#41

You were in my dream 

Again 

this time silver-ing in places 

Distinguished 

Eyes shining 

I find your features everywhere

Your mouth 

The cadence in the way you speak about ironies that make you laugh 

Your hooded brow in studied concentration over a worn hard cover book you're reading for the third time 

Always seeking out another favorite passage, some gem, you might have missed before

I loved the slowness of time

Like the way you feel 

moving slowly 

through 

Warm water 

lapping your skin

Soft 

And music played familiar 

Like a #41

A favorite 

For times like these 

"I came in praying for you

     Why won't you run" 

Singing 

In that way that gets the dishes done

Or eyes closed 

Sinking into a couch 

Limbs splayed 

A book resting

On your chest

Foot tapping 

The rhythm 

And lightly humming

The melody

The light always dancing

Across

The floor

This dream is

Easy

And 

Full

stories

Running after the end game
but it caught me here
finding the beginning
again
it keeps coming
so I progress no further than the start

swallowing demigods
every night
and the filament
is flickering
a new beat
a new rhythm
a burnt orange flavored cast
on careful crimes
I can't forget

This five-chaptered story
of
aching love
bleeding all over
another
un-made bed
filling the days
and most nights

But now I'm late
and chapter six
is writing itself
inside someone else
a foreign body
an unspoken, unbroken code

Just lay the book on my chest
feel the words
leave the words

keep your word

A Girl

She was the type who looked for daytime moons

And collected old photographs

of people

She never met

Just to look at the way their hands fell

And the untold truths in their eyes

She wrote lists

Of

Colors

And flowers

And words

Breaking focus only to stare into

Thoughts of

Where she could be if not here

In an old bookstore smelling of must and history

Reading Vonnegut

At a cafe sipping earl grey

Listening to Count Basie tunes from scratchy speakers

Watching lovers

Young

Old

Secret

Finding new ways

To

Begin and end

A tryst

She was frequently lost in her mind

Searching for the perfect

Time and

Place

To escape into

Life

Fuller

Richer

More fragrant

Than from the corner

Where she watched it all

Pass

by

Gods and Monsters (a very short story)

Those were the days when we thought dad might be god, or at least a god. In any case, he had a power over us, which superseded any god that may have thought to reign on high.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

My faith was lost, replaced by a hatred so pure it burned white hot from a source deep within my soul, yet to be saved. But I favored survival, so I played the subservient, fearful, meek and obedient child. In secret, I plotted and schemed an uprising to take down the tyrant, who embodied my father.

We did bow to him. We did worship him. We did offer up sacrifices. We sacrificed ourselves on a daily basis.

It was Teeny, who escaped his wrath. The youngest of the four, born early, small, but with a vengeance.
In a land of gods and monsters, we were her holy mother. We were her angels. We absorbed her sins. We all hovered over her as eagles, top of the food chain. Dad was the threat. Teeny's survival rate was 50/50.

He had already poisoned our mother. She was a shell of a person held upright only by a small hope that one day she would be made holy from the suffering she endured on this earth, and the handful of pills she washed down several times a day stealing any glint of light that may have once been seen in her blue greys. Now those eyes, encased in heavy lids and dark mooned skin, more aptly could be described as a smog that swallowed a once beautiful city.

Our world consisted of a modest, ranch-style house of pain. Within the walls we dodged and fought off a man, taken down by business failings, but kept inflated by a prideful ego. We later learned all of his monstrous roar was a cover for his self-hatred and slipping sense of control.

It's funny how a few lines of cocaine can make a man, small in stature, appear larger than life.

Maybe God is a drug addict.

Wasteland

Walking in the darkness

Fragrant thoughts

Shivering free

Acrid and steaming

Up

The veil 

I place my hand 

In front of my eyes

Shielding 

Them 

From that 

Pungent thought

Fog

Choosing to 

Trod heavily,

reluctant 

Turning 

Back 

For a moment

To a light

No longer there

Stumbling I find 

Large stones

And mark them 

With my own shin blood

Thick air 

Licking

The wounds

At once

I still and steady my breath 

Squinting to find

The 

Firmament

As told and regaled

Since time had no purpose

I find a translucency 

No more

No less

A thin film

Preventing passage

Through it I see

A tunnel

Dimly lit

Ruby red

Soft

Long

And a world at the end 

That I no longer cared to find

Instead I close my eyes, even in this wasteland, 

And see more

Hear more

Taste more

Know more 

Than that distant space could 

Offer 

A slap across the face

Down this path,

cut with declivity,

Assurances reign 

Where the passing 

Of 

Time 

Passes in petulance

Passing by 

Passing

It all

My own desultory 

Ways

haunt

My dreams

Of a life 

That never had the chance 

to breathe 

The un-harvesting of a soul

You whispered "look"

I knew what you wanted me to see

It was there

Yet 

I was already looking beyond it

But for you

I saw it

As if for the first time

And I carried the 

Full

Force 

Of the vision

Plain on my face

Soft 

And astonished 

And I looked back upon 

You

As if 

I needed saving

As if 

I was incomplete

As if 

I would be more than me

With you

And now I perform 

An annual undoing

A molting

Of self

Stripping down to

The barrenness 

Of one

Who keeps their eyes

Fixed 

On a point

And carries an empty

Urn

Ashes already spread

Sweetening 

A field

Being tilled by 

Someone else