I have a pair of arms

Small and strong

In the day they are for me

And at night, they are for holding the inner you

Lay beside me

I’ll wrap you inside a much needed lullaby

I have no fire

I would need to burn down a forest.

But here are my fingertips

On your balding, baby brain

Let go of your stress

I’ll drown you into a sleepy baby bliss

I have no fire

I would need 100 years for that.

Sink into your books

Into your wonderful worlds of wisdom

Into the past and into the future

Ask me to read these to you

So you can finally have your heart full

I have no fire

I have no fire for YOU.

I ask God if I should change my career

God says,

I’m pretty sure you know.

I ask God if I should start to love myself

God says,

Honey, you know the answer to that.

I ask God if I should get a new boyfriend

God says,

Now, I KNOW that you know the answer to that.

I ask God if there is anything I should consult her with

God says,

Girl,

(she calls me that when she is annoyed)

For the last time, you already have the answer to that!

Plant a plant

Chant a plant

And watch it happily grow.

Grow,

Glow,

ROAR your chant

And walk with happiness

With happiness

With happiness.

Kissing without a chant

Is Death.

—

A man stands on the street corner.

“For $5 you can grow your happiness!” He laughs a toothless laugh.

“Eat this plant and grow to your highest height,” a magician says to a group of 10 year olds.

“Don’t rant,” a drugged out hippie says to another hippie at a festival. “Chant!” He laughs, swaying his arms back and forth in the air.

“You’re my happiness,” the 90 year old says to the plant next to her bed. And she kisses it with life.

What happens to a swallowed Want?

Does it wallow in the hallow caves of your heart?

Or does it slide down into your belly?

And dissolve into –Deadly–

Acid.

Rain.

Does it get absorbed into a vein

And drift its way up to your brain,

Contaminating every thought?

(The live ones, the dormant ones, the future ones…)

When it is swallowed,

Does a remnant remain on your tongue?

And gradually gurgle boiling bubbles

Erupting into fiery lava

Burning anyone in its way?

In the humid darkness of your living body,

What happens to a swallowed Want?

Does it inform?

Or does it transform?

Does a Want want?

And if so, what does it want?

To be followed?

Or simply not be swallowed?

A feather falls on your bare chest

Barely sensed

Floats up your neck

Teeny tingles

Tousle trembling goosebump hairs

In a silver daze,

It lands on your lips

Blow it to the sky

(with a barely there breath)

A feather is easily lost

In directionless wind

As in blowing your lungs into another

Misplaced.

Mishandled.

Mistreated.

Mistaken as Useless

“Miss, what is your use?”

Swooshing side

to side

Twirling left-

then right-

She peeps,

“A feather is born to tickle

Just grab me from the Sky”

The world rages. Flowers keep blooming.

Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined

The way they rest on a wooden desk on the first day of school

The way we held each other one sleepless, wordless summer night

The way our souls exist.

Fisted hand engulfed by another hand

The way paper beats rock during a tie-breaker at the end of recess

The way your life and your problems consumed me for many, many months

The way we will not be again.

Two upright hands, palm to palm

The way you’re taught to pray when you’re four years old

The way two friends—friends who are only friends (and nothing more)—coexist

The way we cannot be.

Two hands, connected by hugging thumbs

The way they’re placed right before an arm wrestle match

The way two people—ones who are partners, lovers, and friends—live

What we never were.