Candy Tigers

Blueberry sandwiches stain teeth
purple and she smiles at the sun,
that gazes down at her, caressing her cheeks.

Purple birds eat blackberries
and disappear into a groundhog burrow,
where they play poker for sunflower seeds.

She wants to fly to the moon
to eat stardust and bathe in moon juice,
so a silver balloon escorts her to the north
until it jerks free of her grasp on a stray gale
and leaves her alone on the ground.

An old car wreck blocks her path
its frame a heap of twisted metal and shards of glass
that cling to empty window frames like teeth:
a decaying body left to the elements.

The windshield lies on the ground before her
glittering, jagged crystals
their glamour enchanting her as she walks forth
but they bite her bare feet
and tear at her tender soles.

She knows then she can’t touch the sky
and her dreams are fleeting,
like the mosquitoes who have chewed on
her arms and stolen her blood.

Burgundy runs on top of her flesh to her
fingertips and candy tigers
made of dyed orange and black sugar
collect her blood in thimbles
and carry it to their King,
who paints pictures of the future
And dissolves into nectar when the sky descends.

White wispy clouds kiss the ground
And flying squirrels start an army
In airplanes made of diamonds.



Sometimes the world disappears and the
sky sips rain and fish turn into comets
and everything is gone but then…



She wakes up and remembers she’s alive
with blue-raspberry tinted lips and
steaming blood on her arms.

She bleeds not because of mosquitoes
or sparkling shards of glass
but because her veins are screaming
protesting the abuse she puts them through.

Her heart strains to keep up with her habits
pumping poisons through her organs
each time her trembling fingers
delicately place a colored pill on her tongue
in a desperate effort to escape reality.

Her mussed hair clings to the brick
of the old, deserted office building
that supports her nearly lifeless body
as she slumps in its abandoned doorway.

A dull needle lies near her limp hand
and she shivers in the darkness of the city
as a car alarm shrieks in the distance
and the shadows eat her alive.