If I could kill you

I would

and when the time comes

I will

tear

down

your

bedroom

with you inside

cover you with Kerosene

and burn you alive

Why not?

I understand why you don't trust easily. She broke you, she left you, she crumbled your fragile heart and now you keep it hidden from the world. After 18 months of being friends I'm starting to wonder if you'll ever open up completely at all? Are you that damaged that you can't let anyone in? If so, I'm not your girl. So go now, before my heart gets more attached.

Occasionally you show your empathy, your deep emotion. Your compassion for others and ability to drop what you're doing to help shines bright. But it's all on the surface. If there is a question too personal, you back down. You shut down and run away. Conflict isn't your friend, and compromises aren't easily obtainable.

I'm many things, but a therapist isn't on the list of things I am... especially when I don't see a happy end game. So here's to you working your shit out on your own, because from now on my counseling and advising services are closed. Please tell your new life advisor about your issues up front, so they don't get overly invested like I did. You disguise that shit well, but when it comes out it's like a festering wound.

Your diagnosis for the time being is Man-baby with bruised ego and inability to express true feelings. I don't mind meaningless sex, but I do mind it with my best friend. So I'm out. (That includes the sex, too).

Moving, then faster, then moving faster again, racing towards an answer, when did the question begin?

In circles she went, stopping in between, never staying long, she'd be up and gone before she was seen.

Looking for the cause of his senseless death, the blame she pointed out. Even when there was no blame, nothing but endless doubt.

Her grief eventually consumed her, taking over her days and nights. Not wanting to accept the reality, her grief she continued to fight.

Her guilt was heavy as she carried the blame, throughout the months and all year long. Denying his absence, she continued to search, only to see weakness, when others saw strong.

The cries happen from time to time, a broken heart still beating fast. Wanting so badly to take his place, if only he would of asked.

Grief knows no time, no special rules apply. It just is what it is, a part of living, as death comes at the end of life.

She doesn’t get to understand, it’s not her turn. It's not for her to know God's plan, it's not her time to learn.

Still searching for a reason, a way for him to be saved. Someday she might get to know, but for now she must wait, wait until Jesus is standing at her grave.

Time has passed, his absence still missed, miles she's traveled, still memories exist.

Acceptance is near, yet there are days of disbelief, just always remember, your love shows up in your grief!

#poetry #prose #grief # denial #death

Hair askew

and sequins in her eyes,

black silk dress

clinging to her curves.

Little sparkles

polka dot his palms.

He itches to slide

her sexy dress,

glide it past her hips,

uncovering to find

sunken treasure there.

Hidden in her pockets,

he finds more sequins

fallen from her hair,

sticking to his fingers,

gluing them together

never will they part,

sharing forever

one sequined heart.

The oldest breathed water and wouldn't stay in the sea. Sprinting across the crags, he lived puddle to puddle. Why not just stay in the ocean? But I think he was broken.

The second found cadavers that walked and talked and kissed but were dead. Second would give them pieces of his soul so they could glow, but soul isn't sunlight.

Third lived in a cloud fishing for people. When he caught them he would reel them up and eat them. Little stink pieces of heart and blood dripped from the vapor. I would have liked Third, maybe. At least he knew there were worse things than being lonely.

Fourth lived by an ugly statue, a humpty dumpty god. At night he burned his hands in fireplaces, and in the morning he pieced the monument together with Third-World tools. Noon, he would write poetry on its corpse.

When the Fourth died, there were no children to complete his work. But dying isn’t disappearing.

These were my brothers. They speak to me and they make me want to do terrible things.

Never trust his hunger -

     a man of beefy hands

     and watered down marrow

a carnivore thirsty for blood

     invading my thoughts,

     sucking my lifeblood

as my feet run swiftly

     through forests

     of self-delusion

tingling numb presence

     hiding from

     his threatening invasion

his words a bite of breaking skin

     he is a man to be flicked off

     disposable and insignificant

whirling in his banishment

     he infiltrates

     my torn spirit.

He devours me

     in the darkness

     affixed to my spine

as I pray

     to excise him

     from my soul

to stop the flow

     of fetid waters

     flooding within.

Drawn into your mystery, you fascinated me cloaked in shadows and secrecy. Underneath the echoes, buried in the shadows there you were. I ventured carefully afraid of what you thought I'd be, but pretty soon I was entangled. Behind the dark sky you looked at me.

