dopesick

Pull up to Harbor Freight

to buy a thing or two,

Beyond the windshield

shaking boy skinny

White trash watershed

"That boy's sick" you say

We both know what you mean.

It's not the flu and not a cold.

"Hey, man." Boy calls out,

the words quickly flow out

desperate explanation,

Like pressing your thumb over

the end of a hose, your suppression

the more he grifts, the more dollars lift

Out of your wallet, four dollars

And shake your head,

"I don't need to know.

If you need it, you need it."

We all three feel the relief

like how mushrooms can

Feel each other without senses

He gulps and says, 

"Thank you...at least someone understands."

And we both know, he won't be there

when we leave, he will chase dragons

Down the line, your kindness

hits my heart all the time.

females

That's the greatest task

to learn and thus be wiser-

reflexive, retroview, grayscale.

to feel my life in spiral time

feeling through and feeling in

to feel to feel to feel again.

To feel into each moment

cry into lessons, lean into delight

absorb the wild world.

Learn, learn, learn.

Suck out the wet knowledge 

beaconing as too long glances,

staring, penetrating eyes.

Pull on the tethered neurons

syncing, tug of war, wisdom

in the past, encrypted in my DNA,

pause and listen, the books

it took man ten thousand years to write

all resides within us, outside us,

Ripe for the taking. Learn more

from a rogue bee than all the men.

 

tiger

Is protected land just a geographic cage

with danger links, posts are heavy,

Like how emotional baggage carries

strained on the arms, budging bags

grip it tighter. The imaginary border

between home and the great big world,

boundaries, I know and do not know,

stepping over, under, beside, within.

It makes a messy time for sure.

trees and bees

Ecosystem in a tree;

Ecosystem that in me.

Bamboo leaves

                -Fall

from the sky;

from the heavens

we wait.

wish

Bunnies beyond the fence

and clouds over head

it's always tomorrow I think of, 

When I should be in today.

promise

When the time comes,

I will say "I'm a divorced widow."

with confidence even if

it's with the voice of a child.

estate sale

We show up late and get in line

the man before us explains 

he is the brother, 

"Oh you the brother of the former owner."

The doorman says,

And the man nods,

I turn away,

We are here to buy your dead brother's things.

There a wait-list, we are on it,

But the garage is open in the back.

Things you learn about people 

you'll never meet, buying the stuff

they left behind, with people we just met.

We discuss them like we knew them,

As we'll know their things.

She was a poet and gardener.

He a carpenter and grandfather.

I wish the brother was here 

to hear how we revere them and their things.

It's our turn in the house,

it smells like pee but that's where

the vinyl was, so is the brother.

"I'm sorry" I bleep as I scuttle by,

The brother points to an album in my arms,

"That was a gift, have you heard it?"

"No...just liked the cover."

I blush. I pay the cashier.

Money makes it feel transactional.

Money sanitizes the truth.

We are just soldiers slipping boots off a deadman,

Neanderthals fighting over the good cave,

Proudly holding up objects now ours,

back to our lives and our homes,

The former owners have not.

xoxo

The difference between love and in love

is two letters, but the difference between

loving and loved is a lifetime sentence.

diving for pearls

I want to plunge

into your soul

off the high board

goggles squeezing

snapped swim cap

swimsuit taunt

shivering from the crowd's eyes

a million droplets dripping down

thighs, and backs, and arms.

I Leap. No splash.

It's tens all around.

if I had a fairy garden would you come

I want to cup your face

like cupping water 

to drink

from a brook

slithering through trees,

down mountians,

over rocks and moss,

past deer and flowers,

barely held,

flowing through fingers

to lips.

honey, she's dead

How it takes fourteen years for my heart feel how tragically young it was to lose you at twenty-one tastes like tears on hamburgers Memorial weekend I'm making for the husband I don't love because all this time it's still you I'm running to.

19 years old before OnlyFans

How fortunate am I to come of age

before OnlyFans, forced to stare down

at the face of patriarchy - 

it doesn't look how you'd think it does.

It's not scary, but pathetic and whimpy,

It's a worm body squirming in a hotel bed 

and pull and squeezing with grubby hands

a maggot dick,

squrting white puss like a zit-

towards me. 

Outside the door, a girl I only know as Layla,

we both don't know each other's "real" names.

She says she's a gypsy, a word I don't yet know

I shouldn't say. 

She comes from generations of grifters, she says,

taught all the ways to con money out of man,

doing nothing, almost nothing,

I believe her, I've seen her,

seduce twenties out of minimum wage wallets.

She says she'll teach me.

I listen and do as told.

Victory is four hundred dollars,

in my hand, I walked in with nothing,

watched the lowly worm tug at himself,

Layla and I leave,

I give her a hundred,

she asks if I was nervous,

I lied and said no.

She pats her purse holding a gun

she shows me, she says "good, I protect you."

Whether face-to-face or video snaps,

lady pimps and buffalo hoes don't change,

we can fool ourselves it's empowering,

when men always wanted pay, 

cover their yellowbelly shame with dollars

like a cat covering a turd with sand.

VIP is subjective

Owl in the distance

same hour each 

morning and evening

song a muted wheeze

like an accordion,

broken, played with

by children and I

an audience of one

drink it in

feathered splendor

for now I am free

from the denizens 

of bouge who now

scream in the front row

of a singer, they barely know.

Who is truly rich?

afterbirth

It's Mother's Day,

but my mother's dead

and I am at the end

of a long and hard year.

Not because of that,

but because of me.

God, never let me 

betray me like this again.

seahistory

Did whales care about submarines?

Or any sea life? Did they even notice 

World War Two? Dolphins jumping

and mating and eating and pause,

captivated by the spectacular show,

Pearl Harbor Bombing. To be a sailor,

a horror, but a porpoise delight? Or 

what of the artic waters, hungry fish,

blessed with the bounty of the Titanic

sinking, sinking, sinking down to caverns 

of the ocean floor, a new home,

complete with smorgasbord, feast.

Do the crabs look beady eyes up

and clack claws and "human walk"

for each other? Seagulls flying over

battlefields, above bullets, did they know

war by feel, taste, or smell? Did they pick a side?

Do they pass that knowledge down, baby boy, 

fly ABOVE the bullets, they are killing each other,

and not us for once? Or did they think nothing of man

and his petty grievance with each other, 

think nothing of the day, or moment?

they just flapped their wings and beat their beaks,

and just as time will, pass they fly far, far away.

 

half way thru 2 weeks

Lying on the floor,

I'm crying and need to sleep,

sail off into the sea, the TV

stand and screen cast a whale tail

shadow on the ceiling, I circle inner

monologues of desperation, anger,

sadness, depth and breadth of words

my brain thinks at night but mouth won't

say by day. Not for lack of want or will,

but ability. Instead, I take a pill,

I pray for sleep and know in a week,

I won't need to say a thing, my absence enough.

I focus on the ceiling shadows, the big splashing tail,

And I am again, as a child, at the zoo,

where I gazed up the larger than life,

fiberglass whale tail in the dolphin exhibit, wishing

they had a whale so big in the tank, today, grown,

I don't wish any of the animals to be there,

pacing back and forth and waiting for foods and activities, enriching so they say.

Like the orca grinding it's teeth down

Bloody, on its cement tank,

I pick my bleeding skin, I am captive, bored,

and lonely too.

And like the tiger,

I, too, pace back and forth,

a skull cage and thought loops.

I just want sleep.

Grateful, that my freedom comes soon

a blessing many don't get.

why

And why should I not delight

in all moments of my own life? 

For life has no meaning without me,

so please me for today