dream, 9.14.17

i am not sure why we are selected. yet here we are, in the cleanest, whitest space ive ever seen. they are not my friend but they are talking my ear off. "- and i heard that sometimes they'll put you on a table, numb you up, cut you open, and just keep talking to you so you don't even notice as they take away parts of your organs." we are in those blue checked gowns one only finds at pediatrician offices. they are immaculate. before i have time to fully process what was just said, the door swings open and a woman, not tall but so authoritative she gives the impression of tallness, accentuated by her high Lucy Liu cheekbones, walks in and smiles at us. "ready to come on in?" against every instinct, i follow her. she walks us around a white, busy space, full of doctors and others like us in gowns, and in the back of my mind i realize it is an extremely large circle with smaller stations sectioned off, with little rooms and beds and offices. the woman has smiled, closed her clipboard, left. i am at a loss as to what to do. i can tell not-my-friend is nervous, darting glances around the space, flinching from each doctor that passes. we sit at our assigned beds, at a T from each other. my brain is whirling. from a ways away, i hear my name called. my head snaps around and i see a nurse making her way towards me, and my body acts on instinct, sprinting in the opposite direction. i notice the tangy smell of cold steel that permeates the room. the gurneys and knives that accompany every doctor's station. i run to the edge of the circle, and to my surprise, find two tracks. i leap up, up, and find myself not atop the tracks, but hovering above, suspended. i waste no time. i begin swimming through the air. i see little railcars pass below me, holding messages, boxes, ominous bags full of congealed redness. i hear as if from another dimension, my name being announced, repeated like a chant as my impertinence is revealed and my return invoked. there is even a gentle plea for me to come back of my own volition. i am rising higher through the air, and i see the room shrink to a smaller circle, and then around my shoulders and soon below me, a ring of planets looms, of every color. they rotate, silently, around the room and tracks. i look down and notice as if for the first time the thousands and thousands of offices, flickering with faces of computer light, surrounding the white room. a counsel, observing. determining. controlling. choosing. with a flash of panic, i realize i am losing altitude. the room swings closer and closer again, though i struggle upwards. the nurses hand holds my wrist, and she smiles calmly as she guides me toward a shining silver gurney. "if you could please lay down for me, we can get started" i am laying down. she chats with me, sticking patches all across my belly, and i try to hear but my brain is white noise. her gloved hands are cold. the fluorescent light burns into my eyes but i cannot look elsewhere. she is still talking. i hear the unmistakable sound of a large, sharp, heavy knife being withdrawn and against my will, i glance at it. it is long, slender, pointed like a manipulator's tongue, guilting me into staying, staying, staying. i stay. i look up. i do not look at my redness. the nurse is still talking. i try not to notice the lightness in my belly. i try not to look at not-my-friend's empty bed as the nurse wheels me back. the walls are white. the sheets are white. somewhere inside me, red blooms.

6.14.2017

4am nightmare comfort melts, Mere memories of the pearls of your tears Rests beaded on your sunrise lashes. Grey daylight seeps into my coffee mug. Soon your sleepy presence will commune with my quietude. Curl your toes under on the couch; We are here to stay, Stay, Stay in bed. I will make you breakfast. Eggs. Sometimes love is eggs for breakfast, sometimes let me, Please, Make you chocolate-chip pancakes with the fake maple syrup Of sticky childhood, Please, sunflower, Pull yourself from your apocalypse dreams. It is not morning Without your starshine smile.

6.9.2017 (but old, older)

I always notice the stars in your hair in your ears in your eyes But I never quite saw all the darkness as well

Yet how could your stars exist without the dark matter? I feel I see things more clearly each day

(and then somedays, I just don’t see at all)

Plus, dark matter is not always an inherent negative - like our stockpiled memories, it just needs illumination, and it will reverberate across time

Your dark matter isn’t ever truly dark, besides You pull out an aging memory as easily as I pop a piece of gum out of the foil wrapper, with a shink, the shine of silver, a brief gust of fresh peppermint.

6.7.2017

hypnotic fingers caress steel strings, skillful undulation of octaves, I am burning alive, aching

for how your instrumental intimacy would translate to skin (press between my legs, such surety) make me resonate, this base form just another bass

another bass another descending line from my chest come to rest on my thigh. your five fingers fuck five strings and I - and I and I and I –

6.5.2017

I float through the perfect midnight start-of-summer, chiming resonance and involuntary electric currents; I make you tap your feet as one you cannot not I am magic. I sit in a small room filled with other, older magic and together we sway the multitudes, together we sway as one we cannot not listen. we are magic. listen

6.5.2017

do poems have to be art? to be. to be? greatness is a reflecting pool showing only the dark side of the moon