I fell for you like autumn leaves, never faded evergreen. You're my mortal flaw and I'm your fatal sin. I was just beginning to see your ghost, my memory refused to separate the lies from truth and search the past my mind created. Now the door is open, the world I knew is broken. There's no return.....

Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

      He pitched forward as his vision blurred temporarily. Twenty-seven hours without sleep. He was fading fast. 

     But Jacques had things he needed to do.

     "Sir, who are you?" the night guard demanded.

     "Jacques Sauniere," he slurred. Sleep...he just wanted sleep...

     The guard laughed. "That's rich; he's a fictional character from a movie, but he's not real. You don't look anything like the actor, either."

      Sleep...a nice long sleep, in clean sheets with soft, feather pillows...He let his mind wander as the guard continued laughing.

     "Sir, I must ask you to leave the building. Museum hours are over," the guard barked a little angry. This man appeared drunk and haggard.

     "I can't, sir," Jacques responded. He drew himself up taller. "I've gone without sleep for twenty-six hours, and I can assure you that I am quite real. And if you don't listen to what I say...this entire place is going to sky-high."

     "How do you know?" the guard snapped, irritated still further by this...this lunatic.

     "You can read it for yourself, sir," Jacques responded.

     "Where?" the guard demanded, lip curling up in a jeer.

     "Mona Lisa's eyes," he slurred, before going unconscious. 

Today, I had a rather innocent and ill-informed student inspect an atlas on the wall (one with only the boundaries of countries but no printed names), point to Vietnam, and say, "I think that's South Koran."

He meant Korea.

I asked him if he was 100% sure and he said, "Well, no, because I thought Korea was near the Middle East."

"No," I said, pointing to Africa, "It's closer to East America, although Middle-Earth is between them."

"Oh! I should have known that."

"And across the ocean is the United States," I said, pointing to Greenland. "And Canada," I said, pointing to Canada. The student screwed up his face in confusion (was something finally getting through?), and I added: "the map's upside down."

We had fun, I corrected the mistakes, and we moved on.

Later, someone made a disgusted snort at the mention of The Human Centipede (I didn't bring it up, they did). My student, perceiving a mean remark, protested. "Hey, human centipedes are cute, too! All bugs are, even if you don't like how they look."

We (that is, the class) quickly surmised that he didn't know what we were referring to, and so we stalled at a certain crossroads. We wanted to end his ignorance on the subject, to enlighten the little fellow, but we didn't want to corrupt his innocence. The human centipede is a concept contrary to decency and goodness. It embroils oppression and futility and the depravity of man's imagination into a singular, iconic combustion.

Instead, we tiptoed.

"We're not talking about a bug, exactly."

"It's a way... for people to get together."

"It's like a team building exercise."

"It's not a sexual thing," someone assured him.

"Is it hard to do?" he asked.

"Not if you have the right attitude."

"But it's exhausting."

"Is there also a human caterpillar?" he asked.

"No, no, no."

A human caterpillar made me think of a human cocoon, and I shuddered at the image of a wet sack of living, struggling flesh. For a moment I envied the know-nothings and little-minds, only to realize that really, the degrees of difference between myself and this student were relatively minor, only I'd been shielded from the world's true evils by Rated R movies and comic books, cloistered in a school that looked like a prison, secreted into a suburb with invisible but tangible walls, as ignorant of greater powers and principalities as a centipede, its face turned ever-downward in its small, contained clamor.

      Austin, 2014. An idea was born into the streets. Two men walking, teeth dry from the ways of liquor. One stares in front. Downtown festival. Talks to the city ahead, but to the one walking next to him.

     I have an idea for an app. 

    Small city, the grey heat. Overcast no match. No hope to burn off the film from the damage last night. Hotel lounge, hair of the dog. The city had grown, and they were strangers now, each waiting to leave there, one by plane, one by car and dog. Talks of Prose., the font. Talks of why it would work, a family the size of a world. Strangers yet not quite. Revolt against apathy. Earned things, lost in paces too fast to retain soul, to keep their light. Drinks and words, the lobby bar turned museum for the old death of the words eaten by technology. A way out through a way back in. 

     We are all here now. 

     Thank you for being here with us. 

     Thank you.