#napowrmio

Everyone fought for a suitcase.

We're believable in terms of gnawing hands and wretched tears, sliding down until they met the marble floor and combusted. We're not because we want something beyond the gold and the leather--a ticket to citrus-scented skies dusted with sand.

Everyone clawed for something better.

A thread of gold suddenly shaking loose; dust scatters through the tiles, and then slither their way through the cracks. My cheek lands on the tile; I taste rotting blood, but I don't want to ask who betrayed me, because I will one day have to betray him.

Everybody ran with a body part.

Everything will be repaired in its own time, years after we learned how to stitch flesh and make concoctions which allow us to face each other with clarity.

Today we painted a garden

And clutched hands And twined our bodies together watercolored our roots With whatever color our palette chose for us

Today we dressed up in collared shirts and fancy dresses For a bedroom dance party Blasted electro-swing and alt-j from your laptop And flashing fairy lights I showed you my dance moves and you liked them.

Today we rolled on the ground cutting out flower-snowflakes And trying to frame our masterpiece If you took a picture of the configuration of our bodies on the floor I’m sure we would look like two planets Orbiting each other under a strobe light of stars

There’s nobody I’d rather share this with The spontaneity of dopamine All rushing down our veins The happiest I found myself Was sitting next to you, Watercoloring our garden

Splay your tree branch limbs and kindly ask the blades of grass to hold your weight on their bending green shoulders

If i could change one rule of the multitudes of social mores I'm so bad at following i would stretch out my body flat against the ground and ask you to sit down with me so we could stare at the sky together.

i remember my mom telling me to stay standing in public spaces i guess sitting on the floor was reserved for the privacy of your own house if you had one

If I could paint her at her worst she would be biting back the words at the tip of her tongue in her near infinite compassion her only blind spot smelled like cheap beer and clothes pressed down against streetlit sidewalks and day old newspapers

It's illegal to sit on sidealks nowadays. I guess there are some things only money can buy.

My mom still fears the homeless.

The current art

changing within weeks,

months,

very few continue to

stay in place.

From the tiniest

of feet, to those who

need assistance to get around,

a place for all

smiles & minds alike.

Music plays

can hear from Publics

idk how many

blocks away,

but still bringing smiles

to all minds

every night.

Twenty years ago

I don’t remember

the date,

but I remember that night

and how it changed my life.

I was lying in bed

taken to that far away land

greeted by a familiar bird,

tall and yellow

but no hello.

His orange beak changed

two white teeth hung

yet stayed,

like how vampires hung

did he want to suck my blood?

He also had on

this blowing

all my thought,

a black, thick long coat

but why, he’s a bird!

Then to my surprise

a third “fright”

appeared in wight,

an adult bike showed up

vroom vroom, about to drive off.

I awake in a fright

this should not be

in a five year old’s mind,

that morning I couldn’t bear

seeing his normal face and hair.

Twenty years later

most of this

has come to pass,

but I’m still a bit eerie

when I see that bird come to play.