140817A
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You can be the ghost
hovering above your own corpse,
helpless to do anything about it.
I will watch and write notes,
about the cause of death,
and possible suspects.
I had to read that out loud,
so that you could understand it
in the manner that it was meant.
Again that is the wrong way around,
because the reader is observing
the writer being the victim.
What is killing you
is none of my concern,
as we have no legal relationship.
I emphasized that fact
when I slid my dagger tongue
between the bones of your thoughts.
Read that aloud repeatedly,
but with much more enthusiasm,
until you believe that it is true.
Then enter a claim for salvation,
while standing and waiting
beneath any of those red flags.
We met casually in a supermarket,
where the insane ask for directions,
as to where to find happiness.
Everyone else already knowing the way,
past the freezer section,
and down past the produce aisles.
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140817B
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The trouble with losses is always the same.
Whenever they become too much to endure,
you end up completely alone with them.
That is when everyone joins up with the detail
that is throwing you into that hole.
It is a widespread belief in murder,
and as long as no one has to bloody themselves,
it must surely be completely alright.
Nothing to keep anyone awake at night,
regurgitating unpleasant remembrances.
The local outlet was sold out on treasure maps,
and no idea when some more might come in.
They offered to take your name and number,
to contact you when they received a shipment,
but could not assure you as to the price.
Life tends to follow the same circles,
receiving the same gestures of coincidence
from anyone whom you cannot really meet.
There is that ritual of mock familiarity,
as to prevailing patterns of estrangement.
You walk through the valley of patios,
less noticed than the shadow of a passing cloud.
Your pockets having failed to jingle with coin,
to signify your dragging the right chains around.
It makes you as invisible as a daylight ghost.
You are neither recognized nor remembered,
by the few partisans that remain,
stragglers along the parade route.
Your own one man band laughs at you,
that you are out of step with the times.
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140817C
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They would not let you in,
and you could hear the laughter
that betrayed their intentions.
That scene would repeat
any number of times,
until you memorized its lines.
Turning any corner can be fatal,
when they know you are coming
and they intend to jump you.
Everyone else got away,
leaving you with all the questions,
and taking the answers with them.
The roadblock has stopped you,
and turned you around again,
to get lost in some other direction.
No one sends you a postcard,
because it might clue you in
to everything having gone wrong.
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140817D
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You were the only one left out,
when they decided to write your story
into not as much as a footnote of yourself.
All that starting over again and again,
that erases every last trace
of anything considered reliable or solid.
Repeatedly wiped out,
in some unrecorded massacre,
of rewind, and replay.
Making everyone better off without you,
after factoring you out of any equation,
and rationalizing you away.
You feel as insignificant as a gas bubble
in a carbonated beverage world,
at the moment it bursts the surface.
Pop goes the weasel,
becoming another outburst
produced by twisting the crank.
It is a kind of atmosphere that occurs,
to reassure you of your proper place,
as to how it always goes down.
Should have learned to pull your own teeth,
as that might have been better for you,
than searching for any intimate relief.
That would have assisted the interrogation,
where you forever have to confess
that you have not given up on wanting.
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140817E
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Sometimes all the time in between,
simply vanishes,
as if it was folded up and put away.
Worn out shoes,
that have not been anywhere,
that they wanted to go.
Their sad, plaintive, looks,
making an obvious plea,
asking for a little more time,
before they too end up vanished.
They have grown terrified
that they will never see mountains
and oceans,
outside of the footprints on maps.
Knowing only concrete expressions
and what is like to be weighed down
with different styles of grief.
Too worn out to expect anything
except a final curbside meeting
to exchange clandestine information.
It is said of political prisoners
that they tend to end up that way,
being held until forgotten.
Made of nostalgia and fence wire,
they always tend to resemble
whatever they cannot really be.
They flirt with death
because it is the only lover
that is allowed into their compound,
and willing to play the game.
Everywhere else proven to be a lie,
and the faces as inaccessible
as are those of movie stars
and various other assorted divas
taken to match the liner notes,
of an iconic chocolate box existence,
It is all perfectly alright
if you keep to the outlines
as something perfectly tasteful,
with everything in its proper place.
The instructions carefully written
so you can never follow them,
cancels plans before they are made.
The future crumples up
into a tighter and tighter little ball
that you can never unravel.
Secret messages from outside
used to appear on candy wrappers
but someone must have died
as they do not send any anymore.
That is how hopes tend to perish
threshed on dance floors,
to the point of their exhaustion.
Footsteps looking for stepping stones
that might chance to safety
across troubled waters.
It all leads to nothing more
than returning to the same cage
where the keepers torment
with their own unrealistic obsessions.
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