A View of the Apparition

On days when the city scape does not look real,

like paint, backwash color, illusion of steel.

When mountain tops shine bright white splinters of light,

I breathe the pollution. My chest becomes tight.

The roaches start scattering away from our sight.

We sit and stare blankly, and dream until night.

Both frightened and threatened by material.

You should press on my eye balls and mash up my skull.

Make me forget things I wanted to be.

Help me remember life based upon need.

Something reminded me

I remember the smell of sea salt

in the heavy humid air that hangs,

fastened to the bottom of puffy clouds full of rain,

and remains alive but still as I breathe it in.

An awkward and (hopefully unintentionally) offensive interaction I, a white twentysomething, had with an elderly white gentleman today, the day celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Me: Hi, what can I get for you?

Elderly White Gentleman: Tall coffee. Black.

Me: That'll be a dollar fifty, unless there's anything else.

EWG: No, that'll do it. Pretty quiet around here, huh?

Me: Yeah, a lot of people have the holiday off.

EWG: I guess just us slaves have to work today.

Me: ...

EWG: Have a good day.

Me: ...Uh, you too.

What's a four letter word for somebody meaningful?

Day after day, I walk up to the yellow box, four shiny coins in my hand. As I drop the quarters in their slot, anticipation trembles through my body.

I grab the morning edition hastily, flipping past murders, political wrongdoing, weather reports, dog and cat stories, cars for sale, and the latest sports scores.

At last, I find what I'm looking for. Scanning the boxes within boxes, and the corresponding clues, answers are already coming to me. I dig in my bag for a writing implement, hoping to find one in my bag.

The puzzle gets filled out quickly. I try to erase the smugness away,thinking it'll get harder as the week progresses. I give a nod to Mr. Shortz and his ilk, for a job well done.

I've acquired a bit of a reputation for my morning obsession, and I don't exactly hate it.

But why am I so compulsive about it? Is it to show off how smart I am, displaying my intellectual hubris like a gold medal around my neck? Yeah, maybe a little bit. There is a far more important reason: you.

That cool spring day in the park, where we sat with pens in hand, staring blankly at the page, trying something new. Prior to that, I'd never really tried one.

So as I sit everyday, working on acrosses and downs, i hold a little piece of you, us. A fragment of something much bigger. A memory of something that once was, and the possibility of what could be. Thank you.

I don't want anyone to think I am more special than I am.

I knew before it became real. I always knew.

It was a peaceful knowing. 

The kind of knowing that takes no effort, just opportunity. 

So I waited. 

dum de dum

We meant to change the world,
but after work we got stuck in traffic
and by the time we got home it was time for dinner
and we forgot all about the world.
Today the elephants next door went to
work, they say an elephant never forgets..
Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
If they were trying to change the world,
then well, they forgot.
But maybe they never thought of it in the first place,
did you?

we like the music.

we are good people.

she can tell.

Time as Mental Concept

Time, seconds tick bars across a cell room.

Time as mental concept that parcels
Each living moment into Lifeless grid
Measured sold, contained and known
Scientifically drawn across a lifespan.

Sunrise corresponds exacting numerical code

Two- Thousand and Ten in the Year of

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
In the name of all Christendom.
This is how we measure the time it
Takes for the earth to circle the Sun,
Abstract domination of concepts of society's Soul
Correlating to A Scientific tick of Gridlock Hours.

No time may measure Individual Experience.
No Lord may weigh over Your take of Soul.

austin/dehlia

on the way home from drinking coffee 

a woman laughs into her cellphone. 

it makes me thing of an old man 

taking his last rasping breaths: 

rushed hoping to announce its presence 

and delay some inevitable outcome. 

my feet drag, my blood slows. 

i feel it turning corners in my body, 

waiting for warmth: 

you come bursting in 

through the front door. 

bringing in with you 

the chill and smells that followed you home. 

i wish i could slow it all down, 

if my breath were in direct correlation with time - i would never breathe again. 

there you stand at the front door 

and the air is stuck in my lungs. 

my mouth is open like a fish 

with a newly set hook. 

the air around me is hard and dense 

like a single pane of glass 

you holding the door, 

me my breath. 

you don’t get this way 

overnight. 

you don’t stay this way by 

choice. 

coiled springs lay one 

against the other 

need never happens 

by choice nor overnight, 

but someone’s willingness to leave does. 

the horizon unravels quickly 

when freedom is at stake. 

need won’t stay overnight 

and choices are the mornings 

unwanted guests. 

the horizon is your back. 

the rising sun is my open mouth. 

beside you, the air is still/sharp glass. 

your breath holding back time. 

i release my breath slowly. 

so your mouth is forced to take its time 

inching across my back. 

i feel the last of these minutes, 

i put them like clothes 

and I keep them. 

i wear them out. 

you: the keeper of our small and sacred things: 

in the corner next to the books, 

neatly stacked kisses. 

