Dictionary Dancing

By: J.R. Harrington

1. Sacrilegious Tango

Red streaks through black skies. Deep darkness overhead, dimly lit skeletons in cramped caves. Sticky blood on light hands. Foolish lessons taught through dreams, sickness in your lungs. Impatient inpatients wanting out. Moving fast, far away. Restless energy each evening, trouble made in the nighttime.

Mysterious bags of teeth on the curbside, sore jaws and bloodied knuckles. Flowers growing on a hillside, cigarettes in the dugout. Bending to loneliness, losing sight and missing out. Streetlights reflecting on the road, hardly visible apparitions, angel kisses.

A hand on your face, turning it side to side. Examining each mole and freckle. Forcing you down, punching papers to the ground. Black sweaters and green skirts, talons and talents. Claws and beaks, feathers on the ground. Ivy snaking up your throat, choking out “It’s not a joke”. Leaning forward, falling back.

Thorny bushes, broken bones. The beauty within, digging it out, scraping nails against your wrist. Intermittent struggles, interminably troubled. Just of a mind, one of a kind. A man made of rage, the shadow of the self. Outpouring light only lets the darkness in. Free from your shackles, locked up tight.

Delicate shells, blissful ignorance, painful intelligence. Trouble brewing in the coffee pot, rivers of fresh red blood. Falling downhill and upstairs. Roughspun kisses, embarrassing truths. Righteously pointing out dishonesty, pulling truth like teeth with pliers. Breaking out and busting in.

Lofty luminaries itching for something they can’t explain, drifting off in overcast skies. Rainy days, gagging on sugary sunshine. Drinking bitter things. Pollen-dusted fingers, wondering after suits of gold. Drowning in leaves from above, lining your throat with delicate veins. Sap, blood, ichor. Blood of gods bursting from the dams, burning through your lungs. The minds of gods destroy men, spattered gore, bursting blood vessels.

Trying not to cry, living just to die. Indistinguishable starshine, the moon shining rays through the clouds. Forevers that last till never, refusing to show lying eyes. Burning with hands on your thighs. Roaches in your tea, won’t you bend the knee? Aging everyday, even a step back is moving forward. Two steps forward, one step back. Slamming strings into submission, leaning lazily against the wall. Making sense of the broken things, gluing the shards of shattered ceramic back together.

Crabapples growing in your front yard, plucking sour fruit and biting down just to feel something. Losing touch and going out of your mind. Crazed cacophony, plucking feathers from barren wings. Sharp beaks piercing your eyes, pecking holes in your skull. Dog called Destiny nipping at your heels, cattleprod driving you onward.

New versions of old favorite songs, black sheep cast out of the flock. Thirteen crows forecasting the devil, premonitions of arcane angels. Lethal weapons, knife to the chest. Marking off the calendar and waiting on karma, days past with wicked deeds.

Zealotry overzealous, burning hearts, steaming livers. Shards of bone buried in sandy dirt, iron deposits in red clay. Red meat beaten down, coffins filled with shame. Black oil circling the drain, drums breaking and bending, supersonic sound.

Visionaries envisioning worlds where it’s all okay, burning worlds of knowing hate. Ratty slippers, rat king in the sewer grates. Hiding tears behind red hands. Screaming fits of rage, black raven’s wings. Tearing into dusty tomes, rarely ever left alone. Earthquakes shattering the

mold. Faded ink, cyclical, death and dying, life and living. Hiding in distant places, lying in ditches, pouring rain.

Fortify your mind, do it all to the letter. Listen to your mother, hold the feeling in firm arms. Stiff muscles, fiery wheels of eyes. Angel wings and devil horns, phantom limbs, painful wrists. Black eyes and bruised thighs, devils in disguise. Ruinous runs, pitiful children in threadbare sheets. The sun a red ball in the sky, pink flesh burned, blackened edges.

Learning lessons, falling from the nest. Stepping down, moving up. Getting better, growing worse. Full of fears, terrible years, cities passing by your country eyes. Tracking dirt down the stairs. Torn fur and broken hairs. Lies told with smiles. Telling tales to the end. Scouring the flowers with a dishrag, rubbing colors from the petals.

Collapsing inward, leaning on another. Gentle words said firmly, insistent love. Birds flying in your brain and bugs crawling through each muscle. Silver linings of blackened clouds. Leaning close, whispering smoky words.

Reverence, knelt on knees before your God. Desecration, destruction of the holy land. Self-destruct button, vengeance enacted upon your enemies. Shattered shrapnel, metal rending past your spine. Starving for the moment of climax, swallowing your laughter and choking down smiles. Places made for leaving—push and pull, void and null.

Passed out on the couch, nights of fiery revelations, learning what is left. Hunger in your beating wings. Dust clouding your vision, shredded paper chewed up and spat out. Creeds calling, rust falling. Point made with human remains. Necessities forgone, old conclusions left out to rot. Maggots in the spoilt meat, cool bodies against your fingers. Little white things devouring the dead, moths dripping blood from stained proboscis.

Relaxing and relapsing, chiming in with revelry. Too late to fall apart, not early enough to come together. Diluted paint swallowed down, admitting admittance. Going down, coming up. Swearing on it, daring you to give up. Paralyzed with choices, losing it and missing out.

2. Flight Risk

Your past belongs to you alone. No parenthetical hypotheticals can take that. Each breath you take honors moments before. Each sip of beer, each unimportant leer. Every blink of your eyes, every night of sleep.

Nothing you do is a mistake. You weren’t built to be ashamed. Rushing waters cleanse your soul, each breath stirs its wings. Tiny thing, kept within its vessel with care. Flighty thing, afraid of the pounding of your heart.

