Gaps, patches and in-betweens

Millions of tiny, damp footsteps on a stampede coming towards me,  slipping through holes in the tin roof.  The w aterfall is in my room. I watch the uneven shower gather into a puddle and decide to creep toward my mattress, bed sheet, and blanket. I listen as my body lies on sponge. It is louder at night, like full-on stereo surround sound. But that's only because the world at night is dark, where everything seems more...intense and in slow motion. My tiny room seems caught in a photograph, frozen l ike a suspended moment in the movies, like receiving bad news. Only time moves and the damp spot of water soaking the mattress some more. The downpour is constant, hypnotic. When it changes tempo, it is only changing its direction.  I remain in my sponge. The sky and sea can only gather so much water. The winds howl around in confusion. The footsteps are no longer tiny but of giants slipping on the roof. The sky is angrier with pent-up heat, stoked b...

I find myself standing in the middle of the road facing a barrier of mahogany trees. To my left is a welcoming blanket of small yellow leaves on the ground waiting for the others to fall from the tree.  To my right, I see two paths, one with green wild grass taller than me and the other one, a dead end. Above are thin brush strokes against a canvas so blue that for a minute I thought I hear waves. The colors of reality scream at me as if I've lived in black and white, muted dreams all along until The scent stung my nostrils like everything we put on our bodies to mask our humanity all in one moment spat out by a blob that was holding it all in for 42 years. The smell of leaves, freshly cut grass and sunlight on hair and skin burns. I see red. Bright, enveloping, causing me to palpitate in fear of the living. "I am an X in an indeterminate equation. And that X is the rock upon which I stand." - Mario Puzo

Containers occupy the spaces I call my life. From the coffee mug that kicks me awake in the mornings To the fat beer bottle that knocks me off reminding me that I am only human and I need to call it a night. Or a day. I open shampoo and soap bottles to wash off the smell of cigarettes also kept in a tin box to hide the hideous habit from the morals of the world, juxtaposing my stand because I smoke in public anyway. The deodorant to the lotion I apply on my skin the first to keep it dry and the second to save it from dryness and shrivel, And humiliation from people I do not even know, much less care about. The clothes I put on that cover my body also conform To the weather, to where I am going. I travel to the office in an enclosed vehicle full of strangers Or if I have the money with just the taxi driver and myself So I can go to another container where I can earn back what I paid the taxi. My office room contains my body 8-5. My thoughts and ...

I sit through spaces with energies going around when I squat with my thoughts among mahogany leaves falling as I ward off a work feeling and embrace the thoughts of my daughters. I breathe through spaces where I huff and puff from the cigarette smoke or the debilitating smell of ale or caffeine and the falling leaves hit the ground scaring me of reptiles unseen and unknown in the dark like the consequences of typed-up reports or proposals or an answer to an email questioning decisions that were mine to make and only theirs to witness. I live through spaces without which I cannot move or think or feel and what is left is an immobile feeling of wanting to move again and not wanting to go anywhere unfamiliar. To just stay where I can see darkness through the pathway and hope that I can give light with the cell phone backlight and the orange tip of my cigarette. Will that be enough? Of course not. My need is more than my means whether w...