snap crackle pop

let everyone drop to their knees sewn up sisters with stitched shut eyes waiting for others reassuring sighs goodbye wanderings when you should have just left it’s nothing new to be part of the theft leaving a reason hanging in our room a dull drum beat thumping sonically resonating booms swishing and sinking with every encounter keeping answers away

still hearts beating

these are not the memories i want to display while age takes away my graying hair 

leaving me blank 

eyelid stares 

yearning to tell you that Sunday’s sitting on benches stretching the scenery listening to mediocrity while silent circles swarm around our gloom is not our killing day’s tomb

get up and take the months of torture with you.

sitting down across from you 

eyes darting

your head turns to get up

i left before you could grab your bag

turn, twist and wring this out 

guided musing 

the sleep sludge grate my eyes can’t see

passerbys is what you left

goodbye kisses aching on my forehead

left for all to notice 

the captured side

safe without a border to keep you in

they sort

contort

resort 

nothing can catch this vile way you purport

grinding in a cache land 

stand a while and grab this hand 

thrash my situation bland 

i can’t taste this rerun plan 

in and out 

leather slides 

leaving 

passion pitted against itself

left a tale to tell on the shelf

worn out bindings and false findings

just grab my tie and show me my needs

i can’t see through the envious haze

captured in a momentary silence 

They were held to a lampshade by a bulky clip that couldn’t quite fit the contours 

 
it came undone constantly sending the crumbling, crunchy reminders of a casket to the ground. wrinkled, purple, pink and weak. remnants he couldn’t find a way for his fingers to put in a final place to be taken away, he left them to become the carpet. always around never restored like his neighbors kitten and the reason he is bitten and unwilling to let anyone through the door. it was only a few weeks ago they were fresh, fully bloomed masking the death stink sounds that filled a room where two people gathered to say goodbye she didn’t let people see her lip curl cry, the wrinkled eyes when laughing at guys who came through a box on top of stacked crates. he had to visit. duty calls when shit filled sheets are easier to change than to imagine being rolled around in. the final guilt, he’d trip his way through the door her cursing leading him to the drawer, a costume change and soup once more it’s nothing now. she fell asleep, snow inches deep he couldn’t find a way. she sat days. opening the door her lies and filth filled his eyes. calls were made. expenses paid. two people cared enough to parade through the alley to grab a bottle and say goodbye to their mom. 

thinking i know what you want when you come to me in need is the mistake i make when we undertake showing compassion

listen, actually hear and feel the words as they spell circumstances i’d rather not be a part of 

my brother left and the cord still strikes 
i don’t want to be held sometimes that happens at night, stop giving me food i can’t stand to bite i need to chew through the news and apply the blues to 50s kitchen hues and realize making one and one a two can put me closer to you. stop handing me your fidget toys, quit playing that dull white noise and please for the love of god, i don’t like yoga. 
i told you about this morning, tuesday night and the closet at my sisters wedding so you’d know, you’d know i’d work harder to get out. i appreciate your concern and look away when you notice a burn, please 

i need one thing. understand that when i’m late it’s not out of disrespect my brother is seven, sister eleven and cold shower parades with hand swiping braids, time just fades, all i want are those grades that can lift us to a place without raids. 

so, thank you for hearing me. 

if you could listen to one thing

the compassion you can show isn’t more attention, or stuff

it’s knowing i’m doing my best, and that shouldn’t be enough

push me, no one else does

rabbits dart back in their hole if they don’t like what they see

Shredded circles ripped by images 

stages of development 

a harbor 

i hang out with help wanted friends

stitching together pieces of evidence to keep us whole, at least tethered in an effort to be acknowledged

we can’t do it alone

trust me

i spent years on that wall 

buried in books 

scurrying through malls 

the only time people stopped was to apologize for kicking me

at least, most did

i lost my eyes years ago

no ones using them

they were beaten bloody, ripped and torn 

the scorn worn from not knowing ‘we don’t go in there’

‘there’ was the pantry before dinner

‘there’ was soccer day saturdays

‘there’ was the house i had no choice to go to after passing through the plasma tunnel into this shell game

we started meeting a few weeks back

you gave me your baby blues

they used to be brown

to be fair, and feel like i have a part, you couldn’t push a shopping cart without my left hand 

and that north side kid made the plan, that although foul and not quite full we could use his mouth

until he has to move again

jane’s coming tonight with a couple of friends

rumor is they have hearts

senses stripped leaving us to stitch together the best of us to feel whole, a joining soul our final goal to complete one another and feel more than the holes that strangers, family, flakes and friends gave us as we rounded out the bends 

of life

If this doesn’t work out?

