On Revolutionary Road.

A dream differed does indeed explode.

And implode.

Sometimes it’s an unexplained spontaneous combustion.

In the most tragic cases, you can hear the soft hissing of life exiting

through tiny puncture wounds,

hovering,

pooling red, and

begging to be ignited like monoxide.

Sing.

Damien's voice hops on my station,
riding harmony's rails, seducing me with the feeling
of sleepiness.
He grows louder and more insistent,
"Why'd you fill my sorrow, with the words you
borrow? From the only place that you've known?
Why'd you sing 'Hallelujah' if it means nothing to ya?
Why'd you sing with me at all?"
I remember suddenly that this was our song
and that was our movie.
A man running across the screen after skipping rocks
with a deaf kid,
Damien's voice loud and clear.
I wonder if you've asked yourself why you
came back at all.
Why you came back to me, at all?

gilded age.

Mmm…Gershwin.

The low whine of the muted trumpet

penetrates my skin and enters

my veins like osmosis.

I should be smoking a cigarette

through a plastic holder in one

gloved hand

and drinking Scotch in the

other.

Time is warped, like faded photos

found in antique shoppes.

Everything has a golden tint

and sways to the beat of the music.

I was born eighty years too late.

a fiddler's hearth.

Breathe it in
slowly and it's intoxication.
Guinness is in your nostrils
before you ever take a sip
or get the foam on your
upper lip.
Breathe it in
slowly to smell the wheat,
take a heady swig,
swallow, repeat.
Breathe it in as you
step outside and inhale
Djarum Blacks, talking
of your latest fire sale.

first stoli.

Men become women and
the women don beards.
There's glitter and neon
shining tight through the smoky haze.

Everywhere there's movement
and everyone is moving
together in a mating ritual
that's completely new to me.
Boys with boys and the girl in the corner
has her tongue down Gina's throat.

Billy Blue gives me a smoke
then drags us around the dance floor.
Somewhere along the way
you found some guts and took a chance,
only to end up with The Old Guy.

Pink Lesbian grinds against Blond Straight Girl
in an effort to convert her, not realizing that
BSG loves Bald Straight Guy; they've been
bumping uglies all night.

The sin is palpable, delicious
and intoxicating in the darkest
way possible.
Like a train wreck, I want to look away.
But I can't.

cardiac arrest.

I wonder:
Can you hear it?
The sigh,
a snap....
beats?
It breaks, you know.

Faster and faster it thumps
and it often simply stops to listen
to your delicious voice,
holding its liquid breath.

But you should listen closer, dear.
It hums and sinks, battered.
I'm bared and bleeding
and beating.

There are tiny, almost silent
pits and patters
like baby's feet on the oak floor.
It begs to be sought and captured
only to plead for release.

rough draft: nicholas.

I've replaced you out of necessity
because you were gone far before I knew you.
And now I find you
hanging, swinging at the end of your rope.
You're no longer swimming upstream.

But didn't I know you?
Your mother is mine and we
knew her by the same means.
She read to us through the womb
until she was too heavy to hold us.

This...event has placed you in her shadow forever,
swallowed up in the mimicked sadness
you'd read about so many times.

tuesday/thursday,

I find myself frustrated every

Tuesday and Thursday. From 11-2

I sit in a plastic chair while my brain

atrophies and slips through my ears

and nose. I try to use my hands to catch

even a little bit of the grey stuff,

a last ditch effort of self-preservation.

My attempts seem futile.

For the first ninety minutes I stare in

awe at two central figures: rosey cheeks wears khakis religiously,

while the sage is unaware of the kippah lying on his head.

They seem to be searching for the perfect answer

without knowing the question

and they aren’t disappointed when eager students

chirp and flap their wings, preparing for a lift off that won’t come.

I do my best by sitting in the corner,

observing and taking hurried notes through

horned-rims.

Rarely do I chirp or flap, knowing that the others

understand the questions before they’re asked.

A second ninety minutes is almost too painful

and a mighty Mississippi intrudes during the ten minute break,

flowing down the center of the room.

This Maginot Line divides the students, natives on one side,

foreigners on the other.

A grey headed rooster sits on the edge of a government sealed

desk and asks inane questions,

never expecting an answer.

It’s a one man show.

I participate in earnest here, pulling out all the tricks to impress

and stupefy my young classmates.

There’s no clucking or skittering around here, these spring

chickens know when they’re beat.

what am i?

Click, click, click

clack. A typewriter in the distance

and the clipping and clapping

resonates in my ears.

Diligently the poet taps and

taps and taps, seemingly

unceasing. What new and

glorious adventure has she

conjured today?

Maybe a story about her

childhood, one yet untold,

or perhaps one of the monsters

in her past or her present.

No, she’ll probably leave them secret.

But what to write, what to write

what to write?

