handfuls of air

My vain attempt to unite

every loose part of me,

every weird, finicky strand,

tie it neatly into a ball,

appreciate it, burn it.

Poetry is a purging,

a means to an end:

oblivion, I

absolutely emptied out,

integrated, exploded

into this swirling, silent moment.

In my earliest dream, I shelter

in my mother's arms

as she rocks me to sleep,

singing a cosmic lullaby

as we float past a dark galaxy,

forgotten except for the dying glow

of a few weak and lingering stars

that light her kind face,

but the starlight loses strength,

and the melody begins to sour,

and her hair dries and curls,

and her skin wrinkles and greens,

and her eyes glow with venomous glee

as she fills space with merciless cackling

and bares sharp dripping fangs,

and I stare up in terror as

the last light in existence

flickers out.

Passing through a coliseum courtyard

with my kindergarten class, empty

stone bleachers ascend around us

into the blinding white sky

as if an invisible audience watches

us file like sheep into a long hallway

lined with screens filled with floating heads

of adults who speak to us as we are led

into childhood. They babble nonsense

that blends together, but I see

the tired structure of things to come

etched in their uncanny faces.

In the dark: a dog barking.

Large black dog with yellow eyes

barking at my bed.

And the bedroom door closing

slowly as the black dog sits

behind it growling at me running

through thick air to catch the knob,

the distant knob slipping.

But it shuts, it locks, I'm stranded

in the dark, feeling my way back

across the carpet, hands and knees,

to safety in cool bedsheets

where from beneath

mischievous giggles emanate,

foreboding chaotic sleep

into which I plunge again.

She is the girl of rounded corners,

rubber floors and padded bars,

the keeper of a thousand rooms,

a thousand shades of comfort.

Her golden voice reverberates

off curving white acrylic walls

in an edgeless bathroom,

warm water gurgling out of spouts

the shape of animal mouths

open wide to the world.

No fear, open wide.

She is the morning sun shining

through the windows of a playroom,

toys spread across the carpet, time paused.

She is an indoor playplace,

tunnels twisting into clear darkness,

walls of nets and swinging ropes

and slides descending

into pools of plastic balls.

She is a store of endless aisles

of fog and multicolored lights

and toys from floor to ceiling.

She is the comfy restaurant smell

of salt and sugar overflowing,

world of abundance unquestioned.

She is the glow of Christmas lights

on a manicured lawn at night,

a thousand stars shining down.

She is the chest burning hot

with precious memories rekindled.

She is a maze of faux rooms

in a furniture store,

layers of curtain-walls and bowls

of ageless plastic fruit.

She is an empty office above the mall,

sunset slanting through the blinds

and headlights glistening

on the highway far below

and the scent of warm carpet,

printer dust and analog optimism,

the weight of the world hovering

forever at a safe distance.

In a bedroom in a labyrinth underground, I wrestle with dreams, and plastic stars on the ceiling glow down on my nocturnal stirrings. I embrace a plush bear that, sensing the overture of a nightmare, softly sings a lullaby. I see the moon, and the moon sees me. The bedroom door creaks open, casting a sliver of golden light on the wallpaper teeming with smiling nursery rhyme creatures. A young girl approaches my bed and kneels to touch me. Turning, I smile, Sophia. Time to wake up, she says. You've slept so long. Come and play with me. I rub my eyes and sit up, and she takes my hand and guides me into the bright hallway. ~ She has always been with me. I don't remember a time without her. She crawls behind the walls with me, into the secret places of this subterranean universe. I never want to leave this place, and I know I never will. There is no time down here. The future is a vague mist easily forgotten. Now is real. It stretches to infinity in all directions. Adults exist in a cloudy dimension three feet above. They've seen the future, and they are scared. They murmur of impending dangers. Curious, I search for the object of their fear, stalking down dark hallways with a plastic sword. I know I'll beat it if I find it; I'm the hero. ~ In the upper halls, I hear the distant growling of a beast drawing me up, asking to be vanquished. Sophia begs me not to go. She weeps and rends her golden hair. She tugs at my arm, but I break away and she does not follow. I ascend through door after door until the passageway narrows so I must squeeze up and out of a hole in the base of a large fruit tree. On the surface, all is silent except the rhythmic chorus of crickets and a whispering canopy of leaves that shields me from the burning stars above. And so I rise and walk into the dark world where my only real weapon is the fading memories of my underground home.

In the backyard safe again,

inside the solid wooden fence,

yellow leaves and afternoon sun

fall on my back as I kneel,

reaching deep into warm sand,

searching for treasure.

Of course I find it because I expect to.

A rust-colored penny

and then a newer one, then

a quarter, a gold dollar.

I fill my pockets and still there is more

because I know there is more, because

my young heart drives me on, beating

to the rhythm of more and more.

And when troubles come, I can feel

the coins rubbing against my heart,

so I keep my awareness there

on my buried treasure

as life leads me further

away.

Under the moon, amongst the fireflies, we rage. With youthful fury, we beat the metal dragon, the sleeping machine threatening our woods. We smash its glass eyes with knotted tree branches and stab its tires with pocketknives and stuff its wounds full of pine straw. The fire of leaves and lighter fluid heats our upturned faces and shines in our young eyes. Covered in sweat and full of pride, we marvel at our easy victory, but a nearby dog starts barking, and I begin to leave but my friend remains. I call to him, but he walks transfixed toward the dying beast, his body only a small shadow in the roaring inferno. And then: his shadow extinguished. I flee before the beast consumes me also. The wind picks up, and thunder rumbles as I walk toward the memory of home. Wrestling tears and turbulent thoughts, I wonder what had compelled my friend into the flames. Out of breath, I stop and hear a distant grinding sound I cannot yet comprehend. Could the beast have survived? No, I shake it off and continue forward, arrogant in my youth.

Restless, I flee across the dark easement where tar-soaked poles gleam in moonlight under buzzing wires carrying a power that also flows unknown through me. I cut a secret path I fathered stroke by stroke on a hundred summer days, and the grass hisses like snakes between my knees. Just the wind and I descend, leaping down the slope. I see a neon green glow fanning out from an open doorway like a bug light in the night and fingers of fog reaching out. Mesmerized, I cross the threshold into the beckoning room: a narrow arcade, consoles lining the walls. Naturally, I remove my shoes, and the chorus of katydids and crickets crossfades with synthetic beeps and chirps as I venture deeper, each machine greeting me as I pass with an infinite variety of 8-bit jingles. I stare into a pixelated screen where kaleidoscopic colors swirl in patterns wild and so beyond my grasp that I must look away or be transfixed. I admire the carpet, fluorescent and full of cartoon planets and stars. The heat of the machines, or something beyond the machines, radiates out from behind them, relaxing my muscles. I wonder if I am trespassing, but there is no sign of anyone here or that anyone has ever been here. It seems to exist for me, embracing me like a blanket. I step into a larger room with thick carpet and deep worn couches and a glowing air hockey table and pinball machine and skeeball alleys and basketball hoops and walls plastered with posters of unknown bands glowing in black lights and something clicks. A child's pastiche of a cool hangout. For a moment, this place is all that exists. It has devoured the outside world and the heavy future, the fragile past. This place is all that needs to exist. But down a long wood-paneled hallway, I spy the white of a further doorway and the murmur of alien voices and echoing footsteps. I don't belong here. My heart thumps in my ears as I tiptoe back to the outer room and pause in the doorway for as long as I dare, listening, watching, absorbing, letting the neon soak through me and fill me with serenity. Recharging, I sigh and lean into the night. How much longer will it last me, and when will I forget?

The family van rolls into the empty parking lot of a nondescript office building at dusk. My parents lead me by the arms through the abandoned lobby to a door with light underneath. Inside, a man with a white moustache wears a lab coat and a plastic smile. He has been expecting us. He shows us a photo projected on the wall in vivid colors: a gaping mouth with an ugly pink mass where teeth should be. My parents nod seriously as he gestures and gives vague explanations then invites them to wait in the lobby. They exit without a word. He leads me into a too-large room with a lone dental chair in the center under a pale spotlight. He shuts the door and locks it. Have a seat. The sky stands bloodied behind veiny tree limbs outside the sole window. A young bleach-blonde assistant enters and seals the door and parts red lips, flashing a smile and inserting a long syringe into my gums. I grab her wrist and resist, but she removes a chunk of flesh as a sample. I sob and apologize for resisting. She smiles sweetly. It's okay; just relax. She does not know what she is doing. The man hastily shoves an IV into my forearm then scurries down a trap door. A green liquid crawls down the tube and through the needle. From below, a machine rumbles to life. Everything vibrates; I'm feeling dizzy. How long should this take? The assistant pretends not to hear me. She approaches with two more IVs, sliding one into my palm and the other beneath my fingernail. My hand convulses, and the room begins to rotate. On the edge of my vision, I see trays lined with gleaming blades. The assistant runs sharp fingernails through my hair and whispers in my ear, Everything is fine. This is not the end, not the end. The man reappears with a long clear tube attached to a pump. My gums are throbbing but painless now. Everything else is numbing, fading, a cold tube slithers down my throat, and the spotlight above intensifies until there's nothing left. My parents are gone. They have abandoned me. This is the end.

Descending piano triplets ripple through the vast gymnasium as I hesitantly push through the first set of doors, then the second. Now exposed, I scan the distant clumps of chattering preteens in baggy formalwear on the far side of the dark expanse, silhouetted by Christmas lights strung from white lattice dividers. No, no, no. I retreat to the right before anyone spots me, to the too-bright bathroom for refuge. Oh, god. She dropped me off too early. The blue concrete walls dampen the music making it sound even more ominous as I hide in a stall, delaying, counting the seconds, trying to conjure my friends here by the time I emerge. I wait in front of the glaring mirror under the unforgiving fluorescents, cursing every red pimple peeking out from behind concealer I’m ashamed to wear, cursing every stray strand of hair my mom cut, re-tucking my itchy collared shirt into my loose khaki pants. Deep breaths. Is this normal? Or am I not meant for this world? Footsteps approach so I steel myself and step into the linoleum void and bravely float toward my shadowy peers. The singer on the sound system reads my mind: Home, home, where I wanted to go. If I survive this night, this year, I can survive it all.

In the school gym, my peers gather on the court covered with confusing objects: glass, bricks, rebar, electric prods. The participants chat excitedly, stretching and jogging in place as if they'd trained for this. Then a buzzer sounds, and I stare in horror as my classmates turn to savages. I see Sarah bleeding from the nose and laughing like a hyena before she's knocked to the ground and jabbed in the neck with a buzzing taser. Nick sucker punches John who falls, skull cracking like a gunshot against the laminated floor. He seizes. Foam pools from his swollen lips while Nick does a victory dance. The impact of a concrete block knocks Kate's eye clean out of her head and she cups it in her hand smiling numbly at it. Sneakers slip as bodily fluids pool across the basketball court, and the snapping of young bones echoes through the room. Dead-eyed custodians roll out carts full of rancid food for ammunition: moldy cheese, sauerkraut, rotten eggs. The students bleed and laugh and vomit together. On the sidelines, I avert my eyes and stalk along the perimeter, stomach tense and bile tickling my throat. They've cracked, all of them. What demon whispers to them, and why have I not heard it's dark voice yet? Teachers and adult spectators cheer, and for the first time, I realize the origin of scars I'd previously taken for granted. I slip out into the parking lot crowded with tailgaters watching the proceedings on TVs. People murmur as I hurry by, wondering how I escaped unscathed. I stare at the solid ground, confused, agitated, superior, alone. My uncle and his niece bump into me, greeting me excitedly on their way in. I try to tell the girl she wouldn't like it but my uncle shushes me, shaking his head. He wants her to enter without warning, and I feel a heaviness in my heart. They're all in on it. Suddenly a young teacher lunges out of the gym doors and points at me and shrieks, Somebody grab him! I flee into the woods behind the school, branches whipping, briars tearing at my skin. I stumble over a lumpy mass hidden beneath the leaves and fall, and the shape rises slowly, as if from a long slumber: a young man in his late teens, head shaved and a crooked row of stitches snaking across his forehead. He stands hunched and stares with sad eyes. Who am I? he croaks. What am I doing here? I retreat, horrified, as dozens of other leaf-piles stir. I scramble down a rocky hill, under a fence, and into a plowed field that stretches to the fading horizon. Above: relentless stars, and in the middle, a gaping black spot growing. Something is coming. It's swallowing stars.

Sylvia, I see her standing on a dirt mound pushed to the side of an unfinished road on the outskirts of my neighborhood. I see her slim figure rise to the summit. Raven black hair cascading down the small of her back, she plants her feet wide and stares down at me, a queen surveying her kingdom. In her right hand: a tomahawk fashioned from a thick branch a wedge-shaped stone and some twine. Wearing moccasins, khaki shorts, and a fluttering crimson tank top, she is backlit by the sun, which appears like a golden halo around her darkened face. I am transfixed. She descends, revealing pale skin untouched by the sun and a stoic expression and black eyes that extract information from my startled expression. She approaches, and I inhale her strangely pleasant scent of sweat, campfire smoke, and pine straw. Her voice is soft but subtly threatening, and she keeps a tight grip on her weapon. I share my name and she hers. It rolls off her tongue like the sound of something slipping over the edge of a chasm. I tell her I'm a runaway; she nods and leads me to her camp. At dusk, she leaves for far too long. I search in the twilight woods and soon am lost, but I hear the crunching of leaves nearby and, frightened, I crouch behind a boulder on the hillside. The sound stops right next to me. I squint but cannot see. Instead, I hear a baby crying, so out of place in these dim woods, then from the gloom emerges a spotted fawn with golden fur, limping, glancing around, lost. Its leg hangs off the ground, twisted at an unnatural angle. The creature cries again and fresh goosebumps fill my arms. It freezes, and its face points at me, and I am anchored in its pure black eyes until a crow caws above us, and the creature looks up, and a larger shape rises from the ground behind it. I shrink back, the fawn glances at me, and I want to scream a warning but there is no time, only a quick whooshing, and the fawn's gaze disconnects as it falls. The dark assassin raises its arm again and again, chopping into the creature as it squeals and struggles, and a finger of blood rises several feet into the air, splashing down onto the dead leaves. With one final blow, all is silent. I back away as the shape rises and her sweet voice calls out my name. What'd you do that for? I respond. Dinner, she says before pulling her tomahawk out of the fawn's throat. It is madness but I fear her, love her more.

A gale of laughter pulls me from my reverie

as I push through the crowd queuing

for the merry-go-round making its last circuit

around as the sun strikes the horizon.

On the hill, the house stands apart,

isolated atop a daunting ascent,

surrounded by false leafless trees,

but I trudge up the steepening incline,

past a few panting parkgoers who turn around.

I shield my eyes from the setting sun,

which dyes the world an uncanny orange

portending storms, but I climb on,

fingertips grasping crooked edges

of loose cobblestones. I pull myself over

the edge where the manor looms

like the amalgam of all people's dreams

of a haunted house spliced together.

It stands tall and dark and leaning

toward me, its window sockets black,

its walls covered with ivy like the arms

of some ghastly creature patiently trapping

its prey over centuries, creeping

up the turrets and towers

that stretch into the reddening sky.

