Stepping Stones

These stepping stones that I jump to

Throughout the span of my life

Form an outline of a part of me

Balancing on one foot I look back

This set of stones is the story

Of me and women:

 

 

Her name was Patty

We met at the instruments closet

She told me I was her boyfriend

I obeyed and met her behind the curtain

Timing my days in kindergarten 

By these rendezvous 

 

 

I ran home from the neighbors’

My friend’s sister who was much older

French kissed me when I was like eight

I couldn’t wait to tell my mother 

 

 

At school a girl I did’t know

Who acted as though she knew me

Asked if I was drinking my chocolate milk 

I was going to, but I gladly handed it over

 

 

My first “girlfriend” 

I spent hours talking to her on the phone

I felt a connection

Then I told her about the changes

Of how my body was maturing

She broke it off

 

 

I went to a party

They played Spin the bottle 

A girl I liked spun the bottle to me

We went in the closet

The idea she might’ve actually wanted

To kiss me was so nonexistent 

That I thought I did her a favor

By making kissy noises through the door

So she wouldn’t have to

 

 

I sat out in the cold for hours

Scoring two tickets to Beastie Boys

I asked my crush if she’d like to go

I told her I’d score some weed

She agreed to go

After the concert she made up an excuse

Of why she needed to go

Taking the joint with her

Like a chocolate milk 

 

 

My first was with a girl who transferred 

Into our school to get away her reputation 

I later heard that she had taken on

The entire football team

I loved her enough to be so broken by her

When she dumped me for a guy with a car

That I blocked her name from memory

 

 

I made out with a girl

Who was really good at it

Her dad had taught her

After her mom had passed

I still wonder about how she finally

Made her escape

 

 

I had a one night stand with a girl

Who resembled the girl from the concert

That was all the reason I had needed

 

 

I was in a relationship with a woman

Who was old enough to be my mother

I was just happy to feel wanted

 

 

I married a woman who is strong

Who I’d gladly give my chocolate milk to

Who I’d meet behind the curtain with

Each and every day

Who loves reality tv, 

Is an extrovert, that drags me out…

Out of my head

Who doesn’t like public affection 

Who rarely likes private affection 

Who is very critical of me

But beneath all the hard exterior 

She loves me

She needs me

And I am happy

There are no stones to jump to from here

Darkroom

Even with a zoom lens

You are one layer removed

From the subject matter

No longer a participant 

An observer 

No longer an ingredient

You are the glass 

It’s plated beneath

Your eye

Behind the viewfinder 

Profane and probing

A voyeur with a kinship

For the beauty of symmetry 

The rule of thirds

Conforms nature to mind’s grid

The moment falls into place

The finger depresses 

A piece of the divine 

The soul is pinned

A butterfly in a shadow box 

The amorphously ephemeral 

Anchored to synaptic syne haptic 

Lucid moments of clarity

Adrift on a fog covered sea

 

Chant

I think that when I’m picking at self inflicted wounds, channeling the dead, dying and dishonored, feeling the full weight of the world’s apathy upon my chest, and bleeding it upon the page…that I’m at my most sane. In fact, I would say that it is during those periods when I sleepwalk through life, filling a role, swallowing back the acid at the rear of my throat with a smile, and become a living currency, an end to a means, that I’ve slipped into an oubliette of depravity. Sublimating the curses and tics of universal verity bubbling up from the magma of my bones is the original sin, that can only be abated by chanting a prayer older than any Hail Mary’s, or Nam-myoho-renge-kyo’s. I am here for but a moment. Allow me to love you, to be loved by you, and to be remembered. I am here for but a moment. Allow me to love you, to be loved by you, and to be remembered. I am here for but a moment…