Doughnuts With Names Like Prostitutes

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Sun against sky-scapes. Warm backed reptiles made of moving metal glide effortlessly along the jagged stones.

A boy tears his knees and leaves blood among the sedimentary tombstones. Sand fills the cracks on the insides of his toes. His face turned upward so that the sunshine may burn it’s wisdom on the bridge of his nose. It will leave parchment memos of skin as a testament to his time spent in the hourglass of this landscape. Flowers hang red and angry from the green of sharp cacti. Bloom pale white to attract the clouds which never seem to grace this ocean of heat. Rough hands find sister callouses in the minerals of dried sea beds. He does not long for the sweet temperature of the forest, but cries out for his home among the rocks.

The lost desert prince, who will wake from this dream in a moist pool of rough cotton sheets. His only rocks will be mad buildings as tall as Sun Gods. Reflections in mad mirrors. Lizards of industry. Cut flowers in warm water. Dirt for every grain of sand and the wet mud of city gutters. Clouds which stay, hanging over his head. His tears will be pulled from pale skin by the dry heat of an overcrowded sauna. For he is a long way from home.

Tinker Tailor

There is a logic I see in the eyes of others. I can count their complexes like clockwork. Their foreheads bleed labels. Branded with the words I have assigned to them, I will try and put them away on the shelf. I know my own heart is the only toy I have the energy to tinker with.

Yet, I will try and screw together your broken parts with this shaking hand that holds the screwdriver. I’d rather let the metal search the inside of my own stomach than break something inside of you.

China doll, take my parts, the frayed edges of my clothing and the cracked porcelain of my skin. Unhinge my jointed jaw and take my words. Empty the broken sockets of my wrists so you can take my hands in yours. Dust covers you, I thought I figured it out. I thought I fixed you already, but superglue drips close to your confused glass eyes. I put you away each night only to find you sitting slumped on my work desk in the morning.

Toy solider, take the ruby red jewel of my heart. A brittle stone which appears callous but breaks easily. My wooden chest is bursting with staples and old thread but I’ll open the cavity again. Scavenge what you can and restore the lustre in your silk hair. My ribs can be sanded down to replace the draw strings of every figurine I keep in my shop.

My imaginary friends, I have carefully crafted you from my own stuffing. I keep you in glass cases to selfishly spare the jewel which lies within my packaging. Wait, I can restore myself. Just give me a day alone at this old table to sew my skin back on. Then with double stitched scars and missing limbs I’ll lift you from your place of honour and hold you to the time bomb which ticks only for you, my most prized possessions.

Alone

I am alone.
The personification of every internal thought shared with no one but yourself.
I am the world through your eyes. There is no shame in me.
I am the joke that only you find amusing.
I am life affirming moments on mountain tops.
I am solitary and stoic.

Let me introduce myself.
I am every only child left to let their own imagination create stories so vivid that they grew strong in community despite a lack of friends.
Let those who have come to know me stay on their balconies
For they are not lonely.
Let them be alone with themselves.
They are lost, but not to the world. Pity not these creatures who find more comfort in stacks of knowledge or the bright single light of a sunset meant for one. Let them be.
Their time is not for you.

Beautiful

You are the bubbles in my tea. Sugar sweet girl you’re my reason for waking from the dark. Half opened eyes of lost sleep ready to embrace the day. I will rise for you. I will pull together sad morning psyches and kiss your ankles with promises. I will fill your cereal bowl with dreams of tomorrow and your glass with everything I can offer today. I never mean for your drink to run dry, but these containers of responsibility have expiration dates. I’ll replace these empty cartons soon. Bring you fresh milk for the thoughts you consume for breakfast. Be the best I can today.
Morning flower never let me forget to water you. For you are the most beautiful flora this Hades could hold. Let me not leave you dry with the heat I carry from the only home I’ve ever known. I carry these complexes from the underworld. Yet you light my cigarettes still. Allowing me to keep my fires. My darling Persephone keeping your pomegranate seeds close. You let me be alone in my winters.
Thank you. Thank you for your bright shining light. Your heart which keeps the cold from my bones. Your roots have wrapped themselves around me and so much can grow from the solid ground of me and of you. When I leave you to meet with another god who shares my soul, you keep me tied to the Earth. Ever to return. For it is your tree which bears the sweetest fruit. My summer Peach, your nectar cleanses me even in the dark below. Let me drink from you and I will feed you everything I can scrape from the deep bottom of my devil heart. Offer it to you with the last of my clean spoons. I am yours to hold between the sweet lips which hold me captive. If I am the coffee in your cup, then you are the bubbles in my tea.

