Kites get tangled. Scarves strangle. Love it dangles beaten up by truth. We’re lawful nerves and atoms swerving randomly and serving no real use. With living weightless, giving tasteless. No seeds nor traces, no flag on our mast. Whatever cursed this breathing hearse, just let it burst and birth me out at last.


Make me the back of a cartoon coaster, lingering like a ghost, for when he hoists up his courage to pick up one of his pens and carve her number (awkwardly) as she walks away backwards. He looks up feeling unworthy of sweet providence, but still lovingly looks at the scrawl. And he may or may never call. But this coaster will tell you that it’s worth it after all.

Roll me into a ball and hurl me at walls to smear and stain them all with all I am. So that my bones and guts and all that’s rot mix with the mud and feed the amaranth. Call up the lightening, flash it bright and bolt my spirit right into the earth. Gather it on a mountain, build bridges ‘round it and like a fountain let it quench and nurse.

Make me the crisp steps of autumn when the summer fades forgotten and leaves sink like they were taught and the days start getting brief. The sun grows smaller and so lovers take to huddling, the poets are heard hollering as light draws a handkerchief. And the trees stand, dark and naked, against a moon that rises sacred, on a day golden and shaded with a wistful kind of love. Kids shiver on the porches. Logs finally earn their scorches. And walks in the park are gorgeous. And your sheets are warm and soft.

The air hangs cold and bittersweet, as you drag your feet across the street, hands in sleeves and kicking leaves into a river’s gentle stream. And so it goes, the river flows. No final stroke or flashing glow. Just clumsy steps, at least, at best, forward and sideways towards light and rest. Some seeds to sow, the strength to row and I’ll glide and slide away. For though the river breaks into cascades, there’s wider waters where its slaughter ends.