Submissions by ChrisLeighPaige

It's raining today.
That will help.
It will drown out some of the sounds.

Bodymind is important.
Without bodymind, there are no possibilities
no salvations
no conflicts, true
but no resolutions either.

Reading "Harlem" again,
I realize that I don't have it in me
to explode. So, I set the load
on the floor, open
the sack, and take out
my soul. It looks at me,
innocent and hopeful,
but I have seen the world
and I have made my choices.

I hold it under the water
for a long time before it realizes...

These men annoy me,
and so I tease them.

They troll the dance floor
like the sharks in Nelson Bay,
confident and blind,
bottom-feeders,
their heads swollen with assumptions,
clueless that we might be dancing
just because we enjoy it.

They dream a world
where we are eager,
merchandise on display,
hoping that one of them
will say hello.

no violin plays during the conversation,
which is appropriate in that it may
mistakenly
cause someone who overhears to
feel sympathy
for the pervert.

the pervert shakes
her head, refusing
to believe that "it's weird"
is reason enough to change.

this very refusal is
taken by the judge as proof that
the pervert is still under the spell
of years wasted reading
Foucault and studying
Matthew Jackson.

but there are other reasons,
living, breathing reasons.
one of them is learning how to ride a bicycle,...