Visions dance onstage

and exit to the left until curtain

call, but none hold the spotlight

and capture the sole audience

member’s attention.

In making an effort, she finally dons the most

sequined outfit she can find and

prances and flutters around until

she’s breathless,

then does it again.

And for what? Certainly not for money,

maybe for fame, but could there be love?

The line is ever so fine, some days she hates

and others she’s obsessed.

Still clicking and clacking, she doesn’t

want to write about love or her distant father

anymore.

She’s grown up and grown out and grown in

and it’s time she shows it.

She takes a step back, examines, sighs.

The only addition necessary is a soundtrack and

a dance routine.

geraldine.

My tiny, purple Neptune, oh

your rings have vanished from ‘round

your waist.

You’ve fallen from orbit and into

a parking lot, glass and gravel

stuck in your feet.

This is betrayal.

My pockets have been emptied

again and again and again

on your behalf

and this is how you repay me?

With screeches and halts, a clutch

untouchable?

Oh baby, your mouth has rusted

away,

rotting from the outside in,

leaving behind the clank of a

trailer park.

Hints of nicotine stains your most

middle finger.

I can’t help taking notice as you wave it in my face.

january third.

You’re in the air, flying across

the Atlantic,

flying across gulfs and streams,

some of my favorite countries.

I had a dream that you emailed me.

Sentiments often repeated, I’ve found,

lose their gilded skins, and checking

my inbox was disappointing.

And now I wake up next to your facsimile,

brown eyes and stubbled jaw.

His snores are loud enough to create an avalanche.

your eyes are broken.

Your eyes are broken:

big, brown, sad.

The half-smile that lies on your lips

never quite reaches them.

I don’t sleep at night

because it’s those eyes I see

in the dark.

They are haunting, and beautifully so.

When I catch them with mine,

they plead.

Are you aware?

They must be deceiving you.

They're deceiving me.

blue.

Blue, black ink dots and lines my

palms, my fingers,

evidence of a diligent distraction.

Words swirl and poke, page upon page

until there is room for nothing more.

Tomorrow, the spots will be gone

and new ink will meander

lazily unto my skin.

New words, sometimes just repetitions

of former ones,

find their way on the blank pages,

an example of their dogged loyalty.

They twist and twirl, structuring themselves

into phrases, rhymes,

flowing and flying from the end of

my pen.

ethan and mattie.

Evergreen and laundry,

scents I’ve tied you to.

Clean, fresh-the

first snow of the season.

The flakes float down and

land on our heads, huddled

and making dragon’s breath.

Our scarves are wrapped tightly

and we’re wearing dull

winter coats; never looking

more radiant.

My hands are chapped, but

it doesn’t matter because yours

are calloused from hard work.

We are Ethan and Mattie.

Both coy and shy, yet we are

simultaneously lit

and burning, melting the snow

as it makes a final, futile effort to stick.

heathcliff.

This is not about love.
Remember that.
This is about me
and sometimes you.

I have just reached twenty-two.
What an unglamourous age filled with questions
and doubts.
Heartache arrives in droves when I realize
I have not achieved my goals.

You wished me a happy birthday
but did not use my name.
Casual, like our acquaintance.
I am a cowardess and you, a coward.

We understand how the other works because

we are one another.

You are me and I am you

and yet, we are two

worlds apart.

raw.

The sky crumbles around our heads.

You watch as the blues and blacks morph into

a strange combination

and I reach my curious hand out to catch a star or two.

You whisper that you expected it to be different,

more tragic, more romantic.

“But it’s not,” I say. “It just is what it is.”

The stars in my palm begin to burn,

and I release them.

They fall with a jingle from my freshly raw flesh.

the leaves.

Last leaves of fall crash down around our heads

and I wonder if the sky is falling.

You claim that it can’t, and glance at your watch.
It’s not quite time.

waiting for january.

I’ll wait

because it’s what I do best.

Remember, though, that

I can’t wait forever.

January will come,

and soon, so no

more dawdling, please.

You said that you won’t

be dancing,

I said that was just

fine.

I lied.

You couldn’t ever catch

the disappointed inflection

in my voice because you don’t

wait for my words like I wait

for yours.

stupid mouth.

My sweet tooth has gotten me again
but this time there’s no easy fix.
There are only two choices:
complete extraction
or
scooping out the pulp
and capping with a shiny new exterior.

But which to choose?

To have you removed so completely
is by far the easiest route,
the pain is greater, magnified by thousands
in comparison to its current state,
but it will ease and ebb away over time.

To replace you. Yes,
this option is also tempting.
Perhaps I would not be the only sufferer,
but you would feel, if only minutely,
a bit of the cross I bear.

My throat grows closed in indecision,
just give me a moment to gnaw on each option.

mon père.

You've risen from your shallow
grave
like a phoenix from the ashes,
or perhaps, Lazarus.

