we are most alive in dreams

Young boys
and girls hitting,
fireflies with
badminton rackets
in the field across
the street, shrieking
with joy as tiny
bodies explode,
like fireworks.

Mothers and fathers
drink in the garage,
pale yellow
cascading, words
sliding gently and
the divorced bodies
ache to be touched,
hoping to erode
towards dawn.

All anyone
needs, is
for someone
to believe,
in them.

Slept six inches
from beautiful people,
pickled in champagne
and stoned, whispering
about five years ago
when happiness was
plucked from the roots,
of ponderosa pine groves.

We are a single
consciousness,
thatched with tendrils
of coastal foam and
Midwest pocket
watch grease.

I will release myself
into the natural wonder,
that is a collection of
magnetic souls when
the desert asks for
my name again.

I had something
for the headaches,
but lost my way:
Empty house
caverns suck at
the edges of
my frame-worked
molecules,
in dim light from
flickering candles,
set neatly on wood
counters during black-
out struggles
in Winter’s chest.
Announcing, fear at the
door frames, ticking
seconds with sweat beads
and palpitations. Foolish boy,
you are no man.

Stood up
by imaginary

friends, left
to forget about
belief in cleft

tongues where,
promises sit-

Too many missed
phone calls,
from those

once kissed:
Is this what
guillotines
feel like?

One car pile-up
with two trees,
after too much speed
and sunroof ejection
into slow motion 1am:
trying to believe in mercy,
wondering what memories
flickered, as her shallow
breathing reminded
no one of the fragile
mortal coil until one
first responder phone call
revealing, dead-on-arrival.

Three funerals too many
this year and I’m trying
hard, to stitch myself
back together.

Can’t concentrate on
being undead. On being,
messy
          molecules that
could have been anything-

Forced into skin and,
bones and blood, strung
out on oxygen and electricity
never wanted, asked for…

See the way we move, and
ask, “Where will you go
after death?” Back into,
another cycle repeating-
Demagogues get ten
million hand written
letters, every day for

(more money
fewer bills
less hungry
more drugs
less traffic
more sex
more cigarettes
more wishes)

more of anything that,
disconnects from the core
intelligence that is
the human body: a mess
of molecules, that could
have been anything.

Describe the feeling
you had when deciding
on divorce, on putting
him outdoors. After, two
days under vicodin haze
at his request and how,
he crawled into you: half-
conscious and begging
stop
stop
stop
stop
stop. Husband, please stop,
I’ll say the words exactly
like you want, no more
drugs, no more
stop
stop
stop
stop
stop. Describe that feeling,
when the shackles of forced
love fell from your ankles,
tell me how beautiful you are.