.

in the dark, we lay our person down,

operate, bend and snap it into something

more pleasing to us, for the moment.

what we now call good, we will later drown

without remorse, like god and his garden.

all he used was a rib and some mud.

our materials are shadows

we will into words we mold

into story we shape

into person.

I was raised in a pastel tomb

of thin Puritan carpet infused

with the moth ball smell of preservative comfort

and dusty wooden crosses

and dead books barely held together

by the stale optimism of a spoiled generation,

beneficiaries of blood spilt,

sure they're predestined for this,

so they constructed a labyrinth

concrete, sturdy, to shield them

from a world moving on,

and they painted it baby blue

and made children to fill it

and reduced reality to flannel board fairy tales

and dead puppets in dark closets

and bloodless cartoon crucifixions.

They imagined themselves caught between

a world-enveloping devil,

a body clay and soaked in evil,

and a vampire god that slurps sacrifices

and turns his back on billions of burning souls.

No wonder they built these heavy doors,

these constricted smiles to hide behind.

But I found an exit,

some wicked path through the briar woods

tearing at my self-conception. I emerged

shaking, searching for new skin,

but my consolation is

that the children are disappearing,

and the flock grows grey.

One can only pray

that the end is near.

What did we lose

limping out of our garden,

away from our original continent?

Nature is so still and so innocent

in its violence.

The lion mauls and then naps.

So the world placed a fear in us:

adapt, adapt, adapt.

Nature taught us

the supremacy of change.

For our flexibility, we gained

anxiety. We built fear into a maze,

worry laid on top of worry.

The forgotten animal in us

howls up through the body.

We hear it from a distance, too far

into the mind to find an exit.

The animal knows what we need.

It wants to show us the way out.

If it must, it will stalk, disable,

and drag us back down

into our forgotten home.

May it find us quickly.

In my parents' house, I hear

a noise and walk outside to find

my father sprawled out in the dirt

behind the basketball hoop,

head sliced diagonally in two,

left half resting away from his body

in the grass. The ants explore his mind.

And a boxy red sedan is jammed

into a tree, hood arched and pouring out

smoke, and I feel nothing

except that I should feel

something. I don't get close.

I've seen enough. I try to cry

but my uncle's dogs interrupt,

approaching, sniffing at the body.

I clap and yell to keep them back.

In the nearby lake, a swarm of gators

emerge, opening their giant jaws,

all pink flesh and bleached teeth

sparkling in the afternoon sun,

which falls and mixes with the smoke,

surreal and bright like paradise.

I take a picture, call for help.

I see us in the endless field

in slow motion, inner sun brilliant

on our faces together, leaping,

crouching under branches,

curling under the roots of the tree.

Deep down there, you showed me

something in your eyes I can't forget:

a dark gift, a false forever.

We crawled together through my dreams.

I remember. And in the ones I can't,

you were there the strongest.

You took well to my pliant mind,

my childhood bed at 8 pm

on a weeknight, light beneath the door.

You were there. You unfurled for me,

brilliant in the dark,

rooting yourself inside.

I was so small. How could I have known

the mark you'd leave?

I remained and you did not.

Sometimes I see you

peeking through others.

You reach out through their faces

and withdraw. You lack a suitable vessel.

I try to find you one. I fill it with love like

a clay pot with water. I stare inside,

searching for your face.

Imperfections stare back,

crude ripples obscuring you.

I smash it to pieces and regret,

crying out. I seek another.

The vessels can't understand

why I treat them so. They can't

feel the ache that comes

within the most beautiful moments,

when you wink at me through song,

through certain glints of sunlight,

and each wink is pain, a cruel aftertaste.

They don't know their purpose:

to get me back to you,

the warm source of the reflection.

One glance could charge me

for a decade, could cancel out years.

Do I deserve it? This vessel seeking vessels

won't last forever. Cracks are forming.

Time marks it up, claiming it.

Senses fade, but, thankfully,

no sense can hold you, lover.

You don't depend on fragile feelings.

You hover over the horizon of sensation.

My only hope is that I form a circle -

that time, blind in its cruelty, one day

twists me back around to you.

there is a cube of gelatin hovering

between you and i.

color: red. dimensions: 3ft x 3ft x 3ft.

it floats between our faces, always.

when i speak, my words slice like

dozens of razor blades

into its thickness

but never quite reach

your side.

the cube closes around them

and my words dissolve.

you speak back

and i receive ripples

on my side

i interpret like tea leaves,

as best i can.

we accept these partial truths

because we have to.

somehow we maintain

a relationship like this, somehow

we call this love.

i try to read your warped face

through the translucent goo

and wonder how beautiful you must be

beneath these mortal distortions.

Maybe wisdom is

dancing through this dark

as if you could be made of light.

Dark pond sleeps in deep forest.

    Breeze stirs

    a blur of blue shards like

ten thousand shimmering fishes.

One could imagine

    they think themselves

        alive.

Wind shifts

    and the pond is placid again.

We sleep in late and I wake dazed.

I sit on the couch reorienting myself

to her apartment while she starts the pancakes.

I join her, and pop songs paint an alternate

universe over the speaker, saying

what we can't anymore.

We eat, not finishing the stack.

We wrap it in plastic and pretend

there will be time to finish them later.

We leave the apartment, walk in the sun,

talk at the train station like nothing's different.

Half-hour and we're there: staring at penguins.

They squabble, one feeds another from its gullet.

Could I do that, I wonder, if I was a penguin?

Could I empty myself for another?

Outside we explore the winding pathways,

faces red from the Canadian chill.

She runs ahead searching for animals,

dragging me along by the hand,

leading the way like she always has,

smiling and laughing like nothing is happening.

I hold on for dear life

but inwardly my grip is slipping.

The sun falls fast, and the zoo is closing.

We rush around searching for the gorillas

but find them catatonic in their cage,

napping, staring into the distance,

no longer performing.

The zoo lights come on:

colored lights in cold trees, in the ambience

of christmas music and steaming cocoa.

So many things could be said

that aren't, or have been said

through squeezes of the hand and long glances.

We seek artificial warmth in the greenhouse

where photo-op benches encircled by lights

mock us at every turn.

A worker volunteers, so we oblige:

forced smiles from a distance.

In the dark garden we walk amongst shadows

and soft piano music, gripping sweaty palms.

She points at plants, explaining taxonomies

while I hold back tears.

On the way back, she interrogates me

about why or how it makes sense:

Why don't I want to stay?

She knocks down my reasons, one by one,

and I am left without words, only mute feelings.

At her apartment we shower together,

eat dinner together,

watch TV cuddled up together, but inside

a canyon yawns between us.

In bed I turn away quickly

but she searches for my cold hand,

and reaching across the widening expanse,

I give it again, for a little while longer.

our time ran out

egg yolk across the table

spilling over the edge of the year

amidst christmas lights i left

your tear-stained cheeks shining

in fluorescent airport lights.

no return flight. i held on

for 6 more months

in my mind. as if time

would erode my hesitation

like it does so many other things.

it didn't. my uncracked soul

had moved on. you gave me

another reckless chance

fragile white shell

and i broke it awake all night

tossing and turning you

out of my system. i could not

incubate a future divorced

from myself. it was you

or me. and I chose

like i always had. unwilling

to surrender to your love

or anything beyond myself.

our solid world rocks up and down,

rows of bodies rocking in the sea

past cliffs that seem immovable

because erosion hides itself in time.

and your hand is a warm

pile of sand in my cold palm.

and there are so many versions of me

that would not have accepted you.

the sun slides its fingers across your face

and back into the fractured blue.

new skin - i feel it burning

inside - boiling up now - splitting

open the future -

the acid of change - the agony

of transformation - dissolving

what once was - i put myself here -

i built this place out of me -

i feel the bones

soggy like rotten logs -

i feel them sinking -

but still i am here in the breath -

all this once dormant - years ago -

i caught only hints - flares in the chest -

i was producing my tomb -

what will remain when the rest dissolves -

fading shadows - what of them -

i emerge from the past pale and shaking -

fragile wings unfurling -

this beauty was built on pain -

memory is dead - only i remain

You'd have such beautiful children

without me, still a child myself.

The kids don't stand a chance

emptied out as they are

every few days, with or without you.

Discarded, emptied, discarded.

Disrobe and discard, no discord,

not this sword in its sheath

warm. Another night to ward off

the oncoming storm, on schedule.

Check the app. Don't wanna crack

that egg. No legacy for me

except in words, my silent brood.

Excuse me for not moving

the species forward, not yet bored

enough with you.

There is a clear sadness that only

falls into the soul in sunlight -

rays through a car windshield,

arriving home, alone again,

in perfect weather without you.

I can't go inside. I stalk

around the nearby park.

If I have to throw everything away

except what I can cram in this car

so I never see this place again,

this storehouse of dying memories,

this lake I circle in shame, I'll do it.

I go inside my chrysalis.

With weeks, something begins to shift.

Something is finding its center again.

Some object I inhabited

had started to orbit away,

and through tears and time and turbulence

is now spiraling back into place.

Is it possible one day I will

look back at this heavy moment

surrounding me like silty water

and see it as a skin shed,

lying fragile, translucent,

crumbling under my fingertips?

I have to trust my center.

It must be a whole home

or it won't have the gravity necessary.

I'll break away again, a rogue planet.

In the past, my center was

a chaos uninhabitable.

Now, I feel the heat to burn

everything away inside

except what is cozy.

I can purify my center.

How could another body do that?

A fragile pleasure?

It doesn't stay long enough.

It collapses in on itself,

a black hole, again and again.

Forget religion, language; look to nature.

Stare into its flawless chaos.

Your life is an extension of nature.

Its chaos must be flawless, also.

Now I know

solitude is a purification.

Wait until the flames die

and you'll find gold in the ashes.

