when did we stop watching fireflies fade during summer nights spent spinning in circles shrouded by stunned emotions holding tightly to the thoughts that we were alone in parks where patrons left hours before leaving us to wade in shallow water, splashing the day’s leftover innocence on one another’s goose bumped flesh cleansing the marks left from the quiet deaths their judgements marked while widened dreams danced off our lips sucking away every desire of a new day while we held the night tight drifting out of sight from the oglers need to be where we were meant to be tripping away from the pain deserted pathways overgrown from knowing it wasn’t the way.
death
from bed, another year older
holding back the hoards of train wreck images throbbing through my synapses swerving to avoid truthful touches while trying to stay on track
words in patterns switched around
happy birthday
blow out your years, wash your hands, and keep bending love lust life language to meet the needs of friends who bare their souls searching for common goals during southern winters spent muscling shoals to the shore.
no magic needed
we created more and fed one another.
let the caboose fly off the track while we dead-aim attack with box cars clashing and engine thrashing every destructive picture gets ripped in two flying in pieces left in grey smog hue.
we can’t look back
we must look within
steady our speed
as we begin again.
from bed, i rose to the occasion
stumbling towards blocks in a road that twists through backroads in a boarder-less country
i turned around
nothing left to be found
on virgin paths leading underground
i chose the high road of memories
pieces of me examined through distant eyes without the flash of a coming surprise i could supply my supple ego and charm with enough calm to disarm relics causing alarm
peace
solitude found in replayed imaginations
comfort in connecting to the past
let me sit, loaf, and find the place where it all begin
a spectator to my own birth
squeezing through mush-hole-muddy mounds where burial dances softened an awakening ground
for the next round
where i’ll be found
distracting myself with where i’m bound
a mere reflection
in everyone’s crown
from bed, sometimes sphinx rest in the middle
the pharaoh didn’t walk alone
on that gilded sand
legions of weak dreams followed her around
fading away to a blur
still strong enough to stir the breath of fresh water waiting for warmth in the morning stream of thought that hadn’t occurred without the jarring distant discontented sounds breaking on our painstaking turn to burn the love we adjourn without acknowledging the slight differences between us
i’m not stunned anymore
indifferent
she confronted me as i stumbled with squinting eyes searching for answers to the riddle stranded in the middle of barren emotions balanced on the line of where we’re going and where we went
now
she’s waiting for me
on that gilded sand
leading me to the land of tomorrow’s memories
from bed, shorty
i lit the fuse and stayed
i wanted to feel the bomb blast, more importantly the time pass as a hiss would grow to bang and leave my final performance something of a mess
grinding behind curtains
you knew i was back there
words that churn from their mouths syntactic seeds i sprinkled in one-on-one rooms
people don’t think about the farmer alone walking rows before their shower starts
bacon and eggs for lazy legs distant from delivery of what keeps them from death
chain links and locks, layers and series of clicks and clocks, clacks and clucks
removed
nuances delivered developed by detailed rain falling on poor richard’s head as he stands alone in mud tides willing himself to walk to the shoals
studios where elvis was made without awkward hips but rhythm and dips doo dippy doo the wizard is suppose to stay in the shoe and don’t rub three times
i have no wishes
the plates delivered not thinking about dishes
i’ll live back here, behind the forest guiding as you zoom in-and-out
a final testament
the sound that stirs your snooze as i give a final refuse and wait…it’s the end of the fuse
i’m behind the curtain
you won’t have to watch
from bed, at least i’m not angry anymore
i used to think you’d show up when i left.
