a mission worth dying for.

She walked slowly at first, ignoring the brisk wind that slapped her coat around her, her sneakers making the cracked sidewalk sound like eggshells. Her heartbeat was in her ears and pumped furiously into her fingertips and she asked herself again if this was a good idea. Loud sirens and angry car motors whipped around her face, burrowing into her ears, implanting themselves in her thoughts. She breathed deeply, exhaling loudly and touched the pack of cigarettes her pocket held for her. She touched her other pocket, looking for the green Hula girl lighter she hoped it still held. It did. She took out both, ripping the cellophane off of the box's outside, and crunched the foil that stood between her and the package's contents. Flick the lighter, pull on the cigarette, exhale, she reminded herself firmly. Her hands shook against the cigarette's filter and she drowned out the whispers in her head telling her to turn back with the rhythm of her fresh sneakers against the gravelly sidewalk, listening for the inevitable scrape that would tell her she of course was nervous, as though the sound of her heart in her ears wasn't enough. She put her mind back to waking up that morning, her balcony door open and the crashing waves cooling her heated thoughts, the way the sheets and he held her carefully, and how the stillness vaguely reminded her of the streetlights flickering glow on the benches below. There was something else, but she couldn't remember what it was. She remembered hearing the phone ringing, his low voice asking her collarbone what time it was, and then the voice on the answering machine, the same voice that had forced this adventure upon her. She chuckled to herself. Adventure. Yeah, you could call it that. She walked faster now, reaching to her back pocket to retrieve the slip of crumpled paper that explained her final destination, and told her she wasn't far. She flicked her cigarette into the busy street with the resounding snap of her fingernail. A shiver shot down her back from her shoulders all the way to her tailbone, and she reluctantly started up the stairs. The door creaked open, the same way her mind was creaking open to let in the realization of what she was doing, and it slammed against her back; forcing her and the realization inside. The round plastic impressions in the floor were meant to give the walker traction, but instead reminded her of a pirate ship. The deck swabbing, the clink of the rum bottles, and the constant taste of greasiness behind the molars. Brazenly, she proceeded to the desk, and a woman resembling a dinosaur asked for her name and purpose. She set her backpack down softly, hearing the weight inside shift. The drought in her throat only allowed her to croak, "These." She unzipped her backpack slowly, letting the sound echo through the room. She plunged her hands inside, knowing it was too late to run, and pulled out the contents, flinching as she placed them in front of Dinosaur Lady. Dinosaur Lady pulled the stack toward her, and opened the top one. "Overdue, I see." She spoke over the top of her glasses. "I'm sorry. I just had to know what happened in the end." She fumbled in her coat pocket until she found a five dollar bill. "You can keep the change." She placed it on top of the stack and grabbed her backpack, on the defense. Dinosaur Lady smiled, a smile that seemed like it might crack the dry skin that surrounded the hot pink lipstick. "It's okay, darling. We all forget to return books sometimes. Nothing we'll take your library card away for, though." She smiled back, and followed the exit sign back to the safety of the sidewalk, and away from the chaos of dinosaurs running a library.

-LBR

swallowing rocks.

The day tasted like it was going to be boring. The air tasted stale, the store was stagnant, and I was only half awake. Then there was blackness, covered in dirt and the smell of old food and pavement. The jacket hung around the drooping shoulders of a man with a huge smile and a wildness in his eyes that I could not make sense of. Unlike the woman recklessly flipping through kid's jeans like dog-eared magazine pages, he was not clutching a Starbucks cup of caffeine that tasted like money, wasn't trying to get better cell phone reception by shoving a Blackberry three quarters of the way into his brain, and wasn't carrying any packages that should have been made of recycled credit card statements. There was a mysterious bulge in the side of the coat that protected him from the infectious materialism that hung lightly in the air, threatening to trap anyone who let their guard down. He spoke frantically to Justin, desperately trying to figure out whether or not he could have the black backpack that hung over our heads, like the guilt that hung over mine. As they talked business, I drifted into my own thoughts, regressing heavily into the guilt that washed over me in waves, wondering yet again, if I could have saved her, had I just noticed that she needed me. The clicking of the computer keys brought me back, forcing the guilt back into the bricks that rested on my shoulders. "$44.67, please." Justin spoke softly, an intonation that I rarely heard in his voice, and as I turned to look at the two, I saw Justin's ghosts of the past drifting out the door. The man reached into the inner pocket of his coat, and to both mine and Justin's surprise, he withdrew an envelope of cash, and laid the requested amount on the counter. I grabbed him and held him tightly in my arms, whispering in his ear that I was proud of him and that no matter what he had lost in the past, no one could take that away from him. He looked me in the eye, the wildness in his gaze almost intimidatingly real, and told me to stop judging people, and realize that the goodness of people would come out if I set up a proper stage for it. He began to slip out of my arms, fading into the floor, and I screamed-cried-begged him not to leave me there, but he continued to fall. I clawed angrily at the floor, determined to help this man and get him a better life, shouting at the top of my voice that he was a good man, that whatever miracle had brought him the envelope had made him good enough to spend the money on something useful and had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. Drugs and alcohol, the two things that could have made his reality more bearable, but no, the money went to a backpack, a container that would hold the things he held most dear, hold his stories and his answers to the questions I had not even thought of yet. I was wasting it, throwing away what he probably had dreamt of for years. He was falling faster now, smiling and telling me not to worry. My frustration was growing exponentially, ticking upwards on the bulletin boards of stock prices, and I screamed louder now, offering to help and give him anything he wanted, if only he would stay. Thousands of pairs of hands grabbed at him now, pulling him away into the darkness, my tears forming puddles around his ankles, covering his sneakers that looked like they might share my date of birth. I fell to the ground crying, praying that my tears would bring him the luck he needed. "Have a nice day, sir." I blinked, and Justin's words brought me back to the scene before me. The man thanked Justin thoroughly, waving, smiling, nodding, gratefully. I watched him turn and swagger out of the door, feeling the pieces of my heart that he'd left shattered in my chest poke bones and organs. I stared at where he'd stood, at the nonexistent rivers of my tears where his feet had been planted. I prayed for someone to take care of him, and walked dazedly into the back room.