I navigate the empty queue, running

my hands along the red-roped barrier

as thunder rumbles: a recorded sound effect

emanating from speakers hidden

amongst plastic gravestones,

or is it real?

The black doorway swallows me

into a dark lobby where a procession

of leather buggies snakes through the room.

I pick one, fall in, and a steel bar lowers,

pinning me into position.

The buggy passes through an archway

and makes a sharp sudden drop

down a black tunnel, and a finger of bile

rises up my esophagus as I grip the cold bar

holding me helpless in this ride,

which chooses what I see, where I go,

and what I must endure.

Every dizzying turn, every door, a new danger.

Time dissolves; there's no way of knowing

how deep this ride goes for me.

The finite facade of the house: an illusion.

I made a mistake! Trapped, trapped,

going down, tilting, spinning

until direction is meaningless.

I enter rooms at first empty and innocent

before mechanical ghouls leap out at me

from unexpected angles.

I am losing strength, perspective, energy

to fight the panicked thoughts

screaming that this ride won't end,

never, as taunting organ music pulses,

pushing me onward as this house

digests me.

In a haunted house, a classic manor, an open dining room, every surface spray-painted blue-black and draped with plastic cobwebs, and two symmetrical staircases spiraling up in opposite directions to a balcony overlooking a long wooden table spread with plates and platters filled with bones, I look up at the purple stage lights shining from the rafters, but somehow this peek behind the scenes doesn't quell my growing unease. I notice a red glow emanating from under a doorway. Did the doorknob wiggle slightly or did I imagine it? Hello, I squeak, but nothing replies, so I approach and open the door. Inside: an ordinary bathroom unnaturally clean and modern for this house and divided in two sections separated by saloon-style swinging doors. In the first half are twin sinks and mirrors I dare not stare into. the red glow I follow fills the latter half of the room behind the saloon doors. I push through. An ordinary toilet ahead, a normal shower on the left, but mounted on the right wall: a large opaque rectangular light, the source of the red, pulsing like a slow heartbeat. Without warning, a strong wind blows, lifting and pushing me back a foot. Is someone here, I blurt dumbly. There is a presence; I can feel it. A gentler breeze from the other direction swirls around me, cooling me, whispering my name. No, I think. No, this is not him. He is not here. I am, the voice insists. Do not be afraid. The red light glows in sync with the voice. I reach out my hand and place my palm against the warm plastic. The identity of that presence, although absurd, is undeniable. I found you, says the voice. I didn't think it was possible. It isn't; you're dead, I say, and the unreality strikes me as I remember where I am: a bathroom in a haunted house located where? At the end of this thought, a sharp wave of vertigo embraces me and the room tilts out of alignment and I wake up, possibly alone.

Immersed in a dark sunken den, the deep brown couch envelops me, and green shag carpet embraces my bare feet. My parents are perched on another couch against the far left wall. Blue light illuminates their stony faces as two monstrous sharks fight in the TV, biting chunks from each other, crimson swirling in the deep. A fair-haired girl lounges to my left: a family friend but her name escapes me. She scoots closer, and a warm surge of affection pulses through me as her soft head lands on my shoulder. I glance at my parents and see them glaring. They are alert to this sinful behavior, alert to thorns growing in my mind, any fleshy desires stirring for correction. Paranoia overpowers the girl's paralyzing warmth, and so I stand, irritated, feverish. I mutter goodnight and climb out of the den, hoping the girl will follow, but all that follows is her warm memory.

I enter the apartment of dark stone and ancient wood where a tomahawk hangs like a trophy collected from a defeated foe above the mantel of a blazing fireplace. My bare feet step over a patchwork of iron vents through which dozens of small fires heat the room, and one of them has ignited a long burgundy sock draped over the back of a wooden chair. The chair smolders also. I hesitate then stamp it out and enter the adjoining bedroom, lifting and rustling cool scarlet sheets, feeling a warm comfort in my heart rekindled. But my older cousin appears in the doorway, reminding me that we must share the bed, and the flame is extinguished. I stomp across the apartment, desperate for solitude, and as if in answer, my cousin disappears and I undress and walk into the bathroom, all checkered tiles and clinical white and shower mirrored on floor and ceiling, creating an infinite vertical shaft out of which a thin black showerhead slithers like an inverted tulip. I spot a large red bug in the corner. I smile and it flutters its rosy wings in a pattern as if to communicate, and the edges of words form in my head but my white-haired uncle barges in and assumes I'm afraid of the bug, so he grabs the delicate insect in his meaty hand and thrusts it toward my face. I flinch, so he throws it at me and I hurry to brush it off and see its broken body drop to the tiles drained of color. One crooked wing shudders then stiffens forever. My uncle laughs and slaps my back and booms, See, isn't it better this way? Face your fear and get it over with! I halfheartedly agree but feel a warm throbbing on my cheek where the insect left its poison.

I enter the classroom, and he is there: my nemesis waiting in my peripheral as I sit near the back. But it doesn't matter where I sit; good old Nick finds a way. He has helpers who zip-tie my backpack to my desk, and I struggle to untie it as they cackle, faces red like demons. I move to a desk close to the teacher, poker face, not wanting to give them satisfaction. It doesn't matter; they move behind me. The class is doing an experiment: designing microchips we place inside syringes we inject into slabs of meat. While I work, I feel the pinch of a needle in the back of my neck. I turn and grab a syringe from Nick's hand, break it in two, and shout, Stop it! The teacher approaches, and I hand her the broken needle and rub my neck worried about infection, to be infected by him. Nick seems angry that his fun was spoiled. Class dismissed. I walk alone between buildings, across the dusk-dyed campus, hiding in shadows, and just when I let down my guard: a tap on the shoulder. Nick's grinning sidekick holds a beeping receiver. They're tracking me! The microchip! I snatch the receiver and smash it against the bricks and struggle to escape their clawing hands. Nick is closest, so I grab him, righteous anger boiling over, fueling a hatred I thought myself above as I squeeze his neck and slam his laughing skull against a brick wall. But they're still grabbing, ripping my shirt. I yell, panic flooding. Help, help! Call the police! A group of boys holding a Bible study at a nearby picnic table continue praying in the lengthening shadows. That evening, the automatic doors open to an arctic A/C breeze as I limp into the grocery store on a mission, machete hanging from my hand. I see Nick working a checkout line and, without hesitation, I lunge and swing at his neck until he falls, tennis shoes squeaking, slipping in his own blood. Screaming clueless customers flee, and I chop and chop until nerves are visible, until bone is visible, until the head separates and rolls sideways and blood pools under it like a crimson shadow, and I see my face in the puddle, a face full of rage and also pleasure. But the pleasure melts into a heavy sense of loss. And, touching my neck, I am shocked to find my own blood staining my fingertips. Later I sit on a bus next to Nick, talking casually, laughing together at a beautiful horrible secret only we will ever know.

Taking my final exam at a picnic table alone in a field under a weeping willow, I notice at the edge of my vision a mysterious building I don't recognize. Its walls are brightly painted wood. Its roof is edged with curving eaves. A shining white dome crowns the top. Wide steps lead up to golden doors that shimmer in the afternoon heat. I must make an effort to look away so I can finish my test. Once finished, I walk inside the massive school for the last time to hand in my test. Did I pass? Who knows. No one stops me from leaving. I am drawn outside again, around the corner, past the willow to the golden doors. They're dragging me in. And before I can think, I ascend the ancient steps and grasp the gnarled oak handle and pull. Dense cool air rushes past me as I cross over the threshold into a hallway that stretches out before me. I feel lighter in here. There is a current in the air that guides my movements, bending gravity to its will. A tribal mask floats before me, and I grab it, pulling it over my face as I glide down the sacred hall, applause echoing from all sides. Thick red carpet shifts and presses against my feet, and the intricate frescoes covering the walls pulse and dance, driving me forward. A second set of heavy black doors waits at the end of the hall, and as they fill my vision, I ascertain that once I pass through, there will be no turning back. Two golden mirrors flank the doors, showing not my reflection but dim woods where piles of leaves stir restless: my alternate fate. I drop my mask and extend one trembling hand toward the handle black as empty space. I grasp and pull and step forward then stop as I hear the doors behind me seal shut, knowing this means no turning back, no escape until death. The hair on my neck stands at attention as a powerful force fills the air around me. Hovering over: some holy ghost watching, ready to strike if I dare to look back. What have I done? The brightness of the room beyond the black doors originates from everywhere and nowhere. With an emptied mind, I change into a waiting robe, shave my head over a bronze basin, open red doors and enter a final room that bustles with other young adults who've also passed. They seem excited, chatting quietly to each other as if their being there is some achievement. But I keep my eyes on the ground as I walk past tables where the others assemble machine parts: inconspicuous cogs and wheels and cylinders that travel down a conveyor belt that disappears into a dark hole in the wall. It takes an immense effort not to react when I recognize the low grinding sound emanating from within that hole, but I cannot show fear. This is what I've been prepared for. This is the way of things.

Exploring a cavernous mall with old school friends, we search for something once familiar but now painfully absent. We smile empty smiles and laugh hollow laughs; we barely know each other. I discover a gaping rectangular hole in the tile floor, jutting out of which is the top half of a paddle wheel, rotating drowsily, shining with water. The others hesitate, but I sit on a blade, which emits a sleepy tone and lowers me down until the black floor disappears overhead, and there is a long moment when all is dark and full of possibility, and fear squeezes my heart as I wonder if I've made a mistake. But my eyes adjust and I see a placid ocean stretching out before me and the sky like a tunnel growing in brightness and terminating in an amber sun. The wheel dips me into this warmth. It slides up my toes, my legs, waist, torso, arms, neck and ears. The balmy waves slide through my body, and my seat turns away into oily depths. I float limp in a gentle current that pulls me toward the glowing sun, always just a few yards ahead. The primordial waters fill me with a vigor unfelt in ages. I long to explore, to swim farther, untethered from parents, friends, past. I swim, and the sun retreats, pulling me into my new horizon.

It is morning on the surface of the ocean where I find myself swimming. I spot a girl bobbing in the surf. Following me, she comes closer. She thinks she knows me, but I don't recognize her. She says she remembers me when I was smaller. She says there's a nearby island, a place where we can rest, but her suggestion irritates me. I want to go farther, deeper. She says she saw two sharks fighting. She hands me goggles, and I peer under the surface at remnants of blood billowing out like a ruby nebula. She points down at sea centipedes rising from the depths, waving like trees in an underwater breeze. She warns me not to descend. It is afternoon when curiosity overwhelms, and I dive, and the girl reluctantly follows. We circle the centipede stalks, carefully avoiding their tenuous legs for fear of paralyzing toxins. At first, we make frequent trips to the surface as our endurance builds. Further down, the centipedes harden and form the supports of a concrete structure, layers upon layers, like a great empty parking garage. We are careful not to get stuck under the expansive roof, deprived of oxygen forever. Nervous, we flee to the surface again. It is night, and deeper below the structure, we find an underwater city, its schools of street lamps the only refuge from the black abyss. An expectant feeling flows through me as we glide over rooftops of glittering skyscrapers and watch shadows of unseen lives moving in the bright windows. But I turn to notice my diving companion holding a bomb, black and spherical, and a lighter. What is that for? I ask. To kill, she says. Kill what? Them. Why? I say. Don't do that. They are dangerous to you. They must be destroyed. Dangerous how? I push back. But instead of responding, she lights the fuse. I protest and struggle to wrestle the bomb from her hands. She flees, and I pursue her down to the street and gain control. Grabbing her in a tight bear hug, I force her up, past city, past concrete structure and centipedes. Too fast! My joints ache, legs grow numb. I panic thinking I'm swimming deeper, then I hit concrete. The structure! Not as high as I thought. Trapped! I race to the horizon edge. Faster, up and out, scraping past the centipedes. Forget toxin; forget the bends. My ears ring, sounding like a saxophone blaring the melody: E E♭ E E♭ E F# F# Looping over and over, rising to crescendo. I swim out of my body, out of my mind. The bomb explodes.

I emerge from the amniotic ocean

gasping, treading water, spinning

disoriented in the waves.

Dawn warms my cheek, and the shadow

of a departing vessel cools my back,

but I don't turn to look. I reach out

to a thick rope rising

out of the water ahead into

the bruised sky. It swings from the bow

of an approaching ship towering

over like an aquatic skyscraper.

I grit my teeth and grasp the cord

and climb, arms burning,

old water falling from me

like liquid dreams at waking,

returning to the source.

I reach the peak and grab one corner,

legs dangling as I struggle to secure them

inside slippery crevices. I grasp

brass railing, and with one last

burst of strength I tumble

over the edge and onto the deck.

Raising my head, I see a blonde girl

lying on a lounge chair, eyes closed,

another chair empty beside her.

I find my footing and approach.

A warm breeze caresses my hair,

but just as I'm about to speak,

I hear a high-pitched rattling to the left.

I turn to find the source:

another girl stands at the railing,

stoic, aloof, alone, staring

at a comet trail cutting

a diagonal scar across the sky. I

admire her dark profile,

a black hole carved into dusk.

She turns and, oh, her placid face

opens into an expression hanging somewhere

between sadness and longing, dying

sun in one eye, falling star

in the other. She approaches

and places her hands on my wet shoulders

and lowers me onto a cushioned chair

and leans against my beating heart.

I hesitantly cross my arms over her belly.

Our breaths, hearts synchronize

and merge, and I grow drowsy,

and the last fraction of sun slips

below the horizon, and twilight blooms.

There is a distant scream and a splash.

Someone has fallen overboard.

I lift myself, ready to seek,

but the girl presses me down again.

She smiles and whispers,

Just cruise.

I awaken on an airplane at night crossing over a dark ocean far from home and moving farther. I can't remember where I'm going. Brain foggy, I look up the aisle and that's when I see her a few rows ahead, wearing a red knit sweater and blue corduroy pants, dark hair falling in loose curls, ivory wrist dangling prettily off the armrest like a dead leaf about to fall. The seat next to her is empty. Without thinking, I stand and the plane tilts down, pulling me toward her. When I reach her aisle, I hesitate, but turbulence shakes me into the seat. Hi, I say. Hello, she answers. Our words tumble out drowsily, naturally, as if resuming a conversation briefly interrupted. The memory of each exchange fades with the sound of the words, narrowing my focus to now, and only now. Oh, before I forget, she says, producing a pen and paper. She writes and hands me the page, a haiku in large curving letters: death is here outside / your peripheral vision / no reason to fear I grow light-headed as if there'd been a drop in altitude. She laughs knowingly, flashing her teeth. It's okay, she says, there's still time. And she leans her head on my shoulder. Her soft hair brushes my left cheek, and I freeze not knowing what to do. Her hand touches my left thigh, and I don't dare move. Gradually, I lean back and her hand wraps inward. The plane stops mid-air, hovering silent over the surface of the waters. We sit motionless, listening to our breaths intermingle, so warm, so light. The fuselage sinks below the surface and curious sea creatures glide over its wings like living air molecules. She nuzzles my neck and sighs, I've missed you. Black memories stirring, I look past into the watery void and ask, How long have we been apart? Forever, she answers. The lights flicker out.