There is a rope tied

tight around my ribcage

pulling inward.

Do you see it?

My soul is on the other end,

in the dark, tugging,

collapsing me away from this world.

Have you felt it, too?

If I resist much longer,

you will watch me disappear

into a dark hole

where my heart once was.

I love you, but I must go

where the rope wants me:

alone, at the center of myself

until it lets me loose again.

You return to me in waves

in dizzy bright suburban streets,

in the grocery aisle, the bookstore,

across a white Saturday morning sky.

That's when the plans we'll never make

reveal themselves to me, stillborn,

alive in another timeline.

This is when you strike me like

emerging into summer heat,

like the past isn't done with me yet,

like the present isn't strong enough

to hold you back.

What could I possibly learn

from this relentless feeling?

As if attachment is a sin. As if

our scattered minds could stop it.

As if it isn't our original nature.

Logic tries to snuff it out

like throwing a blanket

over an atomic bomb.

And when you come to me this way,

tears follow laughter, one after another,

inseparable like codependent lovers,

erupting from the reservoir behind my ribs.

This is the pain of an old self dying,

the past embracing the present,

dragging it into oblivion, entangled in ash

like the mummies of Pompeii.

Who said healing shouldn't feel this way?

The sharp moon slices

its emptiness into me,

bleeding out the day.

I want to know all

it has to teach me about

the hurt of living.

To know you are false,

pale mirror of all you're not,

and to keep shining.

The crack of my grandmother's skull

against the linoleum floor

next to the tree,

like an egg bursting

open this overcooked era,

pouring out, done. We know

what will come from the blood

I wipe from her glasses.

We know silent.

Bodies rule over persons.

This family of smiles, denials -

we see the whites of the eyes

of the world, the future bruised,

and Christmas forever over.

Crusty leaves scrape across

frozen concrete, exfoliating the day.

Waves of cold shock the fragile skin,

invade the open door I stand inside. Above,

dead stars swallow my desires.

Their bright hunger: the hunger of material.

What are our weightless prayers to those giants?

Variations of throat noises gurgling up.

The tubes speak and think it's real. I feel

my stories spilling up and out into the night,

out from this beautiful bag of flesh,

into the black mouth of the world.

Inside me is a cold legion:

thousand faces staring back.

Best to let the faces rise,

take turns trying on my body,

or else let one drown the rest

in my awful murky deep.

Many make this rash mistake,

thinking they are whole and one.

The problem is that faces float,

so the surface must be frozen,

keeping them held down for now.

But when you look into such eyes

thick and frigid from this force,

you see the faces gulping air

waiting under melting ice.

The empty sky, pastel blue,

I used to look at it with you,

dreaming of conflicting futures

in the guest room no guest saw

in the house abandoned shortly,

fleeing north to a bitter thaw.

That room, like our relationship,

was always changing function,

rearranging to the current mood,

a series of negotiations

never settled until I dropped

the ultimatum and it shattered,

slow motion shards fanning out.

We see it but we don’t; we look right past it

until we taste glass.

I see that room when I look at the sky.

The longer I stare, the more it fades

into my peripheral, my purgatory

of pink clouds slicing bloody firmament

and blank walls and carpet fumes

and dwindling hope.

One question, only one still lingers

like a lost and lonely cloud:

how can I escape this sky?

All must be accepted, this I know;

the only other path is despair.

The holiness of the neglected,

of all human filth left on the margins,

must be absorbed.

The trailer in the dark ocean of stars,

lit by an orange halogen lamp

and the pulsing blue heartbeat of a TV within.

I catch a glimpse on the road and it's gone.

Who are these people living so unmoored?

I speak of the loneliness felt in your entrails.

Rotting pallets next to a dumpster behind a mall

built decades ago in such hope,

now barren amidst acres of asphalt parking lots

warmed under the glow of the lamps:

the silent periphery guardians.

Imagine yourself transported

to a pitch black forest at an unknown vector,

a buzzing fluorescent parking garage stairwell,

a dripping cave on an unknown planet,

a dusty basement in some grandmother's house,

piles of hoarded memories untouched for years

and an unheard smoke alarm crying out.

For how long? Let it wash over you.

Do these places long for people or loathe them?

Do they hide from us or want to be seen?

All I know is you must love them all or nothing:

all the books never read except by their authors,

every machine-written article, every line of code,

every archived file on every dead hard drive.

No crevice may be rejected if

one is to accept any of it.

Every forgotten film, every advertisement,

all deserve acknowledgement

because they can be known.

Every yellowed memory in every brain waiting

to flare for the last time then die

must be accepted without hesitation.

Every outdated textbook, instruction manual,

ugly piece of clothing ever produced,

every plastic effluvium vomited by industry,

I must take it into myself and consume it,

lift the cup of life to my lips

and guzzle it down without fear.

Pour it into me, let it coat my insides,

let it dissolve the guarded me,

the sore, small, limited, choosy me.

Every Platonic ideal of every object,

every falsified theory,

every second of cynical content produced,

I will engorge myself with it,

relieve the overburdened world of it.

Let it wash through me; I'll rinse it with words.

Every piece of plastic at the bottom of the ocean,

every hidden fossil and cryptic glyph,

every word on the tips of the tongues,

let it wash through me unjudged.

Every student film, opinion piece

scrap of litter in the tall grass,

forgotten dream and celebrity,

wash through these words.

Every horror unspeakable or unspoken.

Reality decided; it knows what I need.

It bleeds, and I swallow.

Nothing overlooked, nothing unloved.

All friendless people and forgotten names,

all motherless sons and fatherless daughters,

all words ever written or spoken or sung,

all trivial things I filter

through myself and make them sacred.

My grandmother and I

    stare together at

        the deafening

TV, and her voice says, "Thank you

    for being here," but

        I don't know where

she is, and louder

    than the TV or her appreciation,

        I hear fear

and I see what she sees two days from now:

    my dim hand waving from

        inside the grey

vehicle carrying me away

    to an unclear destination

        (for how long?)

and I see her still as a stone

    at the kitchen table

        staring through

the thick glass sliding door

        at the virgin pool,

        glittering,

blooming with algae

    and the birds appearing

        and disappearing.

Inside becomes outside,

no longer able to hide.

No makeup, clothes,

manners, persona, pose

can conceal

undeniable flesh pouring out,

vivid life bursting from

this soft facade.

We hold volumes, all of us,

gallons of mortality

behind our fragile smiles.

The black hole to it all is

right there, no separation,

only hidden temporarily,

waiting for the great reveal.

One way or another,

we cannot contain it forever;

we must gush.

But hold your disgust.

We are together

in our liquid fragility, so

embrace your overflow.

clouds hold a transcendence so plain

it's almost painful. You look away.

Have you felt it, the resistance?

You keep your head down, ignoring

this highest art, this dizzying variety

expanding slower than you can bear,

soft cathedrals stretching your patience.

You try to capture them in pictures but

these whales of light, like all true things,

refuse the cage. Slippery, they float on,

shifting, speaking in color: mortal red

or royal purple or gold you can taste

or black darker than death. Stare

and let the rippling layers

pierce you with their passing beauty.

Let them answer your undying question:

what survives this gorgeous unfolding?

i receive the word from the brick

corridors of this school. the echoing

halls. blue floors polished, empty

of footprints until mine glide through.

this place moves me

into a large intersection

forking into supposed choice.

this temporary body chooses,

wordless, effortless. it descends

one hallway, only one that matters,

sliding into impending darkness,

torches whooshing past my head

on either side of this tunnel

narrowing to a point, blurring

faster and faster.

and then, the bottom: dim and cubic

brick room. i feel the weight

of fathoms pressing all around me,

insulating, protecting what?

a pool of water floats before me,

water defying brick,

and on its face, a breeze blows

a word. i watch

the letters dissolve

into dying ripples.

the water is gone, and in its place

a rose on fire, burning away, burning

into these temporary eyes, speaking

the same word as the water, a word

from the midst of the infolding flame.

the word burns through these bricks.

i feel it, i resonate in tune. it tells me

that there is more to see here. pipes

that i must crawl through. now i see

this place is a joint, not an end.

the room melts into the word.

the word is: tended,

tended.

Sensations: rumbling on my horizon,

some great wave eclipsing the sun,

rushing through without erosion,

every ocean flowing out.

Body: steel pipe, hollow, unbending,

taking every temperature, expanding

and contracting as it must.

Thoughts: many pieces suspended,

floating in surrounding air

like so many motes of dust.

And they all

collapse

inward

with a jolt,

and they fit.

Contours snap together,

correlating with every edge

of this room, this year, this era.

And I give them a container made of yes.

Yes yes yes to it all.

And through acceptance, a purging.

Safe inside this flawless moment.

Here in this warm center,

all those tense, prickly hours

anticipating incoming storms

are fragile little glass things

dangling over the edge of forgetting.

What moves through must move through.

And when it subsides,

the vehicle sighs and contracts,

a restful warrior. Then the pipe

becomes a poet, pliant

flesh and blood scribbling,

ready for the next flood.

How I wish I could freeze

this weekend in the snow

and save it for a future spring.

Your curriculum of loving:

brutal, simple lessons like,

"You're so beautiful."

But I am a challenging student.

The scars of subpar teachers

cover my ears, my eyes.

Your lips attempt to melt them away,

your tongue licks them off, like the river

carved this canyon over millennia.

We don't have that long.

Erode me in this lifetime.

Whittle me down, make me sharp,

and I will embrace you like

the mountains embrace this valley, forever

holding back the winter winds.

I will uncover your soul,

unearth your lovely strata

layer by layer. Lay you down

gently like a snowfall, silent,

covering the earth in its completeness,

covering all our dark doubts.

