The Ethics of Survival

we are not winners
we are mantras  
inspirational quotes on 
a poster
curling up in the corners
the two-sentence explanation
emptier than memories of
Christmas
we are the ones who know
up here not down there
next year will be no different 
go ahead
lay siege to our fortress 
we are winning at failure
you will never stop us

In This World

Where is                                  here I am        

gone home without you

when I would rocket from the world

out of an ocean impossibly asleep                                     

is the rain your final call

because I am wondering what this was for

           

why you ever loved me

why you do not anymore

there is no witness here

only ghosts of words that nudged into breath

the shape of a fool      shivering and wet       

your blanket thrown over the bed one cold night too late

 my eyes, heavy with dreams 

but you—                  

very much awake

how I welcomed the chance to be wrong

to never ask why you had to leave

why you had to come at all

was it to drift away from this eroding shore

or was it

not wanting to be sorry

not wanting to be felt sorry for

one last secret for memory to keep

Now our half-truths ship out

under cover of a cloud-filled sky

the sun you once spoke of

never any friend of mine

                                   

can you feel it rain

can you?          

Undetected

There are many ways to die.  She died believing she had survived.  But all that survived were her involuntary functions, like breathing, and hoping.  Everything that moved under her direction was murdered.  Because there can be no free will.  There can be nothing left that opens all of the doors in the hallway.  There can be no way through the red straw network.  There can only be walking.  Walking and walking and walking.  

It is an endless corridor full of nuclear silences.  The bomb has yet to go off.  Instead the leaking radiation is killing them all.

Safe

I have a secret words

will never find

images I tucked

away

I once heard a voice

It beckoned me

singing

tell me your secrets

your hopes and fears

and jealousies

I whispered back in the

safest voice I could

reveal

my dreams mean nothing
to you

Lost Girl

And when I choose to come here again                                                                     

will it snow how it did in my dreams

                        will I be

a story worth telling

                                    because the sadness—

it crackles in the night

           

for you           

the mistake worth regretting

                                the faraway voice        filled with belonging

do you see where eternity ends

did you know that you were my friend

this planet a box that holds me

Hollow Victories

When I opened the cage and released the girl, she howled past me, a cyclone powered by atomic pain.  I crouched against the wall and covered my ears but I could still hear her screams, and the terrified shouts of those in the lost restaurant, as she raged deadly witness against them.

The restaurant would not be serving again.

After it was over a dishevelled figure with a lopsided purple hairdo and an old face limped up to me.  We stood and looked at each other for a while, until she said, “You think you have won.  But the spell is broken for you, too.”

“I know,” I answered.  “But at least I can live with myself.”

“We’ll see about that,” she replied.  She then disappeared into a cloud of foul-smelling smoke--rather against her will, I thought.

I checked my back; the fairy wings were still there.  I would not be going home just yet.

Close the Door

This is my heart in denial

the scratching of the diamond

against the vinyl

I was young once it seems

and I spun your etched

reflection inside

of me

But reality is the 

toe breaker

is the dance

is the false teeth sitting

innocent 
in the glass