A man and woman sit in a car next to me,

interior dark and aquarium-cool

except for legs and arms illuminated

golden by the afternoon sun.

Lips move; teeth shine,

exchanging sweet secrets.

Invisible, I hover above,

a lonely bus-riding cherub,

double-glass chasm between us.

In my grandmother's house is a sacred space

beyond the kitchen, down hallway thick-carpeted,

past walls of textured paper over concrete

that will outlast us all. The office is

a cube no longer than me, one wall mirrored,

one lined with books. A small window

always hidden behind dusted blue curtains.

A corner desk, computer updated every few years,

only evidence time didn't stop around 2004

when the Internet consumed us all.

I settle in the cushioned chair and feel like God,

at the command station of the universe, fingers ready.

I swivel, bare soles on plastic chair mat, facing the screen.

The startup jingle kicks waves of dust from the speakers:

60 years of accumulated comfort. I feel it heavy

swirling in the insulated air - the forgotten

pile of floppy disks shoved in the corner,

the calculator with printer paper, unopened CD-ROMs,

a Beanie Baby, a piece of the Berlin wall,

chunky digital cameras, stacks of political pamphlets

from 4 elections ago, books with titles like:

Financial Security in the New Millennium,

1999 World Atlas, the encyclopedia,

weight loss diets, signed local autobiographies -

all forgotten. But there's a power in them still.

I feel them, in this air-conditioned oasis,

charging me with a hope unfamiliar,

a spell hoarded and dying,

an analog optimism from the edge of a new century

where a future exists, it's silicon heat spilling

over the horizon, before the towers fell

and tilted the first dark domino of this age.

My only hope is that I can absorb it through osmosis,

or through words, and take it with me.

The cursor appears and disappears,

in and out of existence just like that,

lulling my mind into semi-consciousness.

Where does it go, and what brings it back?

I'm done with college, papers, everything.

Six-week freshman, senior at heart.

A surreal clarity has overwhelmed me.

Edges sharpen, sounds penetrate,

and one forbidden thought hovers

on the rim of my awareness...

but a sharp digital buzz startles me.

I find my phone and silence it, staring

at the beige wall and wondering

if it's really leaning toward me.

I have to escape...

through a carpet of clothes,

out to the cold central room devoid

of anything but pre-existing furniture:

no TV, no focus, spotless floor and walls.

More like a waiting room than a home.

Kitchen unused except sink piled high.

I swallow the lump in my throat, gather

myself and my jacket and keys

and abandon my phone on the couch.

I exit, navigating the stench

of burnt food and a symphony muffled

by cheap drywall: thumps and soprano cries

of coitus, booming bass of a sports announcer,

alto dance music, the tenor

of drunken laughter. I descend

the empty stairwell where a fluorescent light

flickers then dies as I pass and step

over a large crack that slithers

across the concrete landing.

It has widened since I moved in.

It seems hungry. Maybe I'll feed it.

The distant clock tower strikes eleven

as I push the doors and inhale

bitter autumn air. The immense moon

stares down, bathing the earth

in its bloodshot glow, the force of it

breathing life into a legion of leaves

that skitter across the bricks,

searching for a resting place. I search, too,

along the concourse still and silent

as if everyone has been swallowed by the night.

Or maybe transformed, replaced, possessed.

In the annex parking lot, I see

a drunken frat boy wrapped

in a cruel cocoon of cellophane,

squirming in a pool of lamplight

on the edge of the map. I walk on.

Campus is a haunted maze

of winding sidewalks, yawning alleys,

staircases to nowhere that manifest

and twist into new configurations

only when the sun isn't watching.

Orange lamps color buildings ancient,

sinister, abandoned long ago.

The stadium-shadow hums like a sleeping beast

awakened once a week when thousands

come to worship and it roars

to life. A scarecrow glides past,

shirt ripped down the middle and strands

hanging below the waist of his shorts

toward his sandals like the remnants

of some unholy attack. His wide eyes stare

at the horizon with anticipation,

but I look and nothing is there

but the brutal symmetry

of the liberal arts building looming

like a dark temple dedicated to a forgotten god.

Three girls stumble past carrying heels,

dresses sagging over bony frames

that lean on each other and cackle at nothing,

old in the shadows like crones

returning from some black mass.

In the upper quad, the normally proud

white plantation-style face of the old

president's mansion is pallid grey,

and the air thickens like mud.

It starts to drizzle, and I stalk

down College Street where floodlights

cast an eerie glow onto the blood-colored brick

of the old clock tower pointing to the sky

where I now see no stars, no black space, only

a menacing orange firmament. And the tower

waits like a watchful sentinel,

and I grow dizzy, and halos dance

around the lamps as I stumble,

shadow stretching, shortening, doubling.

A passing car beeps its horn

and someone yells words indecipherable.

They pass and the night is empty again.

Across the street, the glowing letters

on the sign for the Heart of Campus,

a trashy motel, have burnt out so they read

like the start of some neon prophecy:

Hear o Campus. I laugh

then flinch as the clock tower rings,

scolding, transmitting frequencies

not meant for me. I am so far from home.

Headlights appear over the rise,

approaching fast as the bells shake the earth.

I watch the twin lights grow until

they envelop my vision. They just

might save me. What else could?

The roar of the truck overpowers the bells

and becomes the most beautiful sound

I've ever heard as I wipe my eyes,

clear my throat and step into the road,

and the lights merge into one powerful sun,

and I turn away unable to face it,

and I am falling up, up, into brightness

all around, and a rhythmic tone like the bells

but quicker, synthetic, and shadowy faces

float over, speaking without sound

and then recede as a kind of gravity

pulls me down, down,

until my face sizzles and I wake,

my cheek pressed against cool earth.

I cough dust, sit up, and rub my eyes.

My left leg is killing me.

Sunlight glares through dirty windows

and disappointment trickles through my body.

Outside, a cluster of lonely grey warehouses

on the north edge of campus.

The rising sun ignites the sheet metal

siding and sets the old windows ablaze.

Nauseous, I lean and taste warm bile

pushing up my throat and notice

a Rorschach test of gore covering my shirt.

I remove dried flecks then lose interest

and, turning with a sigh, limp toward campus.

The sun shines through a blanket of clouds

that trap moisture from the night's rain.

Wet concrete steams and reflects heat up

as I make my way across the brick-paved desert

through hundreds of wavering student-mirages

floating across its glimmering surface.

It's shaping up to be one of those

contradictory late-autumn days

when a cold wind blows but the sun blazes.

This must be a purgatory

where God or the universe or whatever

is slowly purging my sins away,

but I must simmer here before ascending.

On the way back to my dorm, I see

a white truck inching up the concourse

with a hose the circumference of

a basketball hoop that a groundskeeper holds

while he works his way down a long pile

of dead leaves blown against the curb.

The hose devours them by the thousands

and snakes up to a tank mounted on the truck,

and a growing cloud of brown leaf-dust

billows from a pipe at the top.

And as I approach, the grinding

of hidden machinery grows

and fills me with immense dread,

and the acrid cloud embraces me,

veiling the sun in a blanket of red.

I hold my breath and squint

to keep the particles out, but I

last only seconds before inhaling

the putrid dust, which makes me sneeze,

which makes me breathe even more.

Maybe this purgatory won't end

until I step across that platform

one blustery May day and grasp

the diploma and shake hands with the dean

and walk into a new life,

or maybe I'll carry it with me

for the rest of my days like a secret scar.

But for now, all I can do is endure

the mirage while it lasts.

Wake in the morning, sleep at night,

and watch the world appear and disappear,

in and out of existence just like that.

Far above the moonlit sand, I'm suspended

next to a red-haired girl, listening to waves.

She lights a blunt we share. She blows

a plume of smoke from her upturned nose

and leans back on her pink elbows, allowing

moonlight into her face and neck.

She is so happy to be there, she says,

and I agree, and the vein of our words

catalyzes the herb flowing through our blood.

I notice my left hand bloom with spores

growing out of the skin like sea anemones,

glowing green and quivering in the salty breeze,

hundreds of them unfolding in fractal clumps.

I feel them spreading. Her long legs stretch

toward me as she lounges in the deck chair,

pale skin glowing lunar. Can she see the growth?

I ask. She sits up and scoots close,

sliding her fingers through

her hair, which kisses my right shoulder.

I notice translucent neon protrusions

on her hands, too, rippling out,

but she cannot see them. She says,

I recognize you from somewhere.

Have we met before? She cracks a smile,

and we laugh, euphoric, knowing, happy.

She asks if she can kiss me.

We're facing each other, shoulders

leaning against the thin glass railing

saving us both from plummeting deaths.

The tide below recedes. She's cross-legged,

serious like some time-forgotten goddess.

I say, Of course, but it feels wrong,

as if you're my sister.

She says it's not like that.

So I yield, and we lean together.

Something has eclipsed the moon.

She places both hands on my shoulders.

We kiss, and any doubt is blown

to oblivion by the force of it,

and the luminous anemone arms

pulse and lengthen, intertwining,

tingling like new nerve endings,

and a great destructive wave looms

above us as our faces merge

and melt together.

On night walks, her head shines with fluorescent thoughts in warm shadows. And sometimes she follows distant human chattering to its source, peering through trees at lights and people, but tonight she flees and floats, a homeless ghost, down dark sidewalks, past buzzing bulbs, just islands of light in the churning night. Some lamps flicker as she passes and pretends to control them while wild lightning bleaches orange clouds above, a passing storm. She stares through windows, gazing long at living room worlds she's never known or has forgotten. So warm, so real, so fate-forbidden. A gentle mist falls through her, and the humid breeze holds the bitter scent of burning wood. And further, she hears nothing but her feet until she pauses in the peaceful road for a little eternity: no cars, relaxed, hopeful, the world washed clean by the night. She passes through a kudzu tunnel teeming with fireflies, floating neon candles in the black. Emerging new, she rests in a swing, bathing in the glorious quiet, soul adjusting faster than pupils. She slips into the park, away from streetlights, sheltering under a pond gazebo, contemplating the triple-reflection of the hidden sun as it filters through moon, water, eye. The frogs grow quiet when she approaches but worship again as the dark embraces her. Circling the pond, she weaves between bushy sentinels that guard the water as an irrational urge rises to the surface. She resists, almost fleeing. It feels insane but also right. So she surrenders, mounting a boulder and uncovering her auburn hair and shedding her rags to meet the bounteous blue-haloed moon as she truly is. It bathes her with a healing glow, filling her, holding her, and for a moment, its gravity lifts and her toes slip free from the rough rock . . . but the greedy earth pulls her back, and the great mother slips behind her cloudy veil. Recharged, she turns, surveying the land. She renounces her throne, assumes again her mortal skin, and drifts out of the park. A startled bird flaps its wings across her vision and away, shocked by her glowing visage. She will not look at the moon again tonight.

All must be accepted, this I know;

the only other path is despair.

The holiness of the neglected,

of all human filth left on the margins,

must be accepted.

The trailer in the dark ocean of stars,

lit by an orange halogen lamp

and the pulsing blue heartbeat of a TV within.

I catch a glimpse on the road and it's gone.

Who are these people who live so unmoored?

I speak of the loneliness felt in your entrails.

Rotting pallets next to a dumpster behind a mall

built a few decades ago in such hope,

now barren amidst acres of asphalt parking lots

warmed under the glow of the lamps:

the silent periphery guardians.

Imagine yourself transported

to a pitch black forest at an unknown vector,

a buzzing fluorescent parking garage stairwell,

a dripping cave on an unknown planet,

a dusty basement in some grandmother's house,

piles of hoarded memories untouched for years

and an unheard smoke alarm crying out.

For how long? Let it wash over you.

Do these places long for people or loathe them,

or do they hide from us?

All I know is you must love them all or nothing:

all the books never read except by their authors,

every machine-written article, every line of code,

every archived file on every dead hard drive.

No crevice may be rejected if

one is to accept any of it.

Every forgotten film, every advertisement,

all deserve acknowledgement

because they can be known.

Every yellowed memory in every brain waiting

to flare for the last time then die

must be accepted without hesitation.

Every outdated textbook, instruction manual,

ugly piece of clothing ever produced,

every plastic effluvium vomited by industry,

I must take it into myself and consume it,

lift the cup of life to my lips

and guzzle it down without fear.

Pour it into me, let it coat my insides,

let it dissolve the guarded me,

the sore, small, limited, choosy me.

Every Platonian ideal of every object,

every falsified theory,

every second of cynical content ever produced,

I will engorge myself with it,

relieve the overburdened world of it.

Let it wash through me; I'll rinse it with words.

Every piece of plastic at the bottom of the ocean,

every hidden fossil and cryptic glyph,

every word on the tips of the tongues,

let it wash through me unjudged.

Every student film, opinion piece

scrap of litter in the tall grass,

forgotten dream and celebrity,

wash through these words.

Every horror unspeakable or unspoken.

Reality decided; it knows what I need.

It bleeds, and I swallow.

Nothing overlooked, nothing unloved,

no orphans in my universe, no unspoken bastards.

All friendless people and forgotten names,

all motherless sons and fatherless daughters,

all words ever written or spoken or sung,

all trivial things I bring

into myself and make them sacred.

Did you hear about the young man who found the site? The perfect algorithm. Just an ordinary guy. Isolated, sure. But ordinary. Remote job. Long-distance relationship. Studio apartment. He was there for weeks - months, maybe - before they found him. Once his eyes met the page, it was over. You could say he'd been searching for it, but did he know what he would find? That ultimate prize we all seek. The total fulfillment. Perfect engagement. Not a second for the brain to wander. An end to the search, maybe that was the best part. No need for future, or choices - any choices. The algorithm chose. It knew best. It flowed over his mind like a river, gently eroding. It may have dried his eyes to dust. They may have found him literally rooted to his chair. He may have been only 26. But in that little eternity, his life, at least, had disappeared.

Sometimes I forget.

I try to pretend that I want

the cold noisy outside world.

I try to conform to its contours,

warp with the others,

squeeze myself into schedules.

Obligations, acquaintances abound.

For my health, for my future,

to be painfully normal.

But faces become hollow, voices drone,

and I glimpse the sparkle of you

in a book, in a breeze, in a silence.

I submerge and you pull me down

into the warm and I want you:

peace beneath the face of things.

I crave the weight of you crushing soft

like the breast of a mother,

feeding, whispering, opening a home

away from the sandpaper people.

Stay with me, please.

Don't spit me out.

Don't abandon me here

with them.

When I needed you most, you were there,

a phantom sprawled in the passenger seat,

right foot propped and knees drooping wide,

thin fingers loosely gripping the grab handle,

casting a closed-mouth smile at me,

a smile that felt the length of the day

and felt my heavy thoughts sloshing,

anxiety draining from my nerves.

And you knew that I was enough

and that there would be rest

and that, yes, this too shall pass

as I turned into the apartment lot

and bitter relief washed over me

and the orange lamps washed over you,

slicing strips from your gentle smile.

Too tired for shock, I smiled right back.

This is the realest you'd ever be.

When I needed you most, you were there,

and never again.

