i am your (empty

dead-eyed cashier, mechanically

ringing up your nachos and popcorn;

have a great day!



weekend plans and giggling friends,

i am Maslow’s slave

face blur past, i ring up your purchase

Although I have never been,

I can smell the condensed aroma

of fresh bread in the bakery,

occupying its place in the noses of bypassers.

Although I have never been,

I can distinguish between the flavor

of black and green olives,

Laughter chirps through my ears

A forever perfect

Harmony

In this imperfect world

Sunshine frames the chalk lines

Every colorful streak

A reflection of my friends

A reflection of myself

Moving boxes carefully across the street,

Looking both ways

before pushing a small cart of toys across the street.

Today we were moving,

But it was not a long drive to our new house,

It was a simple walk across the street.

Woman.

Care-taker, life-giver,

nurturer, chef, doormat.

Woman.

Raised to believe my gender put

me on the bottom.

I am to please, not to be pleased.

I am the inferior, the weak, the

soft, the submissive.

sing in me, O Muse, the plight of the second generation american;

she is a girl with brown eyes and skin and hair,

with $300 Beats that match her silk headscarf affair.

she brings “exotic” food to school,

and cringes when lentils get on her skirt of tulle.

Mental Silence

Physical Noise

“Click Clack Clickity Clackity Click Click Clack”

The Blue Switch Thermaltake Poseidon Z Mechanical Keyboard speaks a special language to me

A language that is only understood by a certain herd of people

Headphones cradling my ears

I enter a world

Where electronic pictures and sounds

Are ever present

I take a seat

At the Twitter home page

Where people project themselves to me

Competing for my attention

I don’t want to be left out

The curtain rises,

anxiety and nervousness,

but the nerves vanish.

The lights hit me,

a warm and incomparable sensation.

Lines once memorized,

forgotten.

Few moments of panic are gone,

it’s just me and the music.

home can be anywhere with a song

a constant melody

an extravagant sound

warmth without sun

cold without ice

feel anyway you’d like

she walks

head bent against the cold

and the weight of grief

shoving her down

A thousand stark crosses

Plotted on a green hill

Once moving a thousand miles an hour

Now stand still.

At life’s bloody terminus

We are told they are the purest of all of us

The rolling front blending together

Police tape lines the yard

I walk past

Baby blue house in cookie-cutter neighborhood

I look down and it says welcome

I quickly step in and close the door

so the camera flashes don’t glimpse inside

Even if the school desks

Are perfectly aligned

And the chairs evenly spaced

And the walls precisely decorated

And the white boards

Sparkling white,

This is not my place.

The smile I wear is fake.

Constantly fighting to escape your

embrace,

The proof of my struggles remains on

my face.

Through tears in the dark I turn over

to see-

A stranger, a monster, lying next to me

We caught her,

Slowly dying,

Submerged in water,

Alone and crying,

Slowly dying,

As she falls,

Alone and crying.

The sinner crawls.

As she falls,

I heard the voice,

The sinner crawls,

showers are often taken for granted

a comfort for the morning, afternoon, late night, whenever

consistently enveloping you in that same warm blanket

always at that perfect angle

so you never have to put in unnecessary effort

Everyone thinks I am super happy

But I’m not...

Everyone thinks I just don’t have any problems

But I do...

Everyone thinks I am just happy with myself

But I’m not...

Everyone thinks that I can just make everything in my life okay

I hear walkie talkies – kusssshhhhh.

People talking, “Blah, blah, blah, bleep.”

I hear toilets flush.

Basketballs bounce and swoosh.

This place is full of it: empty. 

The twisted metal trees

Rise up from the heap

Magpies hop about

The glittering savannah

And crows harass the mice

Nesting in the chewed

Leather seat

Of a Volkswagen

A scruffy dog

Stalks the crows

Since the first breath of life,

one adventure to the next,

I can only reflect back in fondness

to the scattered pieces of my heart.

This here is real.

There are no stories

about happy homes and whole hearts

where we come from.

No fancy cars.

We got no big houses but big dreams.

This is crack fiends at midnight,

babies crying, sleeping on wooden floors.

The losses we experience

The victories we achieve…

They become intertwined

With the places we inhabit

As we go about our lives.

Meaning and memory tie us to these places

So that even when we leave somewhere,

There’s a girl that I see sometimes.

She pops up from time to time.

Day to day.

She’s a lot of things.

God, she’s beautiful.

And, isn’t she just so funny?

Music Will Play

People Will Cry

But Big Joe

Didn’t Die

When I give, I don’t think of me

But still I’m known for my generosity

I just gotta give.

One gift for your apartment’s rent

One gift for the woman whose cash is spent

One gift, this I believe,

One gift is all you need.

What makes me me,

Is the way I see things.

The happiness it brings,

That tells others what I see.

The coffin wood grabs at my clothes

The wood chokes me

The darkness attacks me

The weariness crawls around me

When it opens the sun grabs me

I am back

This man is rueful,

This man was done,

This man let go, temptation had won.

This man was punished, for things of great crime,

This man left a sod to eat on a dime.

This man, crushed and torn,

This man was tired and worn.

A gun’s cause’s harm

To the innocent

And gives fairness to the verdict

It’s not really the gun but,

The soul behind the gun