i watched as she took my pulse
and wondered who was there to take hers?

A rhythm forever pulsing
Beating
Flowing
Melting
Through fingertips
Through the spine
Through the very fibers
Of the mind
Time
I’m forever chasing
Hunting
Searching
For more
Just a fragment
A taste
A stitch
Cause to find
Where yours and mine
Intertwine

I saw the news of that night,
I saw the people cower in fright,
I felt their love fall to the ground,
I knew the fear would spread around,
Down in the place called Orlando

The outed, the loved, the brave,
The ones in closets, dark like a cave,
The lonely, the lovely,
The ones like dogs stomping muddily,
Down in dear old Orlando.

No one had expected what came next,
It was something like text,
You read from a book,
Now don't ever look,
Down in Orlando.

What was once a place,
A very special space,
Space for those different than him,
He thought they were a sin,
Now it's no more in Orlando.

All they wanted was love,
But their souls flew like a dove,
No more of their musical,
Wonderful, beautiful,
Lives in Orlando.

To all those,
Who rose,
To the next place,
I give you good grace.
I am sorry for all that's been done,
I know sometimes life hasn't been fun,
But you didn't deserve,
To be served,
The final, the last,
Place. I'm sad that you passed,
Into death.

I am standing in the waiting room
of the Coronary Care Unit
and I am counting because numbers
are the only things feeling real to me today.
Ten steps from the door. Nine hours into the day.
Eight times I have already said ******* under my breath.
Room number seven. Six ways that a heart can step out of rhythm.
Five people in a family that might soon be reduced to four.
Three cardiologists that cannot tell me what the hell has happened.
Rumor has it that two of those six arrhythmias are fatal. You have had one.
One door separating me from one person
laying in one room with one ventricle
that does not, will not, and cannot
pump.

We all carry someone inside of us—
someone that climbs up our spine and sleeps
on a hammock stretched across our rib cage.
Carry me and day after day
I will be your second heart,
beating outside of your chest,
reminding you of all the reasons you have
to cut yours out.

Line Dancing with Lucifer

The breeze breathes like the Earth shares
the same pulse.
I trip down the rabbit hole,
but never fall.
The tingles tickle my toes.
I listen with my eyes.
Lucy isn’t in the sky with diamonds.
She’s passed out at the hotel bar.
I trip down the rabbit hole,
But always fall.
I am line dancing with Lucifer.
Erret. The record
scratches. If he likes the way
my hips sway, then
we don’t have to make a
deal. Adios,
amigo. I’m out of this hell hole.
(Literal hole leading from Hell)
The grass smells greener and
tastes taller on the
flipside. I walk on my hands everywhere
I go. Suga ****, you on your hands again?
You’ll marry a rich man
one day, they said.  He will
walk on two feet.
Barely bipedal.
EVOLUTION IS A LIE.
Que habla me nada.
The paintings started speaking soliloquies.
To be or not to be?
I don’t remember answering
the question.
I fall down the rabbit hole but
I never trip.

Staked
to slate
by ache
and fatigue,
unmoved am i
not a breath
drawn nor exhaled
as the blistering sun
traverses
a merciless sky
like a snail.
I close my eyes
and feel the pulse
i've become,
baked, a beating
continuum.