the heat we created at night, 

stored until needed next winter. 

each sigh, gently cupped in your strong hands. 

even the slightest flinch. 

you’ve collected, kept safe. 

knotted twice. 

left alone. 

the corner of my mouth 

slowly moving. 

you’ve gone idle, 

bones stacked under 

muscles stacked beneath 

you-lying there, 

receding into the 

twisting of the sheets, 

escaping through the 

yellowed floral pattern below. 

now is a good time. 

body still except for the 

the slight rise of your chest 

with each inhale. 

now. 

i plant little seeds 

scattered on the contours, 

lost in the soft curls. 

they cannot escape. 

now is a good time - you’ve gone idle. 

now is a good time - i’d never breathe again. 

now is a good time. 

the smallest flinch. 

the sacred things. 

the pane of glass. 

over night we unravel. 

the neat stacks. 

push away/against. 

every breath that wills to move us. 

in idle: the devil has done his work. 

i try on your worn clothes made from our minutes together. 

the sleeves fall long over my little hands-

i do not feel so threatening. 

i will stumble instead of walk. 

get in bed with optimism-

just lying there-

going to waste in a heap 

under the window. 

collapsable versions of your usual walk. 

all edges - you are a crisp paper cut-out 

strung in front of my face 

arguing my disillusionment, back 

leaving it burrowed permanently 

in the strips of scraped hardwood. 

it’s often you give that look 

like you are surprised to see me here. 

plotted from above, the constellation 

of my journeys always leading to you. 

bare floor isn’t hitting rock bottom, 

its just where we’ve chosen to build our bed. 

soft landing and we still have everything to gain. 

dry goods and untouched piano keys-

our words sound this way coming out. 

a world of neat rows of refusal. 

we put meaning in it. 

it dries out. 

the seeds 

disappointment left behind 

as a footnote in this history. 

we are possible. 

need watering. 

here's an amusing thought as we begin and continue our writing journey:

Introduction to Poetry

By: Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Intimacy

Intimacy is a drug that no one can afford and everyone’s a junkie. An insatiable desire for connection is always present- a desire for human connection, for mutuality, for something that will numb the empty dark so tangible that it eerily condenses on our skin like a cold sweat. This desire to numb, to quench, to alleviate this longing is the motivation behind so many of our dysfunctions.
Some people grasp at and latch onto others. They squeeze and pin them down so that they cannot leave, an attempt to stay close by force. Perhaps they are trying to prevent anyone from stealing away another chunk of themselves like the one they lost last time when they didn’t hold on tight enough. Some people keep others at a distance- they’ll never get burned if they stay away from the fire. They try to convince themselves of their independence and self-sufficiency. They lie to themselves. There are countless ways people dysfunctionally deal with their need for intimacy and connection. They try to create it, but they are not the Creator. Confused, some implement contradictory mechanisms, grasping at people yet holding them at a distance.
Some people long after closeness so much that they disclose all their secrets at once. Sometimes it’s because they want people to know them but lack faith in natural progression. They try to birth relational bonds prematurely, after which is delivered underdeveloped relationships with little chance of survival. These immediate disclosures are like freeze-dried, microwave attempts at a gourmet meal, sacrificing taste in the name of desperation. Others do the same thing for a different reason. They unload everything right at the beginning because they fear being a victim of a cut-and-run. They figure they should lay out all the dirty laundry in plain sight in fear that it might be too disgusting and odorous for another to stick around. “Just go now. You probably will when you find out, so lets just get it over with.”
Other people keep their secrets hidden. They disguise themselves and become master impersonators, acquiring a different persona, hoping and praying that no one ever figures it out that the mystical, booming voice of the wizard if really just a fumbling man behind the curtain. The secret-keepers have scratch marks on the inside of their rib cages as the ugly, vicious animal inside of them is clawing at them, wildly trying to escape, whereas the secret-tellers are naked and vulnerable, lying on the floor again, guts spilled out and trampled.
What conflicted, desperate creatures we are. We run and hope to be caught; we hide in the dark and pray to be found. We do everything we can to make ourselves forget that we are lonely, that we were lonely, and that we will be lonely. How great is our need for redemption, for rescue, for freedom from the captivities we get ourselves into yet don’t know how to escape. Lead us out, come be our Light, come be our Redeemer, oh Giver of life.

secret promise.

i was making a secret promise

when you asked me

what i was thinking about

i promise i will never fight with you 

now you have it in writing

now it is real.

stepping on a piece of broken glass

explosions disappear into television screens

and your eyes holding my hands

don't comfort me

the moon is full of earth's stories

and silent as a rock

but has no one to walk with

bridges cover the deep

while divers plunge so far down

and you float on top

somewhere in the middle

sitting on a raft of plastic ideas

as you drift on and back again

mistakes sit around in books

on shelves of sawdust

that dream of what they once were

glasses clink and crack

amidst memories and pictures of dreams

and I am one of them