Doom was written in the red clouds

we sat beneath, weighed down by the gravity

of an old truth. You lay your head on

my shoulder, maybe

to prevent it from being pulled away.

Something from the past was tugging

at your mind. You told me later.

Silent under the heavy sky, we sat

next to the flaming lake and watched it smolder.

Whatever had sparked between us, now:

two glowing embers in our chests.

I felt you trying to extinguish yours.

You were quiet, focused.

An old flame approached from a distance

and two flames can't coexist.

One is consumed by the other.

The clouds stole some core of hope in me, lost

in swirling mouths of deep consuming red.

It was relief to watch them die in dusk.

From your eyes, a prophecy slipped silent.

In a few short days, I would touch

your dying ember to my lips

and taste my fate.

23: I had my castle,

my princess.

I fire-breathed my life.

I built the walls

to hold me in,

hoarded my money,

backed up my files,

wrote my will,

bought insurance,

stored my papers

in a fireproof bag,

planned and replanned,

fortifying. What the fuck

did I think I had?

In four fragile years,

it crumbled. Castles

never fall; they melt

like butter into

something messy,

grotesque, unplanned.

Defeated, I crawl

inside what remains

and hope it hardens

into a home.

Fishing on a dock, on my first cast I feel a tug on my line, so I reel it in even though the force of it threatens to yank me into the lake. I must have a monster of a fish. I call to my family, but they're no longer in sight and none of them come. Turning back, I see a bright orange mass emerge from the brown depths: a tiger slowly clawing its way to the surface, eyes shining, demon face wrinkled and snarling, lips peeled back baring fangs, releasing muffled underwater roars and swirling plumes of furious bubbles. I back away, no longer wanting to pull it in, but it’s coming up on its own now. Soon, it’s on the dock dripping and growling. I stand still but it lunges closer and, instinctively, I risk my arm and rub it on the nose. This seems to work, confusing it long enough for me to back away toward the house. It lunges again, and I extend my edible hand to scratch its wet nose, and it freezes, and we do this dance all the way to the garage where, once inside, I slam the door in its face. But I don't think it's gone. I think it's still out there circling. I hear its rumblings some nights; it seems angry I brought it up. I'll go outside again someday, I swear.

Thoughts of you appear

everywhere, like your curly hairs

on the hardwood floor,

little gifts you leave for me.

Am I ready to receive them?

Fear of other is fear

of a hidden part of oneself:

scorpion under a rock, guarded,

poised and ready to pinch.

I may not be ready to be seen.

You would lift the rock. You would

dare to be stung. I've seen

that when bugs land on you,

you let them stay.

I may be a type of bug.

Can I land on you and never leave?

Explore every curve and contour,

inside and out, with no limit?

Which is harder:

an ending or an eternity?

I have to be willing to be squashed.

You won't do it, but your love will.

Your love will squeeze until

what is inside is outside.

I've been through this before.

We are both hesitant, you say.

Don't hesitate for me.

I've been crushed, but I came back.

My armor is weathered and strong.

Your angel gaze crushes my doubts.

So don't wait. Squeeze

until my secrets are revealed.

Let your hair, your arms, your everything

curl around the contours of my heart.

Innocence in shadow,

a placid lake at dusk:

I used to see you thus,

walking your perimeter.

could i walk there with you?

is it possible?

Now I see the same, plus:

a dying sun, an open wound,

a gaping door I run right through,

an aching love reduced to dust.

When I needed you most, you were there,

a phantom sprawled in the passenger seat,

right foot propped and knees drooping wide,

thin fingers loosely gripping the grab handle,

casting a closed-mouth smile at me,

a smile that felt the length of the day

and felt my heavy thoughts sloshing,

anxiety draining from my nerves.

And you knew that I was enough

and that there would be rest

and that, yes, this too shall pass

as I turned into the apartment lot

and bitter relief washed over me

and the orange lamps washed over you,

slicing strips from your gentle smile.

Too tired for shock, I smiled right back.

This was the realest you'd ever be.

When I needed you most, you were there,

and never again.

She is the girl of rounded corners,

rubber floors and padded bars,

the keeper of a thousand rooms,

a thousand shades of comfort.

Her golden voice reverberates

off curving white acrylic walls

in an edgeless bathroom,

warm water gurgling out of spouts

the shape of animal mouths

open wide to the world.

No fear, open wide.

She is the morning sun shining

through the windows of a playroom,

toys spread across the carpet, time paused.

She is an indoor playplace,

tunnels twisting into clear darkness,

walls of nets and swinging ropes

and slides descending

into pools of plastic balls.

She is a store of endless aisles

of fog and multicolored lights

and toys from floor to ceiling.

She is the comfy restaurant smell

of salt and sugar overflowing,

world of abundance unquestioned.

She is the glow of Christmas lights

on a manicured lawn at night,

a thousand stars shining down.

She is the chest burning hot

with precious memories rekindled.

She is a maze of faux rooms

in a furniture store,

layers of curtain-walls and bowls of

ageless plastic fruit.

She is an empty office above the mall,

sunset slanting through the blinds

and headlights glistening

on the highway far below

and the scent of warm carpet,

printer dust and analog optimism,

the weight of the world hovering

forever at a safe distance.

live apocalyptic lives

amongst rusted trucks, sunken

roofs on mildewed trailers,

kudzu climbing up thrift stores

and shattered factory windows,

smoke shops next to churches

built in abandoned shopping malls

with preachers on screens

a thousand miles away

from hollow main streets, echoes

of a hopeful past, now

sucked dry by corporations

with cavernous stores stationed

next to interstate exits

- feeding, extracting -

and yet these people live on;

they recreate, procreate,

build community in this

fractured wasteland of a country,

and we fly over them,

noses in the clouds,

like it's not a miracle.

In that arid wilderness, he stares

out from the blackest of eyes

into a void created for him

of pleasures, golden futures,

powers he has never known.

He shifts his crusted tongue

to speak them away,

but the Word is parched and silent.

If he closes his eyes, submits himself

to these gilded visions from below

- these endless tunnels of bliss

stretching on and on -

he will lose this aching gut

that drives him forward,

he will lose these callused feet

that carry him there,

he will lose this sun-scorched face,

these sunken cheeks,

that capture his flock,

and he will gain the whole World,

this whole dirty aching World.

He sees just outside his peripheral

a single rock balanced improbably

on its end like a delicate egg. He blinks.

Nearby, wind stirs a vortex of dust

that spins, then as quick as it rose, dies.

He doesn't close his eyes.

gravity shifts -

a new sun eclipses my sky -

your warm lips

trumpeting my apocalypse

A man and woman sit in a car next to me,

interior dark and aquarium-cool

except for legs and arms illuminated

golden by the afternoon sun.

Lips move; teeth shine,

exchanging sweet secrets.

Invisible, I hover above,

a lonely bus-riding cherub,

double-glass chasm between us.

In my grandmother's house is a sacred space

beyond the kitchen, down hallway thick-carpeted,

past walls of textured paper over concrete

that will outlast us all. The office is

a cube no longer than me, one wall mirrored,

one lined with books. A small window

eternally hidden behind dusty blue curtains.

A corner desk, computer updated every few years,

only evidence time didn't stop around 2004

when the Internet consumed us all.

I settle in the cushioned chair and feel like God

at the command station of the universe.

I swivel, bare soles on plastic chair mat, fingers ready.

The startup jingle kicks waves of dust from the speakers:

60 years of accumulated comfort. I feel it heavy,

swirling in the insulated air - the forgotten

pile of floppy disks in the corner,

a printing calculator, unopened CD-ROMs,

a Beanie Baby, a piece of the Berlin wall,

chunky digital cameras, stacks of political pamphlets

from 4 elections ago, books with titles like:

Financial Security in the New Millennium,

1999 World Atlas, the encyclopedia, weight loss diets,

signed local autobiographies - all forgotten, but

there's a power in them still.

I feel it, in this air-conditioned oasis

in the middle-of-nowhere Florida,

charging me with an unfamiliar faith,

a spell hoarded and dying,

an analog optimism from the edge of a new century

where a better future existed, its silicon heat spilling

over the horizon, before the towers fell

and tilted the first domino of this dark age.

I absorb it through osmosis and hope

I have the strength to carry it with me.

Imagine every day a list:

tasks, ever-expanding. Wake up

and the world has become

    list.

Imagine your brain never left school.

It mastered school and thought:

   why not make life school?

Brilliant! Let's keep this grift going.

So you are the teacher and the student.

You assign and then grade yourself

    harshly.

Imagine finishing work and thinking:

    Ah, now for the home work.

Imagine daily evaluations,

a.k.a. dark journaling:

    How much progress have we made?

        Look at your peers. They're so much further

        than you. How old are you again?

        We expect better from you.

Imagine taking this voice seriously,

this silly little arbitrary voice in the head.

Imagine every desire notated

in a list 1,900 tasks long

        and growing...

Imagine rest as homework.

Today's assignment: rest

for 30 minutes. As in,

        do nothing really well.

Imagine failing this assignment

over and over. 15 minutes in and you realize

        5 other assignments are due.

That's 50% completion,

        an F.

Imagine judging yourself for

        failing rest.

Imagine that judgment spilling

like dark ink, blotting out your free time.

Your grades are

        slipping. Your performances

are becoming stiffer. The audience

        stirs

restlessly. They didn't pay to see

        this.

        What did they pay? Who's watching?

Maybe you need to socialize

        more. That's it!

You've neglected your social studies.

So you start tracking your social time.

As in: ah, shit, this week was down 3 hours.

I wasted Sunday resting (not real rest,

just a guilty marathon of mini-chores.)

        These relationships aren't progressing

        in the exact manner, at the exact pace

        that my brain has decided they should.

        FAIL.

Maybe you need a vacation. Naturally,

        you make a list

built from other people's lists:

places you should go, things you

        should do there. Selfies to take,

experiences to obtain.

