Roadkill

I drove over crimson, glistening, smeared questionables waving grotesquely from the breeze created by semis on their way to the next drop off. Buzzards were circling in the sky, waiting to pick off another piece of rotted whatever-it-was to feed to other little carrion suckers, or more realistically, to sate their own selfish hunger. No matter that whatever-it-was probably had a family waiting back home. The buzzards had their target, struck down by a speeding Ford with a Hemi.

I wondered for a moment if maybe I felt like whatever-it-was at that moment. But then I swerved to miss some other debris, and whatever-it-was became just another red smudge on the highway.

Honeyed Sentiments

Her voice enveloped me like honey in a broken jar. She was calling for more whiskey. "My medicine!" she croaked, words bubbling through thickly sweet pus in her throat. She threw a shoe against the wall, sole thumping againt cracked marigold wallpaper.

I contemplated hitting her with the bottle. Or smothering her sallowed skin, slack mouthed face under a drool stained pillow. I knew she wouldn't wake. I'd press that stained freedom against her cracked and fading beauty, watch her heaving chest relax, and I knew I'd plant marigolds on her grave before I spit on it.

Lunch Break

I saw an old woman sitting on a bench in the park crying. The tears traced the multitude of webbed wrinkles on her face, trailing down into the fanned white collar of her blue crinoline dress. A bag of bird seed sat under her hand, but she made no move to share it with the multitude of birds pecking the ground for leftovers around her. She made no sound with her tears, just quietly wept while people passed her without a second glance. I wondered why she was crying, what her life was like, and how many times she'd sat on that bench before I noticed her. I began to speculate on her tears, but it was probably none of my business, so I left it alone and returned to my sandwich to let her cry in peace.

Sin

The devil wears wing tipped shoes. He carries a sinuous cane and a shining watch on a chain and he licks temptation down my spine like flames across a gasoline floor. His promises, candy laced with razor blades, leaves me craving. When he breaks them, it makes me plead. He makes me forget my name when he looks my way. I'd gladly go to Hell for one more taste of his molten liquid sin.

Vibrations

Cosmic vibrations like water shaking in the bottle on a table. Like nervously shaking a leg or a pen. Nervous about sex for the first time.

Shaking vibrations, faltering, like a new vibrator dying after ten minutes. Longer than the average man.

Vibrations across a pond being stroke by smooth stones. You're here to tell your secret. Your voice shakes like the waves and you don't know where to begin.

Vibrations like a crack addict looking for the next fix. You know it's wrong, but you don't know where to end.

A Poem to Last Through the Ages

I wrote a poem that led to one of those nights where the words kept flowing, even when my pencil stopped. It personified Love and personified Life an personified Personification just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It made me laugh and made me cry. It reminded me how to be human, how to be primal, and how to be just a little in between. When it had its fill of me, I woke to see that Id accomplished little more than drawing a swirling mass across the words that I'd created.

Circus

Voices project from tent flaps beneath flashing neon, announcing cultural oddities at noon and five. Patrons throw popcorn and watch the bearded woman sing opera before she cries herself to sleep at eleven, just off highway nine by the DMV.

Cosmic Bleed

While watching X-Files, I feel a familiar floating that lifts me out of consciousness and sinks my eyelids into sand. I feel like I'm flying through the cosmos with the X-Files theme song in the background. In my flight, I discover that my power steering doesn't work, and just before I crash, I land on the floor,tangled in yellow sheets to see distorted screams captured in stills on screen. The monsters in the closet breathe out a hiss for me to be quiet, so I crawl back in bed and wait for that floaty sinking sensation to resume.

Discovery

There beyond the swaying trees where the mountain bleeds into the sea, you sought to love me properly. With sweet caresses like rain on tender sapling leaves, you traced my shapes and I watched them take form in the clouds of your eyes. Our whispered sighs mingled with the murmuring spring that tumbled over humming stones. As the sun began to sink into the valley below, we explored each other beneath the newly born stars.

Bubble Bath

I climbed into a bubble bath to forget my worries, but as I sit here with the scent of white tea and jasmine surrounding the sounds of bubbles popping, I'm left with my thoughts and the TV playing in the living room. I'd poured myself a glass of cheap wine that sits of the edge sweating, waiting to be sipped or knocked over. I used a fluted tea glass because I wine glass can't hold all my sorrows today. The wine tastes like shit, but tastes like berries if I don't sniff it.

Last time I laid here I watched you shave and we laughed together over something insignificant until tears ran from my eyes. You peeked past the clear shower curtain and joked about what you would do if this bathtub could fit two. I could smell your shaving cream and my soap and the soda you drank between razor strokes.

I washed that memory away with more wine and ducked my head under the water to to fill my ears with suds instead of the lingering echo of canned laughter from the TV.