Body Count

Another dead body sits on the pile,
reeking of cigarettes and gin,
half-smiling up at me behind smeared makeup,
its eyes rotating, trying to lock into mine.

The threads of your little cornflower date dress
stretch – barely making it – from one hip
all the way to the other hip,
and you smell like roses and acetone.

I fumbled over microwavable cliches
and feigned confusion
of the exclusively internal sort,
but in the dark corridors of our “romance,”
I was really just reaching into your chest
like in the Temple of Doom scene,
only to swallow it whole
without anyone noticing,
including myself.

I’m really very sorry. I didn’t mean it.
And yes; I ate your ice cream.

You’re not the first.
You won’t have been the last.

The Disaster of Invincibility and Other Illusions

Snow-topped mountains that scratch the sky’s surface were made for
bounding over.
Edgeless oceans offer satisfaction from
landing on the other side.
They placed the stars for us to pluck from the sky and swallow whole,
so that brilliant rays can shine from each of us.

A child is born to an unsuspecting world,
and she can grow as tall as trees
or have a 300 IQ
or make enough money to buy a continent
or give peace to all the world.

Some children feel titanium in their bones:
they know they’ll always be invincible.
They know only imperviousness
to hate, heartache, darkness, and sadness.
For them, there is only invincibility.
Anything can happen with,
or to, these children.

But invincible children aren’t different from invisible children.
We’re all butterflies in a typhoon; hopelessly frail.

We Are Love

Someone looks at me and smiles,
and their eyes are all I see.
I involuntarily, happily smile back.
I want to look away because that seems like the decent thing to do,
but they project warm love and confidence, wise naïveté and unexpectant optimism.
I want to wriggle free, but there’s no ground beneath me from which to push;
my limbs don’t work as this stranger’s eyes judgelessly read my thoughts
and gently burrow into my mind.

So I surrender to the lazer-focused tractor beam
and feel the safety of their eyes’ embrace.
Their gaze is a warm blanket, a childhood memory, an anchor in an otherwise chaotic world.
And I want this moment to last forever, but I know that it won’t,
so my brain goes dumb, and my body turns to waves of energy,
softly vibrating so that I no longer feel like a discrete thing:
I can’t tell where the frontiers of my body end and where far-off galaxies begin.
And that feels good.

But then, the waves crash into the wall that is reality,
and the most prominent features on my face radiate outwardly,
and I become aware of the heart pulsing in my chest.
And I wonder Do they do this to everyone?
But I realize that if I asked,
I might just hear their heart beating just as loudly.

Maybe we’d yell and flail,
maybe we’d end the cycle of negativity that’s characterized my previous relationships,
or maybe nothing would happen at all.

But in these seconds,
as we’re standing here,
not saying anything,
innocently wondering,
we are love.