Anti-suicidal ideation

 I will not

Carry your remains in 

A baby stroller

Preaching the perils of suicide.

I will not

Put my walking shoes on 

For a seminar like that.

I refuse.

I will not say

I didn't tell you

Not to put

Foreign objects in your mouth

A gun 

Isn't something 

You ever put in your mouth.

And you oughta know

Better than that.

I will not say

I told you so either.

I refuse.

I refuse, mama

It was your defiance

Your magnum opus

The thing

That would absolve you

And elevate you all at once

In the face

Of a challenge.

I refuse

To tie me to you

That way. 

The diet

 The plung
                i
                  n
                     g
Neckline

Suggests that this might be 
a
D-A-T-E.

She is small
In the chest
But fair.

His eyes locked
in hers
and away 
from her breasts
only makes me
that much surer
that it is.
A date, that is.

Him

Hanging on to every word
She hasn't said
Because he doesn't want
To be caught staring at

The plung
                i
                  n
                     g

Neckline

She's pretty
Blonde
Pretty blonde.

He is pleasantly plump
And hairy
In the face.

Dating
favors a currency
traded in attention
We wield it 
to our will
Handing it out
holding it back.

She's eating
carbs and calories
In a damnyouall
Demonstration
Of free will
Drinking beer

But I see the 
wrinkles on
her face
And I know
she's starving herself
elsewhere.

Minding a memory

A blink of an eye

Is a shutter speed no one considers

When it means making a memory

You'd wish

You held your eyelids open

Just long enough

To record

The things

You might never forget

Or have a photograph

To remember by.

This Present Day

The barriers

Are within

this present day

This present day

Demands that I live it

Full

Fuller

Fullest

Fully in this present day

The living isn't the hurdle

The living with it is

Is living life

To the fullest

For only the young?

Is throwing caution

Out there

Self-care

Or Selfish?

Will I be alive

In the end

To know the difference?

Life up close and personal

She sits
squarely 

in the valley

of her imagination

Peering

over the hills

at the life

that has passed her by.

All escape routes

blocked

in the face of a pandemic

Travel is

for brochures

Running

requires a mask
Leaving

is left

with no place

to go

This may be 

 a deliberate exercise

on nature's part

to bring people

closer to

the full-frontal

raw reality

of their existence

There's nowhere to go

but here

You are

up close and personal

With the life 

you chose

or the one

that chose you

How do you like

them apples now?

Pandemonic

Pandemic
pandemonium
A crisis by any other name
would still smell like grief
Did we ask for this?
Careless and cavalier
disregard the wisdom
of the ones who knew
and the ones who know how
not to turn the lights off
on the world
as we know it
We've learned nothing
from the past
Maybe it's because
the lessons were not passed
from their plagued
lips to our ears
We're throwing back
these days
to fascism
the Great Depression
Sinking stocks
squandering supplies
When the course
of rescue
is chartered by the wealthy
and the wicked
safe harbored
with nothing to lose
the rest of us
have nothing
left to choose.

Freight train

In the event
my heart should cease

its 78 beats per minute

percussion to life

I hope you know

I cherish 

the image

of you 

in repose

lost in thought
Arms over your head
I imagine

keeping time

to the tune of freight trains 

in the distance

barreling toward each other

on separate tracks
at 40 beats per minute

like I did you.