Mirror Images

I saw a man outside in his yard
mowing dirt.
The grass that was once lush
had grown thin and fallen
out of his head,
like a jigsaw without its corner pieces:
not quite finished
and still fragile to the touch.
I thought I would break.
(Perhaps another time.)
My eyes were swollen shut
and I fell into an oblivion
which used to be my bed.
There was no notice,
(nor descent)
no universe, no laws
and Emily was there.

One Day

Your fingernails grow long,
as does your hair,
you have become a man.
And soon you will leave me
teetering on the brink of insanity,
and my nails, short and ragged,
will wait to run through your hair once more.

Excerpt from "Breakfast Of Champions"

By: Kurt Vonnegut

Kilgore Trout has pulled out an old tuxedo in preparation for an Arts Festival. He is talking to his parakeet, Bill.

He dabbed at his tuxedo with a damp rag, and the fungi came aways easily. "Hate to do this, Bill," he said of the fungi he was murdering. "Fungi have as much right to life as i do. They know what they want, Bill. Damned if I do anymore."
The he thought about what Bill himself might want. It was easy to guess. "Bill," he said, "i like you so much, and i am such a big shot in the Universe, that i will make your three biggest wished come true." He opened the door of the cage, something Bill couldn't have done in a thousand years.
Bill flew over to a windowsill. He put his little shoulder against the glass. There was just one layer of glass between Bill and the great out-of-doors. Although Trout was in the storm window business, he had no storm windows on his own abode.
"Your second wish is about to come true," said Trout, and he again did something which Bill could never have done. He opened the window. But the opening of the window was such an alarming business to the parakeet that he flew back to his cage and hopped inside.
Trout closed the door of the cage and latched it. "That's the most intelligent use of three wishes i ever heard of," he told the bird. "You made sure you'd still have something worth wishing for- to get out of the cage."

Save Tonight

Sleepy eyes,
amber haze,
distorted senses.
First place doesn't mean victory
because i never finished what i started.

I drew your face
on an Etch A Sketch,
one line, two lips
your hand guided me
as i wrote your name
with a syringe full of air.

And you looked down upon me
with your beautiful eyes,
and your beautiful hair,
and your beautiful jaw,

(still and slightly broken)

as it rested on my shoulder.

As for you,
my badly drawn boy,
with your sideways movies,
you tend to create such
beautiful
oil paintings in the sky.