and of course it’s beautiful

In here, out there nobody sees. Pomegranate seeds shred through my teeth and we accept it. He smiles and of course it’s beautiful.
A blood moon grows 10,000 times what it was, in here. Out there, nobody knows.
I count, up to seven minutes in Heaven and wonder, in here.
Out there, nobody waits.
Everybody talks.
Everybody spits venom in the eyes of people they love.

I love him for the birds, he just doesn’t belong in here. 
This desert is mine.
I sleep on cactus beds and wait….with time.
The sun is mine. I’ll keep it in a locket for those days that get dark, in here. Out there, nobody notices.

I smile. He smiles, and of course it’s beautiful.

Three Minutes In

Three minutes in – I am a dream.
Have you ever been met
by a mirror? Twisted like
eyebrows in confusion.
Steel eye compartments
ready for battle.

Nail my head to the floor,
my only choice is to look up
to neighbors…
to enemies.

The minutes slice off the clock
as we talk – I am imaginary.
She sees me with her husband,
white t-shirt sucked to my
chest, wet from digestion –
I am the dark apple.

My bags are packed, my body
on 90 miles per hour.
The hidden highway – I carve three minutes in-
distressed almond skinny
dipping in shame.
Have you seen me today?
Have you looked in the mirror?

Away With The Night

You who are with me,
who ache with me, please,
lay still, hold your breathing –
we are sinking
we sink,

beneath wings of bad mothers,
through sad voices of home
our dead limbs fall off,
our bones sleep on their own.

You who are with me,
who are silent at night,
who separate stars, who burn with out light

hold on
hold on
to the hands of these words
we are sinking
we sink

through this very dry Earth.
God isn’t softening,
we are starved by disease,
by darkness, by deepness
of the valley’s between us.

You who are with me,
who ache life away, lay still,
hold your breathing,
hold on to your life,
we are sinking
we sink

away with the night!

A Secret

“There is a dream outside. 
I am dark and imagined and 
I can’t wake up….”

I have forgotten how I write.
My voice is with the calendar,
in the cemetery,
dusting off a bottle. The sun has moved
in on this town,
drying up oranges,
turning water to dust.

Today, I am a reflection.
A left over.

The wind is locked.
My phone is dead.
People have stopped watching.
I am underground,
away from cancer and traffic.

“…and the dream is inside, too.”

Light is nothing, not even artificial.
The birds are an alarm;
God’s warning.
If someone could crush my hand with
a hammer, I could stop all this.

The world is stretching.

I want my voice back.

Let Me Pray

I am small;
a pink stick
still blossom
smothered in gasoline.

A sunset is coming with trumpets.
I drink terror under the table;
a jungle of Heaven.
I pout when the symphony
plays out,
the cherry violin stampede
chases my breath
away.
I am accused,

though I feel clean.
My hand’s in the cookie jar
with a pistol.
I must be sick.
My head is sneezing,
my insides fevering,

heading south.

I hear my mother pray for a safe way.
Let me pass. Let me raise the
icebergs to the sun and melt
with them.

The great horns blow
into my throat,
deep musical breaths
pump my chest,
but I last it out.

I am a small, crushed blossom
under the foot of guilt
and shame.
Strike a match.
Let me blend with the end of the day.
With my hand on the trigger,
In my own way,
let me pray.

In A Bad Habit

The graveyard passes me; I am buried
in there, somewhere.
I never got a map.
I got sweet that sweet fragrance of sympathy
from
hands that still pulsate. But a map?
No!

Maps are cold. Indifferent. Without
reason or definition. Identical hands
to
hands laid away forever.

I had a fever for twenty years. It was
habit.
So, I wrote a note:
I am in the graveyard. There is no map.
It is cold, yet I am not.
This fever has warmed me,
blanketed me,
forever.

I hid the note in butter. An arrogant, cheap stick
wrapped in cold paper. The refrigerator
would keep the paper stale.
Then, I left. To the graveyard. It passes me.
It slides off me as if
I am butter. Melting.
In a fever.
A bad habit suddenly hitting my blood.