The really bad people are rare Lois
Even their worst inquities are finite in duration
The length of their tyranny only quantifying their depravities depth

And even they have to let it go
Because bile sits only in the ones gut so long
Before vesicating a hole
bringing forth dry heaves
And wretching
Then at long last expulsion


If you knew me as a child
You’d know I was what Freud called a "hysterical vommiter"
My stomach's revost
The syptom of a basic decency
A claim you ad-hoc retort
At your slightest offense
With a "But you said...
Or a "So I’m just a ...
Incapable of seeing a barbs intention
Self-defensive, self-preservative
Withering under the weight of hyperbole
Too strong to deny the remains of my pride
In a basic decency intact
Despitesurviving attack from every side

I'll walk away stomach atwirl
From the wear
Penniless

Your recriminations always take form as outrage over an insult
A fine silencer for unrelenting assaults
That you only own in the dark
Attacking your ghosts from somewhere elsewhere in time
By getting your pound of flesh out of me

"I’m a good guy," you too often claim
I thought I was one too
But now I recognize the vacuous pull of empty vanities
Acts speak louder than intentions
Hearing counts more than being heard
Letting go increases the ability to hold fast
What you hold dear
Your ghosts that you see inside me

It's the monster that ate your leg yesterday
And your hand today
Just to make sure you didn't go hungry and die
Ghosts you can't live without
For they made you
Your mother
Your father
Your sister
Your brother
Your teacher
Your lover
Your boss
Fractions of the past
Made whole in a present
What are they but vapors made flesh by insecurity and distrust?

There are no nightmares Lois
They’re daymares of night
Hidden by the glare flashed in their kindred eyes

I’m undefeated
Just broken of body
Limping
Away to who knows where
To hopefully heal
But away no less from recriminations unkind
Take Vino and Bella and Grandma
You never take what's best in me
As I stagger deliberately toward a blue horizen you can't see without my eyes
Eyes you want to suck
And you wonder why you scare me


There are very few real bad guys Lois
Just porcupine people
Shell shocked and trembling
From worldly bumps and rubs
With conventions fitting no one
That by scen5t of threat stilleto-like eject their quills
Nicking all in near proximity
Friends and foes
With final determinations only to be gleaned ex-post-facto
In bottom lines
A sum talleyed only by the punctured
On a score card the other can’t pinch
And fill in as they see fit
But with score only the keeper believes

It’s all too personal
Though it doesn't even involve the other
It’s all too strange