Fall of Babylon

I can remember where

we were, but only

because the picture

tells me so.

Not the exact moment—

but memory serves me,

over easy

cold breakfast conversations.

Playing games

on the back of a cereal box,

waiting for you

every day,

offering up mere Fruity Os

however well

you can see through them,

the bag,

and my veiled intentions.

Dainty, child-like fingers

small enough

to ring me a winner.

Choosing your suitor

based on the flavor of the day.

Struck with this, not

once, but twice,

breaking our engagement

as you stand,

cutting me open and

spilling my remains along the ground.

People pass us by, and

will forever walk all over me,

crushing me beneath their heels,

to sugary powder—

the kind that tastes so

sickeningly sweet

in the milk at the end of the bowl.

Couldn’t always hang onto

you, your gaze

forever, could I?

Forever unsure of the right words

to use and

where to place them,

with the perfect caption

next to the snapshot

of our “lives.”

These ideas expressed

I’ve longed to write,

these scribbling which will

somehow find their way

into a slushpile of works-in-progress,

and anthology, perhaps,

a future I always meant to

write, until I was written off.

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The television shows

flicker and flash,

a continual burn and crash,

of images immolated

burned

into the screens

of our collective unconsciousness,

unfiltered.

Beyond our wildest

imaginations, playing with us,

over and over, again and again,

nothing

we want to see,

can’t help but look.

People pressing in,

unable to breathe,

constricting movement

to any other place

than here.

Up, up, up those steps

longing for

the answer at the top.

Wouldn’t be climbing them

without the promise

of the stairway

that leads to cleaner breathing air.

So much for comfort,

this empty space between the beds,

hard and unyielding,

like your heart,

open for suggestion.

Even as towers fell,

I was erecting my own.

Wish I could say mine

withstood terroristic tests of time.

Pedestal’s placement,

the mortar mixed,

mistakenly.

Nothing like

tragedy to tear

things apart.

My mind was on this morning.