Box

I build my house on the bright, sandy, barren plane of aspiration.
I am young and I demand your respect.

There are bigger fish in the pond
But I am different,
and I sparkle.

I sparkle like my crown,
the one you ignored.
You were looking at my empty pockets.

I am Mary Poppins.
You look at my bag,
and to you it is full of shit.

So I climb out of your box.

It is too small for me anyway.
It covers your head so your ears cannot listen
and your eyes can share no one's vision but your own.

I leave our vision behind and trek to that shiny horizon where the bigger fish don't pick at my scales.

It was never our vision.
It was always yours, and I want none of it.

Your ribbons, your antlers are dull
and you speak to me
as to your child
who hopes for a crown like mine -

But you will look at her pockets
and she will find me on the horizon waiting for her.

I will take her to my land of hopes and dreams and teach her to demand your respect.

Because you are bigger,
But we are different,
And we sparkle.

Reward

Love of money
and love of women.
You shot your pedestal to pieces with your own gun.

It will no longer save you from your adoring visionaries,
from those oblivious ones you direct.

There are two sides to every story,
and dancing has turned to suspicion;
Singing has turned to scandal.

"That's life," you would say as I worshiped your stories.

Your land will not be returned to you until your day of judgment,
when you reap what you sow:
a land rife with hypocrisy will be yours.

Your potholes will deceive you.

We will see your heart and keep our money.

The judged will judge you.

Your family will detach from you like a dog's soul from his suffering body.
Your gun will not protect your body from his resurrected teeth.
It smokes but it no longer brings you power.
40,000 dogs will surround you for every tribe you have deceived.

You weigh your true loves against repentance
as your people weigh your flesh against your glory.

We will tell stories about you.
"That's life," We will say.

You weigh a guilty conscience and an expensive car.
You choose it as your only friend.
It will burn your connections and end your phone calls,
and the two of you will drive in silence over the land you have inherited

Reaping your reward.

Shadows

Letters cast long shadows on this page.
They lengthen and slide off;
they cover me.

I sleep in them.

This page tells my story and I avert my eyes.
I tighten my knees.

Like a dramatic film,
the letters might draw me in and never let me go;
the shadows might follow me
and dig pits for stiff-kneed sleep walkers
such as myself.

I might fall backward as my eyes race past the words
toward the end.

I skate past the chore of failure
impulsive and impatient,
looking for the end

But there is no such ending

Only shadows.

Basket

It was next to normal
But you already had the rope tied around your neck
Nice and neat, like a businessman.
And your business was none of mine,
And our business was none of theirs.

You dropped me a cornucopia of fruit from the tree of knowledge as you pulled yourself out of the fire in a basket.
I burn as you turn.

I mix my ashes in the concrete.
I stir
and stir.

But I already ate all of the fruit you gave me.

I sought your basket
but the rope was gone -
Tied once again around your neck

Cravat.

I rolled my stone away and it found you dozing by the sea
with a lemon in your drink and fruit in your hand.

It found you and it pulled you in -
in where you belong,
to the sea so deep it feels like fire.

And there is no basket to lift you out.

Ask

A world
A complicated web of stagnancy

It must be my fault.
Sometimes I forget to pray.

No matter how I weave my prayers
I do not ask, "Will it ever get better?"

A garble of syllables to be unraveled by the Great One
Syllables to match this web of life

It hurts me to see you hurt.

There will be a time for healing
and a time to rip tangled roots out of the ground and resent their lies.

But I forget to ask.

Chase the Wind

I am full with ideas that will die with me;
I am the wife of vanity and sleeplessness,
and the friend of selfishness.

I look smashing tonight
But you are singly beautiful,
and crush my smashing thoughts.

We chase the wind together.

My shaking hands glue friendships together.
They write stories on acid paper.
They share things which will not last.

Are you gluing things that will last forever?

You wear eternity.
I want to live forever.

Pilots want radio play.
Paintings beg to be seen;
they rot in darkness.

I am falling apart.

You will never fall apart.
Fear of the eternal makes me smile a smile I know you will forget.
My ideas fall apart.

I do not believe in this photo, for it will be forgotten.

But I believe in you.