It burns right through
Clear to the tabletop
Down to a dew
It burns right through

Like your strawberry lips
Begging, give me a kiss darling
You’d only ever dip
Down for an instant, buck blackberry hips

Let me catch you
Half hoping through morning
And I’d hold you
Secure you to

My affectionate whispers
Half-under covers
Trace outlines with excited shivers
We always made such pretty pictures

When you were here
But I was cold and you were hot
Made our skin sear
It was always best when you were near

In the yelling one day
It went bad
I whispered I just couldn’t stay
You screamed you didn’t care anyway

I meant to touch you as you shook
But dew slid down your cheek
You stopped me with a look
It hurt that this was all it took

Smoke rolled off of you
Couldn’t put out a cigarette
Fiery, volcanic you
Fingers shaking in the cold morning dew

Let the ash fall on expensive wood
And I couldn’t yell at you
Knew that I should
As your ash scarred heirloom wood

So it burned right through
Burned right through
Clear to the tabletop
And down to a dew
It burned right through

I form feathers
Stretching un-knuckled finger to the tip
        To the cracks
Smooth across paper

Peel away the nails, lose
        The ever-changing—
        Growing, picking, scratching

Whittle down stubs, make
        Points of varied
        Length and textures

Carve bristles
        With your swiss-army knife
Sharpen first to minimize tearing

Paint with your fingers,
        Feathered tips, swooping
        Smooth arcs

Patrons call it quirky when you refuse to shake hands

Fall down slipping murder that flies
to Justice, children’s cheeks that float
                    with pale-cold Absence demand
in their very silence

Revenge, Revenge

Fate argues a method of inhuman Choice
          Destiny steers a motherly blade
a loving knife

          glints in tears, blood, Personal Agency
together with—

          “You Killed Our Daughter!”

Revenge, Revenge

eat her, Consume and absorb her
          your virginal daughter sacrifice
                    saffron cloak like love
          familial Chorusing to societal preservation

Sacrifice on dining dove

Clytemnestra falls through their songs
          to Slipping murder

Revenge, Revenge

Upon His Cannibalistic Head

Bruises like lipstick
Like burgundy thick cherry lips
Juice left over in the can and dripped
       across caramel ice-cream skin
Mottled with it
Dappled

Like shade under trees
In forests too much like the memory of forests
Of picnics and picturesque gone wrong

It could happen anywhere
Nearly
Anywhere
Protection afforded between bed sheets
An afterglow of kisses, kindness
Promises floating like Champaign bubbles
Ridiculous and tickles the back of your throat indulgence
Gone within the hour

If left out in
Cars, theaters, hallways in the back of restaurants
Follow her to the bathroom
Reprimands shaped like knuckles
Embrace
Disguised in blood pooling beneath the surface of skin
Turn burgundy

Center of attention
Stallion bucks
Almost shaking his Horseman
And ruining the whole show

Famine snickers
Immediately wishes she hadn’t

I’m crying
alone is best for these things, but it can’t be helped

It’s painful
the way my chest contracts too tight around thick lungs
ribs crushing the freakishly delicate pulp contained within

Gasping
sharp, silent intakes as vermilion musculature overworks itself over nothing
reacting to emotions as if
physicalizing the pain might lessen it

My throat is juicy
it must be, raw and tenderized with diametric reasoning
and the painful act of breathing
held too long in one mind
denial is an unsustainable resource; self loathing is the brand of the future

The tears themselves are slimy
leave a trail down my face that I can feel like grease
like oil for dressings and acrylic paint
I try to keep my mouth closed, avoid the fat and the toxicity
keep quiet, muted
people are trying to listen to something else

I’m crying
because I’m remembering things I’ve worked hard to forget
things that make the freakishly delicate pulp hidden within skin contract
because of a movie, of a play
of people’s lives
how they were undone and undid others
and it’s all just too real
for a screen in a dark room

Playing with a purity
A sultry, sanguine soul
Leaving me, imperfectly
Sounding out your toll

Reaching towards the shadows
Feeling out our tie
Recognition, sole admission
Of an ancient lullaby

You hold me and you hound me
But you cannot keep me tamed
You touch me you confound me
Still you can’t recall my name

Empty out the longing
Scape the sides of fact
Admit to the aching sky
It’s integrity you lack

Before I ever learned to sing
I was forever taught to cry
To bear the burden of a glossing jay
To hear the madman sigh

They tell me it’s selfish,
I suppose they’re correct
In the letter if not in the spirit
Piece mailed away, day by day,
My integrities turned a wreck

But they pledged her asylum
What a joke, what a boon
Multilayered and oh so cruel
For she dances with reason, treats only with treason
Sang free, ill opposed, and played but the fool

Still some are not tricked
By a lover, a bitch
By my sweetheart, my sweetheart, my dove
They prick brilliant bright eyes, left undone in their skies
Beg me to interpret her song

