I watched you, three days,
Three, full, keep keep the
Whites of your eyes on me
To say I do not have my doubts,
But I have yours. And laid beside
Me while I melted into every afternoon
With frameless liquidity, and froze, a broken
Regulator.

I spent a soaking Saturday it’s true, and
To assuage your fears, they may seem
Flammable enough to blow, but there
Is nothing spectral about my tears.

Emerson was right, of course.
Each friendship and each contract
Steals a tiny piece of freedom
From the parchment each of us
Is blessed by birth to carry.

Yet, humans to the core are social.
Creatures in a nature that abhors
A vacuum. Our conspiracy
Negotiates with captors,
Hoping always to relinquish
Loneliness instead of character.

The artistry and artifice of living
Boils down to strategy of highest skill.
How does the one self-sacrifice
To serve the greatest good
Without imprisonment and dissolution
Of one’s humanity?

We started a fire
on the deck to make smores.
The wind moved through us and
your sweater tickled me arm as I
played your favorite
songs you like to hear me sing.
You poured the wine.
Every few moments
embers would crack off their logs and we’d
both wait, just an extra second, before stomping it to death, to see if it would catch.
We saw the trees sway in the gusts
enough to topple us, if they came down.
We felt the impending rain in the
infrequent tentative nature of
early summer storms.

I saw your hand
not burned, not crushed, not wet
Tracing the rim of your wine glass

We waited for morning and hoped for dark, as the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.

Crustaceans would be preferable to thee,
Omniscient, prescient, impotentheos,
A backwards gaveled book of make-believe,
When “just don’t be a cunt” is less verbose.
Convenient, to manipulate the wills,
Freebasing fallacy into their ears;
The easily impresséd imbeciles
Degraded to the front, and from their rears!

To conjure up an illusion of worth
Both yours and all the innocence corrupt
Before, after, and up until their birth,
Regardless if their hands are raised or cupped
In defense or hope some mercy might await.
Your eyes survey the table for a fork;
They beg you with their fists between the gate,
“Excoriate yourself, and spare the stork.”

To put this plainly, pedocidic cyst,
I’d hate you if I thought you might exist.

Throw salt or caution to the wind.
In fact, just throw them both,
And brace yourself for things unknown-
Including those beyond belief.

Peek out between your fingers.
Glimpse the future past your thumb.
You need not tell a single soul
What you suspect much more than hope.

The bogeyman is revelation –
Could you be meant to find the sky
Is never blue in any realm?
What if you’re just gone when you die?

The rabbit’s foot is lucky,
If you’re not the limping hare.
Be not afraid of what you’re sure
Can suffocate the fear.