Coming of Age

Intriguing, inquisitive, inexplicable,

The mustard grooves,

Saucy, spicy, and livid.

Sacred animal winces,

Scared, wild eyes-

Stuck inside tradition.

Velvet, smooth, unfriendly-

The color of smoke on a rainy day

Can smell like fun.

Youthful, vibrant, unsure,

Ponies gallop nowhere,

Fish flop, gills grow, whiskers moistened.

Trading shots, sipping warm fluids,

Smiling angrily,

Chewing on cud, on concepts.

Peaceful, awake, masculine, feminine.

Get up. Grow up.

Now.

Bacon

Forbidden, but friendly,

Everyone is your pal.

Even your enemies

Secretly stalk

Your inherent goodness.

Malevolently sliding,

Through a slimy pool,

That chews and crunches

Your salty heart

And spits you under ground.

A joke that’s not funny,

That has been played and replayed,

Until campy humor evaporates,

And all that’s left

Is a crispy strip of wonderful, magnificent bacon.

Whispers

Chided and derided,

Apathy, not empathy-

Alone, too close to the bone.

For all our eyes to see.

Strung out or restrung,

A maiden made of maple-

Forever is so brief,

When time decides it’s so.

Aware of angular stares,

Peering out from the corners.

Taking it in,

But never giving it back.

Inherently hairless,

Growing only palm fronds.

Brown and black give way

To a forgotten day.

Louder than silence,

Intense, it’s screaming blindly-

Pain and knowledge,

In a secret, quiet breath.