YZ

Get your gun
Because anything you can do
I can do better.

You thought the z's were y's.
You thought it was a labor of love.

Your aura is bright;
Does it shine through me?
Where do I stand?
Where are my impurities?

Locked out
The spare key was stuck inside from last time
I broke the window
Finally

A suspect endeavor for your better friend
Take no offense
You won't
I did, I will

It was cold outside

Locks

Talk is cheap
words are powerful
A penny for your thoughts
a thousand words for your photograph

Believe everything you hear,
review later
Suck up and lower your standards.

Just kidding.

The lock of saying no
locks on diaries
locks on safes
locks in hair
locks in canals
locks on doors

I hold the key to the lock on my will
It hangs aroung my neck
I can't give it away
I fidget

To unlock is to weaken
I am the cathedral's janitor
I hold the key ring
I hold the master key

continuously
moment by moment
decision, decison
some people don't need to lock their doors

I left my keys on the seat
the freedom of yes
the freedom of no
the danger of yes

open doors, closed doors

Is my heart covered in diamonds yet?
The body's many cries for water
oils upon oils
an alabaster jar

Boundaries
Rubber walls with nothing inside
Emergency kit with no cure
Stand right behind the line

I want to slam the door on dogs in the night
To draw a rough line with a red pencil
A circle around me
It's better to be away

Infinite Heart

Buy me a cake
Ask like you care
Try to understand
Your questions aren't stupid.

Neither were mine.

I will almost forgive you for your silence.
I will forget you.
After.
It will be as if you are forever
more silent.

After.
I will lower the standards of my visions.
I have
lowered the standards of my visions.
You may argue for the topping on my cake.

At least you bought it for me.
I will let you eat cake.

I will join hands with friends and strangers.
I will learn new methods.
One of them forgiveness,
One of them forgetfulness.

One of them Infinite Love.

I will be nice.
You will not be bitches in my memory.
Therefore you never have to stop.
Your Jewelery has taught me
That maybe you never were.

My social studies continue.
Add heat to new ideas
Say no to what feels wrong
Fake strands and real ones,

examine themall,
dread nothing.

Talk

The draw of a well-oiled machine
Manipulation goes both ways
Run upstairs chasing the correct puzzle piece
Cogs creak to life

Mutual excitement,
false confidence

Sighing fathers ruin progress

Forever fears confirmed.

Nobody's buying it
Even emotions are invalid
Inflating, glorifying
always the hero

New audience enjoys playing therapist
Patient finds new chance to impress
Misplaced pride, misplaced anger
Is this the same as being friends?

The Method
Say what he wants to hear
He will feel understood
like never before

The idea of Progress.
The idea of Understanding what others don't.
Fairness does not come into play
He already has a homeboy

Does the street go two ways?
On one side there is a padded cell blocking the path
And a "Boy's Room"
He only thinks - but maybe not.

Bored of empty threats
Picture the bumble bee so it does not come to life

Pick on someone your own size.
You have no wool to pull over our eyes.

I listen to pointy fingernails, fat men and balding heads
Watch shaking hands
Observe self-destruction
and see grafitti on the heart

Salmon

Elders are not always necessary for rebuke
consensus of the surprising
surprises
"Don't do that to yourself"
please

Seek opinions
Find wisdom in multiple replies
The slope of self-respec is easy
"Unique" lies to me

My parents could drag me up the waterfall
But sometimes fish act on their own behalf

Of honest jobs,
More honest money can be made.

But what will I do?
Count on everything
Oxbows, twists
Count on never really knowing,
count on walking the distance.

Teeth

Transparency and hair made me want to cry
My teeth will fall out if my legs are not long enough
Can hair change my identity?
I worry that it can.

I worry that they think it can.

Sudden addiction,
 - an unresolved conflict
Standards lower into the shade in desperate fear of indiscernable loss

A test
Will I chain a free spirit
For the pleasure of others?
To cut the rope short risks loose teeth

The fear is of weakness.
To be shorn is to be powerless.
A woman's hair is her glory

There is strength in weakness
Yet I am anxious to cut it

Wait on the line between pride and shame
REach for the lock,
Crush it with strong teeth.

Glamorous

I'm scared of how proud I am of you
Enemies to friends
A desk
A pose

From kill and mock to drive and call
denied
hard to remember
Unexpected

Pave the way
scurry after
Word of mouth
Shower you with glitter

Glittering generalities on both sides
Badass, Hipster
just words
Is there more?

You are shiny
So is your jacket
To discover your flaws could crush us
Perhaps your flaw is your glory

Your style
One of the guys, then
 - Letting your hair down
Glamorous

Enough

A cheeseburger was enough.
Okay, I say.
Red dress
Cinderella, a beautiful girl.

Two flavors of ice cream,
Two movies,
Two hands.
The beginning, the end.

Knock on the cieling,
Knock on the door.
Not the end.
But it was, it is.

