...

cowgirl-urban punctuated woman,
straw-weaved hat smiling the warmth of the sun.
saunters beside her buttoned-up boyfriend.
pauses when the pit
bends to sniff her boots,
and recalls to memory her scent from before.

beyond another moment, beneath the obvious sky --
between two sets of eyes, seeking.
the brevity of event, curiously concludes.
trail-less, girl walks on
grin-traces fading.
dog circles twice, to lay itself down again.

...

wind-wilderness tinted, distinctive gaze.
endless-bound, guileless, ravenous blaze.
joyous life written with an effortless smile,
bright silent butterflies, falling in line.
(my dear, you will not stay defined...)
blues romance distraction, momentarily aside:
tune softly and bravely, sounds intertwine.
fingertips floating, freedom gently enslaved.
grateful breath taken; not shallow, nor saved.

"Thinking of her is like dreaming of ice when you're cold..." -M

the weight of your loss

surpasses the strength of my faith

my fate not the same as before

i know now the futility of desire

for what?

starvation bites with the force of survival

lying dormant with eyes all a-flutter

your dreams as fleeting in non-waking

as mine of you are to wake up to

no more

this passing of time like betrayal

now missing an essential piece

and peace a laughable concept

belief an inviable option

so what?

[on: Brother-2's house tomorrow; juice fast ending today; seeing a counselor once a week; Marie's dream-text; mama's otherworldly "journeys"; and all the rest of it...]

M,

I love you. And still...
...you've never nuzzled my neck;
...you've never met my whole family;
...you've never touched me so softly, or gently;
...you've never kissed my toes,
.....or asked me, "Can I give you a massage?"
...you never hold my hand
.....or stare at me
.......or make me feel beautiful
.........or strong
.........or loved.
After all this time, you still give me reason
...to question you.
.....Your commitment,
.......your authenticity,
.........your eyesight,
.................hindsight,
.................foresight.
I ask you to write down key words,
...the substance of your love--
.....Me. "Why?"
You do write me. (Why do i love you so much for that?!)
...It reiterates in short-hand what you've
.....already expressed.
'That I'm a great girlfriend.' Not Me. What I Do For You.
You then give me permission to come home
...even though you don't guarantee that you'll be there.
And I'm not sure if I want it--either one. Anymore.
...Because where's my permission? My allowance? My
.....guarantee? My promise? My compromise? My sacrifice? My
.......evidence? From You. You never question how I love you,
but it's not because you're more secure.
...It's just that I don't let you.

... (Remember?)

...

Iron bar skims softly down my bare foot. Skin keeps imprint of its presence one moment at a time. Sesame seeds dot barren along the fake stained burgundy of table-top red. False plant in the corner, too scarred to turn back now.

(Oh, god, this is hard! How I wish I knew where I was going with any of this... But a story takes so much more of myself away with it then maybe I have to spare.)

...

Drop of voices falling in a crowded room.
Hum of late morning's buzz like a radio show.
How powerful women will the nights to end.
Mouth-throat dry, sticky to a stunted tongue.
Tales of baby chicks named Stella, says the River Daughter,
updates of domesticity, known futures in advance.
While waiting here, in limbo for the waiting days,
watching people 'chase the trees', all the way to Montreal.
"Not much going on, just a whole lot more of the same,"
she says, speaking to a two-year-lost friend.
Seeing her past breach future memories,
then break-in to her present discontent.

Afternoon in Guadalajara, Mex

scraps as crucial as oxygen,
as forgotten as reality,
as taken as a life, for granted.
she lays bent against a dirty column,
seeing all of it in the black of closed eyes.
thoughts incomprehensible run past her vision
at times with the lightning of an unknown past,
sometimes with the stillness left to tomorrow.

...

persevere until
that hinted of end
swallows all of it over again
decide then--where else to go?
and where the stopping point begins,
when it begins to win.

...

Slim. And beady eyes bulging. Beauty lies, too. Don't think too full lest you stop believing. End before beginning, playing out reality. A slim reality, anyway.

...

Distress call. Derogatory confession in dark crystal-reflected company. Quitting entire populations & listening still to lies--we float warm through our own impressions of a likely reality. Wishful thinking on songs, at dawn's last unlit plateau. Look down to beat-up, well-loved flat sandaled memories--beautiful? Of course, that morning-after awards fumbling, must be savored and kept well-hidden from proponent fools of well-rehearsed love at first touch. Curvaceous lettered thoughts in-bred from scrawling, scribbled (raw) & bloody emotion coloring that tearful pink. Stressed lull, lullabying the frozen infant to wiggle, once more its toes.

...

Which flavor determines you?
Which color-coated combination?

Honey chestnut; chocolate-tainted cinnamon!
Blackened blueberries; desert-tinted cafe!
Date-coated flaky coconut flooding cream!

Bright white chili water drains streaming from gray eyes
and oh! if there's no such thing as taste...
Breathe deeper, and take note:
tomato-scarlet brandished
multi-grain cous-cous,
separates and joins to fall like sand falls
always made or unmade, really the very same.
Think into your blessed cherry-blossom messes
glide-float-fallen, cradled with bedded-down brown grasses.

