Conversations Among the Ruins

Gold morning sun on
sea foam green sheets
to match the dust covered

feather fire wig.

Hush darling with that
sun kissed face - like a
tangerine dream or a

kalidascope of filthy
diamonds - wicked candy
teeth for those putty

red lips and an extended
pointer finger - chugging
chardonnay without a
vintage in a

sparkly gray scarf - the
bathroom
is filthy it carries
the decision lost in

puffed out face powder
staining a crimson couch.

Silky red hair it was in
curlers all morning until

the meth that kept her
waist the right size picked up
her hand and shaved her head.

Glamour figurines and
barbies with ratted hair
get just as listless
as each other, with

different prices
they were all

used in
play.

Sometimes I walk in
catacombs of
nightclub hallways

trying to get through
people to a velvet rope
that becomes a noose

in the end of the dream.
Looking down from a
balcony at everything I

allowed myself to lose
and I

wake up to the real
light

to the gold
morning sun

wearing three feet
of exquisite real hair

that grew out as I
grew up.

None of us
are not

scared and I
am married to

my fear today. It
impressed me with a

seven carat ring.
I scrape it
along my cheek

every five seconds.
It makes me fancy and
impressive but always

wondering when
I get to leave it
in a bathroom

I wait in line for
at a fast food
restaurant.

In a ripped leather
coat in a tiny boarder
town,

where I shave my
head again

just before
crossing

over.

Like a good mommy I
took her to the vet today.

Thought a lot about
being a kid and taking
my childhood dog, also

a dachshund, to the vet
when she was a tiny puppy.

Today I have on faded
ripped denim and a
Chicago Bears hoodie,

generic ugg boots and my
hair is too long and in
my dog's mouth.

Sometimes I transcend time -
I swear it. Was I the intimidated,
bored child

holding the nervous, screeching
dachshund in 1991 or is it
twenty twelve and I'm an

adult holding a snoozing,
calm dog of the same breed

in my lap? I have to go back
every day sometimes in order
to talk to myself

as a child
as an adolescent
as a young adult

in order to move on and
appreciate the authenticity
of each moment - created by

the choices that are the right
ones - the choice to bring
myself closer in order to learn

who and what
that is.

I love it in this step,
my grand ringmaster,
you are and all that you

did to me, to make me
believe that I

wasn't a person, or a
place or even a
thing.

After you, I spent all
of my time trying to fill
all that I wasn't

with people and
places and

things.

Ill fitted choking out
sour pills in a sparkly
dress -

fried hair and
lights.

My life is Tom Petty
today on a freeway
with my dog.

Amazed I made it.
Wondering if I

ever will. I catch
seventy two minute
intervals of

balance, like a
maniac in a fantasy

where I can only
walk out

of the doors I've
stepped into

decades of lifetimes
farther off.

Phobic
of watches and

all the mirrors are
cracked for years now.

Sometimes I think I've
died and I kept living
in a parallel universe

where I didn't, but
somewhere
back there

I'm already gone.
People are mourning
me and I don't even

know it. But sometimes,
like deja vu, for an instant
it all balances

and I see
what I feel. In a
vet clinic

with paper work
and ripped jeans and

love.