I.J. Benjamin

i remember the sixth grade
and my teacher, an old gypsy woman with thick, greasy hair,
she would shout at me with a raspy,
liquor scolded voice,
...

it would just be me
and him
and we would sit on the cold floor of the side walk
and he would draw shapes in the grass with a broken
...

i tell you now,
i'll repeat these words,

be drunk,
...

i left two scars below my feet
and i am reduced to
listening to the wet sand
as the waves lick its wounds
...

Yesterday,
the most beautiful woman in the world
was going to kiss me, except, the second
before our lips touched, i fell apart
...

I was with a girl named Kanalia
with good curves, she explained that it's Hawaiian
and that it means
beauty within a shining star
...

When it's late at night or thick in the afternoon,
or the traffic is the worst, or the toast machine is broken
and you are swimming through waves of sweaty crowds,
notice the squeak of the birds in the sky, the rattle of the pipes, the sound of everything so easily becoming
...

If I could just sleep,
If I could just leave day where it belongs with
you, with your teeth and your skin
that is smooth and smells of honey
...

my love,
i am still here, smelling you in the soil
and the little warmth left on your stone
is all but dead, i sometimes think
...

I saw a
fly
zig
zag
...

the grocery boys
and girls
at malls
and my friends
...

you can hear it go
inside a
house
when the water drips down
...

i am sitting here, watching a family
with three children eating at
six
...

hey there,
i don't wanna disturb, well
i do,
but i know you're out
...

you might think you're
free,
but you're not
...

i am nobody and
i am nothing
i merely
exist out of a need
...

yesterday
as i was sitting in the
shade,
sipping lemonade
...

...

he is not there,
you may think you saw him
standing there
you may think he even looked
...

They just be floatin'
up there, all grey and
as if resting on air
but that air might be smoke,
...