I’ll fold my clothes and myself on the top shelf of closets closed by cloudy days when grey pours from me and just, kinda, stays.

back in the hole

Balancing this cup standing in line 

it’s you who will see a mark less benign the lateral move to get away from a mistake i made while falling in the shade of an oak where i sat and spoke to a crowd of sparrows who knew to take notes this important transition i find myself in is guiding me to repeat a final sin dragging with me next of kin you’re the sad weasel who forgets hearts and modes are less than profound stop thinking and start reacting to people who don’t want you to hear.use words more judicially. you shackled my senses with stammering hope gulping the fire and creating smoke.

she woke up wondering where she was

slowly stepping her way through a steel encased tunnel each shuffle of her feet hitting repeat repeat repeat turning around to the sound of something left down. there? where? it was the echo behind and what was ahead couldn’t have been enough to get her out of bed the pounding now throbbing it brought her to her knees and suddenly the memory of an entry flashed and stayed an image splayed at what became an opening. gathering strength and speed she was running now. arms flailing, sweat breaking, everything blurring to a stop. 
she was sitting at the kitchen table looking at you. lower lip trembling, eyes swelling, hands hidden underneath the table. starring. where had she gone for those few moments you were busy with your bread and soup, had you forgotten it takes time to remind the one with who you bind that you want them around. that saturday afternoon tugging at sheets meant more than rapid heart beats and imagining other people you meet. encased, engrossed, lost with a ghost the merger of two host to host symbiotic and sonic boom i’m on it grabbing a moment to be in that place tossed in the funnel of situations that bring you to the now, not wondering how a hello brought you to this.

she gets up and stretches her arms, revealing all the places you’ve harmed, can you even look. 

he liked the word particularly especially early in the morning when he’d have to pause between the ‘c’ and ‘u’ to make sure he got the ‘ularly’ part right. he generally used it referring to the weather. how cool it was that day. i think he thought it differentiated that day from others. it stood out. we were progressing to uniqueness. he sat alone and often spoke to himself. picking and looking through his mind he’d slowly pull out the best idea before waiting for a recipient and the words came mostly inane it was tragedy that had to claim the rest of the sunlight he held square in the palm of his hand and you know what? it was a girl that told him that once, a real live human, now, he’d remind the oxygen of this, a real live girl. the jock strapped sunday stunners would stop and poke, one in the group often spoke and the others nodded their numbed out nub of a head and shuffled on. he would look up on occasion. eyes searching back and forth like they had at the dinner table years ago when mom and dad still had to know how desperate he was to find something his own not this train station soundboard standing in line coward stopping and singing because no body would hear him it’s the oddity not the human being the spliced into religion sewer dwellers making potion who reign down without thought which criminal should get caught and store bought lenses to parade through life only catching glimpses of what he does every night it’s not rosey fellow and certainly not free it’s a particularly shitty place that he’d rather not be and like a lamp fixture on your night stand that sits in the day you walk past and believe it’s apart of what you pay for while getting from here to there and your important job that you leave and impair every synapse dwelling without care just stop once and pay some particular attention to a man who was tossed aside by everyone.

I sat there alone waiting for you to come back

it wasn’t until years later i’d find out where you’d been. i pealed a scab and stuck it in my mouth, i remember looking over to find an old ladies eyes resting uneasily on my misgivings. my shoes scuffed the ground and squeaked while they dragged me out screaming through tears the whole length of your name. i hated sitting in the back of their car, you always let me ride up front. less of letting and more of not wanting to move all of your shit to the trunk as we road from bunk to bunk, kids poking fun at the way i stunk and now when the foul odor lingers i smile and wonder where you ended up. I was fine. there were teachers and social workers, the guy at the deli and police officers. everyone but you. i often feel stupid that i waited that extra half hour for you. now i claw at that memory and space out on a scar, bellybutton gazing when my mind goes too far. wrinkled out, the only time you fed me without complaining. maybe you did, i only heard a murmur. your contempt back then let me know what i was.

parading around in a panda suit while pinching the sides of coke cans he interacted with the world until that day the whispers whisked him away and now there are a few more frowns that walk this way while he may not have been polite or kept that smile in plain sight the intention to illicit a response from eyebrows was quite evident and we need that data to measure those minds and i’ve developed a rubric to determine if you’ve become more kind. ask. anecdotal. how do you feel about yourself? yet, it doesn’t work that way. real information, sir. i need to be told while watching this thing unfold the absent minded mold of moment to moment goals. a child careening from class with one last mask, bustling to the enlightenment task of figuring out who she is. the light gilded her face as she worked to replace what her parents forged into her malleable skin. it comes from within. he took the suit last Monday. walking through Wednesday and losing track of Friday finally giving in to the fact that features will never remain intact as we interact bumping elbows and driving station wagons understanding this is life again. i tried. please forgive those desperate moments of insecurity. without bells to welcome the arrival, i give you this one last dance. entertain the idea i’m breakable and will send seven years of bad luck your way if you’re not careful.