The Writings of a Ginger

i see you in the morning.
You fly on sunbeams to come and
smile me awake. 

i feel You in the leaves that
brush my cheek, carried
by the life of a summer’s breeze. 

i smell You in wintery nights,
a breath of cold kissing my face.
i feel You in sweaters that give
relief to frozen muscles. 

You are the first sip of tea
and the last bite of chocolate. 

i see You in every piece of pollen
hidden in every flower; the
essential element that saves
each one from loneliness. 

You are the one
holding up the sky,
keeping it from crashing
and drowning me. 

You are the one
that closes tired eyes
and breathes sweet dreams
into my life.

Everyone stinks of cigarettes
and hopes drowned in cheap
beer and week-old grease.
They quiet silences with talk of hunting
and stuff mouths with bloody meat,
washed down with a glass full of bullets. 

The sun strikes with rays of bullets,
burning skin like crushed cigarettes,
ash shoved into tender meat.
The air suffocates, thick and cheap,
constantly searching and hunting
for a throat to coat with grease. 

Everything is coated in grease:
the parking lots littered with shells of bullets,
the woods and men hunting,
the gas stations and boxes of cigarettes,
the strip malls filled with cheap
boxed wines and old meat. 

They eat only unidentifiable meat
and different colored grease.
And everything tastes so cheap,
chewy fat or tough as bullets,
dissolving in saliva like worn cigarettes,
food that mold successfully hunts. 

And, oh, how the men hunt!
For anything that resembles meat,
mouths open for swears and cigarettes,
guns gleaming with grease.
Deer run from sudden bangs! and bullets;
a life seen as nothing but cheap. 

That’s all that matters: cheap.
Discount stores for bargain hunting
20% off of televisions and bullets
And, look, half priced canned meat
Two for one bottles of bacon grease.
Leaving enough money for our cigarettes. 

It’s filled with cheap mattress stores and restaurants with
greasy tables and meat. Look out for stray bullets that
hunt for those that stray from this cigarette life.

When the intruder came into my office, I was certain I was going to kill him.

Perhaps my leap to violent thoughts that night sprang from the night itself and my own paranoia.  The windows of the office appeared to have been painted black, and I felt so alone in the nearing dark when all my coworkers were at home with their husbands or wives and their two and a half kids.  I had nothing back at my home except my work, which I normally did sitting on my couch as Netflix played me old episodes of Doctor Who.  But that night I decided to stay at the office instead.  I can’t exactly remember why.

Living on my own had made me rather paranoid.  The ice machine in my fridge back home always startled me.  I had three locks on my front door, which I secured instantly upon returning home, and another on my bedroom door that I locked whenever I was changing or sleeping.

During lunch, I devoured an energy drink because I had been up till three or four in the morning due to a Lord of the Rings marathon.  It caused my hands to shake, my knees felt weak, and an overdose of caffeine manifested itself as a ball of nervous energy clumped in the pit of my stomach.

Oh.  And I really needed to piss.

I wasn’t exactly in the Zen state of mind normally necessary when dealing with an immediate threat.  I glanced up nervously with every flicker of the fluorescent lights.  God, I hate fluorescent lights.

I’m not sure how he got in, but I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye.  When I saw him, I recoiled in fear, uttering a terrible half-scream that I’m not entirely proud of.  His body was covered in black, causing him to meld with the shadows.

I scrambled through my desk, guided by touch as I never wanted to remove my eyes from his sight.  My paranoia had caused me to always be ready.  My fingers felt my weapon, cold metal tingling on my fingertips.  Smooth and comforting to my shaking hands.

I gave no warning.  I felt none was necessary.  I fired.  His body reacted with shock and scurried around the room in complete surprise and fear.  But I continued.  Firing again.  And again.  And again.  I continued even when  his body was motionless, lying on his back with stiff limbs.

I did stop eventually.  My breath slow, my weapon shaking in my hands.  I leaned back against my desk, staring at the corpse in front of me.

God, I hate cockroaches.

My life exists somewhere in boxes of novels
and cheap notebooks and colored ink.
It is hidden in every bite of chocolate
and it can be read in lingering tea leaves.
It can be glimpsed in silly television shows
but not many movies.
It runs and fights through video games.
It hides in unposed photographs and
the silence between conversations.
It can be heard in music, singing
acapella loudly and unpretty.
It appears in bruises that suddenly appear,
origins unknown but for clumsy movements.
Pieces of my life remain scattered and separate,
but when I’m with you, I am one.

Your words are malleable.
Changed by my own mind,
altered to make my emotions
seem worth all the effort.
Your syllables slip as clay slips
from apathetic fingers to form
simple words that I then shape
into complex meaning.  But

I heard you that night, when
our hearts rained form our
mouths to form puddles of
words upon my sheets.
In that pond of letters, I
thought I saw the proof that
I am no longer alone, but my
eyes strung together what they
yearned to see.  And you, you
who remain oblivious, becomes
revised and rewritten and
made into fictitious facts. 

To know your truth
I’d know my death.
And I don’t want to die just yet.

I hear your song all around me,
a violin strung with marionette strings,
forcing me to move to it’s bitter beat
with steps stained with salty ink and
black tears trapped in eyelashes.
I try to break out,
thrashing with teeth and nails and
ignorance, and I move,
gradually feeling muscles shift under
the urging of my own thoughts.
And I’m happy,
laughing through the uncomfortable feel
of a smile.  But I
didn’t know that
you held my strings
the whole time. 

I found you once in my dream,
hiding behind me,
whispering into my ear
hushed words that draw blood, sharp as
insecurities,
shards of glass falling with hail,
and I woke in all this pain
that light could not heal,
dream wounds imprinted on me.

need not be suffocated by
words left unattached from
meaning, hanging in front of
our faces, obscuring my view
of your eyes.  The
quiet does not define us,
but comforts us, wrapping us
in one blanket that gives warmth
to our iced feet and provides
a haven where we can
whisper silent words to one another.

The soft click,
similar to the soft tapping
of tears against pavement,
as the lock slides into place. 
One piece of metal that separates
individuality from the outside world
that seeks to find
the tears in the rainstorm and
the bruises hidden under jeans.
One piece of wood that makes
one feel lonely and secure. 

Envy. Wanting to swallow
All in vibrant explosions,
Like eating meat so raw
The blood runs down your chin.
Doesn’t calm but excites and
Moves the nerves to action:
Fingers that long to grasp and
Legs that are forced to walk
When they wish to run.