make me your bruise

I told you to wait until after the rain stopped and then let's meet in the back- yard. we took off our shoes so that we could feel the wet grass under our feet. i took your hand and you thought looking back now, this is bittersweet, sad, this is like some kind of dark poetry in a pale blue light. make me your bruise, a sigh in a warm rain, bleeding. It's bullshit. It's bad fiction.

the fact that we had to wait at all or that i could ever wait. that once could ever be enough. that i would forget any of this. we rode our bikes in the rain, it was warm as blood and everything seemed rusted. the rains come and then the storms. this is our snow: thunder, leaves falling, a break in the sky, summer down pours and lightning.

I told you if it ever got to hard. I told you to tell me your secrets and if it was hurting bad enough I would take you away. I could make you safe from them.

your bike was pink with white streamers and mine was green. banana seat, chrome sissy bar, playing cards between the spokes held in place by clothes pins. Jokers and and aces wild, the Queen of hearts for you, your favorite and the king of diamonds, mine. Our tires rubbed and bumped when we got to close to each other, racket from the cards coming down the street like engines, like machine gun fire. Your hair wet and stringy in your face like spilled ink.


where was it that you showed me your bruises? was it in the woods , was it at your house in your room?. Why was no one ever home? and tell me again where he touches you at night.
we laid down in the bathtub together when the storm came in. I was caught over your house and couldn't get home. the phone didn't work, no t.v. We thought the roof would come off, we thought the walls would cave in. Or was it that you wanted close to me?

I got in first, cold white porcelain touching my back through shirt and then you on top. The thunder made you scared and edgy. your shoulders were small, bony and then i saw the bruises. you shifted your weight, like a whisper and said it would feel better if you moved like this and it did. lighting. crash of thunder. An ACDC song in my head. closer now and the wind, and my promise.

show me where the gun is. I'll do it. So he'll never hurt you again. she only heard the rain hitting the tin roof of the old shed out back.drowning my hearts desire. Bang- bang- bang- bang. she found the spot where shadows hide inside of me. she pressed herself into it, moving, faster and then faster. slow and then slower. a sigh, the warm rain bleeding. she was crying. weeping softly i thought. but now I'm not so sure.

All is wild , All is silent

It's what i asked for because all my friends had one. My Dad didn't think it would do any harm. Me having a bb gun. So on my 10th birthday i unwrapped my first gift, a heavy little tube filled with bb's (ammo) and so i knew what the oddly wrapped item was leaning against the wall.

All those bb's I shot back home, there must be thousands of them still stuck in trees and buried in dirt. shooting up bottles, paint and beer cans, paper targets, i got to be a really good shot. Sometimes, i got the urge for something more game, more alive and i would take aim at a small animal. Directing it in my sights my finger pressed to the trigger the thinking in my head being fire- fire- fire. But, I'd suddenly be overcome with guilt and horrible sorrow. Instead id shoot the dirt and scare the animal away. life and death in my hands with no one looking but the sky and the holy ghosts. It was to much for me to handle, the temptation and not knowing what death really was. It would have been so easy but it so wasn't easy. Something to beautiful always stopping me, the fur of a squirrel, the feather of a bird and although i wanted to see it up close, make it still to study it- feel what dead was. I was to scared.

My father would tell me stories of killing in the war, somewhere over in a hot jungle and that when he was only 17. My grandfather had stories too, but he was on a Navy destroyer ship shooting down dive bombing planes. Being a kid, i only assumed id be in a war too. I'd have to kill an enemy like my father had and his father and his before. War, i thought was a part of a man's life. Killing didn't seem an option and i would sit up nights thinking about this, wondering if I could kill or how it would feel if i were to be killed. what is it going to be like?. why did i have to go kill and what if i didn't want to?. I went to catholic school where they told me killing was a sin.


I shot in the air not really aiming at the bird, but shooting anyway. I thought the bird to high, to far away, to fast , to anything until i saw it helicopter down. Until I ran over to where it had fallen in the grass by a tree. It was broken. The bird was shiny black with a beautiful red. It's eyes were open, there was no blood but it was death quiet and still. looking in it's watery eyes with my watery eyes. It was a mistake, i didn't mean to. I wasn't aiming.... i wasn't really aiming. I prayed for forgiveness. I dug a hole near the tree. I carried it over, it felt light in my hand. I covered it then made a cross out of sticks and placed it on top of the dirt. It's where i buried my shame, my mortal sin.

It's where i left my gun against the tree, out in the rain for days and days. Where my Father found it all rusty and I got yelled at for ruining it. I was hit and punished for not taking care of my things. For not caring.

a pretty girl so tired

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond the grasp, but if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

the big kids would stand on the back bumper of the ice-cream truck. harass the poor old driver. One day he got fed up and pulled a shiny silver gun. I saw it. So I know it's true. Some kid went and told his Mom and the cops came. Eddy. Eddy the Ice-cream man, that's what we called him.

screw balls, push-up, astro pops, Italian ices. Eddy. Red faced, with veins in his nose. Always sweating. wet towel wrapped around his neck. He didn't seem to like kids to much. nickles and dimes and dirty pennies with the year 1977. I have my Smokey n the Bandit shirt on and a small transistor radio is strapped the handlebars of my bike. Eddy is in handcuffs. He is ushered past me. Hands behind his back. As he passes, he says to me I'm sorry kid.
Those damn kids. he mutters to himself.

cop is looking at the shiny gun. He clicks it and a bullet falls to the ground. One in the chamber! He yells to his partner. Everyone is outside their houses now. Even those who never buy ice-cream.

My ice-cream it's started melting all over my hand. Eddy's truck is parked in the grass by my house. The music is playing. Pop- goes- the weasel. over and over.

One cop yells to the other. Shut that racket!. The bigger kids started laughing. riding their bikes along side the cop car. Eddy in the back , his head lowered to his chest.

it's enough to make you crazy....the cop says.