Blurry night full of blurry faces,

except for the girl in the bruised dress

singing karaoke, voice satin

and siren-like, brushing

dark bangs away from her eyes

to enhance the spell she casts on him

across the room with her witchy gaze.

But some drunk blonde falls into a speaker

mid-song, then two frat boys throw punches,

and tired cops haul them away.

He sits and sips on his melancholy

until he is saturated, until

it seeps from his pores, until

he is alone

in the alleyway with the singer,

unzipping himself and lifting her dress.

They merge like desperate animals

against the grimy brick wall,

clawing, biting, something in her eyes

darker than dark, downpour,

so lost and tangled and final.

His last meal splashes on her feet, and she runs,

and he stumbles across the wet street,

and his palm presses against the warm grill

of a truck screeching to a halt.

The newspaper said he was liked by his peers.

No one ever really knew him.

I lose myself in the woods alone,

following my hypnotic steps. Heavy

thoughts unwind to a fork in the trail,

and I go left, heart racing uphill,

penny taste in mouth. I wonder

if I can leave myself, leave

nothing behind except a fading imprint,

old tire tracks pressed into dirt.

An accelerating urge overwhelms me.

I pick up a rock and feel its cold weight,

reel back and throw and it strikes a tree

and beautiful bark chunks fly.

I throw another and another, not quenching

the animal urge rising. I move

on instinct, grabbing a stick and swinging

at random branches. Its soft whooshing

slices air and brings congested emotions bursting

to the surface. It breaks,

and I toss the pieces away from my trembling hands.

I stop to stare at a stream. No idea how long.

There is silence except, above me in the trees,

the scraping of doomed leaves refusing to fall.

What happened before the walk, before I was here?

Nothing but gaping grey fog. This lacuna

of memory must have meaning. My mind is going

over the edge of something; I feel it.

My phone rings, and I toss it against sharp rocks.

Shattered fragments of plastic and metal

reflect the sun then drift away

on the unrelenting current. I turn

my back on the stream and hear a hoarse

cawing in a nearby ravine. I peer

down into the dip and see a crow

perched on the skull of a small animal

like a fox or a fawn freshly dead.

Its beak pierces the flesh of the neck

to excavate the meat that remains.

We lock eyes. It wants to tell me something.

It spreads its giant wings and rises.

I am compelled to follow, committed, running up.

I keep my gaze locked on the bird

until I skid to a stop at the edge

of a sheer rock face,

and dust continues my journey, floating

into the aqua-blue abyss of a quarry,

lake rippling hundreds of feet below.

Another impulse seizes and keys and wallet fly

Bills flutter out like injured butterflies.

The crow caws three sharp enthusiastic bursts

that shock me so I nearly tilt over the edge.

It sits on the post of an old fence watching.

I pace, part of my mind screaming to stop

- gone too far could find someone get help -

but these bursts of ecstatic release

cannot be ignored. I must do the unconscionable

to silence conscience. I must break reality

and become real.

Under the crow's perch, I spot

a rusty fragment of barbed wire lying

in the dirt waiting for me.

I approach and the bird points down with its beak.

I nod and take the wire and jab it

into the palm of my left hand and yank,

and a thick diagonal line fills

with blood unreasonably dark and warm,

and I drop the wire and stare,

expecting a jolt of pain, but instead,

a crippling wave of euphoria

brings me to my knees.

The crow hops and croaks and rattles, and I feel

excruciatingly alive.

I wrap my shirt around my hand, shouting

joyful expletives at the clouds.

I must have more.

This is the way; I've found it. Better

to lose an eye than for my whole body

to rot in hell. This makes perfect sense

here in the sticky region between.

So I take a deep breath and jam

my finger into my eye socket.

Tight at first, warm optical fluid

trickles down my arm as I push,

hook behind, and break through a barrier

then pull hard, fighting darkness.

It protrudes and I brace for the final rip

then see blood dripping onto my trembling hand,

which holds the jelly-like eye.

Before I can think, a black blur swoops

and my hand is empty, and with my left eye

I watch the thief carry my right over the quarry

and drop it into the water,

a tiny white globe bobbing in a sea of blue.

I exhale, cough, swaying. I know now

what the crow is trying to tell me.

I know it stronger than anything else.

This is not my body, not my reality.

I am somewhere else, something else, something

more. And in response to this thought,

all the colors of the world

bloom with vibrance, and sweet adrenaline

embraces me, and three words throb

in my head like a drumbeat.

I am awake,

echoing across the quarry.

I am awake!

There is power and promise in this voice.

My feathered savior circles and hooks

its claws into my shoulder,

vocalizing to the rhythm:

I am awake!

I see a jagged incisor cliff

jutting over the lake and I stagger

out onto the tip. The crow

knows what I must do. She whispers

it into my ear, and I obe.

Weak but not hurt, I lean

forward and laugh as I plunge.

And just before impact,

the water transforms.

The room glows expectantly as my foot crosses its threshold and meets the astral-colored carpet spotted with fluorescent stars. It swallows my untidy human sounds like the vacuum of space as I float alone to the center, equidistant from two black doorways. A light behind the wall washes it deep blue like a horizon, settling my spirit, and I look to the top corner of the tall room where a little bed, neatly made and painted red, with plaid blanket and soft sheets and nebular pillow, waits suspended, bathed in the artificial light of a smiling crescent moon surrounded by three smiling five-pointed stars. The only lights left are false, artifacts of copied memories, childhood remnants dislodged, floating away. And the floor slowly sinks as I remember what I forgot, what is now unreachable, and I stare at the receding bed and accept the finality of this room and release a tear that falls up but doesn't quite reach the substitute moon.

Fishing on a dock, on my first cast I feel a huge tug on my line, so I pull and reel it in even though the force of it threatens to yank me into the lake. I must have a monster of a fish. I call to my brother and the others nearby, but they're not in sight and none of them come. I turn back and see a bright orange mass emerge from the brown depths: a full-grown tiger slowly clawing its way to the surface, eyes shining, demon face wrinkled and snarling, lips peeling back baring fangs, releasing muffled underwater roars and swirling plumes of furious bubbles. I back away, no longer wanting to pull it in, but it’s coming up on its own now. Soon, it’s on the dock dripping, growling. Petrified, I stand still but it lunges closer and, instinctively, I rub it on the nose like a dog. This seems to work for a second, confusing it long enough for me to back away toward the house. It lunges again, and I extend my edible hand to scratch its wet nose, and it freezes, and we do this dance all the way to the garage where, once inside, I slam the door in its face. But I don't think it's gone. I think it's still out there circling. I hear its rumblings some nights, still angry I brought it up. I'll go out someday I swear.

upright, pupils flaring

in the dark, she recognizes

this dim room. Blue ghost-light seeps

through sheer curtains like

through ocean water. Something

is off. An extra gravity

presses on her like anesthesia.

She sits hunched on the edge of the bed,

on the edge of a dying memory.

I am awake. Of course I am.

Hands. What about them?

She looks at her palms and counts

each skinny finger. Left hand:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Oh.

Right hand: a second bulbous thumb

emerges next to the crooked pinky.

Alien appendages protrude from fleshy webs

between fingers on top of fingers.

Rotting carrot-fingers curl

into fists and bend like dying spiders.

She gasps. I am dreaming! She crashes

into herself. The room

crystallizes into focus. The air

feels smooth and tactile like liquid.

She stands, but the lights are fading.

- have to hold on, can't waste this, gotta think -

She runs to the center of the room

dissolving around the edges, spins

with arms swinging out, concentrates as “air”

rustles “hairs” on “arms” and runs between

“fingers”, and “blood” flows to the tips.

Not real blood, not real hands.

She can't lose this control, can't become

a slave to the unconscious, not again.

She must freeze this melting dream.

She drops to the floor and slides her false palms

over the beige carpet, feeling every fiber,

and the room responds, growing brighter.

She rises and taps knuckles against drywall.

It feels solid. Every touch lends

a bit more reality. Perfect.

She wants just enough detail

to stay anchored to the scene but not

enough to forget she's not really there.

Downstairs, she suddenly thinks.

You'll find him downstairs.

Find who? She doesn't remember,

but someone important. She runs

out of the room and down the stairs,

around a hallway and into a kitchen

as the house rumbles and the walls cave in.

She stumbles out of a back door onto

a large wooden deck coated

with powdery snow speckled with red.

The woods around her are white,

but the air is perfectly warm.

Snowfall intensifies.

There is no sign of life

in this silent landscape of the mind.

She feels utterly alone, but

she knows he must be here somewhere.

Steaming flakes melt into her scalp,

dampening her hair and running down

her anxious face like bloody tears.

She feels her control slipping but

she concentrates across the porch

to see the body that she felt,

to confirm or dismiss her growing panic.

Sure enough, a figure flickers

like the flashes of a camera.

I appear,

startled at first, but when we lock eyes,

she sees a recognition in mine.

She stares harder but the scene rebels

against the effort. The sky burns,

houses crumble, woods vanish.

Only the deck and my image remain.

Remember to find him -

The porch collapses.

- have to -

There is nothing

-remember -

left but snow,

hot snow smothering everything,

piling up around her, blotting

out the sun. She is surrounded

by red darkness and a burning

that extracts all the snow's moisture,

and pressure runs along her side.

She jolts

Always look in the dream-mirror, against your better judgement. You never know what you might see because dream-mirrors reflect perception. Flick the bathroom light and shield your eyes from the blinding flash then look and flinch. The reflection: painfully hyperreal. Every pore, every follicle rendered in nauseous high definition. Your face smiles, and your dream-lips part to reveal teeth cracked and yellow like a rusty saw blade. You reflexively reach up, but at the slightest touch, your front incisor jumps right out of your dream-mouth onto the edge of the sink, balances stubbornly on its roots then topples, disappearing into the black drain of your unconscious. You tighten your jaw and seal your lips, but every movement loosens another tooth and rolls it onto your tongue. You open and spit and half a dozen jagged pearls clink onto the porcelain. What frightening relief to let go of your self-image.

Rows of yellow fluorescents flicker to life, revealing a labyrinth of stalls stretching into the humid darkness. I stumble through, looking for a stall, pushing on each greasy door until one gives, but the toilet is filled to the brim with thick shit and pulpy wads of toilet paper dripping over the edges onto the tile floor. I try several others and am met with similar gruesome sights: every stall desecrated in a uniquely awful display of human waste. The walls, floor, toilets, doors smeared with bodily fluids of all kinds, colors, textures, viscosities. I did not realize people could excrete such variety. I move faster, desperation growing. For all its filth, there are few others in this smelly maze. I hear occasional evidence in the distance: doors slamming or unseen liquids gushing into unseen receptacles, enormous outbursts echoing in the expanse, juicy fart, phlegmy sneezes, rattling coughs. I imagine what this place must look like under a blacklight, and I shudder. The stalls grow more alien and warped, some missing doors, others are triangular or octagonal. There are clusters of stalls inside stalls inside stalls, and there are toilets without protection, placed at random. And there are rows of misshapen urinals lining the walls, many lacking drains, and others blasted with excrement, and another knocked to the floor while a fountain of brown water sprays from exposed pipe, mixing with syrupy fluid dripping from moldy ceiling tiles. I must make an impossible decision. Finally, I find a functioning toilet with only a sprinkling of amber urine around the seat and a small roll of wet toilet paper half-submerged in a puddle on the floor. So carefully I grab it with two fingers and wipe around the seat, which only spreads the urine evenly across its surface. No choice; I sit. As soon as I do, the stall door rattles violently. Occupied, I mutter. The banging continues, and I cannot relax. I stand angrily, pulling up my pants and opening the door, but there is no one. I circle the stall. All is quiet. Then a boy appears from nowhere, hunched forward, clutching his belly. Oh, man, I don't feel so good. A shocking stream of vomit arcs from his mouth and onto my pants, trickling into my shoes. Panic seizes me, and a desire to escape overwhelms my bodily urges. I flee, but there is no end to this place. Oh, god, I have to get to clean water quickly or else I will get infected, will become sick. I cannot be sick. I won't make it. No exit signs, nothing. What the hell is this place? Why is this happening? My foot slips, and I fall into a blinding puddle that soaks my hair and face and clothes with a warm concoction of chunky bodily fluids. I gag and lift myself and wipe at my face with my wet sleeve. Only a few feet away: a glowing red exit sign and a door. Something breaks, and there is a surrender, and I laugh and laugh until I lose my breat, and the whole dirty expanse of this place is filled with the echoes of my laughter, and a giddy lightheaded relief washes over me. My filth. No one else's. Not separate. Never was. I look down at my hands, and they are clean, and I am clean forever.

Something emerges onto the upstairs landing,

fully lucid, mind inside mind,

inhabiting itself. It must assert

control of this place. It must fly.

At the top of the stairs it raises itself

onto the balls of these feet and lifts

these arms, inhales, and these toes

leave the carpet. Tensing maintains

upward motion. This body floats

silent over the foyer

and watches the moonlit street outside

the round bay window of memory.

Bliss for a moment, but glancing down,

the will rebels seeing empty air

beneath these feet and loses

concentration and drops, then flexes

and floats higher until this head

bumps the ceiling, but slowly

something surrenders, exhales and sinks

until false soles kiss cold hardwood

and awareness blooms into morning.

Walking down the hall one day, I stop and feel a presence just outside my perception: a body lying on a strange bed, the pressure of this body weighing on the mattress, and somehow connected. I feel pulled toward it, into it, and the house grows dim. I flee and hours pass as I run, groping for a working light switch. And for an agonizing time, there's nothing but darkness all around, and sometimes shapes gliding silent in the distance, and sometimes dim spotlights shining through my windows, searching, scanning, and I scramble toward them but they flee, leaving me in the swirling dark. I focus on my only companion, my breath, and on my questionable progress, and after an age, a dim grey light pervades the house and outlines form. But this is not my house. I am enclosed in an empty carpeted room sans windows, doors, or exits except a small dark opening in one wall. I doubt I'll fit but I must try, so I crawl on my belly, barely sliding through the hole, which becomes a winding tunnel, twisting before ending in another empty room, cool, dark, and lined with carpet stretching to infinity in both directions. I pick one and walk, but the rooms continue unceasingly, separated by occasional doorframes of various shapes and sizes, spaces holding scattered furniture but no noise, no sign of life in this corpus of rooms except my muffled footsteps. Then I spy a distant light that draws me forward but my feet and heart and breath stop when I see the source: a large cocoon glowing, hanging from the center of a final room that terminates in a blank, beige wall. The cocoon pulses and swings gently, but my relief is stained by fear as a shape moves behind the cocoon, oily white appendages caressing the cocoon's fragile surface, and there is a sound like liquid whispering. I hold my breath, but the shape senses another presence, so the tentacles retreat and coalesce into a humanoid figure wearing a long blue coat, black trousers, and polished black shoes. It glides around the cocoon, its face human-like, ovular, pale, glistening, empty of wrinkle, eyes and hair jet black and shiny, alien but familiar, seen somewhere in some forgotten past. It's still for a moment, calculating, then its eyes widen and it lurches forward, and I yelp and jump back, falling. And once down, an extra gravity prevents me from lifting myself, and panic tightens, and I dare to look into the figure's eyes that shine as if a fire burned inside its long translucent skull. How did you get here? it says in a gurgling voice as if its throat is filled with phlegm. You should not be here. Go, now! And I am flung by a force that crushes my chest and compresses the long chain of rooms flying past me as I hurtle back beyond the room through which I entered until my body strikes a surface and I wake on the floor of my hall, sweating and shaking. Was it just a dream, or something more?