But you never go because

        what if you didn't plan it right?

What if you miss something and ruin

        a once-in-a-lifetime trip?

Imagine every day

        darker than the last.

You're failing sleep,

the pre-requisite for everything!

Gotta start tracking that. Maybe

there's some method…

        breath work, meditation, yoga, exercise -

imagine losing sleep

        thinking about

                improving sleep. The days

accelerate. A week

        passes and habits are

                slipping, habits

                        that used to be fun.

What? Who said that? What's that word

        ...fun?

Oh, god, I haven't been tracking that...

I'm definitely

        failing fun.

Imagine assigning yourself:

do something fun today

        and then failing that.

At this point, you know

    you're failing out. At this point

            your brain

                    stops.

It refuses to continue.

You lay on your bed and

something strange happens.

The longer you lie there,

the more beautiful the ceiling becomes.

You feel everything moving out:

all your plans, lists,

strategies, goals, all

effortlessly

seeping out of you like a poison

you forgot you had ingested.

And in their place -

gorgeous in its lack of effort -

the world comes flooding in.

Drifting along this shifting surf,

eroding repetition relentless

like the thoughts that cycle

here or there, it doesn't matter,

I sit crosslegged in my room,

old waves rising up and trembling

from this shell then burned away

by strips of waning afternoon -

the past breaking on the present,

the wide mind bursting out

on these beige walls, the blank horizon.

Memories wash up in words

like seashells bleached bone white

or driftwood tangled and dark

or slimy remains of unnamed feelings.

This ocean has no answers, no still spot.

It produces, destroys, transforms.

Sea foam bubbles burst in its wake,

and time aches.

Beneath the skin,

a hidden fountain roars,

splashing against the contours

of an interior

no one else can ever see.

This is your holy burden:

to open up a passage

for your waters to flow

out into another.

I used to believe

there was nothing in me

but flesh and bones.

What an oversight.

The body

remembers

all.

Easy to pretend

there's nothing in there

until it comes

bursting forth.

I used to believe

emotions were silly

little flimsy things

decorating the edges

of experience.

Now I know

they can blot out years,

consume an entire life.

Emotions deserve

our reverence. They are

our guide to the Real.

And there are fathoms

we must dive through

to reach the deepest Self.

Not every feeling is deep.

Some are years old,

trauma-born, not

in our original nature.

Others erupt

through our dreams,

lava fountains melting

false parts we thought solid.

What must come up

will come up.

If repressed,

perhaps at death.

Maybe that's the terror

in the eyes of the dying:

the gathering 'round

of all these neglected children

ready to merge.

I left you in your wasteland.

I feel it still, the blinding dust

of that valley we wandered

six desperate years.

I fled, found a shelter in the hills,

but your sorrow follows me like thunder

undying, even when you want to,

even when you beg for it. Your pain

echoes through the chambers of my heart,

off the contours of my new life.

I try to call back, make myself a beacon,

but the dark winds distort my voice.

The wasteland has you claimed.

Sometimes I believe the echoes

are the only part of you that lives,

and if I walked into that storm to find you,

all I'd find would be a you-shaped cloud:

swirling, drifting apart, your wish fulfilled.

In the park we circle the big loop bathed

in the piercing sun's last rays, riding

warm nostalgia waves through woods.

We cast our spells; we weave our future

of words. We cling to moments

as if they could be held,

hope warm like Christmas morning, exploring

possibilities waiting like treasures:

the home we saw and claimed. We made

an offer, the promise of a life together.

Air tingling, we pull the threads. We pluck

memories from air as evidence of fate.

We stagger out of our dreams and into the easement

when I get the call: our offer accepted.

A warm breeze sifts through us,

carrying away our doubts, carrying

us to the bench under the pavilion

where we'd sketched the outlines a year ago,

and now we kiss and watch the old day burn,

reflecting off the lamp-spotted lake.

We construct timelines from our excitement,

flimsy timelines life ignores.

She turns to me and asks,

Do you think we’re going to wrinkle together?

I say yes, and we descend

to the lake's edge where she balances on rocks,

just her and black space

and the sharp moon

and burning Venus and Mars

hanging over her head.

I wonder out loud if I am dreaming.

We were. We didn't want to wake up yet.

The fragilest dreams are the best; they shatter,

and their fragments shine like diamonds.

He walks your twisted woods alone,

wild hair burning devil green.

You think you know him but you don't.

His woolen robes hide something

far beyond the barrier of speech.

Wordlessly, he sifts your thoughts

and finds them incomplete.

He scans your memories, beliefs,

eyes darting for something real to grasp.

He laughs his guttural laugh,

ha ha ha, at all your logic.

In his palm, your scattered truth

converges to a point, sparkling,

speaking his silent language.

In his grace, he sends them up:

pieces of you like words of flame,

in cloudy dreams, bolts of feeling,

thunder in the gut.

He trusts you to filter his fire

into something you can hold.

Once again, I make my way to shore,

take a deep breath, and dive

into water freezing, murky.

Through doubt, I find the bottom.

The sifting sands. I spy a sphere,

grab it, fill my fists, lungs gripping,

flee to the surface, gasping, shedding water.

I crawl to shore, crouch in the sand,

inspecting my finds, turning them over.

Mostly junk, as usual, dozens of bland

rocks I discard into the nearby tide pool.

But then: a jolt, a pause, a jewel!

I raise it to the sun, it sparkles,

speckling my stunned face, a prism,

a suggestion of depth. I hold it close,

carry it into my workshop where

the deepening begins: the cleaning, polishing.

Sometimes, the stone is not open to refinement.

I toss it back to shore for later.

But today I have one that complies.

It softens, shedding edges, revealing

its naked perfection. It knows it must be seen.

I pour myself into it and it shines back.

I display it on a velvet cushion

with the others: my precious collection

that warms me with its steady glow.

Maybe one day I'll dust it off,

remove an overlooked blemish.

But for now, it is finished.

You have exhausted effort.

You have tried lists, calendars,

goals, affirmations, algorithms,

priorities, programs, protocols,

straining against

the relentless world,

against the unfolding body.

Reality does not bend.

In any dance,

one must lead

and the other follow.

Let the moment lead.

I want you to believe that I am here,

but if you look for me, you'll see

there's nothing solid,

only gaseous thoughts

or flimsy feelings

or a vague sensation

like a hollow sphere behind the eyes,

not even a sphere, the mere idea,

a bubble that pops the moment it's seen,

thoughts about thoughts about thoughts.

Perhaps I am only the stickiest thought.

In confusion, the question is asked:

Is anyone there? Only echoes respond.

So why do you believe in me?

Am I in these words? Was I

before these words or after?

Am I in the awareness of words,

or the thought of the awareness of words?

Turtles all the way down, a deep

ocean of thought, but harmless,

impossible to drown.

Stop thinking of me, and I become air.

I never was there.

Sometimes I forget.

I try to pretend that I want

the cold noisy outside world.

conform to its contours,

warp with the others, stretch

myself across schedules, contort

myself to fit goals, body be damned.

Obligations, acquaintances abound.

For my health, for my future,

to be painfully functional.

But faces become hollow, voices drone,

and I glimpse the sparkle of you

in a book, in a breeze, in a silence.

I submerge and you pull me down

into the warmth and I want you,

peace beneath the face of things.

I crave the weight of you pressing soft

like the breast of a mother, feeding

whispering, opening a home

away from the sandpaper people.

Stay with me, please.

Don't spit me out.

Don't abandon me here

with them.

Something emerges onto the upstairs landing,

fully lucid, mind inside mind,

inhabiting itself. It must assert

control of this place. It must fly.

At the top of the stairs it raises itself

onto the balls of these feet and lifts

these arms, inhales; these toes leave carpet.

Tensing maintains upward motion.

This body floats

silent over the foyer and watches

the moonlit street outside

the round bay window of memory.

Bliss for a moment, but glancing down,

the will rebels seeing empty air

beneath these feet and loses

concentration and drops, then flexes

and floats higher until this head

bumps the ceiling, but slowly

something surrenders, exhales and sinks

until false soles kiss cold hardwood

and awareness blooms into morning.

I chop myself into pieces.

Every day: chop, chop.

The pieces I like, I keep,

assemble and freeze for later.

I think I'm clever arranging in words

pieces of me, safe in time.

I can make them last.

Chew, chew, I force myself

to chew the pieces.

They were part of me;

they must hold meaning.

But they don't

keep; they rot. I reheat

my rancid collection,

refrying with willpower.

Simmer, simmer, time does its trick.

Time eats my leftovers.

And the taste, the stench,

it grows. I cannot stand it.

I throw me away.

Not a rejection because

the thing that does the throwing

remains.

But where am I now:

holding the fork

or heading for the dump?

Into the warm library, into

enveloping waves of paper aroma:

the smell of thought, of ages,

of forgotten dreams.

I find on a rotating shelf

an encyclopedic volume

with an oceanic title.

Opening, I begin on the surface:

familiar waters, bright sun-rippled

shining ships, and sea life.

I turn the page and dive

into a placid blue world of bubbles,

peaceful whales, societies of fish,

and shipwrecks, skeletal and sleeping.

Turn the page and, deeper now,

the last light of the sun outlines

sheer chasms falling into black

where larger shapes glide in the murk.

I hold my breath and turn again

and fall out of the room into

an inky dark pregnant with beasts

unnamed, all tentacled and pulsing

beyond reason, syringe teeth

and empty glowing eyes that know

not light nor mercy, only hunger.

Mouths sifting infinite water.

I know this place; how can I know it?

This hungry void swallows my mind,

consumes even the memory

of the book that once contained it.

I am speeding down, descending

to a depth beyond the light of words.

I watch my grandfather sitting in his rocker,

smiling into the distance, eyes glazed.

