Moonbeam EpiphaniesYou sit on the windowsill in a stranger's room,gazing out at nameless people,their faces sickly yellow beneath the streetlights.The stranger's breaths are an unfamiliar rhythm,out of sync with everything you once knew.Now you're tuned into all that is off-beat;the wrong radio frequency,and a broken dial.You wish to be outside,but if you left,you'd be wishing you were right back here.Because restlessness, ironically, is attached to you in one steady place,but you can't figure out where.Like a phantom itch,impossible to satisfy.Wanderlust, minus the desire;just becauseyou don't know what the hell else to do.If you're still,
LiminalI woke after thirteen hours of sleepand when I looked in the mirror,there were still bruise-purple crescent moons beneath my eyes.tired no longer comes from alack of sleep—it has reached a stateof permanence, engraving itselfinto my bones. When you askhow I am, I will now answer:cold and tired.It was later that night when I tasted the liquor cabinetto see what all the fuss was about.Whiskey burns as it goes downand settles in the cavity of the heart,encompassing it with a hugthat a lover will never reach.I now want to know if I will ever be able to melt.I used to close my eyes beneath the night sky, as everything i
Changes Due"See the way the top of the building blinks?" he asks, pausing to breathe some warmth into his stiff fingers."Steady blue, clear view.Flashing blue, changes due.Steady red, rain ahead.Flashing red, snow instead."We stand beneath Boston's skyline, the February sky spite hard, tiny flakes that don't even feel like snow at us. I begin to wonder if we are trapped inside a snow globe of the city, as if someone bumped the one that I bought for my grandmother when I moved here."Changes due, what does that mean?"He shrugs back at me, "The guy who wrote it probably just needed something to rhyme with blue."I pull my hands from my coat poc
What it means to conquerI read about themAnd lived- in his mighty arms and his passionate gaze and their tragic romance and fulfilled promise of never being one without the other Death can never be seen as the end to the undying erosHow I pray with all my might that the oracles that spoke to you were right, that he has become a hero and you will once again meet in the afterlife For you have been destined for godliness therefore your realms must once again tangent and intersect and intertwineNo queen nor goddess nor titanessMay ever purify, rectifyWhat has been melded
I just need to get this out of my systemDear Boys:Treat the woman you're in love with the same way you'd want the man who's in love with your sister to treat her- With utmost respect and integrity intact.If you don't want your sister to be inappropriately touched, foul-mouthed or gossiped about, then do not do so to the woman you are after. She too is somebody else's sister.
...signaling a beginning.It is much too cold for May.Morning,cold iridescence breaking in.He hates the cold now, you see.Although,He thought he'd always dislike heatas he had since six at school.Fond of hugs and of sun,being teased as 'sticky Steve'.I guess deprivation is one key to curing some sorts of incongruities.It was much too cold that day as well.Calendar and watch and lucky compass all set out.Wind serenely flouncing, roads skimpily iced.Mrs. and son and their Tahoe by electric barbwire were mutilated-smokey, sliver served.As he sat thereSkewered,eyes feastingforcibly,forciblysurviving.He wrappe
Dandelion Winethe dandelion has made its appealto wine and whimsy,but it's plucked-- regardless of nostalgia.[i am that lion's ragged blooms, and you are the strong winds that blow my meek seeds away, and he-- he is the brawny child pulling me like another weed passe. and there have been other gardeners with hands mortared in black veins by fertile soil, savaging between tame dalmatian tulips and mums the color of fat tabbies embellished by aureate mornings; there have always been these potted plants prettily set as if all of creation planned them so.]and its roots remain tuckedIn the good earth,flirting with raindrops and shelved reverie.[i am t
PersephoneI fed herpomegranate kissesand she criedat every frozen sunrisefor 180 days.With cracks in my heartand souls caught in my hairI counted 180 more.