Glue the fabric to a board -
It cannot be changed.
Write it down, turn the page.
There were no pictures.

Stone wall
Don't call
Don't break hearts
I hope I didn't

Stone background,
I look at you in my head

Unless it makes you happy,
don't look at me
with the background of sky

Climbing tree
Following me
No regrets for me

Yet

Small

They saw the darkness
I didn't, I couldn't.
Unclean
Dangerous
I deserved it

Questions became judgmentcalls
Pixels spread like plague
Visions stood for nothing
Victories were forgotten

They saw the stare falling
They caught it and pinched the flame
No allies came forward
Scandal grew with pleasure

Guilty conscience
Straight face
Too many phone calls
Perfection a vice

Wrong side of the brush
Wrong side of the binoculars
Wrong side of the brain loss
not mine

their loss
my perfection

small park
smaill job
smaill people

I did not cry over the phone

with a soul
I am bigger

Velveteen Rabbit

Velveteen Rabbit,
Scarlet fever is gone,
but children still neet comforting
And I will never throw you away.

You don't need a garden fairy to make you real -
I will be your fairy.
And you are mine.
You make me a little girl

You are my good friend
You are my loud musid
You are my parents' hugs
when those just aren't enough

Like a missed bank trip
you miss me when I don't you
I root for you in the dusty closet
Remembered, you light up for me

Pushed to the sock grave
your understanding is unconditional
I will love you
You will love me

We will fall asleep

We will have each other

We won't need anything else

Pity Friend

Hedgehog digs through warm wet ground
Finds a foundation
It looks different

Before it was buried the light was wrong.

The temple of difference stands in spate of distaste
but its doors are open
It cannot keep the lions out

I had joined the lions
All is forgiven
In the temple of difference.
We have found it again,

hedgehog and I.

Square

Gold screen, velvet benches
Confess it all
Double agent, don't tell it all
Keep the peace

Leather couch, itching ears
Affirm the desires of my itching ears
I will affirm my itching ears
Excited for the big leather couch

It is time to return
Cut one ribbon
What do they know?
Must I choose?

Does the music fulfill?
"You are better than anything I have tasted"
Yet I eat little
A starving soul

Two voices, different motives
They hold the scissors
They actually know a lot
They will always hold the scissors.

But I, I can rip things
It's hip to be a square
I'll rip whatever shape I want

Pious, serve the gate
No climbing the gate
No shaking the gate
Walk away from the gate

 - and everything is better

The gate depends on them
I'll be long past due when it opens

Yell through the gold screen, the velvet cushion, the leather pillows -
They are all rectangles
Serve God an dnot man
It's time to return

Barbie

Barbie Danielle
an accident waiting to happen
Indestructable Blonde
"maybe they'll think I'm not real."

"maybe they'll think I'm an angel
flawless, unshakable, effervescent
the life of the party
untouchable"

Wooden prototype
Moving joints
To give it a face is to give it a soul

Never throw away the prototype.

Pink lipstick
Pink trenchcoat
Plastic
Cellulose in the closet

It is her
Take off the pink
Abandon the crowd, the party, the squeaky plastic
the face given her


She will make her own face

Reliance

Glass-covered coffee table
painted with Dancers
and one word:
"Reliance"

the many stars in the sky
a romantic vision
an emotionalized lie
No matter

Dancing with friends
Darkness covers faults
They came miles to dance with us
We laugh in the perfect night

Dancing signifies the end of tears
Surrounded by God
Not party dresses,
not even postcards

A light with my eyes closed in a dark, dirty basement
alone, but not
"I wish I could dance as passionately as you,"
he says in my ear
I shout back my secret
over the killer beat

Dancing for God is the only way I can
Other people
need other people
at parties.
But if God's not there I can't dance

In Between

Life flashing before death
Series of pictures
Series of pictures
Scrapbook of chosen moments
Condensation on a windshield

He didn't have to lose her to find he loved her
Moments missing from the montage
His daughter is too big to fit in the cliffnotes of their life
The condensation doesn't tell it right

But it condenses in my eyes

The moments in between
caused the love
Before death
They will see the pictures

Stylist

I believe in good therapists and good stylists
But the clients are the "angels in disguise"
Life changes
Life stories
Split decisions
Challenges

The difficult ones deserve the best
They touch my life
I hate it
That's why I love it

Reading facial expressions
feeling atmospheres change
therapist, hairdresser
classmate

to give up is better than it sounds
stronger than it sounds
to be rejected means they don't deserve me
they're not on my level

not even close

"I'm not getting paid for this"
"My back hurts, I'm so tired"
"My client's a bitch"
I'm not on their level

not even close

Jealousy of the other side
stuck in between
the intellecturals aren't on my level either

not even close

Levels
Value
To be Liked or Not

Sharing self
Separating self
Rising Above
the dispensary gossive

Shampoo your own dang clients
They'll come back
One way or another
Perhaps to haunt

Learn from them
Angels, demons
No difference in this business
Therapist, Stylist