It is Christmas again at his house,

all warmth and bustle and routine cheer.

No one speaks to him. They cast furtive glances.

My mother smiles nervously, eyes wet.

My uncle can't stop talking about him:

"We're so glad he's here."

We open gifts but my grandfather

doesn't receive any. He gives only grins.

His face turns and he looks

but does not seem to see.

Christmas music speaks for him

in the background, behind his head

so pale it's almost transparent.

We surround the dining table,

eating with the silverware

my grandmother brings out once a year.

The conversation is crooked.

Every sentence strained.

My father, mother, brother

all speak but say nothing new.

I drop my fork in defeat, appetite gone.

My grandfather does not eat. He remains

seated in his rocker in the den

surrounded by torn packaging, forgotten gifts.

After the meal, my grandmother

catches me staring at him.

She pulls me aside and grips my forearm.

"I think it's best I show you something."

She leads me down the hall to the office

and opens the door. Inside, on the desk:

a beating heart in a glass box -

pumping desperately, tired veins bulging.

"We are trying to keep it alive," she says

and slams the door shut.

Ah, this aching, familiar place.

This pit of unknown in the stomach

I began to forget. Then came

the flop and the turn. The innocent

relaxation. I opened

my big fat mouth.

I said something wrong,

I think, then the heat in your eyes

- the heat perhaps that I crave -

ignited. You tumbled down

into this darkness and pulled me in

with you, and now we must climb

through the tears and the tension

back towards a quiet stasis.

But maybe I don't want to go.

Maybe I love it down here

in this chaos with you.

Maybe this is where I belong.

Passing through a coliseum courtyard

with my kindergarten class, empty

stone bleachers ascend around us

into the blinding white sky

as if an invisible audience watches

us file like sheep into a long hallway

lined with screens filled with floating heads

of adults who speak to us as we are led

into childhood. They babble nonsense

that blends together, but I see

the tired structure of things to come

etched in their uncanny faces.

On a journey together,

you driving over blue ice,

piercing the dark, rocketing

to a black horizon supposedly brighter,

headlights two pale ovals

on the gleaming danger.

We have seen it crack before

and always swerved around,

but this vehicle is no longer stable.

It rattles beneath us.

At any moment a bolt might snap

and send this wreckage down

into the freezing abyss.

I could jump, yes.

I eye the shaking door handle,

but hesitate. I grip

my knees instead and hold

my ragged breath

and wait for change.

I am incubated in the blurry pixels,

immersed in the chunky geometry,

the comfort of repeating patterns,

a feast of candy colors, clouds

painted on solid not-solid walls

and on the dome of the surrounding skybox:

the distant not-distant firmament,

which fades from smiling sun

to starry nights to fiery dawns. Eternal life

is here somewhere in these polygons.

I have memorized this castle maze. Floating

through its halls, a happy holy spirit

hovering behind and above my head,

never straying, always watching.

And when I stand in front of mirrors,

instead of body, I see steam

evaporating in slow-motion.

Others roam these halls, not people,

only pixelated faces.

And on the lawn, a cubist lamb

rests its head in a lion's bosom.

I wander the perimeter

searching for edges,

but can't quite make it up

the too-tall hill; I slide back down.

Maybe I am the elect; I cannot die.

Sometimes I slip through gaps

into an infinite chasm and fall

into a fresh life. No height will do it,

no lava, water, nothing; I respawn,

trapped in eternal recurrence.

Ghosts don't die, they clip through walls,

and beyond: infinite sky. I shrink

and grow and ascend staircases.

I chase coins, passing time. I learn the rules:

avoid the edge, avoid the water, admire

the limitations of the creator.

Gradually I realize I am of the pixels

but not in them: something beyond

the oval of my sight, not this mirrored steam.

Everything outside is in.

Then there is a smoldering in my mind,

a shedding and a scraping away.

Nothing to lose. No longer holding

onto anything. Everything solid dissolves.

Who is watching this projection?

What is it? Who is asking? /hOO/ 23 8 15

011101110110 100001101111 00111111

me and the world.

what is world? things in time and space.

things? colors. sounds. sensations.

me? the same. just inside.

so: outer colors, sounds, sensations.

inner colors, sounds, sensations.

where's the boundary?

unfound.

no outer. no inner. fused

sensations. a sphere of them, undulating.

no sphere. edge imagined.

speaking of edges:

where does color become sound?

or sound touch?

nowhere. only

unified waves of sensation.

no wave because where is the last

and where is the next except in memory?

and where is the memory? here

in this one and only

sensation.

Mother, lover, daughter, witch:

the warmth of womb, the pillow

one's head longs for, looks for

in another. Could we intertwine,

merging to a gap that cannot close,

like the space between two atoms,

and could it last forever?

Could I fall into that gap,

a piece of her in me in her,

pieces bright, infused with power,

not my own, the other chromosome.

It grows, it leaps like flames,

unyielding fire. And in the end,

mortal men all turned to stone.

I want love natural and tangled,

love that shatters shame to pieces,

deep security born out of freedom,

love without secrets, to hear

    of my lover's lovers and smile,

trust without ownership,

that look in your eyes that says,

    “I love you for your possibilities,"

to hear "I love you" and know it means:

    "I want you free;”

I want to be held without being held onto,

to look back on years and know

    we did this without coercion,

to hold someone's heart

    without consuming it,

to submit to the body whether it says:

    "yes" or "no" or "wait,”

to feed a connection

    without starving others,

to take what is given without craving more;

I want to remember

    that culture is poison to love,

    that we must divorce them at all costs,

that love can be something quiet,

    mysterious to others, unvalidated,

that any linguistic constraints we invent

    (vows, labels, promises)

    are only flimsy weightless words

    we must repeat to keep real;

I want to understand there are more loves

    than words for it, that language

    always cheapens love, that words

    couldn’t possibly touch it,

that love is something we create,

    not something we must conform to,

that we can watch it unfurl

    without trying to shape it

    into some lifeless commitment,

that love will crush any rule we impose;

I want love without the specter of future,

just for tonight and tonight and tonight,

to accept that uncertainty fuels love,

to feel it slipping away and know

    this is what makes it special,

to savor the pleasure

    of "I don't know where this is going

    but I love it here, now, with you,”

to bask in the total lack of deadlines,

to love beyond time, distance, and death;

I want to say proudly, "This is X, my lover,”

to inhabit that magical liminal space

    between friend and lover,

a spectrum of closeness, access

    to many doors of intimacy,

that lovely transition between connections,

appreciation without comparison,

to remember lust isn’t the same as love

    but it's close,

and that "friend" is the weakest word

    for the deepest possibility;

I want to see heartache as part of the process,

grief as love's necessary shadow,

to be present to love's ceaseless unfolding,

to believe time loving is never wasted,

to know that goals are the enemy of love,

that love is here

    and then gone and that's perfect,

to see that love is no conquerer,

    that sometimes we must let love go

    to clear space in our hearts for new love;

most of all, I want to know

    that my wanting is not in vain,

    not an empty fantasy,

    that I am capable of all of this

    and that you are, also.

foggy transfiguration

animal kingdom sensation

swamp water stillness

she is my illness

owls leering yellow envy

slicing pupils peer through fog

bullfrog maws fill with awe

the princess has arrived

but with a liquid drop she's gone

elusive lucifer loose her

caress fern dress

bare feet on loose dirt

dark hair curls like tendrils

embers slow burn her turn

lost in the churning world

rotten logs bogs and tree frogs

offer soggy applause

blood red slippers

step past slithering lizards

through birds that swoop and peck

pale piercing shoulders

herds of fur heads turn

in her direction

she is my infection

I killed another old man last night,

blew his old brains out right here

in front of the bathroom mirror

where I usually do it.

He wanted to die.

He didn't say it but I knew

that's what he wanted, desperate,

barely hanging onto his life.

I loaded my weapon and watched

the back of his skull in the mirror:

my face and his obsolete skull.

The face is mine, not his.

He doesn't deserve it anymore.

His future is faceless.

I cried but I didn't mean to,

the salty bullets on my tongue,

the taste of what I would lose.

I wasn't afraid; I'd done this before.

The silent transition then his blood

dripping into the drain. I

was exhausted but it was done.

The dead are not missed,

just bodies piled up into the past.

I tasted the blood and it was sweet,

not bitter. The good thing is

the aftertaste of death is sweet.

breathing breathing in

                               the ritual

living dying out

                               the ritual

stale life flowing out

                               the edge now

new life flowing in

                               the incense

layers

         unknown

                        deep

                                descending

                      up

this is required

                      chopping

self must be chopped

                      into

something new unfaded

                      voices

of the ego warning

                      voices

jumbled swaying over

                      cliffs

ocean safe for now

for the time         being out of

body vaporous         monstrous natural

last fibres         snap away

from the fleshy         bedrock soul

escaping up

                        up pulsing

green means

                        done healing

throbbing green

                        deep pressure

happy green

                        not red

all around

                        seeping out

In the backyard,

safe inside the solid

wooden fence, the yellow

leaves and afternoon sun fall

on my back as I kneel, reaching

deep into warm sand, searching

for treasure. Of course I find it

because I expect to. A rust-colored penny,

then a newer one, a quarter, a gold dollar, two.

I fill my pockets and still there is more

because I know there is more, because

my young heart drives me on, beating

to the rhythm of more and more.

And when troubles come, I can feel

the coins rubbing against my heart,

so I keep my awareness there

on my buried treasure

as life leads me

further away.

And in that terrible moment, she holds

in her mind's eye a crimson tower

close as gravity grabs and twists

her fragile body down.

She slices through into cold shock

that warms as she sinks and slowly

uncurls, her hair searching

like tree roots, limbs stretching,

spreading her fingers farther than ever,

allowing foreign sediment into

the pores and toward the core,

into the aching lungs and heart,

into the benevolent dark.