But before I could ever hear her sing
I was forced to watch her cry
As she bore the burden of a grounded jay
As she made the warden sigh

Magma drips between my teeth
Weighs my tongue down as it strikes at air
Makes my words heavy
Clumsy
My gums are blackening, flacking off in burned bits
My breath is too dry to steam

From then on the memory of that anger and its heat
Will make me reach for water, and
Lick slowly cracking lips

It’s all done in layers
In dollops of time dripped
Lazily across the mask

Just barely avoid the eyeholes
Leave no moment half-finished

Entry is rudimentary
Failure is the foreground
Done in a beaten
Aquamarine

Standing by
        Lineman for the season
        It goes by in ticks and freezes
        Too fast
Later I will remember it as packages of unsmoked cigarettes

Next stage stands as play soldier
        Shiny in my new stiff pressed
        Ironed-out over dying uniform
        And mint-condition morals
I will recall only the fuzz of a freshly shaved skull

Followed by the veteran
        Used and battered,
        Good Will quality,
        Well-intended gestures.
        Nice idea, but who really wants one
Keep the moments of mud bleeding into my eyes

Enter commander, stage left
        Big brass buttons
        Shiny again with
        Gold leaf and
        Regret
Stay forever with creases in skin pressed in with the trust of those you’ve never met

Flow into PTSD ridden civi
        Knees shot to hell,
        And lungs a bit
        Beyond that
        I’ve moved onto cigars now
The stains are what I’ll retain

Exit exhausted old man
        Sitting, watching football
        Men throwing themselves at
        Each other in the mud,
        War paint greasing their faces
Freeze the moment

Life lifts
Bends
Snaps
Back to the beginning

A pattern of repetition
Fractals within fractals within a bed of roses
A bud

Throughout we are centered
We are still
We are everything we wish to be
And so much else, some less some more

Perspective dictates, leaves it to the mind to sort the rest out

half-finished poems have been scattered
across my dash board
I’ll finish them soon
I promise

I just
           need
                      to remember.

Leap, swirl, twist
        We dance like a world within ourselves
A few flow with the youth of the rash and raging river
Some shimmy as solid as the sky and sharp as the wind
Fragmented masses fall and dip with the turbulence of a not-quite tuneful waterfall
But only one may fly with the freedom of the fighting flame
And they call him

FireDancer

Body of stone,
        malleable only in non-reality
The grace of sparks shape his outline
Flit between fingers and impossible fringe
as he flings himself through would-be hoops
Across the tightrope of preternaturally solid air currents
Scintillated scars singe through the glint of corroded pupils
Eyes closed
Falling through hell sideways
Flames flutter across exposed skin and he screams his impassioned delight
        with a silent smile
And they call him

FireDancer

I was kicked out today

The heater in his car was broken
So I woke up cold
Turning to find
An unsympathetic bruise on my left shoulder

I don’t know why I'm surprised

When he told me to leave
I laughed out loud
And told him to tell me twice
He couldn’t

He just wasn’t ready to

I was covered in paint
When he told me again
To get up, get dressed, and leave
Never one to seem desperate,
I stole an apple, grabbed my clothes and
Did as I was told

Leave all we had worked on

So I spent the night in his car
Keeping up pretenses and staining the seats with blue and black acrylic
Waking cold and alone
With such a pain in my shoulder I can hardly dance

But it’s fine now, really it is

My grades were slipping and now
I can focus
On the reason he wanted me gone
You’re coming back for Chanukah

Because we have candles to drip across pale skin

And all he wanted to do was string up Christmas lights

When we woke up I found myself wrapped in his arms
He had been awake
Watching me sleep
Thinking  
Never imagining what I dreamed

When he told me he loved me
I laughed
Giggled
Looked away

I’m still pulling together the courage to look back

To gaze into his sea-green eyes
Tuck his slightly-too long hair behind his ear and kiss him
And tell him just how unfortunate that is

God I don’t know how to feel about this.

I did it again.
I feel like another person.
Twitching and cursing and grasping after something I barely understand.

I love the tangible, the there and nowhere else.
I write for the rush of things, for the feeling of elsewhere.
When I reach for the hand, hip, hair of a stranger in a strange bar in a strange room I feel… nothing.

And it is a relief.

The scent of people is so strong, and so present,
I might scream with the ecstasy and the terror of it.
How do I handle him, how do I touch her, what will make them scream right back at me with the same desperation I feel?

God I don’t know how I feel about this.

I’m falling back into old patterns I thought I’d broken.
I’m slamming down alleyways and should-be-empty houses backlit with the glow of fear and neglect

Where do I go when I’ve run out of street? Out of city? When the countryside stretches empty before me and nothing but grass and crickets to hear me cry with the passion of thwarted kisses and half-finished frustrations? When the people have left me?

