Whisper-screams

Remember the night we
whisper-screamed

careful not to rustle
crinkling jackets and
soggy jeans

just in case we missed
a buzz, a word, a murmer?

Color Desire

At night I am still a child.
My mind studies the day a million miles from my body's desire to sleep. Restless, weary, tied up and tied down by strained, stressed and knotted blankets- my eyes remain the amber attraction of floating particles, illuminated in a copper stream above my bed.

The cold smell of blue moon rays, piercing through my sheets, bursts into fruit flavored nostalgia.

The foggy lamp light outside my cold bedroom encloses the night in a hazy shroud, not unlike the spindly exhalation of a wet breath against a cotton candy sky.

Reaching toward the thick, smoggy light, my hand is precariously encased in saran wrap textured glass.

I bend and I fold outward,
downward,
toward the spongy landscape of cherry blossom grass and sparkling clean footprints, rising like Lego blocks and checkering the scene for miles.

I have yet to spot the luscious light of my first stirring.
A powerful, skulking form makes its way across my weightless, crayon-box path. A tremor seizes the tree to my right as the heavy night sky opens her mouth and swallows the mysterious mass like a left over bon bon.

Finally, I recognize the cinnamon bread light suspended before the cedar post, dropping crumbs of glowering embers, like a careless, cookie-munching child.

Thickly, I tear a portion, throbbing with life and breath and lust in my palms, just large enough to fill my mouth

open, warm, waiting.

villainous exchange

toes precedent to heel- feet land gently.
additional limbs hang limp until folded onto the ground;
Billy rests safe; a silent form of breath and sweat and dissipating fear.

the rippling, thunderous hero drinks in the view.
he notes encroaching clouds, threatening to burst from heavy bellies, a torrent of acidic rain.
alert eyes pierce through dense, night air
with high-resolution, amber tainted night vision.

he studies the boy’s tarred clothing and black, scuffed converse,
evidence alluding to a recent struggle; resistance.
not more than seven, eight at most,
without aid, the limber child would not have managed long.
one round, grapefruit-colored cheek smashes down into the sepia toned cement
causing a bubble of flesh to swell across his lips, nose, eye.
a quick scan of the area gives assurance of safety.
time to go.

yet he is drawn towards the flimsy cotton t-shirt,
his unbiased vision detecting a glimpse of amber-gold beneath.

his heart maintains rhythm
his breath does not catch
his brow knows no perspiration;
he is, after all, a superhero.

a bat figure,
a small, lifeless pendant strung along a worn, leather string,
glares red now, like a tail light or a stop light or a sign spelling out
E-X-I-T.

his child,
his child,
His:

wakes alone
to invasive pellets
of heavy rain.