She had written a poem for me
And it was called, "Tender Hearts."
I turned a lying voice on it,
And said I didn't care.

She read this poem aloud.
Her voice was soft and lilting,
But I closed my window
And put on the t.v.

Then she climbed the tree outside
My bedroom window, and I saw
Her, sketching my likeness,
With eagerness hidden in her features.

I scowled and closed the blinds
To hide my face from hers,
And climbed into my bedclothes
And crawled into bed.

But in my dreams, I only saw her
And I only heard her voice in my ear
And it was only her face that I saw
Hovering, smiling, inches from mine.

I awoke, breathing uneasy
And climbed down the stairs,
My nightgown draging behind me.
To open the door.

She walked in, gingerly.
She had been waiting, somehow she
Knew. She smiled and took my hand.
I pointed to the paper she was holding.

And when she held it up
I saw it was the poem with
My picture beside it, and she
Had made me look so lovely.

I took her up to my room and
Opened a secret chest. In it
Were the poems I had written her.
She only placed hers atop the pile.

Coffee shop at 3 am
Where I stare into your limped eyes.
Your black hair, in soft waves
Falling off your shoulders
And I watch you talk
The smoke curling out of your mouth.
With each word pushing
The smoky breath out of you,
Your lips arching ever so faintly
When you pause, into that subconscience,
Self-rightous sneer.
When I smile and say that I love you,
You say, I know baby.
With the smoke curling,
And my eyes still sinking
Into those damnbed limped pools.
Later that morning you
Drop me at home,
My apartement dark for the night.
In my sleep I awake, and you
Lay on my chest, looking at me,
With your eyes on my face,
And an ear on my heart,
To hear my breath.
And I smile in my sleep
And say, I love you.
And you will say, I know baby.

Flightly amidst the gnarled elms
Holding back those damned tides of time,
Your moving as if betwen realms,
As stealthly as if commiting a crime.

Heartless, wingless, yet near to me you flutter,
Cracking my soul with each lisping word.
You drink of my essence when given cause to mutter,
That voice, your seed, sounds of one, I long ago, heard.

And then, then, O' sweet treasure,
Now that I see you for what you really were
Each of those evil words you said to me with pleasure
I'll take and spit back at you, you mangy cur.

Be careful next time where you plant your seed
O' my dear for the love that you do ensue
And be careful for who you fake to need,
Because, my only darling, evil breads true.

Salt water lapped gently against the rocks
While her body, filling the dress lovingly,
Rocked and swayed, just at the edge
Of the breakers, halting a great majority
Of the waves from crashing into shore.
I walked to the edge of the water
And dragged the girlt o dry land.
I watched as the water that had so
Thoroghly soaked her dress
Seeped into the rocky sand beneith us.
As I brused the hair from her white face,
The wet tendrils sticking to my fingers,
Two tears dropped from my eyes for this stranger.
I leaned forward and placed a kiss
On her cold, wet, water soaked lips.
the I laid my body across hers as the
Blood red sun sank below the horizon.
And then, when the stars begain to blink into
Existance, one by one, I return her body to the
Water where it sinks below the waves,
Below the breakers, to disappear from me.
I wonder what it means when I wake up,
Wearing her dress with my hair wet.

I watched as the clouds all converged,
Soaring overhead with their thunderous echoes in my ears,

On that one point, in the center of the sky.
It went from blue to gray, with those clouds
Always remaining white against the background, ever moving.

With the wind to their backs and fronts.
I knelt in my dress, on the edge of the road.
The gravel bit into my knees because my dress was made for summer,

And was light and thin, covering only to my thighs.
I saw to one side of me the green field
Where I longed to run into, with my bare feet and summer dress,

And still under my knees was the painful road.
The clouds were meeting on a point above my field.
It hurt that I could still see them, with their impeccable white on gray.

And the wind picking up, getting bluster and harsh.
My winter begins setting in, making it so I can't move
From this spot. I kneel in the roadside gravel and watch the green field

Freeze over and the clouds convene without me.
And beneath it all, I see people in the field
Under that meeting spot, my people, without me.

I stretch out my hand and fall over, calling out.
Don't leave me here... I say, with
My knees freezing to the road, my upper body freezing to the grass,

And my eyes freezing open, staring at my loneliness.

Floating in the ethereal
While mom scotch guards the sofa.

Force-feeding the fleeing chalenger
With curses of their ancestry.

Taking my bood and tearing out the pages
Until all that is left os
'Introduction' and 'Also By The Same Author'

Day to day, forced existance,
The mundane reality of it all drains me dry.