In my family's house, I hear

a noise and walk outside to find

my father sprawled out in the dirt

behind the basketball hoop,

head sliced diagonally in two,

left half resting away from his body

in the grass. The ants explore his mind.

And a boxy red sedan is jammed

into a tree, hood arched and pouring

smoke, and I feel nothing

except that I should feel

something. I don't get close.

I've seen enough. I try to cry

but my uncle's dogs interrupt,

approaching, sniffing at the body.

I clap and yell to keep them back.

In the nearby lake, a swarm of gators

emerge, opening their giant jaws,

all pink flesh and bleached teeth

sparkling in the afternoon sun,

which falls and mixes with the smoke,

surreal and bright like paradise.

I take a picture, call for help.

Why do I keep moving?

To keep the shell from hardening,

the shell I inherited from my father.

He once knew how to leave it;

now I'm afraid he's stuck for good.

And it makes me sad

to know he did that to himself.

I think he was afraid of freedom,

afraid of his youthful energy

and the yawning chasm of choice,

and Jesus was a comfortable cage

to rest in until death,

cozy parameters he tried to fit me in,

but i found a crack and squeezed out.

Yes, the wilderness was scary

for a time, but when you've got enough distance

you look back over your shoulder

and you don't turn to salt,

and you see how small your shell had been,

how needlessly restricting,

and you laugh until your ribs hurt,

and you walk on.

I wake to the glowing red interior of my eyelids, hair hot against scalp. I open my eyes and shut them again. The harsh sun burns my face. I sit up, shade myself with my hand, and realize I am surrounded by desert. Kingdom of the sun, I see it all around. The sun's hot will bleaching the rocks, compelling every living thing to scurry from shade to shade for fear of combustion. I look behind me and, at the top of a nearby dune, I see the wavering image of an approaching figure in a black turban holding a long wooden staff. The figure raises its head and reveals a weather-beaten face with a black patch over one eye and a bushy white moustache. My whole body clenches and whispers to me This man is dangerous. I want to run, but there's no hiding place in this endless expanse. He stares down at me and opens his mouth, and his voice thunders across the dunes as if the dry air longed to be filled by it. He speaks in an ancient tongue I cannot understand or have forgotten. He points past me and I turn to see my parents approaching, stumbling over the dunes, eyes red from tears or maybe the winds. They beg me through cracked lips to return home with them. Confused and touched, I open my mouth to speak, but the man's booming laughter interrupts me and I watch my parents deflate, their skin folding in on itself. Weightless, they float to the sand, and a spider crawls from my mother's sagging mouth, digs a hole in the sand, and buries itself. A breeze sweeps them up, and they fly limply toward my head like two streamers. I duck, and they float past into the sleeve of the laughing man's robe, and he lowers his arm. He speaks again, passionate spit flying from his mouth, and I can only stare, slack-jawed and shaking. I try to run, but he raises his staff and strikes the ground with its knotted end, and sparks of lightning flash from the point of impact, and the desert shakes as a great wave ripples out, lifting the sand like a bedsheet. I fall, and the settling sands cover my legs. I struggle to escape as the man approaches, reaching into his turban and producing an ornate hand mirror with golden frame. H holds it out, and I have to look. In the mirror is a face, stretched by gravity, skin peppered with sun spots and wrinkles, hair white and wispy. It is undeniably me but also the man before me. Frustrated, I push the mirror away, but he grips my skull with his rough hand and a flood of emotions bombard my senses: lust, passion, blind release, the sting of regret, the horror of a reflection, a fortifying force overcoming the horror, scarred devotion, protection at all costs, vigilance, feverish nights of rumination and doubt, strategizing, anticipating, all for me. Yes, all for me. And this sequence crashes over and over, receding into the infinite past like the endless reflections of two mirrors facing one another. I pull myself back into the present. The man, the turban, within: the shining hilt of a knife. I reach and grab the handle and plunge the blade deep into him, and he releases his grip and falls, and I straddle him, stabbing and stabbing. And withdrawing the blade, I pause and a drop of blood slips from the tip and evaporates before it reaches his robe. He smiles up at me and coughs blood and whispers something in a gentle way, a plume of vapor bursts from every orifice of the robe, and I fall back covering my face. When I turn back, the robe is filled with sand. I stand, hands shaking, and drop the knife and walk. After a minute, I look back and see nothing. The robe, the staff, the knife: all swallowed by the immutable desert.

Lost in a vast desert, I find a dark square daring to intrude upon endless sand. I stumble toward this wavering mansion-mirage and lift my fist, expecting the door to dissolve on impact, but my blistered knuckles strike wood. The door opens wide, and a kind-eyed woman beckons me in wordlessly, as if expecting me. She leads me down soft, carpeted steps into a cool basement room where two girls wearing swimsuits lounge on a long crescent couch. Where were they swimming? I wonder. They greet me without standing, one is blonde with pale skin, hair thick and long, and a curious gaze. The other: brunette with harder features, thin cropped hair, and eyes of stone. Despite their outward differences, they are both strangely similar, like seeing two angles of the same object simultaneously. When they both first look at me, I notice a recognition in their eyes. They glance at each other but say nothing. Have we met before? I search my mind, but it is barren. I tell them I'm looking for a woman disappeared. They ask where I last saw her, and I see disconnected images: an ocean, a moon, a forlorn shack. The memory of her face has vaporized into the unforgiving heat. They ask of my home but I cannot remember. The blonde girl giggles at my confusion; the brunette furrows her brow; I never learn their names. After our chat, I am permitted to wander the house at will. I'm told their father is in his office, but I never see him, only hear muffled mutterings beyond the door. The mother busies herself, serving me food, darting from here to there like a spider spinning her web. After dinner, the blonde daughter corners me in the hallway, grabbing my arm and excitedly telling me of their shower. She says it's amazing and she wants to show me, but I demur, feeling the mother's eyes watching me through the walls. She appears, and her daughter lets go of my arm, and she tells me to sleep in the girls' old room, then she disappears. In the girl's room, the three of us slide into a meandering conversation that going nowhere and everywhere for hours. I learn the girls are homeschooled but bright, and I'm surprised by how much all three of us have in common. We talk of their studies. The blonde wants to work with children. She sermonizes about how crucial childhood is. The brunette scoffs: Children are boring like unformed clay. It is only later when we become real. She wants to write therapeutic texts for the purpose of self-transformation. She claims she reads palms. She takes my left hand and counts my dry fingers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. She hums to herself then smiles. You have untapped potential. She closes my palm. The conversation flows, and I feel us growing closer. The girls sit side-by-side at the foot of the bed, and I sit in a chair facing them, close enough to touch feet with the blonde. There's a natural pause then, without preamble, I lean forward and our three faces

merge. I kiss both with the passion of

a reunited lover: shameless,

working my hands down their oddly

familiar bodies, melting into the bed, into

thrilling moments when I lose track

of the boundaries, when edges fuse together,

and perspective is gone, and I feel

taut muscle and prickly facial hair,

and I open my eyes and see

myself, only myself, all around,

then close my eyes, and they're separate again,

their soft hair brushing my face,

pillowy breasts pressing against me.

When we're apart, the blonde one clings,

blazing a trail of kisses

across my body. Conquistador,

claiming it all for herself.

Meanwhile, the brunette strives to separate us,

latching her lips onto mine, forcing me

into herself and grinding rhythmically

against me. Her touch is too rough,

and I reach for the comforting embrace

of the other and find her and close

my eyes, once more on the edge

of total unity and surrender when

there is a loud banging on the door. The girls fly away, disappearing, and I sit up and squint into a spotlight shining down from a catwalk, and before me: the outlines of thousands of torsos, faces blank, sitting in rows and silently watching. I look to the left and the right. The room is no longer a room but a stage. Stage left in the wing, I spot the girls standing and staring. I look at them pleadingly but the brunette offers me only a glare then pulls the blonde away, and they merge with the darkness instead of with me. I wake with a jolt back in my bedroom where a striped cat sits on my bedpost and tells me that a fair-haired girl had been there watching me sleep. But I repress a shiver knowing the dark girl will visit me also and she is not one to forgive.

She is seen, and the dam breaks,

torn at the mere suggestion of her.

The hint of a thigh, a belly, a breast,

and it floods, the pressure

tearing at my skin, an animal

clawing out, a magnet yearning for

its opposite pole. The momentum

of history, the thrust of a thousand

ancestors knocking the inside of my skull,

begging continuation, to follow

the ecstatic itch that drives man forward,

the pulsing thorn in the ribs,

the through line from amoeba to us.

But this is beyond blind craving,

beyond mere possession. It wants

to devour, consume, assimilate

like a black hole swallowing a sun

until what is outside is inside forever.

There is beauty that tears at the soul to see it,

that demands worship. This impotent beast

would devour beauty. It was born yelping

in the haze of adolescence, growing

stronger with age, stronger than even

the body can stand. The catalyst

of the worst crimes of men with weak minds

who lingered too long near that horizon.

Chained by conscience but always hungry,

always testing the moral perimeter

for weakness. It knows not personhood,

it being more ancient than any person.

It deconstructs, evaluates, reconstructs

in a second dozens of people a day, its prey.

It knows neither law nor norm nor ethic,

only aching desire, again and again.

It seeks, vigilant, finding its target

everywhere, always one in a crowd:

the girl uniquely perfect. Imagination

is too weak to have conjured

this particular configuration, this electric

dopamine glance igniting depthless longing.

A smile, a laugh, and I'm there with her

in a cascade of glittering images:

the banter, the touch, the entangling

of lips and limbs and lives until

we're flooded with each other,

and she deserves it all,

endless pleasure for effortless beauty.

I know all thrill dies with habit.

I know beauty is not goodness.

I know an inward beauty exists

unknown to the beast. I know

all beauty fades. Of course, of course.

But if it blooms for a moment

- arbitrary, unchosen, fragile -

it earns eternal life.

foggy transfiguration

animal kingdom sensation

swamp water stillness

she is an illness

owls leering yellow envy

slicing pupils peer through fog

bullfrog maws fill with awe

the princess has arrived

but with a liquid drop she's gone

elusive lucifer loose her

caress fern dress

bare feet on loose dirt

dark hair curls like tendrils

embers slow burn her turn

lost in the churning world

rotten logs bogs and tree frogs

offer soggy applause

blood red slippers

step past slithering lizards

through birds that swoop and peck

pale piercing shoulders

herds of fur heads turn

in her direction

she is an infection

I have momentum. Graduated and moved out of state, new job, new apartment, my life taking shape around me. Then I meet her, and everything halts. She slips her way in, or did I invite her? Soon, it's as if she'd always been there. Familiar like a face from a dream, but in the blacks of her eyes, I see only future, our future together. She has me completely. Soon, I cannot remember before her. I fear I would not exist without her, and she says she feels the same. We ensconce ourselves in my apartment. Our passion becomes our entire world. An intoxicating excitement fills me, layers of pleasure that overwhelm, sedate. And years later it makes me dizzy to think what a prison we'd built for ourselves, but then it felt like paradise. Every time we make love, I feel a piece of myself seeping out, a hollowness and a relief. Subtle connections like tiny hooks establish between us, and I feel myself draining throughout the day, even during the rare quiet moments when she is not by my side. Is she okay? Is she safe? Are we okay? Are we safe? Is this what I want, what she wants? Draining, draining. I lose myself; I am pallid. I no longer appear in the bathroom mirror or in the mirror of my mind, which is no longer private. She does nothing wrong; she also suffers. She exists, and I am drained. I do nothing wrong; I also suffer. I am drained, and she exists. We live like host and parasite feeding on false hope, the trap of optimism, traversing a curved universe, a loop disguised as a line. Her eyes are now black holes, undeniably attractive, pulling me down into a core that stretches and tears me apart until there's nothing left to give. But one day, inexplicably, although it feels wrong, I begin to steal moments of solitude away from her gravity, and these gather like so many pebbles into a mountain, and with this old strength I start to sever the connections, which sting, but with every detachment, something returns back into myself, like a burst dam in reverse. The last bloody connection is cut, and I shut her out, and it is like a great storm has subsided, and there is deep quiet and loneliness that feels full. It is over. I lock my door and drag my aching bones to bed and try to forget again.

In the park we circle the big loop bathed

in the piercing sun's last rays, riding

warm nostalgia waves through woods.

We cast our spells; we weave our future

of words. We cling to moments

as if they could be held,

hope warm like Christmas morning, exploring

possibilities waiting like treasures:

the house we saw and claimed. We made

an offer, the promise of a life together.

Air tingling, we pull the threads. We pluck

memories from air as evidence of fate -

a home of our own, the new start

we've always dreamed of - and we stagger

out of our dreams into the easement

when I get the call: our offer accepted.

A warm breeze sifts through us,

carrying away our doubts, carrying

us to the bench under the pavilion

where we'd sketched the outlines a year ago,

and now we kiss and watch the old day burn,

reflecting off the lamp-spotted lake.

We construct timelines from our excitement,

but life is moving beyond our reach.

She turns to me and asks,

Do you think we’re going to wrinkle together?

I say yes, and we descend

to the lake's edge where she balances on rocks,

just her and black space

and the sharp moon

and burning Venus and Mars

hanging over her head.

I wonder out loud if I am dreaming.

We were.

We didn't want to wake up yet.

The fragilest dreams are the best.

They shatter, and their fragments shine

and slice like diamonds.

Innocence in shadow,

a placid lake at dusk:

I used to see you thus,

walking along your perimeter.

could i walk there with you?

study you from a safe distance?

observe your aura? without harm?

is it possible?

Now I see the same, plus:

a dying sun, an open wound,

a gaping door I run right through,

and ancient love reduced to dust.

23: I had my castle,

my princess.

I firebreathed my life.

I was the dragon.

I built the walls to hold me in,

hoarded my money,

backed up my files,

wrote my will,

bought insurance,

stored my papers in a fireproof bag,

planned and replanned, fortifying.

What the fuck did I think I had?

In four fragile years, it crumbled.

Castles never fall; they melt

like butter into something messy,

grotesque, unplanned. Defeated,

I crawl inside what remains

and hope it hardens into a home.

You'd have such beautiful children

without me, still a child myself.

The kids don't stand a chance

emptied out as they are

every few days, with or without you.

Discarded, emptied, discarded.

Disrobe and discard, no discord,

not this sword in its sheath

warm. Another night to ward off

the oncoming storm, on schedule.

Check the app. Not today, don't wanna crack

that egg. No legacy for me

except in words, my silent brood.

Excuse me for not moving

the species forward, not yet bored

enough with you.

Ah, this aching, familiar place.

This pit of unknown in the stomach

I began to forget. Then came

the flop and the turn. The innocent

relaxation. I opened

my big fat mouth.