(No dear, I want you to untangle your hand from my hair,
please, unwrap your draping arm from my tense shoulders
and go. Soft joy-faux pleadings, take them from my ear
and tuck them back there in your wallet of unholy white.)

...

fluttering chatter lingers by the swing-set
grandparents step separate, back from boy
playing in the sandbox, silently judging the sunlight.
talk of past years, but few still, through
the voice of an eight-year-old speaker--
where history is mysterious pretense
stepped-in for living desires.

where thought-stream dives beneath
written word, the back and forth,
exchanges of energies divide/derive.
shoed feet on man-placed sand, out of sync
with expectation, the grains barely can
(re)cover their ground. lain almost
by accident about our uncovered
fingers, between our invisible sounds.

...

Threading string spins delicate the blanket. Woven through fibers chained unbreakable, its links fragile as the reciprocal breath of eye contact with a passerby. And in that instant you recognize your own tread, rocks rhythmic and signature, and just as easily passed by. Quiet the glance given the mind's eye from behind, over the wishful shoulder, beyond what would be there. Driven frantic, next steps solidify a wake; white rapids, salvation of unawakened seashores.

...

See what I've created.
Look at what I am,
at how I seem to be.
Deep breath difficult
still so sweetly desired.
Dear frozen/thawed/perched
pen, above the thirsty page.
Indifferent? (Please.)

...

Wet ink shine resigns itself to dullness. Soothing scent of flowered tea jar, not competing with the pleading of a glance grown withered--the countenance of frustration and its need for nameless destruction. Then there's always something farther along--touched-up rhythm resounds in life's pneumatic bloodstream. Tapped-out, not sullen-quite sounds mark bittersweet ears immortal, not merely hearing ruckus. Late nights the swing-setters--happy folks come out their gladdened homes! Wearing white & black, to keep the colors for a moment their own. Imagine the image of freedom displayed. Legs that pump slowly; heads that lay back, hands that hold light and dare the wildest spread of open arms... Who skips this bliss, every night you don't know to wonder? Where does it come from, the body-dwelling fullness of spirit that springs to blessed distraction of breath? Until wondering so, soon becomes itself a wonder, wandering about without dilemma.

...

Silver is just a coward's gray glittering with such conviction. A sparkle like hope that conceals its absence to give the surface its company. Love like magnificent's consequence litters the planes of my face, still, bleeding untruths with authority, breathless. Frequent expectation defied and souring the softest of mouths, which would speak cruelty casually and hypocrisy proud. If but one thing assures my belief, I speak words that must mean nothing.

...

Your hands tend to the unspoken for--their touch, an intrusion upon shame. With a voice descending the depths of disillusionment, still your hands return, having never learned the difference. Within the master's footsteps a servant is born, secreted in his obscene necessity. (If the pale light falters will you open your eyes, or have you always welcomed this belated invasion?) And do you know the conclusion of each joy will come? Impartially, and yet, inevitably. Will you withstand its arrival as ever it is anewed? So careless a celebration can destroy with discouraging ease, you may hardly notice at all. Cradle the fragments of that which you hold dear but relinquish at last the strength of their memory. Please. This life is but consequence of some unknown before and will dry the tears of tragedy. Except that we are not allowed an indulgence of life. Stiff in the threat of furtive glances we have placed our faith in the folly of hope and are fearless, already outdone by the surrounding haze. (The only standard deprived of conclusive worth, laid writhing now within such knowledge.) Freed to explore the limits of this injustice, we're confined by its conviction. But after the acceptance of deception hits us, determined or not, we'll have to fail.

...

We were naked so I wiped away your tears with my hair. If our spirits were trees we wouldn't falter so easily. Your eyes looked like tragedy when you confessed, “There is no beauty save the shadows of the clouds.” If the rain felt its descent only it would know my stagnant fear of a graceless existence, but it shows no sign. Your hands were beneath the snow until you lifted them to touch my face and let me feel the melting ice as it shrunk back from your fever, beaten. Your fingers are pensively restless, exuding desolation, and it's how I know: your faithlessness belongs to the willow's angel. I respond with silence and lay down, pulling you beside me. I kneel over you, your face a flinch away.  A darkness rests upon us while you shudder and I can't breathe, but you tell me not to worry as my sadness colored hair, drips.

...

Of all the ghosts I think I'm most alone. I'm ravenous for someone else's breath. My best friend thinks of her easy beauties, “Whatever, I fake it well.” It 's easier to believe her a liar. When I smile don't take it personally, I like the taste of my cracking lips for their ever pulling apart. Watching from afar my failing sight I can never stave off the cruel laughter, most loyal a mockery of hope spilling out my own mouth. I tell myself that there are things I need so as to give the waiting a purpose. Whatever, I'm good at faking it. My very faith makes me a liar, but how could I cry with what I know? If I weren't here alone before I am now. I whisper it to fall from my sleeplessness, sometimes, and it's still alright.

...

Gray noise of the folk, crazy bass sounding and the hum of humanity. Who would have thought? You're here now, with whomever you're here now with. But where will you go? And who would have thought? To the hum of humanity and other things I speak the end to stop the gray noise, and my head raises on accident. When my dwindling attention is caught with a sharpness I can't explain, I can see the sounds descend.