Round and gray
Like marbles set in two small white seas
And expanding outward from their sides,
A strong slope downwards
And a wide expanse of curved flesh upwards.
Strong lips of light color and small red ears.
Hair: short, soft, and curly
Leading down to downy growing stubble.
Pause; reflect.

Describe the face. Keep going, it whispers, Keep going.

Trees, large, loom and crowd around,
Tightly packed, with the water below me.
My birth.
Emergence from the mire,
Begun with the rising of the sun.
When it is born over the horizon, so am I.
Moving, growing, feeding.
Then in the fetid, humid midafternoon...
No anger... no hatred of the world
For my short time,
I mate.
Only the plodding of life
Cources through my chitinous body.
When the evening cools, I lay my eggs
In the tepid pools.
And lay my life down.
One day is all I am given, it is all I know.
The beauty of one day from birth
To death.
Catching the air inder my translucent wings...
Following the sun.

Elegant dolphin...
Dipping into cold waters;
Sliding between the drops
and currents like you do,
And smiling like
Only and fish can smile.

Secrets whispered in the dark,
Ears hearing soft voices and
Fingers covering other fingers.
Movements so slight
That those sinking black
Eyes can't even see.

And now when she turns, years
Distant, from that dark caress
She doesn't see the light
Of love that he created.

Her sunken eyes might soften
Or even flash ocasionally.
But to her, she doesn't
Have a voice anymore,
To her there is only
One path left to traverse.

The woman, like a girl...
Will walk to the window
And watch the setting sun,
Brilliant oranges and purples.

And know that she can't,
Now in searching,
Ever settle for anything
Less, than the other
Half of her soul, which
Was never returned to her.

It was at your funeral, brother, when the old
Memories came flooding back to me:
I remembered when it was hot in the out doors
And it was you and me, the moon like a toenail,
My birth moon, they called it...
Just beginning to show.
We walked out behind the house and into the corn.
I much more liked the corn than the beans
Because the corn would get up so high
you could hide and get lost and pretend
You were somewhere else.
There we were, under the large leaves,
The dirt getting packed under our toes.
It was damp and cold even in the incredible heat.
You were older than me, but not by much.
We wern't wearing much more than bathing suits,
And our hair was long and sticking together
With mud from the coolie.
We ran and ran and ran and
That is when I get myself lost, deep in the corn
The big leaves above me, blocking out
the little light the toenail gives.
I sit in the black dirt, my still wet bottom
Making mud under me and I cry.
When you come upon me
you push me with your foot
Till I am lying on my back,
Elbows now dirtier that before.
You say, "Stop acking like a girl."
Then you grab my hand and drag me behind you.
It is only about four rows later
When we leave the corn only to hear
Our momma calling,
"Kids, Suppers just about done
Get your buts in here and cleaned up!"
Then we run hand in hand
All the way back to the house,
My tears still drying on my cheeks.

It all came flying at me
Each one a miniature tornado
Caught up in the hurricane
That was everyone.
Their voices melding together
Had the ability to touch me.

Each one pressing and pushing
Their way into my space,
Each of their words would
Drop from their mouths
Like acid, eating away where it hit.

When it all started,
I felt the anger and hatred
Begin to grow and feed on their words
But thought nothing of it.
Until, it to, like acid, began to eat away
And I wanted to let my rage fly
At the people, like their words
And actions flew at me.

I looked to my savior, my salvarion,
My mentor, but he worlessly said
It was mind to deal with.
What he had created in me,
Was mine to deal with.
And so I took all of my emotions,
And balling them up inside,
Let me fly at the nearest one.

And when he fell like a stone, still red
From falling through my atmosphere,
At my feet, I smiled and cried.
I was eaten away, and had killed
A man, But it was only one man.
And the world had many men to spare.

Sitting at a desk mear a window in a class.
And I had drawn off my glasses to clean them.
As my hand moved down to bring
The lens to the hem of my shirt,
I saw in the convex lens a reflection
Of the window that was asjacent to me.
It was of the tops of the green trees
Moving and swaying against a cloudy blue sky,
Framed by the square panes. A door, a portal.
Such beauty as I had never seen from this seat.
Without that angled convex lens' aid,
I would only have seen bare rotting trunks
And walls streaked with green metal rust.
In that second, I was in those tree branches
Feeling the wind that moves those cloulds.
My hand finishes its motion unthinkingly
And covers the lens with the hem of my shirt.
I fall back to my seat.
Shaken by my descent, I look outside
Through the wide window,
Aching for my escape, but getting no reprise
From this man-made world.