Living Life in Hot Flashes

a sprint to the cold floor;
an ice cube on a warm day
 

or a burn up the sides
of your face
that feeling that everyone
is watching
but you’re alone in your room
 

that slip on the linoleum
and the look look look
and the squirm
and the no-good kids
standing too close
looking too shy
 

but those hot flash days
are too many
and the cool down pool days
are sinfully few
and they just keep slipping
out of my fingers
like water threw sand
sinking back into the ocean
 

and when I walk back
from that empty place
all barefooted
and painted toes
the side walk burns
and I just try to run
but my breath won’t hold
and it’s all
choke
on
the
words
 

like that day I put that
cold metal to my too hot
temples
and my brains
melted like acid threw the floor
 

but that’s a lie
my brains
really sizzled
like a thousand pops and snaps

singing a lullaby
"Goodnight baby"
“It’s too hot to sleep tonight”
 

but the no-good kids didn’t like it
and heck neither did I
and all the time they were screaming
“too much too much”
and I didn’t know what to do
 

so I sat in that pool of sizzling acid
and tried to put all the pieces together
without using lots of tape
but maybe I shouldn’t have skimped
cause it just wouldn’t fit
 

but no one noticed anyhow
and those hot flash days seem a little
cooler now
without all that over thinking

Holding hands

Two girls walk down the street

My rooster and me

Her body screams “I fucking dare you”

But her eyes plead “Wake up”

And it’s no wonder why she hated school

Or why she can’t sit still

Because this day all the cars drive past

And shout their dirty words

Just because our hands are clasped

And I grip it tighter

And she swears under her breath

Saying something about the idiot of people

Who can’t even understand that two girls might just hold hands

And not have any underlying message in it

And at school they didn’t understand her

That weirdo, the freak

With her long matted hair

And her shredded jeans

And how she seems to just not care

So they wanted her to go to therapy

Because they thought she was depressed

Well of course she was depressed

But what do they expect

When we don’t hold hands at night anymore

Not after  we almost got gang raped

Walking back from her boyfriend’s house in April

And she shaved her head

Because her hair was made of lead

It just kept weighting her down

And she dropped out of school the next year

Cause she couldn’t stand

How asleep they all made her feel

And now we are walking down this street

And a guy is his red SUV

Rolls his window down to ask us “who’s the man?”

But isn’t it possible

That we just hold hands

To keep each other from getting lost

Because I was lost before I met her

And if she hadn’t grabbed my hand

I think I might have wondered off a bridge

Or onto a knife or a gun

And blown my brains out

All over the school’s white white walls

So we hold tight hands

As we’re crossing the street

And I say “to hell with them all”

Playground Nights

My fingers twitch in rhythm

One two three

One two three

One two three four

Like playing the air

And I can hear the music

Of all these voices

And the squeak of the swings

And we sit so still on that

Playground structure

So absent of children

In the summer nights

And we barely touch

Just our little pinkies

But we are so close

Entwined in a way

I’ve never known

Like God stitched

Our hearts together

Like you stitched together all

Those patches on your hole-less jeans

And I need you here

More then I need air to breathe

More then I need food to eat

And I want to follow you

Like that day you went

To find that alien light

Dancing gold rain above us

And we walked and walked

And finally we gave in

And laid on the little merry-go-round

In the middle of this playground

And watched the stars

Paint white daydream light

In our minds

And it was so warm

We could have slept there

But we went home instead

But for that glorious moment

You held my hand

And the stars exploded

In my stomach

And ate a pathway to my soul

The Little Voices

Words irritate and caress me

Falling from those too hot lips

They sing like hot honey tea

But they sting like an angry bee

They keep saying

That all my sidewalk chalk days

Are over

That the dreams I keep

In that blue floral patterned pocket

I stitched like a secret

Into my sweat shirt

Will never come true

That my chain smoking brother

Won’t ever quit

Not even when his lungs turn

City street black

And he falls back back back

And he will sit in my mind

As a sick old man

Dragging a respirator filled

With yellow liquid around

And he will die the week after Easter

And that will be what my children

Remember him by

Not the so absorbed piano player

That doesn’t react

When you tap tap tap

His shoulder

And it takes

Five minutes

Just to get him to answer

“How much ice do you want?”

And I cant stand to listen to

All of this truth

So I just stay cooped up inside

Hopping its all a lie

And I stay all alone

Scared to move an inch

Till I’m a wrinkle in a

Dust filled house

With too many cats

And all those Rooster collored dreams

Didn’t rise with the sun

They stayed stashed with my photographs

In the whom of this house

Filled with spiders and mice

In its un-use

And someday I’ll go to the very back

In the corner

Behind the old chest

And the china set I never used

And take out all those dreams

I’ll wash them in the sink

Till they shine almost new

And I’ll slid them down my throat

And let them sit in my stomach

And I’ll wonder why I

Ever let these voices tell me off