These waters extract her impurities

in baptism before they spit her out

reborn, so light and floating up.

She opens her eyes

and swears she sees the stars.

She reaches out but cannot stay.

She falls through clouds, down, down,

condensing back into herself.

She is awake, alone, high up

on a rocky island surrounded

by rolling waves of restless trees,

emerging from her dreams, dizzy

and numb, her fiery hair damp

and swaying in a misty breeze

that slams the stubborn door shut

on the godforsaken shack behind her

and on her past, which drips

from her fingertips and stains

the dew-soaked grass red,

and her wails carry miles

but the steadfast trees absorb them.

And far below on a steep plowed field,

her tear lights on a woman's brow

as she searches, wringing her hands, screaming,

Where is my child; have you seen her?

She was right here. Where could she have gone?

the soreness that comes

from scraping a person

off your soul

and watching the dust

of fragile futures

float away

I know what will happen.

You'll emerge from the bedroom,

puppy eyes crinkled from sleep,

doughy thighs peeking from under your sleep shirt,

wavy hair swinging from your sleepyhead,

and you'll put your arms around my neck,

and your hair will tickle my cheek,

and your breasts will press against my back,

and the dark fog that fills my head will

- WHOOSH -

out one ear and away

like you stuck a leaf blower in the other.

And I will change my mind again.

I will stay.

I want to be moved by you,

but I'm frozen in place.

You're falling for me but

what if I don't catch you?

What if I watch you break,

unmoved like some shocked onlooker?

You receive me in you but

do I receive you in me?

Can I find a bridge between us,

cross, and burn it behind me?

Have I seen too much, shivering

in the winter of my passion?

My body knows the rules, it keeps the score.

It remembers the first time it felt these things

and the cold shock of their departure.

I can't disappoint you; you're too kind,

but I see my patterns emerging,

I see the restless wheel turning,

I see a red dawn.

When will you push me away? I'm waiting.

When will you see through the image you've drawn,

the paper-thin boyfriend sketch of me?

Have you seen what slithers underneath?

What do I do with this power,

this feeling that I have you completely.

Every time, your vulnerability

strikes me like a warm breeze.

Oh, god, that's so sweet, so sweet.

When you say you love me, what do I feel?

Fear disguised as emptiness?

Excuses not to surrender?

If I can convince myself I don't feel it, I can escape

the warm world of commitment,

that future of enmeshment in your mind:

frigid thoughts, someone else's dream.

How sure do I need to be?

I love you, you say, like it's easy.

My reply is stillborn, a premature imitation.

Can I age like this, alone in this wilderness,

harsh winds eroding me into what?

Through sheets of snow, I see a threshold.

Have I crossed it before or is this new?

Have I circumnavigated love to the start,

and do I have the strength to circle again?

I think you'll have to sneak

like an arctic fox into my life

and pounce.

One night I descend down, down,

past many levels of mind,

through twisting corridors of carpeted walls

into a black expanse insulated against

any noise, like a comfortable tomb.

I enter, footsteps muffled, walls

somewhere out there in the black

broken only by a glowing stage

where there is movement.

After a time, I reach it and see

animatronic figurines on rails, looping

in and out of pre-programmed scenes

for no one. How long have they been going?

Their cheery glow casts long across the carpet

where I sit cross-legged like a child and watch.

Their mouths move but only silence emerges,

and the clicking and clacking of wood

and whirring of gears. What can't I hear?

I wander like a moth toward an unseen lamp,

moving along the twisting sidewalk called my life,

on the periphery, up overpasses, through bright tunnels,

restless mind driving, watching the sky shift

imperceptible toward another dawn, and another

bursting like a ripe fruit through the clouds,

spilling onto a shack on the edge of town.

I rest there: cot, table, chair, boiling cauldron

over a dying fire. It's no use. The itch abides here, too.

I move on, ascending curving interchanges surrounded by sky

shining off the pavement with utopian brilliance,

bouncing off the skyscrapers sparkling, rising

like the bottom half of a monstrous jaw.

I shelter in the steel shade, but in the unforgiving beams

of harsh noon light, the deep lines of the city

reveal themselves carved into these faces,

these dead-set eyes plowing lives by force.

I don't have it in me. I am not of the city,

only a pilgrim passing through.

I wander far now, into the woods, over a border.

My home eludes me, the ghost of it just ahead,

always ahead through the trees.

I am a blur in the periphery

of the conversation, the static between two stations.

I stumble on, thinking: this could be my home,

or this, or this . . .

On night walks, her head shines

with fluorescent thoughts in warm shadows.

And sometimes she follows

distant human chattering to its source,

peering through trees at lights and people,

but tonight she flees

and floats, a homeless ghost,

down dark sidewalks, past buzzing bulbs,

just islands of light in the churning night.

Some lamps flicker as she passes

and pretends to control them

while wild lightning bleaches orange clouds above,

a passing storm. She stares through windows,

gazing long at living room worlds

she's never known or has forgotten.

So warm, so real, so fate-forbidden.

A gentle mist falls through her, carrying

the bitter scent of burning wood.

And further, she hears nothing but her feet

until she pauses in the peaceful road

for a little eternity:

no cars, relaxed, hopeful,

the world washed clean by the night.

She passes through a kudzu tunnel

teeming with fireflies,

floating neon candles in the black.

Emerging new, she rests in a swing,

bathing in the glorious quiet,

soul adjusting faster than pupils.

She slips into the park,

away from streetlights,

sheltering under a pond gazebo,

contemplating the triple-reflection

of the hidden sun as it filters

through moon, water, eye.

The frogs grow quiet when she approaches

but worship again as the dark embraces her.

Circling the pond, she weaves

between bushy sentinels that guard the water

as an irrational urge rises to her surface.

She resists, almost fleeing.

It feels insane but also right.

So she surrenders, mounting a boulder,

uncovering her auburn hair,

and shedding her rags to meet

the bounteous blue-haloed moon

without barrier.

It bathes her with a healing glow,

filling her, holding her,

and for a moment, its gravity lifts

and her toes slip free from the rough rock

but the greedy earth pulls her back,

and the great mother slips behind

her veil of clouds.

Recharged, she turns, surveying the land.

She renounces her throne,

assuming again her mortal skin,

and drifts out of the park.

A startled bird flaps its wings

across her vision and away,

shocked by her glowing visage.

She will not look at the moon again tonight.

Drifting home down

the sleepy street

in the deepening dusk, I spy

a female silhouette

raking leaves, her face

hidden, black hair turned toward

me as she pulls the crumbling

leaves into a glow

like flameless fire casting sickly

red light onto the faces

of the houses across the street,

window-eyes wide, alert.

I pass safely but reach

the dead end and reverse.

I raise my hood, not wanting

to see her again. But growing

closer, she hums in the dark

and turns her face to me.

Blurry night full of blurry faces,

except for the girl in the bruised dress

singing karaoke, voice satin

and siren-like, brushing

dark bangs away from her eyes

to enhance the spell she casts on him

across the room with her witchy gaze.

But some drunk blonde falls into a speaker

mid-song, then two frat boys throw punches,

and tired cops haul them away.

He sits and sips on his melancholy

until he is saturated, until

it seeps from his pores, until

he is alone

in the alleyway with the singer,

unzipping himself and lifting her dress.

They merge like desperate animals

against the grimy brick wall,

clawing, biting, something in her eyes

darker than dark, downpour,

so lost and tangled and final.

His last meal splashes on her feet, and she runs,

and he stumbles across the wet street,

and his palm presses against the warm grill

of a truck screeching to a halt.

The newspaper said he was liked by his peers.

No one ever really knew him.

The room glows expectantly as my foot crosses its threshold and meets the astral-colored carpet spotted with fluorescent stars. It swallows my untidy human sounds like the vacuum of space as I float alone to the center, equidistant from two black doorways. A light behind the wall washes it deep blue like a horizon, settling my spirit, and I look to the top corner of the tall room where a little bed, neatly made and painted red, with plaid blanket and soft sheets and nebular pillow, waits suspended, bathed in the artificial light of a smiling crescent moon surrounded by three smiling five-pointed stars. The only lights left are false, artifacts of copied memories, childhood remnants dislodged, floating away. And the floor slowly sinks as I remember what I forgot, what is now unreachable, and I stare at the receding bed and accept the finality of this room and release a tear that falls up but doesn't quite reach the substitute moon.

The cursor appears and disappears,

in and out of existence just like that,

lulling my mind into semi-consciousness.

Where does it go, and what brings it back?

I'm done with college, papers, everything.

Six-week freshman, senior at heart.

A surreal clarity has overwhelmed me.

Edges sharpen, sounds penetrate,

and one forbidden thought hovers

on the rim of my awareness...

but a sharp digital buzz startles me.

I find my phone and silence it, staring

at the beige wall and wondering

if it's really leaning toward me.

I have to escape...

through a carpet of clothes,

out to the cold central room devoid

of anything but pre-existing furniture:

no TV, no focus, spotless floor and walls.

More like a waiting room than a home.

Kitchen unused except sink piled high.

I swallow the lump in my throat, gather

myself and my jacket and keys

and abandon my phone on the couch.

I exit, navigating the stench

of burnt food and a symphony muffled

by cheap drywall: thumps and soprano cries

of coitus, booming bass of a sports announcer,

alto dance music, the tenor

of drunken laughter. I descend

the empty stairwell where a fluorescent light

flickers then dies as I pass and step

over a large crack that slithers

across the concrete landing.

It has widened since I moved in.

It seems hungry. Maybe I'll feed it.