When Growing Up Becomes Growing OldShe thinks it hits at 35. She watches her husband blow out the candles on his birthday cake, the smoke tendrils hovering in the air before they are swallowed up by the fan in the window of their new home.By 35 you have settled down and started your family, and if you haven't, it's the year your mother begins to tell you that it's "now or never" and that if you chose the latter, you're going to regret it.Their friends all sing an off-key version of Happy Birthday, holding long-stemmed glasses of red wine, except for Marie, since she's six months pregnant. She cuts her husband's cake into sizable pieces only to have three of the women decli
Untitled 04Oh lately it's so quiet that the birds chirp at midnight and the subtle chime of your mind touching mine hallucinates wildly in my empty brain cavity, but nothing is the same. You have a life, and a love, and a passion; I have no reason to take your future away because of the past. Although you can never escape memories, my disappearance happens with a few clicks and a "have a nice life".I don't dwell often, but I like to think we're still happy with each other in an alternate universe, where one of us dies young or major catastrophes separate us, or maybe we just had one date that went better or certain nights never existed, because then m
Ghost Fingerssongs drift slowlyfrom rooms filled with peeling wallpapersometimes i feel you wrapped around my hearttouching places you could never reach beforewe have a storyworthy of a best-selling paperbackthe kind of storythat's only sad when it belongs to youi try to intertwine my fingers with yoursbut it's not really the sameunless you're there too
I'm Just Waiting for the RainHe keeps his umbrella close, but never opened. Storm clouds roll in and out of his life, but they never stop to even wet the ground.He wakes up every morning at 6:15, stays in bed for another five minutes, and takes a shower that lasts eight and a half minutes. He eats two slices of buttered toast and a small tumbler of orange juice. He dresses himself in a blue button-down with a striped tie and shines his shoes so that he can see his face. If it's cold out, he wears his black trench coat and if it isn't, he just wears his sport coat. He carries his briefcase every day, along with his umbrella. He can't forget his umbrella. The train leave
Untitled 03Double-takes toward a life once satiated in its need for affectionReveal nothing to the naked eye of the observer;Reminiscent as he might be of yon days of sunflowers and birds Where distant Sun-star-light warms a tiny dead rock in some pointOf that Universe he pledged his life on to herYet, that Universe is not a compliant beast Ravenously hungry for heart-stars and newborn nebulaeIt makes one wonder, "Do the stars shine out of compassion, orAre they here to lay us to waste?"Man builds things, and then we die.Yet, in our lifetimes we see more destruction than rebirth.Possibly proving that hearts are neither created nor
Send in the ClownsThey had been walking for weeks. They could easily pick their destination at night, or rather avoid a destination from the bluish glow low on the horizon that signalled a radioactive crater where a city once lived. They were hungry, very hungry. The two men were perched atop a barren ridge overlooking a small town in a valley below. One of the men glassed the town through the Leopold scope mounted atop his H&K 91. "Bill, what do you see," Ronald Jenkins asked in a whisper. "Nothing, the town's abandoned. I don't see anything moving, no cars, no people What the hell?" Bill Gaines dropped the rifle and retrieved his binos for a bett
Time Travel Do's and Don'tsDo's and Don'ts of Time TravelSo, you've finally done it. You've scraped together the millions of dollars, dozens of passports, countless vaccinations and hours and hours of anachronistic language classes. The day is at long last here, and you are ready to take that romantic little vacation through time. Yes, time travel is everything you've been told. You will meet exotic people, doing exotic things in exotic eras. You will get to see the "Good Old Days" when they were better known as "These Wretched Times." But, before you hit the app button on your genius phone, there are a few things you should know: Time Travel Don'ts Don't
The American Obesity Problem I have no face. There was a time when I may have owned one, but this is a fuzzy half-memory. In fact, it may be entirely an invention of fantasy. These days, regardless of my history, I know for a fact that I have no face. However, I have been granted a name: The American Obesity Problem. And I am growing in the United States. You may have seen me on television. You may have been witness to my disconcerting back cleavage and mystified by the seamless transition my legs make from my calves into my ankles. You probably saw my unsettlingly large, shelf-like behind as it strained against my tight Capri pants that I swore I would fi
Bailey's CakeSusan hummed to herself as she set the oven to preheat for Bailey's birthday surprise. OK, so maybe it wasn't going to be much of a surprise with her sitting there watching, but it's the thought that counts, right? She paused in her preparations to lean over and give the black and tan German shepherd a scratch behind its silky soft ears. Bailey panted and thumped her tail against the floor, always eager for more attention.Susan thought about her while she greased the cake tin. Ten was a big year for a dog, especially one of Bailey's size. She had been such a good friend for all their years together, it was hard to imagine that someday soon
A Key Point Hello. I'm your left shift key. You know, on your keyboard? I think it's time we had a little chat. See, I think I have things better than some others I know. Like my friends P, A, I, and N you know those keys? - well, they've been feeling used. Whenever you open up Microsoft Word, they just start groaning because they feel your poetry coming. Me, though, I guess I'm just feeling ignored. Unappreciated. You know the feeling? I know you do. I saw that poem about your family. Tough stuff, right there. I feel you, I really do. I know you feel all deep without me. Like the restraints I put upon you shackle your inner poet. I'm not unc
Transdimensional Super TeamNotice: The full length version of this tale, which is far more palatable, is available right here.The magical computer pool glowed. We stood around it like gods."Place your palms upon the unimetriscope," said the man in the top hat. "Validate your identities to Her Majesty, the Queen of the Multiverse."It all seemed a bit hoity-toity to me, but there's a lot to be said for peer pressure when some extra-dimensional fancypants tells you your "peers" are a lady with wings, a James Bond looking guy, a giant robot, and a little girl and her psychic-bondmate, a white pony. The guy in the top hat called hims
Cops Arrest Death for GraffitiToday, two members of the NYPD have arrested a black-cloaked offender for vandalizing the wall of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. Upon dragging them to the police station, they discovered that the person was genderless and used the hood of the cloak to conceal a rather troubling lack of skin, meat, eyes or nose on an otherwise lively skull."We realized," officer Jobson says, "that this was not your ordinary criminal - I mean, most of the people we bring over have some identifying features and while I suppose that having a skull for a head is identifying, it's just... Troubling. What do you write in the 'skin colour' or 'eye colour' boxes, y