I said something wrong,

I think, then the heat in your eyes

- the heat perhaps that I crave -

ignited. You tumbled down

into this darkness and pulled me in

with you, and now we must climb

through the tears and the tension

back towards a quiet stasis.

But maybe I don't want to go.

Maybe I love it down here

in this chaos with you.

Maybe this is where I belong.

On a journey together,

you driving over blue ice,

piercing the dark, rocketing

to a black horizon supposedly brighter,

headlights two pale ovals

on the gleaming danger.

We have seen it crack before

and always swerved around,

but this vehicle is no longer stable.

It rattles beneath us.

At any moment a bolt might snap

and send this wreckage down

into the freezing abyss.

I could jump, yes.

I eye the shaking door handle,

but hesitate. I grip

my knees instead and hold

my ragged breath

and wait for change.

The empty sky pastel blue,

I used to look at it with you,

dreaming of conflicting futures

in the guest room no guest saw

in the house abandoned shortly,

fleeing north to a bitter thaw.

That room, like our relationship,

was always changing function,

rearranging to the current mood,

a series of negotiations

never settled until I dropped

the ultimatum and it shattered,

slow motion shards fanning out.

We see it but we don’t; we look right past it

until we taste glass.

I see that room when I look at the sky.

The longer I stare, the more it fades

into my peripheral, my purgatory

of pink clouds slicing bloody firmament

and blank walls and carpet fumes

and dwindling hope. One question lingers:

How can I escape the sky?

the soreness that comes

from scraping a person

off your soul

and watching the dust

of fragile futures

float away

Drifting home down

the sleepy street

in the deepening dusk, I spy

a female silhouette

raking leaves, her face

hidden, her black hair turned toward

me as she pulls the crumbling

leaves into a glow

like flameless fire casting sickly

green light and flickering shadows

onto the faces of the houses

across the street,

window-eyes wide, alert.

I pass safely but reach

the dead end and reverse.

I raise my hood, not wanting

to see her again. But growing

closer, she hums in the dark

and turns her head.

I wake, sweating, to the echoes of a voice in the room, but whether it came from inside or outside my dream, I'm not sure. Slivers of moonlight slice through blinds, lighting the lonely studio apartment before me: a clear line of sight to the door, my entire life within 500 square feet. Someone is in the room. I smell their earthy scent. There! Next to the closet, a young woman leaning against the wall and wearing a loose red dress, bare feet, black hair bound in a slick ponytail, and in her palm, razor blades gleam in the dark. I am frozen. She speaks, and her sharp voice cuts through the silence. You are weak. You have weakened yourself. You choose to ignore yourself. You are not who you think you are, and now, you face the pain of self-knowledge. I open my mouth to respond, but she flies across the room, and I cower tangled in bed sheets, but she grabs my head, her nails digging into my scalp and face. She takes a razor blade and slices into my soft cheek. I scream and claw, but she is immovable. Finishing the cut, she steps back, extending the palmful of blades. Her stony scowl says she won't stop until I hold a blade, slash face, slash nose, slash X in my forehead, anything she says. I drift outside myself, tethered by the sting and throb of nerves, but nothing is enough for her, and she compels me deeper until strips of skin slide to the floor and everything grows hellishly hot and pain slithers up my body and the sheets are lit with a fiery glow. The girl's dark disembodied voice resounds through the room, I see there is more that must be stripped away, and I am swallowed by flames.

I want to be moved by you,

but I fear I'm frozen in place.

You're falling for me, but

what if I don't catch you;

what if I watch you break,

unmoved, like some shocked onlooker?

You receive me in you, but

do I receive you in me?

Can I find a bridge between us,

cross, and burn it behind me?

Have I seen too much, shivering

in the winter of my passion?

My body knows the rules, it keeps the score.

It remembers the first time it felt these things

and the cold shock of their departure.

I can't disappoint you; you're too kind,

but I see my patterns emerging,

I see the restless wheel turning,

I see a red dawn.

When will you push me away? I'm waiting.

When will you see through the image you've drawn,

the paper-thin schoolboy sketch of me?

Have you seen me, have you seen underneath?

What do I do with this power,

to feel that I have you.

Every time, your vulnerability

strikes me like a warm breeze.

Oh, god, that's so sweet, so sweet.

When you say you love me, what do I feel?

Fear disguised as emptiness.

Excuses not to surrender.

If I can convince myself I don't feel it, I can escape

the warm world of commitment,

that future of enmeshment in your mind:

frozen thoughts to me, someone else's dream.

How sure do I need to be?

I love you, you say, like it's easy.

My reply is stillborn; a premature imitation.

Can I age like this, standing alone in this wilderness,

harsh winds eroding me into what?

Through sheets of snow, I see a threshold.

Have I crossed it before or is this new?

Have I circumnavigated love to the start,

and do I have the strength to circle again?

I think you'll have to sneak

like some arctic fox into my life

and pounce.

I know what will happen.

You'll emerge from the bedroom,

eyes crinkled from sleep like a puppy,

doughy thighs peeking from under your sleep shirt,

wavy hair swinging from your sleepyhead,

and you'll put your arms around my neck,

and your hair will tickle my cheek,

and your breasts will press against my back,

and the dark fog that fills my head will

- WHOOSH -

out one ear and away

like you stuck a leaf blower in the other.

And I will change my mind again.

I will stay.

This is a sequel to a previous poem, sanctum.

Back in the labyrinth, underground, I wrestle with tangled dreams and bedsheets, and the light of an alarm clock glows on my restless stirrings. I embrace the woman beside me and she softly sings a lullaby, but I do not understand the words. She whispers, "Time to sleep. You've been awake for so long. It's time to rest with me now." I wait for her breaths to lengthen then I slide off the mattress, step across the cold concrete of that dark room, walls black and empty. There is a distant doorway but I haven't reached it in years. Every day I try to leave, and every day she pulls me back into her suffocating pleasure. She says her name is Sophia but I don't believe her anymore. I remember a time without her, a time outside this place. The future is a warm mist just outside my reach. I feel it radiating. This night, I make it to the door, into a glowing hallway. Light at last! Something draws me up, up, through hallways only vaguely familiar. I hear her voice behind me crying out, searching, begging me to turn back. But I ascend, through door after door, until the passageway narrows so I must squeeze up and out of a hole in the base of a large fruit tree into air so fresh I nearly faint. On the surface, all is blessedly silent except for a quiet voice in the whispering leaves: Sophia's voice. The real Sophia. "There you are, my love. There you are." And so I rise and walk into the dark world where my only real weapon is that voice within. It is real. I am real. I stretch to infinity in all directions.

There is a clear sadness that only

falls into the soul in sunlight,

like rays through a car windshield,

arriving home, alone again,

in perfect weather without you.

I can't go inside yet.

I stalk around the nearby park.

If I have to throw everything away

except what I can cram in this car

so I never have to see this place again,

this lake I circle in shame,

I'll do it.

With weeks, something begins to shift.

Something is finding its center again.

Some object I inhabit

had started to orbit away,

and is now spiraling back.

I have to trust my center.

It has to be a whole home.

Otherwise, it won't have the gravity necessary.

I'll break away again, a rogue planet.

In the past, my center was

a chaos uninhabitable.

Now, I feel the heat to burn

away everything inside

except what is cozy.

I can purify my center.

How could a body do that?

A fragile orgasm?

It doesn't stay long enough.

It collapses in on itself

again and again.

Forget religion; find your own language.

Nature is a flawless chaos.

This life is an extension of nature.

Its chaos is flawless, also.

Loneliness is a purification.

Wait until the flames die

and there is gold in the ashes.

You follow the shuffling queue cutting through the humid evening. The hot rain just stopped and heat-phantoms rise from the concrete underfoot. You're dead tired, and the ebony dome of the building ahead sets something slithering over your insides, but you need shelter, so at the box office you surrender your last coin, eroded smooth and dull, though a silent voice begs you not to. You grab a damp ticket and push aside thick curtains, submerging yourself in a dense tropical lobby, burgundy wallpaper sweating, peeling, speculative whispers condensing in air that holds the musty scent of decay. A bell tolls and the crowd snakes through obsidian doors, and you are trapped in the human current flowing over the threshold into the crescent-moon amphitheater. Spectators settle into slick leather seats descending toward a murky pool: a perfect placid circle in the center. You remain standing as the dome is plunged into darkness, and a circle of lights just below the surface illuminates the perimeter of the depthless tank. The crowd falls silent; you grip the frayed insides of your pockets as the waters churn and some immense shape rises. You bite your tongue to trap the scream as a single tentacle breaks the waves exposing rows of gaping suckers to the shining spotlight, flinging gallons onto the cheering crowd before it slaps the surface with a triumphant crack. The roar could be the crowd, the beast, or both. You clench your fist to stop the trembling as four more tentacles emerge like fingers on one monstrous hand, prehensile tips twisting overhead like searching periscopes. What have I done? you wonder, for part of you knows what summons this frenzied kraken from its depths. Ladies and gentlemen, booms a voice, I present to you- but a tentacle whips across the crowd, leveling an entire section with one swift movement. Collective gasp, panic, loudspeakers crackle, helpless as an arm pulls them down to the swirling pool in a shower of sparks, and you retreat but the beast knows your mind. A tentacle snaps and a steel beam falls across the exit. A slimy mass engulfs your waist in a lover's embrace, and you fly toward the pool, toward spiraling circles of teeth like concentric crowns of ivory thorns, rows and rows and rows in the warm familiar darkness.

Mother, lover, daughter, witch:

the warmth of womb, the pillow

one's head longs for, looks for

in another. Could we intertwine,

merging to a gap that cannot close,

like the space between two atoms,

and could it last forever?

Could I fall into that gap,

a piece of her in me in her,

pieces bright, infused with power,

not my own, the other chromosome.

It grows, it leaps like flames,

unyielding fire. And in the end,

mortal men all turned to stone.

Drip, drip in the dark. I flick a switch and find myself in a nursery room, empty except for a bulging sac of eggs hanging from the low ceiling and a bulbous mother spider the size of a dog poised above, protecting her unborn, staring at me with her cluster of bottomless black eyes as poison drips from her hollow fangs. I back slowly into the hall, but there are spiders there, too. Fat black ones hang from the ceiling. Furry brown ones run along the walls. These are her many children, they bear an unmistakable resemblance. I dodge away, barefoot, careful where I step. My stomach cramps, and my hands begin to tremble. Swerving through the nearest doorway, I discover a party in full swing, loud music blaring, people conversing and eating and drinking like nothing is wrong while the room seethes with spiders. A chunky beige one the size of an infant paws at their legs like an anxious puppy, emitting a high-pitched chittering whine as if trying to tell them something, but they nudge it away without looking. Do they not see them? I wonder. Or do they just not care? But how could they not? A woman runs her fingers through her hair and dozens of baby spiders fall out onto the floor like crumbs. Couples dance, and spiders crawl across one partner to the other. My head grows cold and there is a ringing in my ears. I'm debating whether I should talk to someone or run away screaming when I spot my brother across the room. He doesn't notice me, but he clearly sees the spiders. The big beige one scurries toward him, but he lifts his foot and crushes its head with a resounding crunch. Its legs skitter wildly then curl inward. The hum of the room falls into shocked silence. People glare and whisper and point, but my brother doesn't care. He glances across the room, and it's as if a surge of rebellious energy passes between us. Then the arachnid massacre begins. We kill them with chairs, with forks, with our bare hands. The human crowd flees, unable to fathom such impropriety. Slimy spider guts squeeze between our fingers as we continue. It sickens me, but I can't stop until all of them are eliminated. I work my way through the hall to the nursery and the dangling sac full to bursting, but when I enter, my brother is slumped against the corner, white and dead, with mother-spider's fangs buried deep into his face, sucking. Furious, I grab a rattle from the floor and jump and swing at the sac. Direct hit! It splits, and green spider juices spill onto my smiling face. I strike again, and it falls to the floor with a splat. The translucent eggs are filled with tiny embryos that look strangely human. I kneel and smash every last one. Mother-spider attacks, latching her arched fangs into my forearm for one heart-stopping moment, but I swing the rattle, and she flies against the wall, bloodying the painted stork. I approach and her legs tremble and her globular eyes convey something akin to fear, but I raise my arm and finish her until her legs curl in defeat. I wipe my face and stand, shaking, thrilled and ashamed at what I'd done. I feel a calm spread through my body, filling me with a wild, childlike energy. I could do or be anything now, no limits, no restrictions. I'm only dimly aware of a commotion behind me, and before I can turn, rough hands seize me, pinning me against the wall. I glance back at the corpse and see, not the spider but my own human mother slumped against the corner, dead.

The man is stripped and shackled and led by towering royal guardesses across a cold marble floor. They pass under an archway into a throne room where the shadowy rafters reverberate with the chants and moans of an unseen choir and the Queen sits dead ahead on her obsidian throne, flanked by Amazonian guardesses in bejeweled lingerie, holding bone-tipped iron spears and diamond shields that sparkle like moonlight in a disturbed pond. He does not remember his crime. He is forced to kneel before the Queen's alabaster legs, and the ancient gong is struck, and he does what he must do while the shrieking voices ascend, begging the stars to return, and the queen leans back, cold veins pulsing, and the guardesses beat the floor with their weapons, and the planet seems to veer off course. And when his mind begins to bend, some kind of fingers clutch his hair and lift his gaze to meet the Queen's cluster of black arachnid eyes. She licks her lips and pronounces the sentence: Guilty! There is a burning, a rolling, a fading to red, to the warm afterglow of duty well-served.

Jostled awake by a bump in the road, I would wipe the drool from my mouth if my hands weren't shackled behind my back. I squint into sun stretching desperate beams through dirty bus windows one last time before eclipsed by cold and lonely mountaintops, the bus dropping into shadow. And even the guard looks mournful when she thinks no one is watching. I see she sees the wrong of this, the pointlessness of it all, but she plays her role because - The bus stops in a muddy field, and she shoves me out, and I fall into thick mud. I wear a heavy plexiglass helmet to restrict my view, but I tilt it off in a final act of defiance no one notices. I'm led to a circle of white-haired men in heavy wool uniforms. They spit gibberish and surround me, and one produces a revolver and runs its barrel through my hair, laughing. I think of running but know they will shoot and tear my flesh with bullets, then they may force humiliating acts. Death is here; I smell it. The man cocks the hammer with callused thumb, and I think not once of god or afterlife, only deafening annihilation. I breathe deep, holding the moment in my lungs, but laugh and cough as absurdity squeezes my ribs and burns my eyes like tear gas: the fact that they're in charge, that they're about to exterminate me completely. Hysteria seizes. Everything so fiery real. Losing control. Hold onto this. This cannot be it. No, not like this. And just like that -

And in that terrible moment, she holds

in her mind's eye a crimson tower

close as gravity grabs and twists

her fragile body down.

She slices through into cold shock

that warms as she sinks and slowly

uncurls, her hair searching

like tree roots, limbs stretching,

spreading her fingers farther than ever,

allowing foreign sediment into

the pores and toward the core,

into the aching lungs and heart,

into the benevolent dark.

These waters extract her impurities

in baptism before they spit her out

reborn, so light and floating up.

