Snowflake Disparity

The snowflakes groped me today,

Audaciously bypassed my sloppily knotted scarf,

Slipped beneath my neckline,

A glacial caress.

I was immediately violated,

Despoiled by precipitation

Dribbling obscenely down my chest.

Although analogies aren’t in vogue,

The gusty grip of the weather was

Very much unlike your eyes,

A mystifying melody of a color,

Warm as cinnamon rolls and

Bright as a newborn crocus.

The wintry whisper was

Altogether contrary to your left arm,

Whose pulse I can feel like

The rattle of an old radiator,

Stalwart, welcoming.

The frosty infringement was

The direct antithesis to your

Plain befuddlement,

That gently glowing chuckle

When I said,

"You smell like pasta spices,"

And your buttery delight when you made me

Sheepishly repeat it.

So often I wish I were a painter,

A photographer,

Employing anything,

Anything but this clumsy language,

These spatters of uncaring consonants,

Anything to open wide and just

Receive

The sanctity of snowflakes under the

Lamp-post’s luminous sigh,

The ebb and flow of your breathing

Beneath my stethoscope shoulder.

Saturday, Six AM

Spring break sweat,

Something inside all citrus-squeezed,

Juiced to a pulp.

Rope around wrists,

Salty-sweet captivity.

Labyrinth-laden,

Looseleaf languish,

Anguish,

Anger,

Bitter bile.

Serpent's skull beneath the bed,

Ambiguity, so she said,

Double standard...

... so he said.

Noise

Here there be noise
Perpetual noise
Caffeine twitters, radio waves
The whoop! slip of
Inebriation on the rocks

Here I keep stock
With spreadsheets and winks
Plaster my walls with
Post-its of tomorrow
Tomorrow
Tomorrow

Here there be noise
Of maybes and can’ts
Laptop keys, rolling boils
Garbage truck,
Electric cello,
A chatter and thud of
Final grades

Here pass the days
A buzz of mundane
Mundane, then
Snap! and crackle,
Mad dash for high tide, and
Out of milk

Mmm.

I’d forgotten the fruit,
Sticky-sweet soul spillings,
I’d forgotten the taste.
You know,
The taste of dirt roads and a place to lie,
The taste of if and hidden holidays.
I adore my own nervous smile again,
Thank you.

4:48 Psychosis Revisited

Images emblazoned on a ticking-time-bomb mind.

Thoughts are only passersby- the poking, prodding kind.

(4.48 Psychosis, when desperation visits, and God, it's only 12:08)

Cranberry juice from concentrate, the syrup looks like blood.

It crawls beneath my fingernails to mix with flesh and mud.

(Don't worry, don't worry, I only take a moment to shed this insanity, less if you'll mock me.)

Back when names had power, people knew where they were flawed,

So what can I do with "Lasting" and the fatal "Judged By God?"

(I miss the tangerine glow of a night-light. Watch me... watch me... vanish.)

All I do is play with words, in style soaked with rum.

It's all my inner worry about who I may become.

(4:48, when desperation visits. I shall hang myself to the sound of my lover's breathing. Body and soul can never be married.)

Customer Service

Life gave me lemonade, and I can't imagine why.

Good morning, folks. How're you doing this morning?
Well, I hope we can make that better.
We are a little busy, but the food can still be made quickly.
Can I start you off with anything to drink?
A glass of my blood?
Well, it's not in the computer,
But we can special order it.
We'll do anything to make our customers happy.

Right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink
because she can't shoot whisky.

Do you know what you'd like to eat,
Or should I give you a couple minutes with the menu?
Alright, let me grab my pad. Go ahead.
Okay... and would you like hash browns or...
No, I don't think we can substitute...
Well, I'll see what I can do.

Eee-ooh... whee-ooh...I gotta get away, wouldn't it be sweet?

So that's two orders of my dignity,
An order of my free time,
Substitute my sweat for the potatoes,
And a side order of my well-being.
Your breakfast should be ready in five to seven minutes.
Oh, don't worry, ma'am...
We serve all our dishes with a garnish of fake smiles.

... with a big black horse and a cherry tree.

Here we go... was the order of my free time for you, sir, or...
Oh, you only wanted a half-order?
Well, now that I've served it, I can't bring it back...
Here, I'll take care of it; most of it gets thrown away here, anyway.
A refill on the blood? With a packet of anxiety on the side?
Sure, we've got plenty of that.

Born on a sunny day, beneath the tangerine sky.

And how is everything over here?
Ready to pay?
Let's see, we take cash, check, American Express...
Well, of course we take bitching!
A lot of our customers prefer to pay that way.

Birth of a Pre-Med

nine months,
the time to create new life.
bright-eyed with fever,
infected with knowledge,
pervaded with the stagnant stench of
windowless lecture halls and
ammonium sulfide reactions.

nine months,
the time to birth a paradigm.
a paradigm of open ears,
prioritizing living and learning,
inventing verbs and
ecdysis of ideas.

nine months,
the expectant time,
heavy with future and
bulging with useless equations.
hemmed in by liberty,
drunk on flourescent lighting,
aching with the creaking, cracking
of hidden wings
being TESTED... all too quickly.