Lonesome

I lost my travel book centuries ago

burned the forest where you

were my favorite 

tree

You are the reality I cannot close in on

what flew through my hair that 

I mistook for 

permanency

Survival

Just when I was about to crawl out of my bed and find something to hang myself with, an elderly man wearing a clerical collar walked into the room.

I stiffened.

He held up a hand.  It was covered in age spots.  “I know I’m probably one of the last people on earth you want to talk to, so I won’t stay long,” he said.  “I just wanted to sit with you for a little while, if that’s all right.”

My finger that had been hovering over the call button relaxed when he smiled.  It was not the smile of a maniac.  I knew what that smile looked like now. 

He took a step closer, enough for me to better see his face.  There was nothing special or particularly memorable about it, except for his eyes.  Green and blue swirled together, so that they reminded me of satellite photos taken of the earth from outer space.  “Don’t be afraid,” he told me.  “God is with you.  You can rest now.”

He then patted my hand. 

I wanted to ask him where God had been yesterday, but the words didn’t come; exhaustion had, for the moment at least, extinguished my rage.  He settled into the chair next to me.  I could hear him whispering prayers to himself as I fell asleep.

Awake

I wonder what those big oak doors

are saying

I wonder if I could read something carved

into their polished lines

because I am down here searching for some

sense of believing

when God isn't sending me any dreams 

tonight

Aftermath

I am sinking straight through

right down to the 

briny deep

You were the tank full of

butterfly breaths

I so very much wanted 

to breathe

The Ugly Cannot Always be Made Beautiful

Tell her the devil is pounding
on the gates
salivating
waiting
God reserves a special place for you
it is where the clouds burst and bang
the loudest
It is His business to forgive
not mine
His
Because now even the furniture is different
And the ugliness way down here
it smells like you

Collision, Pt. 2

The riddle, he says.  When?

There is no riddle, I answer.

Just whispers that eat away at 
denial

not the rotten bitter kind

but the type that keeps the

hopeless alive.

How sweet it was,

that blue sky.

I saw it.

Now I am resigned.

Tell me

is this victory?

There is no winning,

the dragon replies.

There is only acceptance.

Remember the riddle.

It is your only choice.

There is Nowhere but Here

We are all quietly sitting in an auditorium.  We are waiting for the presentation—for the balding man to come and turn on the projector and show us transparencies.  He will write on them in marker, circle the important bits, underline words, draw arrows.  We will all sit quietly but make no notes, because notes are not allowed.  We will just hear it again and again until his lecture is all we know.  And it is always the same lecture.  The same lecture again and again, with the same arrows and underlined words.  I have heard it so many times the words mean nothing to me.  They roll past me like tumbleweed on the road.  I will stare straight ahead and hear nothing and turn written words into straws that represent intersecting hallways, each one leading somewhere I am not allowed to go.  Because I am a master.  I am a genius.