visions of a blustery fall day burial scene with cracks of thunder and would be lovers hiding behind trees while my family collected woulda, shoulda, and couldas
these thoughts brought comfort when slitting my throat seemed like a viable option
but
i forgot to rent out a sign to design the image of me i’d assign so you didn’t have to contemplate what i gave
absorbing left me dry
taken for granted
as i lye motionless you don’t deserve to cry while they lie and you skip over the dry sky that left me wanting more
now you’re heading to the store to buy what you were quick to deny
and these other assholes who take out billboards and broadcast simple tasks get your adoration in a shallow nation where everything needs to be spoon fed
here you fucking baby, planes coming in the hangar
i’d jab that spoon deep and carve out your esophagus, wrap it around your neck, and kick you over
the subtle beauty trapped in a clavicle bone draped with falling fabric riding up-and-down
is lost on you
not to be found in this fast forward fuck-fest where fake tits and cock sucking scenes are what you need to understand attraction.
told what to do, who to clap for, no fucking mind of your own to understand that passing fancy each day is what made you smile
keep nodding off to numbed out numbers coming through a real-to-life screen where i finally fall in the background
the worms will know
from a waiting room couch, watering holes
i can’t continue to forgive the slight hand motions you use to dismiss this wrecking ball crew of self doubt i shower myself with while starring in a mirror admonishing stray dog emotions, i try to leash and tether these carefully constructed cuts in carved out parts of my past to something more solid than the puff of smoke blown, choking through another night wishing i could sit with cafe lights and angry cigarettes, servers seven curses that they could give a shit i have to wait
i don’t have to
this is where i feel home
grimy tables and sticky seats, i’m no more needed than the powdered parmesan that parks itself on every pizza-place table,
nice to have, less noticed when used
you can do that too
use me
though when you’re done
would you pass me along
i won’t forgive you, i will thank you for the direction
from bed, decide ahead of time
saturday night slipped away to the anxiety of one more day when most people pray and i lay in bed dreaming about being chained to a deck far in the ocean wishing they’d let me home
it’s not that i need you to let me
you need to need to think you can “let” me anything as i walked where you have and gave the same change to park and drink a coffee
we haven’t made a difference
open the door
there it is
not the two dimensional you
you hugged me?
i dated your daughter and said the right words culturally financing a mixing glass of terms the way a mocking bird hangs in a tree i touched your grass and filed up his tree in privacy of a home made from an idea
masking the second string of strikes against my swinging wild sights that never could match your wit and condemnation of left over humans wandering for a place in the great race to popular links in our abbreviations and suffix i can’t breathe a slogan for the unforgiven pleas challenged everywhere of please let me be and signal a time when freedom didn’t need a punch in the face reminder that she is the one we serve in every conversation i leave in a blur what is this problem we keep butting against resource fundamental human emergent struggles
can we go back to scattered deaths and rewrite how we caught our breath under a tree
not face down beneath brick building awnings
from bed, before the sun rises
step-by-step
catatonic children donned rhinestone suits for the procession
stamped behind one another
walking in tireless fashion
scorn sewn to their experience-less expressions
riveted and compelled
step-by-step
locked
filing past suits and pinned flowers, stretched faces finding and fulfilling their future
suddenly dead drum beats find their final echo
halting the synchronized steps to stranded conclusions, they turn to the marionettes and bow
moments later
scattering flashes
reflections a blur
costume changes
reassembled
labeled by age no more
it’s their turn to lead refusing to reuse tread upon tired traditions
instead
insisting you acknowledge purple satin sunsets wearing what you came in
splayed haphazard
in the birthing rays of dying days
step-by-step, shuffle, and step, run, now stop, step-by-step
from a couch, little ones to tend to
catch the pieces of my distorted fairy tales that don’t suit you, or throw them away
now?
now you don’t care?
once they fed your wonder
get along, get along, get out
wander back down the palm waving path of those who believe in you
destroy every scream left as we continue fighting the lying of the light as cradles rock and the torture of darker hues brings about change we were destined to encounter with bloated bellies and fake coin counters pried from the earth our worth they grade
wide birth expanding our pay as we’ll wade in swirling water drains when the final flood finds you
you can only run so far, so long, and i bid you farewell as you grasp to the last breath of your past that failed
blaming the ones you resurrected in search of a tail that you would lead
eating each other
onward
folding to nothing except the examination of every atom never belonging to you
you were special right?
chosen?
i forget
who are you?
my morning stream 