Eating glass for breakfast,
the crunch of the edges only makes you smile.
It's been a hard life.
Stuffed animals with the fur worn off,
scratched black plastic eyes.
Nothing reflected there and
no mercy for the weak.
It's been a hard life.
And when the traffic light flicks orange,
for just a moment you bow your head,
and feel the sadness rage through.
Then grimace, accelerate and go forward.
No one there to help
and forward is all that is left.
Choking on your breath, and forward
leads to a special kind of hell.
But nothing to do for it.
Forward and onward.
It's been a hard life.

RABBIT’S FOOT
Insert a rabbit's foot in her mouth and call 911,
She's gone seven fathoms deep, fishing for something,
And she says she talks too much, at all the wrong times.
Here: take this cup from my lips.
I'll not drink from it anymore.
She wraps it in newspaper,
the writing of an archaic language,
and thrusts it forward.
Lips pursed: determined yet lost,
moving forward rapidly toward the shadow-life;
shadow hopes and shadow dreams.
Always waiting for jam yesterday
and jam tomorrow against borrowed words.
It tastes like chocolate... hope does.
And despair wraps around like a hug
that only later becomes a python, cracking ribs,
and breaking hearts.

Let's go down...
into full dark
where there are no stars left.
Noses chafed raw from cold and bad food,
Health, sunny days, mowed lawns...
these are things from a dream.
Here, we all dream in red
til' it fades to black and white
and finally a muted murky gray.
You know rage
avoid the eyes, glass windows to the soul
the contact is painful
because there is no love there
only looking straight through you
or seeing less
and then you become less--
seen through their eyes--
which are never kind
unless the right key is presented.
Puzzles were always my forte,
but there is no logic here.
Only a maze of nightmare dreams,
tears stifled in a pillow.
###$ him and her and you.
Scream and scream and scream
yet you make no sound
and when the sun rises high at noon,
you cast no shadow
in any direction.