nightmare

You kicked me in sleeping
late last night, I
cried out, dashed from dreams
so suddenly I forgot them
your touch ice.

I lay curled away
watching your shoulders heave,
your grunting efforts under sheets
at sanity.

I hoped the kick a sign
of triumph over those clutching fingers,
those deep dragging demons.

I hoped you'd wake and turn,
and your eyes would be yours
again, and I could touch
you without the shiver of god.

I hoped, and then I heard it that
train from my childhood
pulsing across dark waters
bearing down like screaming
its whistle a nightmare.

Then I was eight, and you were
not yet crazy, not yet you.

my room

The walls of my room are covered with words-- poems written by myself with big, black marker, poems written by others with intent. There are polaroids of sea stars, leafy sea dragons, Van Gogh's fishing boats. The walls are papered with vintage photos of Paris, circa 1938, Brassai. The walls are bare, white. The walls are translucent. There are no walls. The walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, two-way mirrors. There are no windows in my room. The walls curve-- my room is a red-veined sphere turning in on itself. My room houses grey matter.
Copper wires hang from the high ceiling of my room; I stick my index-card thoughts to them with wax. I create an internal hanging garden of essays in development-- my room is an essay garden!
Ten typewriters sit expectantly in ten corners of my room. There is a mint green one for when I feel like a girl, and a black one with spider buttons for when I feel like a boy. The broken one's for dreams, the electric one for wit, one to learn Hebrew, one to learn Dutch, one for gathering dust, one for the dispensing of cobwebs, one for tossing dramatically out windows. One has no ink and makes no noise but writes all day long all by itself and sometimes keeps me awake at night.
Music is constantly pipped into my room from invisible sources. I can hear whatever I want when I want it for free, no, even before I want it, before I think it, it plays. There is a special channel that only plays Danny Elfman, Rachmaninoff, and Saint-Saens. There is no music in my room, only the songs of birds, and the crashing of beach break. In my room I can hear the music made by the heavenly spheres as they move about.
Children run freely through my room; they pull my hair and dance through my hanging garden. I am a child with them. Sometimes I am their teacher. Sometimes I cry in my room, but not often. There is no sex, in my room.
Wrought-iron candelabras hang from my ceiling, spraying mysterious shadows into every corner. I like my corners dark and mysterious. My room supplies me with endless coffee (French-pressed Kenya, triple ristretto espresso), endless beer (oatmeal stout in winter, Highland Gaelic Ale in summer), endless cancer-free cigarettes, endless clarity of thought.
I have a closet in my room. I fold up my friends and put them in the closet, only to shake them out and wear them from time to time. In my room, I can consume those I admire. In my room, you see, I don't miss him or want her. The spaces between people are not allowed entry into my room. Do not enter! Do not exist! Here, in my darkness, I am everyone, everyone is me and I am a god, and only I exist. Here, I talk in my sleep.

WARNING

I am NOT a poet. But I like this thing, life...