The distant clock tower strikes eleven

as I push the doors and inhale

bitter autumn air. The immense moon

stares down, bathing the earth

in its bloodshot glow, the force of it

breathing life into a legion of leaves

that skitter across the bricks,

searching for a resting place. I search, too,

along the concourse still and silent

as if everyone has been swallowed by the night.

Or maybe transformed, replaced, possessed.

In the annex parking lot, I see

a drunken frat boy wrapped

in a cruel cocoon of cellophane,

squirming in a pool of lamplight

on the edge of the map. I walk on.

Campus is a haunted maze

of winding sidewalks, yawning alleys,

staircases to nowhere that manifest

and twist into new configurations

only when the sun isn't watching.

Orange lamps color buildings ancient,

sinister, abandoned long ago.

The stadium-shadow hums like a sleeping beast

awakened once a week when thousands

come to worship and it roars

to life. A scarecrow glides past,

shirt ripped down the middle and strands

hanging below the waist of his shorts

toward his sandals like the remnants

of some unholy attack. His wide eyes stare

at the horizon with anticipation,

but I look and nothing is there

but the brutal symmetry

of the liberal arts building looming

like a dark temple dedicated to a forgotten god.

Three girls stumble past carrying heels,

dresses sagging over bony frames

that lean on each other and cackle at nothing,

old in the shadows like crones

returning from some black mass.

In the upper quad, the normally proud

white plantation-style face of the old

president's mansion is pallid grey,

and the air thickens like mud.

It starts to drizzle, and I stalk

down College Street where floodlights

cast an eerie glow onto the blood-colored brick

of the old clock tower pointing to the sky

where I now see no stars, no black space, only

a menacing orange firmament. And the tower

waits like a watchful sentinel,

and I grow dizzy, and halos dance

around the lamps as I stumble,

shadow stretching, shortening, doubling.

A passing car beeps its horn

and someone yells words indecipherable.

They pass and the night is empty again.

Across the street, the glowing letters

on the sign for the Heart of Campus,

a trashy motel, have burnt out so they read

like the start of some neon prophecy:

Hear o Campus. I laugh

then flinch as the clock tower rings,

scolding, transmitting frequencies

not meant for me. I am so far from home.

Headlights appear over the rise,

approaching fast as the bells shake the earth.

I watch the twin lights grow until

they envelop my vision. They just

might save me. What else could?

The roar of the truck overpowers the bells

and becomes the most beautiful sound

I've ever heard as I wipe my eyes,

clear my throat and step into the road,

and the lights merge into one powerful sun,

and I turn away unable to face it,

and I am falling up, up, into brightness

all around, and a rhythmic tone like the bells

but quicker, synthetic, and shadowy faces

float over, speaking without sound

and then recede as a kind of gravity

pulls me down, down,

until my face sizzles and I wake,

my cheek pressed against cool earth.

I cough dust, sit up, and rub my eyes.

My left leg is killing me.

Sunlight glares through dirty windows

and disappointment trickles through my body.

Outside, a cluster of lonely grey warehouses

on the north edge of campus.

The rising sun ignites the sheet metal

siding and sets the old windows ablaze.

Nauseous, I lean and taste warm bile

pushing up my throat and notice

a Rorschach test of gore covering my shirt.

I remove dried flecks then lose interest

and, turning with a sigh, limp toward campus.

The sun shines through a blanket of clouds

that trap moisture from the night's rain.

Wet concrete steams and reflects heat up

as I make my way across the brick-paved desert

through hundreds of wavering student-mirages

floating across its glimmering surface.

It's shaping up to be one of those

contradictory late-autumn days

when a cold wind blows but the sun blazes.

This must be a purgatory

where God or the universe or whatever

is slowly purging my sins away,

but I must simmer here before ascending.

On the way back to my dorm, I see

a white truck inching up the concourse

with a hose the circumference of

a basketball hoop that a groundskeeper holds

while he works his way down a long pile

of dead leaves blown against the curb.

The hose devours them by the thousands

and snakes up to a tank mounted on the truck,

and a growing cloud of brown leaf-dust

billows from a pipe at the top.

And as I approach, the grinding

of hidden machinery grows

and fills me with immense dread,

and the acrid cloud embraces me,

veiling the sun in a blanket of red.

I hold my breath and squint

to keep the particles out, but I

last only seconds before inhaling

the putrid dust, which makes me sneeze,

which makes me breathe even more.

Maybe this purgatory won't end

until I step across that platform

one blustery May day and grasp

the diploma and shake hands with the dean

and walk into a new life,

or maybe I'll carry it with me

for the rest of my days like a secret scar.

But for now, all I can do is endure

the mirage while it lasts.

Wake in the morning, sleep at night,

and watch the world appear and disappear,

in and out of existence just like that.

In confusion, I sought you out,

in the deep where I knew I'd find you,

the dark forest stretching into the moonless

black, stars sprinkled around the rim,

the hum of animal noise, your servants,

vigilant, eyes shining in the void.

How could I have known

where you'd send me?

Trees sway, alive with the cool wind

as my fingers brush past pine needles

and branches part to reveal

your cave in the mountainside,

a cat's pupil in the stone.

I squeeze through into your darkness

closing around me. I float

in it thick and warm.

Where was your mercy?

to see you shining?

There's a distant red glow

I move toward,

secure in your gravity.

This is what I wanted,

what I couldn't find in any other.

Stone materializes around me,

water trickling down tunnel walls.

I round a corner and stop amidst

armies of stalagmites. Floating

in the dead center

and glowing like a ruby:

you, larger than life.

Your face breaks the dark.

Your piercing gaze draws me forward

like the idol of some ancient goddess,

familiar but alien, hair serpentine strands

hovering around your glowing head that

touches the roof of the giant cavern,

scarlet robe flowing to the floor.

This is what I needed, this intensity

a thousand reasons not to die.

I collapse at the hem of your dress,

weighed down by your burning smile.

You tilt your head back, and your laughter

splits the cavern air, and I cover my ears,

shaking until you stop and open your mouth:

"Be not afraid. You've strayed too far.

I'm here to redirect you."

You close your eyes and the earth rumbles.

Stalactites crack and fall to the floor,

exploding into numberless fragments.

"Where are you sending me?" I yell

and reach to grab your dress,

but the ground gives way, and I plummet

into a pit that leads to my bed.

And some days I wonder

if this life is mine

or the one you chose for me.

I emerge from the amniotic ocean

gasping, treading water, spinning

disoriented in the waves.

Dawn warms my cheek, and the shadow

of a departing vessel cools my back,

but I don't turn to look. I reach out

to a thick rope rising

out of the water ahead into

the bruised sky. It swings from the bow

of an approaching ship towering

over like an aquatic skyscraper.

I grit my teeth and grasp the cord

and climb, arms burning,

old water falling from me

like liquid dreams at waking,

returning to the source.

I reach the peak and grab one corner,

legs dangling as I struggle to secure them

inside slippery crevices. I grasp

brass railing, and with one last

burst of strength I tumble

over the edge and onto the deck.

Raising my head, I see a blonde girl

lying on a lounge chair, eyes closed,

another chair empty beside her.

I find my footing and approach.

A warm breeze caresses my hair,

but just as I'm about to speak,

I hear a high-pitched rattling to the left.

I turn to find the source:

another girl stands at the railing,

stoic, aloof, alone, staring

at a comet trail cutting

a diagonal scar across the sky. I

admire her dark profile,

a black hole carved into dusk.

She turns and, oh, her placid face

opens into an expression hanging somewhere

between sadness and longing, dying

sun in one eye, falling star

in the other. She approaches

and places her hands on my wet shoulders

and lowers me onto a cushioned chair

and leans against my beating heart.

I hesitantly cross my arms over her belly.

Our breaths, hearts synchronize

and merge, and I grow drowsy,

and the last fraction of sun slips

below the horizon, and twilight blooms.

There is a distant scream and a splash.

Someone has fallen overboard.

I lift myself, ready to seek,

but the girl presses me down again.

She smiles and whispers,

Just cruise.

I awaken on an airplane at night crossing over a dark ocean far from home and moving farther. I can't remember where I'm going. Brain foggy, I look up the aisle and that's when I see her a few rows ahead, wearing a red knit sweater and blue corduroy pants, dark hair falling in loose curls, ivory wrist dangling prettily off the armrest like a dead leaf about to fall. The seat next to her is empty. Without thinking, I stand and the plane tilts down, pulling me toward her. When I reach her aisle, I hesitate, but turbulence shakes me into the seat. Hi, I say. Hello, she answers. Our words tumble out drowsily, naturally, as if resuming a conversation briefly interrupted. The memory of each exchange fades with the sound of the words, narrowing my focus to now, and only now. Oh, before I forget, she says, producing a pen and paper. She writes and hands me the page, a haiku in large curving letters: death is here outside / your peripheral vision / no reason to fear I grow light-headed as if there'd been a drop in altitude. She laughs knowingly, flashing her teeth. It's okay, she says, there's still time. And she leans her head on my shoulder. Her soft hair brushes my left cheek, and I freeze not knowing what to do. Her hand touches my left thigh, and I don't dare move. Gradually, I lean back and her hand wraps inward. The plane stops mid-air, hovering silent over the surface of the waters. We sit motionless, listening to our breaths intermingle, so warm, so light. The fuselage sinks below the surface and curious sea creatures glide over its wings like living air molecules. She nuzzles my neck and sighs, I've missed you. Black memories stirring, I look past into the watery void and ask, How long have we been apart? Forever, she answers. The lights flicker out.

In my earliest dream, I shelter

in my mother's arms

as she rocks me to sleep,

singing a cosmic lullaby

as we float past a dark galaxy,

forgotten except for the dying glow

of a few weak and lingering stars

that light her kind face,

but the starlight loses strength,

and the melody begins to sour,

and her hair dries and curls,

and her skin wrinkles and greens,

and her eyes glow with venomous glee

as she fills space with merciless cackling

and bares sharp dripping fangs,

and I stare up in terror as

the last light in existence

flickers out.