-LBR

fireside gambling.

A distant star in the sky,
Fades with time, like the glow in your eyes.
When you push back the curtain, with your fingers shaking
Wondering if looking to the star is the first mistake you’re making.
Feeling the glass against your nails, thinking to all the thoughts snaking
Through and through your head.

Lean back and breathe deeply
Take the time to get your head straight
In the midst of time, it won’t wait
But you can’t either, it’s time for you to initiate
The change that will rest your head easier in the night.

Breathing the blue light, watching the light from the window fall
Across the floor and the ceiling and the sky and the tall
Curtains that want to ban you from seeing something so small
That is in fact not small at all
But will one day fall.
The light that glows is the one that comes out at night and shows
Everyone what they need to see, for one night it
Covers the holes and makes the good seem to grow
And multiply into a real equation that everyone can see
And then know that they can be what makes us all feel so free.

The change is always the hard part,
But in the end it’s inexcusable to ignore all the holes
Unless you sew up the holes in the bottom of your souls
Down to the soles of your sneakers that have survived all of time’s tolls,
But they’ll stay on, just keeping on with the roll
Of adventurous spirit.

It takes a special sky to change your mind
To show the parts you try to ignore, only seeing the pieces that are torn and
You can’t seem to fix with just one kind
Of desperate measures of change with the only things you find
In the back of your closet under the clothes and snow boots and tennis rackets.
Deep in the depths of the reds and blues that twist and wind
Around each other and through a strange terrain of tiny pieces that build a puzzle
Deep in the puzzle there is a bit of seamless good
That should make us look past the dark black and put
The green at the top of the list simultaneously unclenching that fist and I know you could
Just see it if you look hard enough past your self-effacing mist.

The adventurous spirit is the troublesome one,
Because it’s hard to put away, it’s hard to time it out, it’s hard to know when its time is done.
But the time is now to pull back the shade
To look to your poker hand, and win with that spade, seeing them all
Laid out across the table, smile on your face
Proud of your victory, proud of your pace and the fact that you never left a trace
Of truth across your lips to bluff your way into it
Into the spirit that will make it all worth it.

-lbr.

A Dream Transcendental

Saturday morning, eleven o'clock,

The sunlight cascading through the branches and treetops -

From the heavens to my window -

And all I can think about is the way your hair catches the sun,

The way it lays on your neck when you sleep, rising and falling

With each breath.

All I can think about is the way your voice sounds,

The way your breath feels warm and soft on my neck,

And I wish you'd whisper your first words to me when you wake.

In sleepless delirium I saw you here, but I lay alone.

When I rise - sleep clinging to me like static electricity -

The overwhelming sense of gravity offers much-needed lucidity.

Here, on this wintry Saturday morning, somewhere in the midst of suburbia,

Standing half-naked, half-awake, still transcending romance and reality

Like a dreamer set loose in 'real life.'

I see that there's something different about you, something that I can't quite

Put my finger on, something into which I'd desperately like to lose myself,

Disappear.

The First Draft of Forever.

The waves in my ears
And the soles of my feet
are the only things I really need
To get by
To get to you
Salt breeze in my teeth
Sand on my knees
Let me come get you for my adventure.
The trees seem to glow
My strength seems to grow
With every step that I take away.
I'll never leave you this way
This step step sprint way
You're the part of me that never goes away.
Swirl of flames
Your favorite drinking games
Our old band names.
You never get old
I'm not getting younger
You flatter me when I have a drink in my hand.
The drink in my hand
Takes me to dry land
Or maybe nowhere close.
You though
you're always close
Between the strands of my hair
Behind my eyes stuck in my ears I really don't care where
You'll always be there
Like a photo album of all time and I swear
That you'll never get damaged, I'll take such good care
of you, each part of you like a part me even though that just
makes "us" into "we"
Take it easy, you're just my memories.

-lbr

cartoons in black and green.

It starts with a letter
That I can't quite remember
Not here
or Now
or Tomorrow.
The draft gets so strong
When the stairs won't stay still.
The movement makes me spin in circles
Until my head is dizzy
and my brain won't stop scrambling.
Connecting the dots
With a neon line
that trails from me to there.
Finish the line
Find all the dots
I dare you.
Such things can't be discussed without a Long Island Ice Tea.

-lbr.