Building Blocks

The timbre of the evening collects itself around me like the dust that settles over this construction site. Exposed dreams like uncovered walls, which bathe themselves in the heat of summer’s dark blanket. This air of potential which settles itself around me. Unable to feel hot or cold I sit still in the room temperature quiet which comes before the topmost rays of morning can scorch the plaster of my walls. I will wait for the coming daylight from the roof of an unfinished building. No ledge behind me and only darkness ahead. Onward towards the winter I will turn, as I prepare myself to leave the violet youth of the hottest months behind me in the scrap metal collections of early adulthood. These sawed off paths which I have careful chosen to throw away. Hopeful that they will recycle themselves back into my life.
I will scream my desires alone on a balcony for no one but the sparse workforce of city stars to hear. These nine to five light sources which will turn dull and fade in the presence of the shifting sun. For I am the only witness of my midnight shift. I will stand and face morning with nothing but these steel toed defences to protect me. With my heart exposed and my feet firm I will build again tomorrow. Head first into the coming dark.

Midnight Ride

The cold rain of a long summer night reflects the chilled black drips down the inside of this drained coffee cup. The smooth navy of the damp highway rushes by faster than time could ever possibly feel on this cramped capsule. Dreams exhaled outside the cabin like the first drag of a nicotine deprived traveler’s last cigarette. Thoughts hurtled at the dark of an unnamed mountain. Lay your fears of tomorrow in the fingernail slits between the window and the world. Place your troubles on the fragile mist wings of the fly which sits plotting on the smooth glass. It dreams of warmer desert skies same as you.

Close your eyes at the back of this hallway to nowhere, cocooned in the knowledge that there is nothing you can do but breathe in the room temperature musk of so many human beings and their 5 am convenience store breakfasts. Muddled acoustic strums out the back of a stranger’s headphones, be attentive of the unwanted strings plucking harmonies for anyone who will still listens for the subtle instrumentation of enclosed spaces. The orchestra of the journey home. Stage dressed with the pale blue glow of missed connections. The lines of communication again tied by the oncoming city lights. Stress woven back into faces by the skilled hand of remembered responsibilities.

These Journeys have bruises. Watch as we grip at the arm rests of our time off with fingers as tight as luggage clasps. Don’t go home yet. Lose yourself for one last hour in the droplets of daydream on the fogged pane. Run a finger down a fantasy and let the music in your speakers become the soundtrack to a story greater than this Greyhound. Your static thoughts are masked by engine rumble so listen as the tires ask questions of the cracked midnight request line. You’re minuets away from the FM buzz of morning traffic but let it come in its own time.

Tomorrow returns with the freshly brewed burn of the day to day.
Tonight belongs to the ice cold coffee of the late ride home.

Drive Boy

I’m just a sunshine girl lost in the winter of my discontent. But today feels like summer and I’m all afternoon drives and backwards glances out rolled down windows. Sunglass casualties on the Tarmac. Murdered by springtime semis with a song in their hearts. There’s a song on the radio and it sounds like ninth grade in the back of a pick up. Tints and glints on dust covered steal. Too fast down a dirt road. Catch in the backyard of a Hell’s Angel’s million dollar ranch. The cynicism of the city skyline lost. Watch as I stick my head out the door and let the spiralling happiness of small town air blast nostalgia through my cracks. Shake the cobwebs from my smile. Say more with the late night tires of this muscle car than a thousand words on paper. Hands entwined on the gear stick. This engine will pump life back into my skyscraped heart and maybe for a couple day-long nights I’ll let the words to an old ballad escape the city slick chords of my desert dry throat.

