Dance Stops for Nothing!

 

My Frequent Mood Swings

You Still Make Me Nervous

I saw you today
for the first time in,
like,
about 3 months? Ish?

You look the same as
you always do. Dense.
Shallow. Nice hair that
I used to love but
now I think I might
hate.

Why does your hair
have to look so
nice all the time?

Your outfits never
match, color blindness,
yet you still insist
on picking out your
clothes all on your own
anyways, as you
are too prideful to
ask someone for help.

These were the thoughts that
were running through my
head when I saw you
for the first time in
about 3 months. Ish.

But then you looked at me. And
I felt my stomach drop and
then it fell to the floor and
why did I look at your eyes
and I looked away
as fast as you left
the me from 3 months
(ish) prior.

But when I was out
of your view I still —
I still — had to turn
my head and watch you
walk down the hallway.
And I don’t know where
you went afterwards,
but I went to class,
and then I went home.

Green, Over the Years

2007.
Froggy! I yell from the
backseat of our awful
seafoam Ford Freestyle
that dad gave to mom for
Christmas last year. We just
drove past the beloved ad:
that billboard on highway
I-376
showing off Pittsburgh’s best
country hits radio
station with a fun frog
for a logo, biggest
smile you’ve ever seen,
focus always fixed on
the cars right below him.
We always shout Froggy
at him as we’re passing.
But Froggy, we can’t stay,

we gotta go to Camp!

2009.
Freshly Cut Grass and
smelling the Freshly
Cut Grass Clippings while
my Father Frees the
Short Shards from the Lawn
Mower. Nobody
can take care of a
Lawn quite like he does.
Or they just don’t care
as much as he does.

It’s Camp, after all!

2012.
My dad finally
finished working on
his first golf cart that
took him all of fall,
all of winter, spring,
it is finally summer.

It’s Camping Season.

He painted the cart
a shimmering shade,
bright as the Grass when
it’s Cut Fresh, smells good,
bright as my eyes that
are also his, and
when the sun shines down
on them just right they
turn from Being Mere
Brown and Boring to
Multicolored and
Mesmerizing and
I used to despise these eyes
but my view has changed
for they are much more.

2020.
Our second date,
smoking this Hue,
entering a
world of this Hue,
holding back coughs
as I inhale
this Hue;
Fire mania
while sparking this
Color, Feeling
innocence Fade
with the presence
of this Color;
but that’s okay
as this is my
Favorite Hue
of them all. And

I love you still,
even though we
have since drifted
from loving this
Hue together,
loving ourselves,
together, the
time, or better,
the lack thereof,
the love we shared
with each other
through this Color.

2022.
I wear this Color
atop my middle
finger. I wear this
Color on my neck.
The Color of the
device in which I
smoke this Color is
to be expected;
my life is engulfed
with Jade, with Olive,
with Sage, with Moss, and
I’m okay with this.

I still Lay in Grass
that’s Cut Fresh every
Time I get the Chance.
Summer is Coming,

and Camp is waiting.

Can't Understand This Hawaiian Ghost

always watching . . .

What is the Difference Between Love and Greed?

My World, Through Time

Take me back to
when the days were
fruitful; to when
deer, once our pests,
filled their bellies
with the grass in
our thriving yard,
free from yellow.

It’s been awhile since

I’ve seen any form

of life, let alone

our deer, once our pests;

penguins moved Here for

a little bit, soon

after you left, but

I haven’t seen them.

My theory is

that this Place isn’t

able to provide

for them anymore.

It was glowing aurous
when we lived Here, with gold,
delicious apples that
caused the trees to have a
sweet, soothing droop to their
branches, hanging just low
enough for you and I
to reach out our arms and
pick the fresh fruit with our
hands and feel the crunch
of the blond barrier
through our suspecting teeth
showing the saccharine,
sacred nectar within.

This Icy Sleet

took over my

Sanctuary

long ago, long

after you left,

and unlike the

box in my jeans

that, when it’s struck,

the warmth from the

flame melts the ground

quickly beneath

my feet; I watch,

nostalgic of

the way the freed

water flows on

its cold equal…

This Haven was matchless to
any scene you’ve ever seen.

When I lick skin off my dry,

chapped lips I can almost taste

the flavor of being back

to the way it

once was.

Here,
with you, in Serenity.

But the once golden hues have since faded

into mere grave grays and the winter months,

once temporary, have since grown into

permanent, mere winter years and the Ice

that surrounds me, frozen in stake shape,

pierces directly through my heart and through

my heart it reaches my soul and I am

frozen, in time, knowing nothing but what

once was.

Take me back to when
the days were golden,
to when the sun shone
through the carefully
stained glass window, a
rainbow of light that
sat on your resting
face, to when you would
look at me and tell
me that we made it,
and I would believe you.

