Lay

It's always worse when you first leave--
Your scent, memories of flesh
On me like blankets
Enveloping me in the sadness of your absence.

Face aches from contortion,
More smiles than the weeks before.
I want to creep my head in the nape of your neck,
Curled up like a small child in
The arms of their protector.
Arms wrapped around stomachs
Flesh bare, legs entwined--
Feeling every twitch and stir.

Quaked

Window open.
Shadows creep across the pale light as
sounds from outside
persuade their way in, seducing
the thin white plastic sheets that normally shield.

Can't sleep.
Mind races,
churns stomach,
twitching.
Writhing like a worm under a
magnifying glass penetrated by the sun's
unforgiving rays.

They don't stop, the legs.
The worst.
Feet kick at
demons who aren't there.
The bed feels like water--
I'm drowning,
floating,
swimming--
an endless abyss.

Days of 1996

The year I almost swallowed a bee.
Swinging on that crooked swingset
at Charles E. Walters elementary.
A blur of black and yellow came across my vision.
Suddenly, a buzzing reverberated in my skull,
bzz bzz bzz, the bee had entered my open, singing mouth.
First instinct was to close my mouth tight and swallow but
gagging, I ran to spit it out into the sandbox.
I watched it writhing to its death.
This wasn’t the first time I had seen someone die.
I dreamt nightmares of bees for the next few months.

He died that year.
The man whose language I never understood.
That was the year we stopped the long car rides to
the other side of the island; to his little Germany.
No more Sunkist Fruit Jems that sparkled with
crystalized sugar—I always ate the orange ones,
my brother’s favorite, green.
He moved into our basement at age 84,
a two family house containing one.
He took pictures of my brother and I
forcibly entwined in a hug—
at five, this was the worst thing ever.
Mom got mad at my grimacing but
Tommy, being older, knew to smile big.
Grandpa wanted photos of the ones he loved
surrounding him—refrigerators, walls,
countertops and bedside tables.
I thank him now for cataloguing my childhood.

Hairbrush

The dexterity of your handle
is impressed by years of handiwork,
Together, we’ve sculpted masterpieces out of
innumerable strands.
Alone, they seem like nothing
but together, make a whole.

Indigenous to the bathroom counter,
you rarely ever ventured out of
the confines of the home.
Except nights spent in
formal attire.
You were my right hand man
for quick fix-ups in unfamiliar mirrors
when I removed you from your
zippered cell.

Nighttime Riots.

Blue eyes across a table covered in yellowed pools of shitty beer
Condensed with flecks of dirt and mud from ping pong balls that ice skate the snowy floor
Hands shoot them across tables,
Aiming for the highest merit
As teammates collapse in euphoric cheers
As the last red solo cup meets its end

Up the spiraling staircase, barefoot and feeling friendly
Hands reaching out for familiar strangers
Pulling me into you, slowly twisting my desires
Pinning me against wooden walls and keeping my heart on its feet but not above its heels
Alcohol corrodes my inhibitions as your tongue slips slowly through my pearl gates
A sheet of sandpaper embracing a bed of satin,
My mouth fills with pools of blood
And you drink it up

I'm not the first.

So lay me on your bed
And make me feel like a caterpillar within my fleshy cocoon
It feels so good to be someone else tonight
Make me believe that your embrace is something that
I will never know again.

Potted Paperweights.

Not all who wander are lost

but not all who are lost wander

How do we determine

Where we're going

When we all end in the ground anyway?

Is anyone found?

Found is what? --

a self perception

a security blanket

a whispered lie.

A lullaby that lulls to sleep

the pesky thoughts

corroding the pearl walls

that mask troubled minds.

Words are only words.

But what of the ones in our heads?

The ones mitigated

by lack of synapse between

the brain and tongue

as the strongest muscle in the body

flops violently against its own pearl walls.

Walls of choice.

An abstinence of speech.

Do they weigh more?

Those are the words that crush

like paperweights on our hearts

and multiply the steam

like covers on pots

of food left neglected on the counter

due to lack of appetite.

Warm Hands, Cold Heart

Figures filling door frames,
Shadow of an old flame
Cursing at the wind when it begins.
A howl, a heart beat, a tear drops,
The door squeaks,
You're leaving again.

Try to leave without a sound
But creak go the floor boards
Squeak goes the hinges
A cacophony of sound embraces your passing
And I, in the silence
Succumb to these noises
These breaths
I can hear a tear hit the floor
I wish it would burn right through
A permanent reminder
That nothing's permanent.
Your feet scuffing my floors,
You never left your shoes tied.

Your presence perpetrates my pores
As hairs extend from single sockets of skin
And I can feel the heat of your green eyes
Casting glances and emanating sin

Your voyeuristic tendencies have reached their breaking point
The glass ceiling shatters and everyone is caught in its debris
Piercing skin with transparent matter
Scars reopen to reveal the past
And extends them towards the future
Marred and battered,
I am born again.