She opens her eyes

and swears she sees the stars.

She reaches out but cannot stay.

She falls through clouds, down, down,

condensing back into herself.

She is awake, alone, high up

on a rocky island surrounded

by rolling waves of restless trees,

emerging from her dreams, dizzy

and numb, her fiery hair damp

and swaying in a misty breeze

that slams the stubborn door shut

on the godforsaken shack behind her

and on her past, which drips

from her fingertips and stains

the dew-soaked grass red,

and her wails carry miles

but the steadfast trees absorb them.

And far below on a steep plowed field,

her tear lights on a woman's brow

as she searches, wringing her hands, screaming,

Where is my child; have you seen her?

She was right here. Where could she have gone?

The lithe youth sprints across an endless battlefield scarred with a crooked maze of deep trenches, his thin crouched silhouette backlit by a pallid horizon. He leaps into a ditch, twin brother at his back like a shadow. And running ahead, he skids around a dark corner, but a clawed hand grabs his ankle, pulling him down to where a bloodied corpse, white hair caked with mud, raises itself from the earth, brandishing a rusty flintlock. The captive struggles to break free, and the elder bludgeons him with the gun then collapses into the mud from which he came, releasing one last sour breath. The slower brother sprints into the earthen corridor only to find his other half lying in a widening puddle. No longer split, he weeps alone, unaware of a woman floating from behind a gloomy wall. He looks up and sees her coming. A cold breeze follows her, rustling his hair. They lock eyes, but she does not stop. She dips her toes into the pool of blood then immerses herself completely. Alien, she bathes in the slain; the black dome of her scalp emerges from the warm pond as she studies the living sibling, cold moonlight glistening in her dead eyes. The survivor glares down at her, defiant, ready to die again. But suddenly he sees something else: in a nearby warehouse, a girl restrained, held above a long wooden table carved from the corpse of an ancient tree and positioned in the center of a dark and cavernous room. Blue strobe lights slice her naked flesh into strips. Blonde hair draped over breasts. Sweat dripping, muscles trembling. Behind her, unseen, a machine rumbles. The dark woman and the last brother stand in the shadows and watch, silent, as the machine contorts the girl with sudden jerky movements that suggest a set of programmed steps but also sometimes willful malice. Horror renders the man inert. He begs the woman to stop it, his face dripping with sweat and tears. He gathers every ounce of courage and readies himself to attack the machine, but the woman grabs his arm with her bloody hand and warns him, If you do so, all her pain will be for nothing. She releases his arm and turns her eyes back to the grim and cursed table. Not every beautiful thing can be saved. Her innocence is no longer needed. A black appendage with concave tip slithers, serpentine, from the dark and slides between the girl's pale legs. The tail, in segments like a scorpion's, attaches to her, extracting her sweetness. She tilts back her head in ecstasy or pain as the beast squeezes her ribs like an anaconda. She is trapped. Another ebony member hovers over her, the end like a helmet, fitting tightly over her skull, transmitting unspeakable visions from the depths as her mind shatters into something new, something necessary.

The enormous mansion teems with hundreds of raving humans, and the sharp crescent moon glares down through the broken roof at the never-ending chaos below. All are armed with jagged weapons, eyes shining with murderous glee. Alliances form and dissipate, and victims tumble through endless cycles of attack, fear, escape, hopeful hiding, sudden death. No shadow is safe, and the air is humid with tension as waves of violence break again and again. But without warning, the inhabitants of the great house are frozen in place. They stare at each other, unable to move. Their images flicker then burst into blinding white light, and all of them snap right out of existence into quick flashes of polished metal, pressure, foam, water, heat. Then they're in a round, empty room where smooth ivory-colored creatures greet the huddled humans with soothing synthetic tones. One of these beings floats forward and motions their attention to the center of the room. The lights dim and, for a second, the only protection from total darkness are a handful of stars shining through the round skylight in the ceiling, then a spotlight reveals a small robot chained to a post between two of the beings, who torture it with electric prods as it cowers and emits electronic screams and moans that cut to the cores of the fragile humans watching dumbfounded. Somehow they are able to feel the suffering of the bot. The demonstration ceases, and the humans are dropped once again into their dark abode, weak and trembling. But then a general relief spreads over the manor. They melt their weapons in a bubbling cauldron, and from them, mold a totem the shape of a seated human, eyes closed, palms open, an elliptical ship hovering above. They mount it in the center of the manor, and in its radiant surface is reflected the first rays of a new star rising.

Into the warm library, into

enveloping waves of paper aroma:

the smell of thought, of ages,

of forgotten dreams.

I find on a rotating shelf

an encyclopedic volume

with an oceanic title.

Opening, I begin on the surface:

familiar waters, bright sun-rippled

shining ships, and sea life.

I turn the page and dive

into a placid blue world of bubbles,

peaceful whales, societies of fish,

and shipwrecks, skeletal and sleeping.

Turn the page and, deeper now,

the last light of the sun outlines

sheer chasms falling into black

where larger shapes glide in the murk.

I hold my breath and turn again

and fall out of the room into

an inky dark pregnant with beasts

unnamed, all tentacled and pulsing

beyond reason, syringe teeth

and empty glowing eyes that know

not light nor mercy, only hunger.

Mouths sifting infinite water.

I know this place; how can I know it?

This hungry void swallows my mind,

consumes even the memory

of the book that once contained it.

I am speeding down, descending

to a depth beyond the light of words.

The astronaut is falling in a small round pod toward a tumultuous yellow-green ocean. He strikes the surface and unstraps himself. Outside the large pod window: vast opaque yellow in all directions, distance impossible to calculate. The vessel lurches, red lights flash, and water spews through a breach in the hull. The capsule door bursts open, and the ocean pulls him into itself. He tumbles in the swirling waters, watching his only real protection sink into bottomless yellow below his feet. Then from the deep, a dark mass emerges like a mountain from fog. Edges lost in the haze, it stretches across the horizon, dark skin a planet unto itself, encrusted with algae and twisted coral. The astronaut rotates and an eye the size of a city block faces him, staring open but covered by a milky lid that slides away like a curtain, revealing a vertical pupil he could fit inside. In the coloring of the surrounding sclera: a network of capillaries like wires. The horrible truth strikes him: This creature, she is machine, a living weapon. In the shadows of her pupil are the click and whir of watertight machinery unimaginably complex, designed millennia ago by some forgotten civilization. He is destined to be swallowed. Were her creators, in their hubris, swallowed too? He is nothing in her massive shadow. Nothing, nothing. The water shifts as the creature turns its head so massive its width stretches beyond his peripheral. He can only stare at the intersection of chaotic teeth, each one a skyscraper resolving to a point as razor-sharp and precise as a sword. The mouth begins to open, creating a current that pulls him forward. The throat is a purple cavern leading into a black pit, scale unimaginable. Forgetting himself, he closes his eyes and accepts his fate. He waits for death. A great roar emanates from the abysmal throat, shaking his fragile human bones, ruffling his thin suit, and pushing him back. But, beyond fear, his eyes remain shut. Another powerful roar, but this time with a hint of pain. Curious, he opens his eyes and sees the creature has turned its mouth away, and inside its eye are sparks like lightning. Its body pulses and jerks wildly and its jaws open wider than they should and release one final terrible shriek, then it is still and silent as it sinks. The astronaut watches it disappear, wondering at all he'd witnessed and pondering it in his heart. After moments that seem like ages, a white beam of light pierces the ocean, and he feels himself pulled to the surface then into air mercifully warm and dry.

One night I descend down, down,

past many levels of mind,

through twisting corridors of carpeted walls

into a black expanse insulated against

any noise, like a comfortable tomb.

I enter, footsteps muffled, walls

somewhere out there in the black

broken only by a glowing stage

where there is movement.

After a time, I reach it and see

animatronic figurines on rails, looping

in and out of pre-programmed scenes

for no one. How long have they been going?

Their cheery glow casts long across the carpet

where I sit cross-legged like a child and watch.

Their mouths move but only silence emerges,

and the clicking and clacking of wood

and whirring of gears. What can't I hear?

In the basement of my new house, I discover a crawlspace. So I wriggle on hands and knees down a narrow canal of pink clay where I find a world: a cozy chapel carved into cave, colored light piercing impossible stained-glass windows. Down a staircase, red-carpeted empty foyers with golden lamps hanging on the walls. Who does this place belong to? Through heavy doors, an empty theater with vast burgundy curtains swaying as if recently closed. A stairwell twists around fathomless darkness up from which blows an icy wind. I find a neon arcade, maze-like, connecting to a movie theater hallway, lined with posters for films unknown, that widens into a glass-domed mall, empty and insulated. An elevator leads down to a dusty library, ancient aisles lined with grids of metal walkways, ladders descending into darkness, and great tomes with intricate wooden covers. A red glowing exit sign leads me into tangled industrial tunnels where I'm lost for hours in the hollow bones of the world, forgotten but beautiful in their decay. A staircase erodes into stone that winds onto a rocky mesa surrounded by black sky empty of moon or stars, then to cliffs that lead to the very bottom: the solid bedrock of my mind, nothing beneath but nonexistence. And there, I gape at throngs of bare-skinned people crossing a churning green river, swimming or using precarious rafts. The acid water burns their skin, but they paddle forward, desperate to reach the far shore where caves are carved into impenetrable rock and scorched survivors roll aside round boulders and disappear into smoke and screams and silence. Have I gone too far? No, I have to cross this river eventually. Acid scars my skin as waves lap at my little raft, but out I crawl onto the opposite shore, victorious. I breathe deep and roll aside a heavy stone and surrender to the hellish cleansing mists within.

Dark pond sleeps in deep forest.

Breeze stirs blur of blue shards like

ten thousand shimmering fishes.

One could imagine they think themselves

alive.

Wind shifts, and the pond is placid again.

In that arid wilderness, he stares

out from the blackest of eyes

into a void created for him

of pleasures, golden futures,

powers he has never known.

He shifts his crusted tongue

to speak them away,

but the Word is parched and silent.

If he closes his eyes, submits himself

to these gilded visions from below

- these endless tunnels of pleasure

stretching on and on -

he will lose this aching gut

that will drive him forward,

he will lose these callused feet

that will carry him there,

he will lose this sun-scorched face,

these sunken cheeks,

that will capture his flock,

and he will gain the whole World,

this whole dirty aching World.

He sees just outside his peripheral

a single rock balanced improbably

on its end like a delicate egg. He blinks.

Nearby, wind stirs a vortex of dust

that spins, then as quick as it rose, dies.

He doesn't close his eyes.

I was raised in a pastel tomb

of thin Puritan carpet infused

with the moth ball smell of preservative comfort

and dusty wooden crosses

and dead books barely held together

by the stale optimism of a spoiled generation,

benefactors of blood spilt,

sure they're predestined for this,

so they constructed a labyrinth

concrete, sturdy, to shield them

from a world moving on,

and they painted it baby blue

and made children to fill it

and reduced reality to flannel board fairy tales

and dead puppets in dark closets

and bloodless cartoon crucifixions.

They imagined themselves caught between

a world-enveloping devil,

a body clay and soaked in evil,

and a vampire god that slurps sacrifices

and turns his back on billions of burning souls.

No wonder they built these heavy doors,

these constricted smiles to hide behind.

But I found an exit,

some wicked path through the briar woods

tearing at my self-conception. I emerged

shaking, searching for new skin,

but my consolation is

that the children are disappearing,

and the flock grows grey.

One can only pray

that the end is near.

The crack of my grandmother's skull

against the linoleum floor

next to the tree,

like an egg, bursting

open this overcooked era,

pouring out, done. We know

what will come from the blood

I wipe from her glasses.

We know silent.

Bodies rule over persons.

This family of smiles, denials -

we see the whites of the eyes

of the world, the future bruised,

and Christmas forever over.

Inside becomes outside,

no longer able to hide.

No makeup, clothes,

manners, persona, pose

can conceal

undeniable flesh pouring out,

Vivid life bursting from

this soft facade.

We hold volumes, all of us,

gallons of mortality

behind our fragile smiles.

The black hole to it all

right there, no separation,

only hidden temporarily,

waiting for the great reveal.

One way or another,

we cannot contain it forever;

we must gush.

But why this disgust?

Why can't it be beautiful?

I chop myself into pieces.

Every day: chop, chop.

The pieces I like, I keep,

assemble and freeze for later.

I think I'm clever arranging in words

pieces of me, safe in time.

I can make them last.

Chew, chew, I force myself

to chew the pieces.

They were part of me, after all.

They must hold meaning. But they don't

keep; they rot. I hold on

to my rancid collection,

repeating, preserving with willpower.

Think, think, as time does its trick.

Time eats my leftovers.

And the taste, the stench,

it grows. I cannot stand it.

I throw me away.

Not a rejection because

the thing that does the throwing

remains.

But what am I now:

dead trash or living tragedy?

Drifting along a shifting surf,

the eroding repetition, relentless

like the thoughts that cycle

here or there, it doesn't matter,

I sit crosslegged in my room,

old waves rising up and trembling

from this shell then burned away

by strips of waning afternoon,

the past breaking on the present,

the wide mind bursting out

on these beige walls, the blank horizon,

memories wash up in words

like seashells bleached bone white

or driftwood tangled and dark

or slimy remains of unnamed feelings.

The ocean has no answers, no still spot.

It produces, destroys, transforms.

Seafoam bubbles burst in its wake,

and time aches.

I killed another old man last night,

blew his old brains out right here

in front of the bathroom mirror

where I usually do it.

He wanted to die.

He didn't say it but I knew

that's what he wanted, desperate,

barely hanging onto his life.

I loaded my weapon and watched

the back of his skull in the mirror:

my face and his obsolete skull.

The face is mine, not his.

He doesn't deserve it anymore.

His future is faceless.

I cried but I didn't mean to,

the salty bullets on my tongue,

the taste of what I would lose.

I wasn't afraid; I'd done this before.

The silent transition then his blood

dripping into the drain. I

was exhausted but it was done.

The dead are not missed,

just bodies piled up into the past.

I tasted the blood and it was sweet,

not bitter. The good thing is

the aftertaste of death is sweet.

I met a girl who believed she saw a god who talked to her and chose her as its prophet. At first, I heard only rumors of her, then one day I encountered her in the school bathroom. Suddenly, she was there: red-haired, pale, pudgy but attractive with wide, disproportionate hips. I'd heard she'd done things to her body that she thought the god wanted her to do, preparing herself for its arrival, but nothing about her outward appearance seemed unusual. At first, we didn't say a word. Her gaze was dark, open, calm, like a lake at dusk. Immediately overcome, I asked if I could touch her. She consented. This was something the god told her was okay. So I caressed her, undressed her, but paused when I noticed she had inserted pieces of wood and other items inside herself. Shaken, I left the bathroom and entered a nearby classroom and sat at a desk. And that's when things started to change. People's faces were changing, slowly morphing into unfamiliar versions of themselves. While I was touching the girl, she had told me that, as her god grew near, the details of reality would bend to his will until I saw what it wanted me to see. I realize I can't remember my childhood. My classmate confirms he feels it too. The god wants us to forget. I stand and address the class about what's going on. I urge them to remember, to hold onto their past, but they find it difficult. I kneel and pray, sweating, to my own god. Defiantly, I address the other god, telling it I have a god, too. And my god is more powerful. It has been here longer. This seems to work: when I pray, some of the visions disappear temporarily. Then the girl bursts into the room, hair and eyes aflame, and I feel the relief of myself dissolving into dust.