Through chaos, again to the source: that warm comfortable living room lit with golden lamps and lined with thick beige carpet that, sensing an arrival, loosens a few soft strands that grow up and weave around this tired soul torn by time, lifting and suspending it inside a weightless cocoon in the center of the room, the world. Within the soft capsule, a slow disintegration: skin slackening, sliding off, untwining muscle, sinew loosing bones that drift like islands, sinking and dissolving, all released in this primordial brew. No pleasure to seek; no pain to resist. There is a rumbling, and the cocoon trembles and expands and bursts, filling the room with its black fluid, blotting out everything except the quiet beating of a heart renewed. Another chance. Another chance. Another -

She is seen, and the dam breaks,

torn at the mere suggestion of her.

The hint of a thigh, a belly, a breast,

and it floods, the pressure

tearing at my skin, an animal

clawing out, a magnet yearning for

its opposite pole. The momentum

of history, the thrust of a thousand

ancestors knocking on the inside of my skull,

begging continuation, to follow

the ecstatic itch that drives man forward,

the pulsing thorn in the ribs,

the through line from amoeba to us.

But this is beyond blind craving,

beyond mere possession. It wants

to devour, consume, assimilate

like a black hole swallowing a sun

until what is outside is inside forever.

There is beauty that tears at the soul to see it,

that demands worship. This impotent beast

would devour beauty. It was born yelping

in the haze of adolescence, growing

stronger with age, stronger than even

the body can stand. The catalyst

of the worst crimes of men with weak minds

who lingered too long near that event horizon.

Chained by conscience but always hungry,

always testing the moral perimeter

for weakness. It knows not personhood,

it being more ancient than any person.

It deconstructs, evaluates, reconstructs

in a second dozens of people a day, its prey.

It knows neither law nor norm nor ethic,

only aching desire, again and again.

It seeks, vigilant, finding its target

everywhere, always one in a crowd:

the girl uniquely perfect. Imagination

is too weak to have conjured

this particular configuration, this electric

dopamine glance igniting depthless longing.

A smile, a laugh, and I'm there with her

in a cascade of glittering images:

the banter, the touch, the entangling

of lips and limbs and lives until

we're flooded with each other,

and she deserves it all,

endless pleasure for effortless beauty.

I know all thrill dies with habit.

I know beauty is not goodness.

I know an inward beauty exists

unknown to the beast. I know

all beauty fades. Of course, of course.

But if it blooms for a moment

- arbitrary, unchosen, fragile -

it earns eternal life.

The man is stripped and shackled and led out of his cell by towering royal guardesses across a cold marble floor. He does not remember his crime, or if there was one. They pass under an archway into a throne room where the shadowy rafters reverberate with the chants and moans of an unseen choir and the Queen sits dead ahead on her obsidian throne, flanked by Amazonian guardesses in bejeweled lingerie, holding bone-tipped iron spears and diamond shields that sparkle like moonlight in a disturbed pond. He is forced to kneel before the Queen's alabaster legs, and the ancient gong is struck, and he does what he is compelled to do while the shrieking voices ascend, begging the stars to return, and the queen leans back, cold veins pulsing, and the guardesses beat the floor with their weapons, and the planet seems to tilt off course. He remembers now: the sinful forgetfulness, the confining structure of his former life. They did not put him in his cell; he built it and they freed him. And when his mind begins to bend, some kind of fingers clutch his hair and lift his gaze to meet the Queen's cluster of black arachnid eyes. She licks her lips and pronounces the sentence: Guilty! There is a burning, a rolling, a fading to red, to the warm afterglow of duty well-served.

In the dark: a dog barking.

Large black dog with yellow eyes

barking at my bed.

And the bedroom door closing

slowly as the black dog sits

behind it growling at me running

through thick air to catch the knob,

the distant knob slipping.

But it shuts, it locks, I'm stranded

in the dark, feeling my way back

across the carpet, hands and knees,

to safety in cool bedsheets

where from beneath

mischievous giggles emanate,

foreboding chaotic sleep

into which I plunge again.

I see her dark figure rise

to the small summit of dirt,

pushed to the side of an unfinished road

on the outskirts of my neighborhood.

Her raven hair cascading down

the small of her back, she plants her feet

wide and stares down at me,

a queen surveying her kingdom.

In her right hand: a tomahawk:

thick branch, wedge-shaped stone and twine.

Wearing moccasins, khaki shorts,

and a fluttering crimson tank top,

she is backlit by sun, a golden halo

around her darkened face.

I am transfixed. She descends,

revealing skin untouched by the sun

and stoic black eyes extracting

information from my startled face.

She approaches, and I inhale

her scent of sweat, campfire smoke, pine straw.

Her voice is soft but subtly threatening,

and she keeps a tight grip on her weapon.

I share my name and she shares hers.

It rolls off her tongue like the sound

of something slipping over the edge of a chasm.

I tell her I'm a runaway;

she nods and leads me to her camp.

At dusk, she leaves for far too long. I search

in twilight woods and soon

am lost, but hear the leaves crunching nearby.

Frightened, I crouch behind a boulder.

The sound stops. I squint but cannot

see. Instead, I hear a baby crying, so out of place

in these dim woods,

then from the gloom, a golden fawn

emerges, limping, glancing around, lost.

Its leg hangs off the ground, twisted

at an unnatural angle.

The creature cries and fresh goosebumps

fill my arms. It freezes,

and its face points at me, and I am anchored

in its pure black eyes

until a crow caws above us,

and the creature looks up, and a larger shape

rises from the ground behind it.

I shrink back, the fawn glances at me

and I want to scream

a warning but there is no time,

only a whoosh, and the fawn's gaze

disconnects as it falls.

The dark assassin raises its arm

again and again, chopping

into the creature as it squeals and struggles,

and a finger of blood rises feet into the air,

and splashes onto the dead leaves.

With one more blow, all is silent.

I back away as the black shape rises

and her sweet voice calls my name.

What'd you do that for? I respond.

Dinner, she says before dislodging her weapon

from the fawn's throat.

It is madness but I fear her, love her more.

the total effect

of everything popping in

and out of your world

every moment.

This one unified whole.

Thoughts, emotions,

surroundings, sensations:

one stream.

Thoughts: the most insidious

ingredient in this soup.

Quiet and invisible when looked at straight;

but if neglected, a heavy curtain

draped over the dome of awareness.

A pleasant memory can flood in

(from where?)

and the mood-tone of your entire world

shifts. Expansion followed by relief.

This is the fragility of your world.

The smallest input can stain

everything else.

So guard the perimeter.

Curate your input and reactions.

Refuse to pollute your mind-space,

and the world can bloom.

Where is the you that looks out at the world?

Behind the eyes? In some dark spot

near the front of the skull?

A little person peeking out?

At the place where all the senses meet?

The opposite end and nexus of

the fingertips, nose, tongue, ears, eyes, skin?

Is it an echo? Me...me...me....

A re-appearing tag attached

to so many fast-moving thoughts and feelings

and sensations that the tag itself seems

permanent? Thought-me. Touch-me. Emotion-me.

A mental reaction so automatic it's almost

invisible? Is there a you that exists independent

of these passing sensations?

When you aren't thinking about you,

where are you? Are you there between thoughts?

Are you there in deep sleep?

Do you stop and start again?

Can you stop now?

The warm waves invite me in. The tide

tugs me away from the world,

into depths unknown. They say

I could drown but I never have.

I always swim back. The world

isn’t so easy to lose. It asserts itself,

ever expanding.

I sink back into the surf, surrender,

slip beneath the structure of logic.

Fear stings my eyes, my tongue,

thoughts of what might lurk below,

but then muffled relief and silence.

The deeper I go, the warmer it gets.

I let the fluid, amniotic, fill my lungs.

Of course I do; it’s mine.

Some people travel the world, gather

experiences. I seem to be built

for expeditions of the soul.

What territory will I map

down here? What living things

will I unearth inside me?

They bubble up, slowly at first,

shy and not quite trusting that

I’m ready to understand them.

They’re right to be suspicious.

First, I question them, superimposing

my reality onto theirs. I hope

they will lead me to a bottom,

a foundation and a fortress,

something ancient I can rest upon.

Once I find it, I hope to share

how to navigate depths to floor.

I’d like to think all oceans meet

via some deep merging tunnel.

What I really want to learn

is how to bring the ocean with me

everywhere, encapsulating

like a liquid cocoon.

I’ll find a way to my floor.

This foundation needs focus.

Where is my brain? Not this grey

touchable mass reflecting light

and fingertips, byproducts

of the real brain somewhere out there

so they say. Brain made of brain.

Where is the fountainhead?

I float downstream.

All sensual evidence of self

swirl together in the same waters -

an opaque existence without windows,

a collection of matter so easily dissolved

by simple chemical, deep sleep.

The speaking self is not outside of this.

There is no seam through which to poke

my head out of this sensate bubble.

What would I find out there?

What shape could my real body be,

the source of this everflowing all?

and its venom blooms

through your abdomen,

into your heart.

It emerges to tell you something;

its only language is poison

full of stories past and future.

An imprecise but powerful blast.

Fear’s message must be filtered.

It never forgets.

Even before your birth,

fear gathered deep, earthy memories

over millennia and poured them

down into your body.

Ever vigilant, it watches your life

for danger. One small experience

can scar it, and fear heals slow.

If you let it, it will curl

around your mind and not withdraw.

It will forget its place as an advisor.

This serpent must be tamed.

Too much attention given,

too little action, and you will grow

codependent, interlocked.

But with time, movement,

and measured attention, it will learn

the dose that works for you,

that protects and does not harm.

And you will learn that its poison

is a passage through.