/is living not filled with regret; are we not

trying everyday to make meaning out of

nothing? fill my glass with thunder,

today. i will love to drink into myself more

chaos. there is a large cloud over me, a

release of slippery lightening, caught up in

strings of rain. when i was younger i

thought the ultimate weapon of war was

tears. i had watched my mother bury the

dead with her tears, swept the emptiness

off of the living room of our house with her

tears, saved me at the point of death with

her tears. now when i stare into human

eyes, so pink, so red, i search for this

weapon in them. when i do not find none

of it in their eyes, i take a bath and hope to

cry. when my mother died, the first thing i

did was to take a bow, the sign of defeat,

cocooned in the echoes of the dead in my

head under the shower. the second thing i

did was to cry. this is my weapon of war –

the way to win a battle of loss, the

softening of a heavy memory i carry alone.

my mother has died twice in my head. i

will not let her get closer to where she

belongs. loss is a sour taste on the tip of

the tongue of the living/.