I've mourned you.

Have you no ears to hear,
no eyes to see my sobbed tears?

And now you tell me to grieve
once more,
and promise to make this time the last.

The finality of your words shakes
my very core,
the urn that once held you is spilled
onto the floor, waiting to be refilled.

These sutured wounds tear and
rip,
my blood, your blood,
slipping from them.

Together, we're warriors;
you on the field, I in my heart.
You would argue that your effort
is more, more courageous, more valiant,
but I disagree.

You will die fully for your cause,
but I will spend the rest of my life
mourning your double death.

sondre.

Your voice reminds me of
Paris in the fall.
Smooth and sweet,
orange around the edges.
It holds my hand at dusk
and leads me down cramped
side-streets and into candle-lit
restaurants.
You never whispered "J'adore"
into my ear, but like flowing wine,
you make my head feel heavy,
my limbs dizzy.
I picture your pea-coat, your
green scarf swimming in the breeze.
Under the Eiffel Tower,
we're illuminated.

waterfalls.

I climbed in, double checking
that the knob was turned to
the right, a tiny red H now in the middle.
Not enough.
Half an inch further, my skin turning pink,
becoming tender, but it's still inadequate.
I can almost feel my pores opening
and my dissappointment stumbling from each.
The mirror must be completely fogged, tiny beads
of condensation chasing each other to the bottom.
More the right and thick steam clings
to my lungs and my breathing is labored.
At once it's too much and not enough.
I clench my hands open, closed. Open again
and shut my eyes.
Hotter still, that screaming red H now occupies
the place formerly held by the little blue C.
My feet and legs are nearly crimson,
my blood coloring the skin nicely underneath.
I cannot, WILL NOT, move from under this
burning waterfall.
In short, I've read the letter you left in the door,
and I couldn't agree more.

five works in progress.

1.
Sometimes I wonder if insanity has crept
up on me.
So sly and quiet, it sinks into my skin like
a vapor
or I inhale it like Anthrax.
If it has at last come,
I wish it would wrap its strong arms
around me and contort
my body into a Full Nelson, if only
to get my attention.
This terrorist of the mind allows me
to believe that the shadows hold more
than just the illusions of dark
and light.
But, perhaps, they do. Perhaps I am
not insane at all.

2.
We'll dance.
Somewhere in the distance the sun will
finally appear, sneaking slowly,
slinking in a hesitant dance of his own.
Our hips will sway until an
ache settles into our bones,
at which time our wits will
continue what our bodies cannot.
Back and forth, we will hurl new thoughts
toward one another, hoping our
influence has been caught and applied.

3.
I glance, no, not glance; more like search,
every possible place that I think I'd find you.
And what would I say if we happened upon
one another?
I'd waste your time, surely, searching
your face after every witty line I
pull from my
arsenal.

4.
I have decided against you.
My mind has built a wall,
encasing you inside.
Never should I have ventured toward you,
knowing deep the one-sided, disastrous
outcome.
Foolishly I sought you, though I knew you
would never seek me.
So, I've given you up.
But what's this?
Your tiny voice speaks from inside
the tomb I've placed you,
offering hope, offering guidance.
But the mortar is nearly dry and
if I tear the walls down now,
they can't (or won't)be rebuilt.

5.
Is this how it is to drown?
Wave after wave crashes,
one upon another, lapping around
my head.
No need to put my ear in an over sized
shell when there's a kind of
thundering roar
each time my mouth opens.
I've made an attempt to grasp the
sharp, obsidian rocks, but my hands
come away raw and bloodied,
salty water stinging the wounds.

for us.

Grad school, grad school,
grad school, travel?
Peace Corps?
Let's just get married
and have a baby,
to hell with all the rest.
No, that won't do.
I'd like to, love to actually,
but we both know that you
can't be latched to a dull woman
with sagging, milky breasts.
Not just yet, anyway.
Besides, I need to find me,
then I'll see if you fit.
I don't need a bouncing eight pounds
four ounce swaddling to tend to
between the wash and cooking your dinner.
Would it have your eyes
or mine?
I could be climbing a mountain in Switzerland,
wearing a parka, reflective sunglasses, and chapstick.
Or I'd be making love to a fiery Brazilian, shaking my
hips to and fro, to and fro.
But even in the midst of those things, I'd probably
think of you, wishing you were there.
So, I'm staying for us. You hear me?
For us.

meeting by the tree.

How unexpected is this
recent turn of events?
Even you have to admit
that your breath puffed
out in short, baby gasps,
hands balled in fists at your sides.
I thought my heart stopped
until it beat so fast that I was sure
the thud-thud-thud would
catch in your ears.
My voice spoke in a strange
soprano, speaking casually
about trivial things.
Inside, conversation bubbles
erupted from my thoughts, but
I burst them before they could squeak
from my lips.
It's better that you're unaware.