In the bowels of a massive school, the substitute leads a class. Joking with the funny students, he feels a warm affinity for them. He thinks he likes this job; it keeps him young. They show him their projects: variations on a cog, some large, some small, some vivid colors. He admires them, but a sneaking melancholy grips him on the inside, something lost he'll never get back. He doesn't belong here anymore; he's overstayed his welcome. School ends, and he searches for an exit, but the endless blue concrete block hallways stretch as he walks. He rests for a moment, leaning on his knees, sweating, and he feels the humming weight of the institution around him, a cold presence watching, stalking him down these halls. Finally, he limps, panting, out onto a balcony overlooking a warm lobby. At night, the school blooms. Bustling crowds explore a maze of galleries, stores, libraries, arcades, cafes. He descends and merges with the others, a new energy in his step. A skeletal man sits hunched in a booth where visitors come to borrow games. Their eyes meet, and he is unnerved to notice tears on the old man's cheek. He averts his eyes and moves on. He lingers with hands in pockets in a play area with toys and puzzles built into colorful geometric walls, but other adults glare, so he continues. An old woman suddenly coughs near his ear, and he becomes paranoid and angry, wiping at his face. He ascends a series of escalators where, to the sides, are vast inaccessible areas decorated like a jungle and lit with technicolor stage lighting. Apes walk upright down a trail on the side of a Styrofoam mountain. He knows they must be animatronic, but their movements seem random, not programmed. He watches but they move out of sight. He looks up and sees a light booth near the ceiling and recognizes the blonde-haired girl working there and admires her ability to create so many shades of comfort. He wishes he could call to her but she is too far. He moves on. He drifts into an art gallery, an exhibit on death. Winding through a tall narrow passageway with carpeted walls, he grows nervous as he looks up at all the morbid paintings. One high on a wall catches his eye: a grey face with orange flames curling out of its gaping mouth and eye sockets. He stop as the edges of his vision smolder and his chest aches and, deep within him, a bittersweet remembering and recentering stirs. He does not belong here, not at all. He remembers why. Spotting an exit, he slips out, fading into the welcoming dark.

I wander like a moth toward an unseen lamp,

moving along the twisting sidewalk called my life,

on the periphery, up overpasses, through bright tunnels,

restless mind driving, watching the sky shift

imperceptible toward another dawn, and another

bursting like a ripe fruit through the clouds,

spilling onto a shack on the edge of town.

I rest there: cot, table, chair, boiling cauldron

over a dying fire. It's no use. The itch abides here, too.

I move on, ascending curving interchanges surrounded by sky

shining off the pavement with utopian brilliance,

bouncing off the skyscrapers sparkling, rising

like the bottom half of a monstrous jaw.

I shelter in the steel shade, but in the unforgiving beams

of harsh noon light, the deep lines of the city

reveal themselves carved into these faces,

these dead-set eyes plowing lives by force.

I don't have it in me. I am not of the city,

only a pilgrim passing through.

I wander far now, into the woods, over a border.

My home eludes me, the ghost of it just ahead,

always ahead through the trees.

I am a blur in the periphery

of the conversation, the static between two stations.

I stumble on, thinking: this could be my home,

or this, or this . . .

On that gorgeous chilly night, a fragile layer of wispy clouds barely contains the hungry moon, and in the nebulous fabric, tears reveal scattered stars blazing down on the peak of a rolling hill, on a man walking, holding a torch. He can't remember where he came from or where he is going, but something pulls him across the heath. He crests a ridge of sharp stones protruding like buried vertebrae of a behemoth forgotten by time and sees ahead a dark mass swallowing stars like some misshapen black hole, and nostalgia overcomes him. He's been here before, seen these ruins, but how? He approaches, and torchlight uncovers rough stone walls and buried memories. Yes, the childhood dreams: him floating across still waters toward this dark church, through wooden doors that opened and closed behind him. He'd landed and seen in the corner a stone pulsing red like a glowing heart. He'd reached for it but had awakened. The dream had echoed through childhood, and the church had aged with him, but the stone had only grown brighter. How had he forgotten? The placid loch waits nearby as he crosses the threshold and looks to the corner. The stone is there, but it sleeps, dark and dull. He drops to his knees and grasps the stone, and it slides out of the wall. His heart quickens as he turns it and finds a short poem carved into the rock: you are not what you appear / your body fading full of fear / her breath narrating dreams cohere / sylvia's tide will drown you here. The words excite a dizziness that pushes his mind a few feet out of his body. The handwriting, the words, are his. He hears a distant splashing and he stands, dropping the stone, and time breaks. He is outside then inside thinking of being outside. There is movement by the loch. He floats to the shoreline. The water ripples, and something slithers out. The full moon bursts from behind a cloud, consecrating the scene with holy light. A nude female figure rises from the water, weeds and algae tangled in her inky hair. Her eyes glow red like the stone of his dreams. Rectangular pupils tether him to her. Hooves sink into the mud, and a fat oily tail snakes into the depths behind her. She opens her mouth, and a soft alien voice emanates from within. Once again, I find you wandering here. Did you hear the words of the stone? Or does your mind refuse the knowledge still? His mouth is numb and empty of words. Come close, and I will guide you home. She spreads her arms, and a force like wind pulls him forward, and he falls into her wet embrace. Her warmth fills him, loosens his muscles, and he knows that this is the fulfillment of his oldest dreams. Then he is gone, and she is gone, and ripples spread, and a cloud of crimson mist drifts away in the silent breeze.

In an interlude of life, I found myself floating through a forest of pines stretching into a moonless dome of black, uninterrupted except for stars sprinkled loose 'round the rim, where trees sway rhythmically alive with the cool wind as my fingers brush past pine needles and branches parting to reveal a mountain, grassy ridge extending toward me on left and right, but straight ahead, receding, converging, and at the intersection: a cave the shape of a cat's pupil, a vertical slit in the stone. I pass through the smooth opening. Darkness closes around me. Am I moving? Am I standing still? I float in fluid darkness thick and warm. All separation melts, as does time. Eternally secure, untouchable. But there's a distant red glowing that becomes a focal point I move toward. Stone materializes around me, water trickling down tunnel walls covered in primitive paintings: human figures fighting monsters of all shapes and sizes, as many beasts as there are men, paired up like dance partners in a crowd, but each pair in their own private world. I round a corner and stop amidst armies of towering stalagmites. Floating in the dead center of the expanse and glowing like a ruby: a girl larger than life. Her piercing gaze draws me forward like the idol of some fiery ancient goddess, face familiar but alien dark, hair hovering serpentine strands around her glowing head that almost touches the roof of the giant cavern, scarlet robe flowing to the floor. I collapse before her like a supplicant before my queen, weighed down by her holiness. She moves as if underwater, smiling slowly, hearing a silent joke, then tilting her head back, and her laughter splits the cavern air, and I shove my palms against my ears, quaking with fright until, mercifully, she stops and opens her mouth, and her voice booms. Be not afraid. You've strayed too far. I'm here to redirect you. She closes her eyes and the earth rumbles. The cave shakes, and stalagmites crack and plummet to the floor, exploding into numberless fragments. Where are you sending me? I yell and reach out to grab her dress, but the ground gives way, and I plummet into a pit that leads to my bed. And some days I wonder if this life is mine or the one she chose for me.

She awakens in a bed of sand.

Her eyes flutter. She stands and spins,

and there is no one, only mountains.

But as her mind settles, she hears

the rhythmic roar of distant waves.

She searches toward the sound, reaching

out with her mind, and as it grows,

so does her dread, but she continues.

She approaches the distant shoreline crashing

beyond the obscuring dune and slides

her fingers along the wet translucent

wall of an empty lifeguard tower.

The flags wave red just like her hair,

and when the waves burst into view

devouring the beach below,

she almost turns to run. Her toes

dislodge thick chunks of sand that plummet

and dissolve in the lapping surf.

A plume of mist catches her eye:

a serpent arching out of the sea,

fanning spiked fins that glitter

like a warning flag before descending.

Nearer to shore, a megalodon leaps,

its man-sized mouth swallowing air

then water again, vast

water stretching beyond the limits

of her vision, depths unknown.

But straight ahead, a few miles out,

a crimson tower stands obstinate,

triumphant in the greedy waves.

It shines against them, gracefully

reflecting the relentless sun,

and this reflection warms her skin

and clears her mind

and fills her with the strength

to dive.

Up the patient rises from her slumber as soft rhythmic tones coax her out of sleep. Her eyes focus on a large Monstera deliciosa in the corner of the triangular room, the largest wall curved frosted glass through which a green light filters onto the dark blue carpet. The patient stretches in her expansive bed. The glass door slides open, and an oval automaton floats in, scans the room, makes a cheerful noise, and exits, leaving an aroma of lavender with a hint of cinnamon. If the patient listens closely, she can hear a dull pulsing deep within the building. There is healing in this sound. The world sleeps, no sign of others. The entire wing belongs to her, and she is free to wander. She steps out of her room, and the door slides closed behind her. Huge windows lining the curving hallway reveal a boreal forest with moss-covered floor. Her bare feet sink into omnipresent carpet as she explores the corridor flanked by nondescript rooms sparsely furnished and dimly lit with soft lamps. She is momentarily transfixed by an aquarium set between two walls. She presses her hand against the glass and a tiny octopus spreads its tentacles over her fingers. In a mirror, she finds her hair bright green. She wouldn't expect it, but it fits her perfectly. A shower with rainfall showerhead draws her in, and she loses herself in the rejuvenating steam before walking back to her room, free of clothes. No reason to conceal herself here. There is a peculiar absence of agitation in her mind. The ordinary drive to entertain herself is gone. She is steeped in natural contentment. No thoughts of outside this place nor future nor past, just here, now, settled, healing. Near her room, there is a door open to the outside, revealing a soft dirt path meandering into lush woods, beckoning. She stands on the threshold, imagining the potential adventures awaiting her there, the endless variations of emotion stretching to the horizon, and she grabs the knob and shuts the door and makes her way to bed. She lays her head on the soft pillow that seems uniquely sculpted for her skull and lets the weight of the warm sheets settle around the contours of her body as she falls into the deepest sleep she's ever known.

It is incubated in the blurry pixels, the chunky geometry, the comfort of repeating patterns, immersed in a feast of candy colors, clouds painted on solid not-solid walls and on the dome of the surrounding skybox: the distant not-distant firmament, which shifts from smiling yellow sun to starry black nights to fiery red dawns. Eternal life is here somewhere in the polygons. It has memorized the labyrinthine castle. Floating through its halls, a happy holy spirit hovers behind and above its head, watching. And there are mirrors, but when it stands in front of them, instead of a body, it sees steam evaporating in slow-motion. Others roam these halls, but not people, only pixelated faces. On the lawn, a cubist lamb rests its head in a lion's bosom. It tries to find the boundary of this place. It wanders the perimeter but can't make it up the too-tall hill; it slides back down. Sometimes it slips through gaps into an infinite chasm below, falling only to be reborn. Maybe it is the elect; it cannot die, trapped inside this eternal recurrence. No height will do it, no lava, no water, nothing; it just respawns. Ghosts don't die, they clip through walls, and beyond: nothing. It shrinks and grows and ascends staircases. It chases coins, passing time. It learns the rules: avoid the edge, avoid the water, admire the limitations of the creator. But gradually its awareness shifts. It sees it is of the pixels but not in them. It is something beyond the oval of its sight, not the steam in the mirror. Everything outer is inner. All that it sees, all that it hears or touches, its fading body, and everything, everyone here, are one shifting unified projection. There is a slow burning in its mind, a shedding and a scraping away. Nothing to lose here. No longer holding onto anything. And everything once solid dissolves. Who is here watching the projection? Who is it? What is it? Who is asking? Who? Hu? hyu 23 8 15 011101110110 100001101111 00111111

me and the world.

what is world? things in time and space.

things? colors. sounds. sensations.

me? the same. just inside.

so: outer colors, sounds, sensations.

inner colors, sounds, sensations.

where's the inner/outer boundary? can't find it.

no outer. no inner. fused

sensations. a sphere of them, undulating.

no sphere. edge imagined.

speaking of edges:

where does color become sound?

where does sound become touch?

nowhere. only

unified waves of sensation.

no wave because where is the last

and where is the next except in memory?

and where is the memory? here, in this wave.

this one and only still

sensation.

breathing breathing in the ritual

living dying out the ritual

stale life flowing out the edge now

new life flowing in the incense

death drum circle flying

under clouds rotors chopping

steady chopping notes thoughts

voices slashed into pieces

droning liquid ripples pulsing

friendly like children mother

grandmother cavern voices

layers unknown deep descending

up this is required

chopping self must be chopped

into something new unfaded

voices of the ego warning

voices jumbled swaying over

cliffs ocean safe for now

for the time being out of

body vaporous monstrous natural

last fibres snap away

from the fleshy bedrock soul

escaping up up pulsing

green means done healing

throbbing green deep pressure

happy green not red

all around seeping out

Through chaos, again to the source: that warm comfortable living room lit with golden lamps and lined with thick beige carpet that, sensing an arrival, loosens a few soft strands that grow up and weave around this tired soul torn by time, lifting and suspending it inside a weightless cocoon in the center of the room, the world. Within the soft capsule, a slow disintegration: skin slackening, sliding off, untwining muscle, sinew loosing bones that drift like islands, sinking and dissolving, all released in this primordial brew. No pleasure to seek; no pain to resist. There is a rumbling, and the cocoon trembles and expands and bursts filling the room with its black fluid, blotting out everything except the quiet beating of a heart renewed. Another chance. Another chance. Another -

I want you to believe that I am here,

but if you look for me, you’ll see

there’s nothing solid,

only gaseous thoughts

or flimsy feelings

or a vague sensation

like a hollow sphere behind the eyes,

not even a sphere, the mere idea,

a bubble that pops the moment it’s seen,

thoughts about thoughts about thoughts.

Perhaps I am only the stickiest thought.

In confusion, the question is asked:

Is anyone there? Only echoes respond.

So why do you believe in me?

Am I in these words? Was I

before these words or after?

Am I in the awareness of words,

or the thought of the awareness of words?

It’s turtles all the way down, a deep

ocean of thought, but harmless,

impossible to drown. Just breathe.

Stop thinking of me, and I become air.

I never was there.

new skin - i feel it burning

inside - to boil up now -

splitting open the future -

the acid of change - the agony

of transformation - dissolving

what once was - i put myself here -

i built this place out of me -

i feel the bones

soggy like rotten logs -

i feel them sinking -

but still i am here - in the breath -

all this once dormant -

years ago - i caught only hints -

flares in the chest - now too obvious -

i was producing my tomb -

what will remain when the rest dissolves -

fading after-images - what of them -

i emerge from the past pale and shaking -

fragile wings unfurling -

this beauty was built on pain -

memory is dead - only i remain