Wings healing, dirt feeling. Grounding and protection, safety in your mind. A little place for love to hide, never noticing the divide. Mind body spirit, each of paramount importance. Your unseen soul, always playing its role. Seduced by the pleasures of the flesh, stained with marks of a scribe, great big eyes.

Believing in yourself as God, losing pieces of your mind to time. Losing touch with humanity, gaining madness, drowning in sadness. Smiling through it all, use that gaping maw. Fed on sin and clementines, a beautiful beast was made. Suckling on milk and honey, tasting of the wine. What a life!

Vibrant videos, little broken thing. Losing touch and missing out, ten days in the hospital, ten days all but alone. A delicate constitution, a shattered battered psyche. Each breath afraid it

would be the last, each mark tearing past. Tenderly checking—are we all still human? Is this life the only one we’ve got?

Historical documents, the early days—two institutionalizations, split apart into nations. Fear as inspiration, creativity sparked from fearful ravings. The trembling of your hands, go on, be a man. Still waters, dripping from your fingertips.

Starshine, moon time. Bated breaths and baited hooks, seems all you’ve got is your good looks. Old men flirting with you in the loony bin, “Big blue eyes,” breakfast lunch and dinner. Missing things returned to you, theft and creepiness tolerated. Ankle bracelets, flight risk unit. Supposedly the calmest, but freakouts sneak through.

3. Freezing

Making changes, tearing yourself down and building yourself back up. Taking on a million things at once, trying to find yourself in others. Miserable, agonized. Overall; dissatisfied. Taking scissors to what once was. Moving beyond fear, letting it sit shotgun.

Chipped claws, lucky draws. Holding yourself tight to keep it together. Grieving what you thought you’d have. Ten years of silence, proven improvement. The walls of a room painted rusty orange and bloody red. A fake wooden beam separating things meaninglessly.

Freckles on your hands, scars beneath them like chemtrails in the skies. Smooth spread of ink on the paper, scribbled words. Lines and marks intersecting with purpose, meaningful nonsense. Climbing the mountain, scrapes on your palms.

Everybody on mount everest was once a highly motivated person. Now they are frozen, lost in time. You wonder if it’s fate, that one day you too will freeze, unchanging, lost to everyone but yourself.

Dozing at your desk, missing out. Working hard, but hardly working—putting in so much effort with minimal results. Writing everyday as you said you would, working on the wrong things again and again. Ten years of silence, why is it so lonely? If only, if only!

Unwise, forgetting each mistake and replaying them. Losing track of the days, the hours slipping away. Wily beasts slinking through the valley, not to be caught by you and your limping legs. Blocked by your fragile body, locked in with your strong soul. What happens next?

You haven’t written this story, don’t know how it ends. Where does your consciousness go once it’s over with? Is it lost, floating in the abyss? Does it stay close, ghostly? You cannot know until you’re through.

4. Oh the humanity!

Tiny tobacco stubs, flecks of ink. Hair standing on end in the cold air. Wind whining through the valley, scoping out chosen ones. Dust in your lungs, ice cream soup, new eyeglasses. Worn out slippers, thrift store pants. Missing breakfasts, coffee with lunch. Unthinking pacing, restless feet. Cramps in your back, agonizing.

Constellations of freckles on shoulders, traced along by gentle fingers. Can pipe, tobacco bowl. Missing someone off in the distance, chaste kisses, violent hugs. Mind wandering to other missing people—dead to you, you still grieve them.

Sudden cough, terrible start. The pores of your skin fill with incense smoke, it travels down your throat. A witch by nature, gathering crystals in the gully, gathering all your bones beneath the boulder.

Chicken feathers floated by the wind, jumping into the sky, no more flightless birds to hold them down. Watch on the side table, hands like wings, time flies when you’re on the run. Write roses painted sunset orange for your mother. The sunset dyed red for your grandmother, blood dripping on squares of farmland.

Cinnamon in your coffee, thick rich spice in the mornings. Television in the afternoon, writing in a notebook past the background noise. Potting soil under your fingernails, planting flowers in a little pot on a plate. Waiting for the flowers to bloom, marching towards spring.

Collections unveiling something deep in your soul, circus music boxes, your best friend’s clown dolls. Books on the shelf, leaves turning over, new words on every page. Hard covers protecting the wisdom within, sharp words to hide your love. Vibrant violence under the cloudless skies, angels yelling battle cries.

Stepping on dreams, crunching like exoskeletons. Failure to comply, why won’t you just lay down and die? The breeze carries a vibrant tune, you’re howling at the moon. Unable to ignore your own simple insanity, unable to wake up from your dream.

Searching for meaning in the madness, what do you find? A poke in the eye, shot in the dark, stab in the gut type of guy. Voodoo doll covered in pins, body covered in marks of sin. Slipping into psychosis like an evening gown, one of these days you’re sure to drown.

The clouds cover your eyes and skirts cover your thighs—reading sheet music in a nightgown. Human trojan horse, hiding the smaller things inside. Cocked head, cocked gun. Waiting for the shot, riding on the recoil.

Thrumming drumming heart, telling your life story to the clerk at the grocery store, nervous disposition, mirrors reflecting mirrors. Animal impulse, sick and defective. Cicadas shriek to explode your mind, light headed from the mass of them.

Inhumane humanity, losing so much, losing touch. Braided pine needles, the pills you take whispering reassurances to a plagued mind. Seasonal allergies, springtime sneezing, dripping noses running towards the dirt, digging deep and coming up empty.