Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

surrender.

My streets are surrendered 

to the memory of lovers.

Driving nostalgic labyrinths

paved with concrete,

a testament to phases

of broken hearts, 

of certain kinds, 

of trash I treasured. 

And treasured by someone else this time. 

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Post-Election Day Horror Story.

I am terrified of horror films.  Always have been.   The last scary movie I ever saw was the re-make of “The Ring”, conned into it by a sly friend who told me it was a romantic comedy.  Believable right?  Apparently being bedridden the day after Election Day 2016 was the cure for my terror. 

I began this morning by reading article after article about how we failed, how we were failed, how we will be failed by our neighbors, our country, our future president.  I ended this morning watching American Horror Story, in tribute to our new beginning.  What I’ve discerned, amongst my fruitless attempts for health, is the health and sickness of this nation lies in hope.

Trite, I know, but it was hope that elected the first black President, and it was with hope to “Make America Great Again” that the Electoral College elected Donald Trump.  And though I may not agree with the man this antiquated system has elected as leader of the free world, it is with this American freedom that I am entitled to my opinion. 

Now is not the time to turn your back on the country.  Now is the time to face it.   Only in the light of day can we fight the truths that fuel hatred – this is the first of many spotlights. 

Now, the real battle has begun: education and conversation.  Two things Americans have not quite nailed yet.  Do your part to challenge, peacefully, the things you don’t agree with.  Teach others to aspire to more than the molds of reality television – who are paid to make you want, and feed your lack.  Follow your ego to its roots and understand that none of us are free from defenses that will upend progress if you let them.  Open your mind and do not infringe upon the rights of others – your beliefs are not ours, making them so will only divide us.  Cut out the malevolent ‘ours’’ and ‘us’’.  See the “other” as equal – no matter their view, their gender, their sex, their orientation, their health, their age or their color – and disagree with equanimity.  Neither you nor I is better than he, she, they or them.

It is the common trope of horror films to include the audience’s disbelief and omniscient perspective in the drama – when the victim runs up the stairs, when they try climbing through a stalled elevator shaft or an undersized doggy-door on a retractable garage - we all know it’s a terrible idea and we celebrate that if it were us, we’d do things differently.  We’d run outside.  We’d grab that fire stoker and fight back.   We would survive…but we’d have to be involved first.

Now we are.  Now is our chance.

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Make your choice: choose to lend a bigger hand to a nation that needs its people or choose to bridle your perspective and deafen your senses to the progress born of hard work.  Remember, without you we are no democracy.  Without you, this will be a true American Horror Story.

the laundress.

if we never planted seeds

i would never grow to grieve 

them.

supplanted, uprooted-

we

dug in, dirty,

soiled, besotted.

had i never tasted

i would not yet crave

if we never touched

i would not yet desire

but i assented to those eyes

because 

somehow

i saw me when

i looked at you.

and

somehow

you're still gone.

i am hollow, still, 

today,

I

will tear off my sheets

to wash the stains

and

the memory of your body

from my bed.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

Los Angeles, I Love You.

nevermore.

i was never more beautiful.
basking in the salience of death,
consumed by the imminent
in the face of punctured darkness,
my eyes turned up.
my reflection stared back
beyond the mercurial fragility
of retrospection canvassed by glass-
wild, raw, alive
lewd, war[torn], a vile
balance of strange perfection.
composed of seraphim
Holy!
of truth,
Holy!
of beauty,
Holy!
improbable in any other form,
impossible to draw
a straight line with a compass.

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

broken english.

at a loss for words,

images,

 you

occupy my mind.

in my broken english

i can hardly express the meaning

of my eager, starved emotions-

contradicting the lassitude

of love. 

in love.

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

my blood.

I will never know why my blood
scares you.
I can try
to put myself in your position:
on top,
poor you.
anesthetic,
poor you.
poor you,
misaligned.
I will never know why my blood
scares you.
I can try
to put myself in your mouth:
unaware,
poor you.
privileged,
poor you.
poor you,
misguided.
I will never know why my blood
scares you.
Can you try
to put yourself in my body:
I bleed
and you cry.

In Three Lines

i under stand.

it's happening all around
you, Look! the signs,
they mark the growth
of our idiocracy.
it's all beginning,
our demise, a frenzied
plunge into A land
of instance and consonance
in connectivity.
of bright signs, gilded cages and
a benumbed suspicion of
feeling, creeping. cajoling
society's cold chaos to
accept an anesthetized
understanding of value,
life and liberty.  propagating
false comforts to bind blind
the eyes to our malignant
constitution. a war wages
upon man by man and
the outcome of the journey-
fraught with schematic strategy,
branding revolting juvenile adults
and societally fulfilling prophecies-
a Pyrrhic Victory.
it's still
possible 2 chnge
plz dont
let it B
2 l8. change
b4 ur dfind by names
marketed 2 BRAND U
the U U pay sooo
much 2 C thru
others I's.  U'll work
sooo hard
4 Ndividuality that U
wind ^ bcuming
what u never
thought U'd
B.
n,
in the end
1 truth,
SENTINELS!,
is all
U can
afford
2
C.

In Three Lines

californication.

We felt meant for each other
in the parts of mind I'd never bridged.
I couldn't feel where - the trouble'd end.

but I knew,

from the first moment
I looked at the first time again,

I'd never live a day I didn't want you.

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

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In Three Lines

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On radiance

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines

In Three Lines