Green Thumb

I read so much in youth to quell the growing disquiet of my own ramblings. Manufactured creative juices which saved me from tending to the ruggedly untamed garden of my outlets. To be busy is to find success. Filling the spaces in the walls with the impenetrable cement of distraction and saving myself from the quiet. Silent protection like a heavy coating of dark winter dust, this blanket of daily routines which holds me safe from the white blank slate of planning ahead.
As I inch open the broom cupboard door and hold a rag up to my accomplishments, I wonder if I can ever polish off the comfortable numbness of good grades and expected awards. These trophies I hide behind. Meaningless metal shields protecting me from the armies of actual achievements. There is a stack of papers in the corner filled with words of praise shredded to pieces by the mad mechanism of adulthood. Yet these are the scraps to be used as kindling for the bright new flame of the coming days.
I’ll turn off the dim light on the single metal chain to hold myself alone in the dark of my collection. Let the walls of this Potemkin museum collapse around me, all I need is that single bulb. I’ll find a spark somehow. Follow the current of artistry till I can build a new room. Containing all the light I need for the spring of my garden it will be gilded with the plaques of maturation. Clean bay windows will face the glint of the ever rising morning and I will stand unafraid of the coming cool of autumn. For fallen leaves are never found in the soft petals of midday sunlight.

Ever After

There are dark recesses of forgotten comfort which plague me. Late night fantasies of the mythical woman I was in long forgotten days when the ideas of the mind didn’t shy away from my human form. She wants you, this woman made of forest mists and fairy stories. The slit between her legs aches for you. But she is fleeting and spiteful. When I desire, she and I become one by the power of liquids and smokes. Forced potions for the connection of body and mind. Until, in the harsh light of the morning, she will again tear herself away, leaving me to wander as a helpless boy. Confused and frightened as to what curse she cast to trap me in the fragile smooth of her form.
Strong hands which in my dreams felt like restorative water will move themselves over my curves and will again feel like chainsaws on the tender bark of the rainforest tree. Cutting and leaving me feeling splintered. Missing limbs.
Everyday I want to call the Tempest back, and feel her confident arches wash over me. I long to let her tides bring me closer to the waves of sensation I so desperately crave.
I want to believe in fairy tales but no one can save this Prince by day. Long ago a force greater than the storybook mistook him for the princess and trapped him in this tower. Lost to the world forever and waiting for a knight to change the fable. And yet…

Look closer. There is beauty is this tale of sorrow. For if someone were to throw away the book, and burn it in the fires of desire, I may just be able to again float free. If someone shredded the sentences of society and drew me in close with stories penned from the ashes, I may be able to retire this legend. This textbook of words which leaves paper-cut slits in my soul. It’s ancient edges can be left to rot on a back room shelf and I can join those I love in the sun of the fresh green forest floor. A stump among the ancient trees.
Happily ever after.

Obsessive Complusive

“Fear of making a mistake. Fear of being embarrassed or behaving in a socially unacceptable manner.Need for order, symmetry, or exactness.Constantly arranging things in a certain way.Eating foods in a specific order.Being stuck on words, images or thoughts, usually disturbing, that won’t go away and can interfere with sleep.

OCD
cannot
be
prevented.”

Ah. These fissures of the mind. Tectonic stress. I’ll collect all the pieces, don’t worry. I’ll put them back together. Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. Back together. Worried mind. Fix the stress. Collect the worry. Distill the compulsion. Bottle it up and arrange it carefully in the labeled cupboard of your world. Put it back where it belongs, always in the same spot. Face the label out. Face the world and sew up the frayed edges. Anxiety for the everyday. Measured amounts of routine. Always tablespoons, never spoonfuls. Spoonfuls are messy. If your thoughts are fractured make them all clean breaks. Place them in the bowl. Choke them down. Swallow over the lump in your throat. Fix the world and break down your mind. Separate the compost. Organic material rots in the Lysol sprayed garbage can of disorder. Clean earthquake plates placed on the disinfected counter top. A dollop of worry for each ceramic reflecting pool. I’ll be able to eat everything at the same table someday. Someday I’ll fix it, the thin lines of 12 am furrowed brows which make up my fragile china. Save the good cutlery for the guests. Fix it with the glue of logic, a sad substitute that has only the meagre potential to last through the meal. You’ll make it through the night. Just let the warm water of the after dinner dishes fill the deep ravines of your broken down brain.