Such is Life!

our Sauce Pot

you turn your head
to look at me.

i look down,
and your pillow’s wet
with salty teardrops,
and saltier sweat.

i look up at your face
and settle on your eyes.
i focus on the blue
iris with that hint of
hazel around your black
crater of pupil; so
glassy; so watered; so
exhausted; worn out; sad.

i see my reflection
in those low, tired eyes
exactly as I do
when I look into a
mirror, or a
window, or a
clean dish, or the
“Brand New Stainless Steel Sauce Pot!”
that is old now.
that you hate now.
that fosters rust.
and collects dust.

but you, when you
still saw a future,
when you still thought our
shopping trips to the
grocery store were
worth getting out of
the unmade bed for

you were so excited
when we decided
to take that sauce pot home
and call it ours.

Daydreaming During Lecture

You, Quiet Kid in Class
sit in the Back Corner
write Whatever It Is
that you’re always writing
in that notebook of yours
with that leather cover
and those split ends, and that
faded yellow paper.

You write with a Pencil
that looks like it’s Shedded
way too many of its
Shavings. I wonder what
the Sharpener looks like.

Is it Homework that you
write? Doodles? Chicken Scratch?
Love Notes? Journal Entries?
Poems? Are you like me?
Death Threats? Brainstorms? Rough Drafts?
Shopping Lists? Agendas?

Or are you just taking
notes for the class we share
together each Tuesday?

You write with your left hand
and tuck your hair behind
your pierced ear with your right
without missing a beat
or dropping that Pencil
for even a second.

I want to be your friend.
I want to know where that
Pencil of yours has been —
what that thing has written —
for it to get that small.

Are you attached to it?
Are you deeper than the
role that you’ve been given?

You, Quiet Kid in Class,
pick My Corner next time.

Anxiety Goes for a Swim

    I wake up soaked in sweat. If I had slept in a minute later I likely would have drowned at the hands of my own body trying to help itself out.
    Forever thankful for the morning because she always makes sure my memories blur away into a dense fog, hands them to the moon before my mind can even begin to meander through the dreams of the previous night.
    Swamped into the mattress and flooding as I write, there’s already enough saltwater to fill a swimming pool, and then some. The pearl-sized droplets packed with panic form an ocean around me as I slowly fall into the still role of Island, prone to natural disasters, I pity myself for a few minutes, then stop.
    I get out of bed. I take a shower.

The Speed Demon

Your favorite machine that just happens to be
in the untouched corner of every arcade we

stumble into,

for we always need to drink first,

like we’re fish, in order to have any fun, no matter

where we’re going, always, whether it be to

a funeral, a wake, a family dinner,

a wedding reception, a baby’s baptism,

a park called Waldameer, an arcade just like the

rest, a corner that lies untouched…

It’s red, still retro for now but fading, with a
base that’s yellow, a bug-eyed devil yelling at
you to sell your soul and pull a plunger and watch

as a silver ball spins and spins and spins and spins,

spins in scorching circles until you decide that

the time is up and you press a button that says

STOP.

And you expect to be sent straight to Hell with

a ticket that only goes one way and you shut

your eyes tight to prepare for a blow that never

happens and you open your eyes back up to see
that you instead remain grounded and the silver
ball begins to swirl at a much slower pace, it’s

teasing you as it sneaks right past the jackpot hole

over and over and over like it’s in some

sort of orbit before failing to complete one

more revolution and falling into the hole

directly adjacent to the severely sought

after grand prize. So close. You scrape up

your scrap-sized pile of tickets, dismayed

with your outcome, ready to sell your soul

once more, or twice, or three times, or

four, or whatever it takes to win what you know

you deserve. And you may as well get another

drink while you’re at it since you already know that

you’re not getting into heaven anytime soon.

Modern Octopus

look at me

 

Ninja Bunny, Nature's Candy

 

Paper Lantern: Day in the Life

Sometimes, when I’m with you,
it feels like it’s just you.
…and me, alone, for miles,
and to you I’m no use
as I am nothing but
some pretty colored piece
of paper with awkward
metal parts sticking out

and it isn’t until
you take your lighter out
of your pocket and set
me aflame, watching as
I start to implode, as
I rise out of your arms
and into the sky, burns
eating at my body,
silently screaming at
the thought of losing you
that I realize that this
is what my only use
has been the entire time.

I float further away,
trying not to look down,
knowing that soon I’ll be
falling back to the ground,
nothing but ash, nothing
but trash, one with the trees
and three with the debris.

Post-Nightmare Sweat

It’s like waking up in the
deep end of the public pool,
open to everybody —
to grime-caked fingernails, to
broken glass and bloody toes,
to women who wade in the
shallow, slowly tiptoeing
while thinning gray hairs fall out
of sunburnt scalps and into
the unsuspecting water
and stick onto the wet skin
of fish-like children coming
up for air after spending
all day in an alternate
universe infested with
imaginary creatures,
body odor and chlorine,
wet hair rubbed on a towel.