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You know that when night falls I cannot find peace unless I feel your heat against me.  And even now I would content myself with a ghost and a promise, but still you curl away from me like so much smoke.

I will entertain the thought that this is necessary, but not that it is best.  You sustained me, but maybe this

is the blessing.  Now I stay hungry.

No.  We are for each other.

And we do not want the same thing.

You want fields and sky to move in,

but my vines have already grown too long

without your comfort and your shade.

Beloved.

Tonight between the rippling
of thunder-
there is sobbing,
and the sigh of heavy raindrops
on the window.

Brush your teeth and slide
under the covers, I am here.
To have and hold
the aching in your shoulders.

There is time enough between
the moonlight and the dawn,
to let your sorrows rest
between us both
and then move on.

Flies:

What is it that
draws you to leave
these crisp
silhouettes
above my bed?

Was it loneliness
that made you
a part
of that dry puddle?

Or perhaps the
bright pop and flash
of a light bulb
dying?

It’s none of my business, really.
After all, I
haven’t an excuse for all my staring
blankly at a white ceiling.
And yet I’m drawn to it,
so humor me.
It’s no great thing to make
exceptions
for a kindred spirit.

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My job as a writer is to kick the living shit out of you.  My generation is in desperate need of righteous anger.  I don’t care what you believe, because I don’t want to persuade you, and I refuse to make your mind up for you.  I have to know why you believe.  I demand self-reflection instead of self-absorption.  I demand criticism instead of acceptance.  I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to fight against me.  I demand creationism in schools and evolution in churches.  I need rain with my sunshine and flowers on hearses.  I want power and influence granted as a privilege to those with passion and conviction, not as a privilege for those with power and influence.

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Blinking into the sunny blue yellow

on this warm afternoon

I feel primary; but primarily I want to tell you

that springing from winter to summer makes me

simmer in the simple anticipation of pleasure.

Whether nature nurtures or gnaws our flexing toes,

growing from season to season’s (essentially) all about planting

my feet where the water will flow.

So go.

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It’s the first day of a long March
and no kind of time for a funeral
even if the earth is warm enough
now for yielding to the frantic pull
of feet and hands. I made
this hole for you and yours – is
a long and lonesome journey down
through the wet soil and the waking
worms.

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Be somebody.  Does it have to mean spreading your guts against a brick wall and a firing squad or can we actually change the minds of the people around us?  It seems like we have to choose between writing letters to Senators or burning flags and pissing on the firemen.  I want what I want.  I want the wrong things.  I will never get them.  I want to join a cult.  To storm a beach.  I will drink your red kool-aid.  I remove my hat for the national anthem.  Where is the gasoline?  My robes are soaked, they sting my nostrils.  I pillar and flame.  Where is the water?  Where are the firemen?

I    will    not    be    forgotten.

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It was dark, and his bladder was dangerously full.  The sleep oozed out of him, working it’s way down from his dream-hazy mind and out through his fingertips and toes. It was two in the morning… maybe three.

With a furtive stretch of his arms he checked to see if he’d woken her, but she was still breathing steadily. He pushed his bladder out of mind for the moment, enjoying the pre-dawn hush and the whispering syncopation of her breathing. A contented sigh quickly transformed into a yawn, gently shaking him out of his reverie.

He swung his legs up over the side of the mattress, searching with his toes for the floor, and a pair of ragged slippers.  He reached out for the nightstand to turn on the reading lamp, almost knocking it over when he finally made contact. Click. Clickclickclick. The switch didn’t seem to be working… Power must be out, he thought to himself. Ah well.

Through the bedroom door, down the hall to the bathroom… he kept his right hand on the wall, tracing its grains and pebbles with his fingertips to keep him headed in the right direction. Eventually his hand passed over the doorframe and he could hear the reassuring scratch of his slippers sliding against bathroom tile. Reaching out for a light switch, he gave Electricity another try. Click. Clickclick. Sigh. He started slowly making his way to the toilet, with the cold outline of the bathroom sink as his guide.

Click. He cringed for a second as his eyes sluggishly adjusted to the light, but it wasn’t coming from the bulbs that lined the edge of the mirror. Instead, out of the mirror, washing over him and the bathroom sink, light shone with a harsh white glow. A chill went down his spine, briefly. What on earth…? There was nothing in the mirror. Or at least, next to nothing. The bathroom was there, everything arranged as usual; except his reflection was missing… the room was empty.

In the mirror, the bathroom door opened slowly. His reflection stepped inside, glanced around the room from corner to corner, looked towards the mirror, and walked to its normal position. His mouth hung open, a frightened and puzzled expression written on his face in the ink of his dilating pupils. The reflection’s mouth also hung open, a frightened and puzzled expression written on its face in the ink of its dilating pupils. He blinked. It blinked. He let out a low whistle, blinked, and vowed never to have a gin and tonic nightcap again. It winked. He froze. It slowly grinned, sliding back its lips over pearly white teeth.  He was slack-jawed, slowly shaking with fear. The reflection raised a single finger, as if asking him to wait a moment, and gave him a patronizing look.  It slowly backed against the wall several feet behind it, placing its palms flat against the flowery wallpaper. It seemed to be coiling up, poised, crouched at a starting block.

With an explosive push it leaped, throwing its entire body towards the mirror with arms outstretched and fingers spread wide, as if willing itself across that mundane boundary. He was struck in the chest with a tremendous blow, as a thick smoky tendril extended from the mirror to slam him against the wall. His vision flashed and pulsed with red and orange static from the pain of impact, as he dimly registered the smoke expanding across the surface of his body, covering him. He could feel it seeping in through his nostrils and mouth, even into the pores of his skin. It was unbearably hot. It blistered and scalded him, but his reflexive cries of pain were stifled by the smog. He panicked and moved to raise his hands to wave away the vapors, but his body was paralyzed. The heat was unbearable; he could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness as his vision slowly faded

A heavy weight pushed against his chest, slowly forcing the air out of his lungs. His skull was tightening, and he could feel the blood pounding, a frantic thumping in his ears and behind his eyes.

Suddenly, the glow from the mirror was snuffed out. He was gone, his body spread-eagled, plastered against the wall a few feet up off the ground. The smoke had all but vanished, yet a few tendrils still seemed to be wrapped around his head and chest, slowly seeping into his eyes. From somewhere deep inside his throat shone a dim, orange glow.

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I write the kind of poetry
that doesn’t get you laid.
the worst in the world-
I write the ones about girls.

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Fuck poetry.

My lips never tasted quite like
the mango you imagined.
Your hips do not spark with effervescent
power, nor do they conquer anything
but the threat of your good intentions.

There’s nothing in those metaphors
but metaphors, and the promise
of something already brown and faded.

The anxious pressure of skin
against skin, a fingerprint
quickly passed from hand to hand.

There’s nothing in kisses but sand.