Her bathroom habit

 She heard his key clicking in the lock downstairs
swept the powder with slender hand from the glass
Wiping the counter clinging to new hype in her temples
hiding the rolled note inside her handbag

At dinner she watched his hands across the table
His wedding ring catching the apartment light
He asked whether she had followed the plan
Lifted her glass gave him the anticipated answer 

He went to bed she locked the bathroom door
Opened the handbag beneath the sink pop the baggie
Small white line beside her paler reflection
In several seconds she curves and snorts

Chemical syrup slides down the nasal to the throat
Whatever she was before is not what she is now
Unraveling the hundred and licking the residue
Thoughts move, heart jumps a sharper brighter reality

twenty minutes later the world is a drain
vampire of her essence
dawn is rockbottom
flavorless

VIP lounge Abstention

 The Vip lounge was empty
Great seating elaborate cubicles
Large one story fire place
Huge wooden framed windows

The bar maid made polite conversation
Her hand placing a drink infront of me
A name a category a flavor
Encouragement to lose myself

New guests arrived inside the foyer from outside
Puns and grins from the barmaid
Funloving banter
not a sip

A group entered the VIP putting down jackets
Putting down their bags and umbrellas
Scanning the room and sighing before seating themselves
Barmaid coax me to drink just a taste

The cocktail sat untouched on the counter
The bill next to it
Half dampened by condensation
Thawing ice inside the glass

There is something intoxicating
about refusal.

the coffee maker

 it sat in the lowest area of the paddock
Always on always dripping
All I needed was a cup
In the paddock cows and competition

I found a plastic cup clean and perfect
Like a pearl inside a shell
Half under a partially burnt log
I picked up with shaking hands

uncontained gratitude
As I took it in both hands
Positioned it under the tap
I got my coffee

And the pasture would continue growing
As I slowly sipped
As I pontificated over the fate of the world
those cows would eat forever

Eating the wrong thing

 In their apartment above munich
Nala talked to her mother about her diet
About how she had been cheating
Eating those forbidden things

Munich was quiet listening to the call
The husband rich and distinct
Something she couldn't do without
her tears fell on the diet plan

Her mother's tone changed from accusatory
To something bordering on sympathetic
The silent contract that kept her figure
Her husband with those facial lines

She decided traced her trajectory
but soon enough her body would give her away

Your final thesis

 Read the books stack them on shelves
Pages turned by generations of obedient hands
Every conclusion has become a print, a stamp
Just fancy furniture nobody dares to rearrange

I watched the students repeat the language
placing famous names inside their sentences
Building little monuments from quotations
Repeating the bland content until it was their own mind

They forfeited their own wanting fingerprints
Their knowledge orbits around another person
Fear of their own skull breaking apart
And yet an original author is a rare tainted thing

So unique it conjures other worlds into being
While the chorus of the said and done heaves plaster

The old certainty enters and exits unaltered
Not yet aware of it's own over ripeness
Until the reader mistakes their nausea
For familiar intellectual residue

Fire on her muscle

 The woman crosses the hallway

Quarter moon peeking in from corner window

Hushed emotion wants out, the night cool echoed

caught inside iron of the room

She looks across the metal figures

Their bodies holding in last warmth

and night's remaining water

The tides of over exertion

The flame spreads over her body

only to be extinguished by sweat

Her body steadies

Her eyes avoid the flirt

Narrowing like closing gates

Passing between human sculptures

the half moon growing

Burning along their shoulders

The young woman raises her appeal

And her hand in a wave

daring to greet the outsider

and touches the cold metal

Her reflection breaks apart

across a dozen eyes that cut like lazers

speeding across human lines and human flesh

The hall fills with silver shapes

Arms reaching toward effort

Legs buried beneath braces

faces turned toward stars

The flame catches on her thigh

Crosses the full moon

between towers of welded steel

The young woman walks deeper

following tides of her inner intuition

Sparking arbitrarily inside human sculptures

Morning enters the hall

the metal begins to dry

Emptiness and a salty aroma

The young woman stands among them

But they are now part of the equipment

she uses to stay in shape

Her muscle taut her perspiration warm and saline

A cage for a baby bird

 A cage for a baby bird

The shopping trolley was left in a ditch behind the supermarket entrance after closing. The slow dirty water filtering itself through. A local council worker found it full of debris blocking a large outlet drain.  He threw it onto the dump truck, almost injuring his back.
By next morning the truck full of random objects taken from streets and parks.

The truck pulled into the landfill road changing gear diesel fumes up. And an exhausting vibrational sigh pushed out. The trolley rocked around in the back like a restless teenager. All sinew no fat.

The scrap pile ahead seemed the size of a city, rusted signs, damaged baskets and old refrigerators. The truck pulled into the area of the municipal landfill where they kept metal too mixed and damaged to recycle.
However trolley fell through the opening and landed on the a spilled pile from the landfill, beside mattresses and a mannequin head.

A bulldozer came down the slope pushing the cart further up the pile of regular trash.
The cart with its metal grades was turned upside down. It resembled a cage with something resembling a wig inside. As the bulldozer looked closer he realized it was a nest.
A small neck emerged from the nest. It was a baby vulture.
The driver cursed and made a mental note of it as he reversed to finish his morning's work.

By evening the landfill road was closed. The trolley remained above the old putrid layers, alongside the broken appliances, the spoiled food and the things people discarded in their attempt to fill their houses with newer material.