More importantly, will they ever?

I sit in the back of a semi-crowded room. The lights are on low, and it feels as if there should be flickering lanterns. There should be conveniently darkened corners to block the views of the unemployed whores and the servers that carry impossibly large amounts of alcohol in one hand. There should be a dark, mysterious man to catch my eye from across the room. An innocent looking girl out for the first time in a place like this should be standing nervously near the doorway.

It smells like sex here. I stand up, and shiver. My limbs don’t want to move and I remind myself over and over that I haven’t had anything to drink.

It’s just nerves. You watch things now. Smell it first, check for bubbles, and pretend to drink if you are being watched. You are fine. Keep walking. Keep running.

Scream.

I listen to music throbbing as I weave my way numbly through the crowd. Hands brush against me, a few gyrating hips turn to me; I shake them off with the ease of an addict shaking off proffered cocaine. Dance my way through temptation. Revelations 22:20 is playing, screaming at me “Jesus would martyr his mama to ride to Hell between those thighs.“

I give in.

The girl I accept tastes like alcohol and something vaguely sour, but her hands are experienced if a little clumsy and her skin is soft enough to send me begging for the demons, if not Jesus himself.

The faces blur, the feelings rush, I loose myself in the tangible.

Go home and write.

Feel centered, broken and wanting to scream for anything to tie me to the real world.

I pick up a paintbrush. Turn on Revelations 22:20 on my laptop. The designs mix with candlewax as I drip it across my skin.

A relapse. A session with my therapist the canvas and her note pad and pen, fire and burns. I scream softly to myself in my all too big room.

I will go to school tomorrow. I have a math test.

There never was a softer gaze—
Than the angel of the sea
Who calls to me each empty morn’
Whose warmth I ever flee

Her fingers—soft, unmarred by life—
Stir the silken sand
Her eyes beckon with love untold
Of many far—fay lands

Immortality was mentioned—
In a batted lash—
As was palace, love, and puissance
From her aqueous cache

And so I fell—as we all would—
When offered such a prize
To join her in perennial love
To clutch a sainted rise

But songs of love—Immortal’s fare
Are only ever waning
So it was her affection turned
And lent jealousy to gaining

A foothold in my humble heart
A key to unlocked door
And as years passed, and she unclasped
Her love, it opened more

The office of an angel of the sea
Is to gather up the dead
To wash them away—day by day
Until to her arms they are led

Jealousy of the impermanent
Travelers she did reap
Broke me down, brought me forth
Until—under her drifting gaze—I did at last sleep

You are far too delicate
For me to risk a glance
Eyes like knives would cut you to your core
Scars would not mare your crystalline beauty
They would shatter it

I play with ropes
With handcuffs and half-growled—almost purred—promises of forever
You live in daisies
Play with the clouds and the wind that would never dream of disrespecting you
You sing in the rain

Your hair is soft and lovely
And you crush after the girl with the leather jacket and the fuck-me heels
I return your nervous smiles with sardonic, half-cocked eyebrows
I do not mean to be cruel
But your affection is misplaced, my dear

Witty and wicked they call me
I am The Girl They Talk About
Lovely and kind, you allow the dance teacher to
Shape you to a point-perfect ballerina
You watch the belly-dancer shimmy in exotic coin belts, ignoring your instructor for
The mistress of the music
You keep a journal with a lock on the cover

If I could I might reach over and break it with one hand
But you would cry, and look at me with eyes that asked why in
That bleedingly innocent way I hate about youth
And I wouldn’t be able to answer
Because I don’t really know myself

So instead of all that I let you watch me from afar
Confused because girls don’t like girls
And you go home to a Christian household where they say grace and eat together at a round table so everyone can
Pretend to be equal
At school you glance away when I catch you looking
You learned quickly that smiles only earn you raised eyebrows

That would be our story if I had a single ounce of self-control

As things stand, I’m sorry for the broken lock, but it was worth it to kiss away your tears

I heard the trickle of light behind my left ear sigh
It was bored with air and the spaces between things
It recalled with the lazy trepidation of Olympic athletes
         that specific backlit velvet-curtain red of the breath inside Antisthenes lungs as he was proved right to
                  his fault
         the bluest blue of a mad man’s box
         a single colony of flies that prefer the vinegar
         the clear-cut exactness of its brethren flying from untold cosmos
         the wisdom that may only ever be known by the air bubbles that form in freshly poured honey
         the particular bend of time at the end of things
         how wonderfully immense the inside of a pinhead is
         the buzzing blasphemy of a cloud of two, impossible to capture and with only a 90% chance of
                  existence anyway
To all but this little trickle of light
And it sighed with boredom
Longing to see the reality we claim from within

I reached behind me and let down my hair, denying the trickle of light its shaft.
Of course it could have found the spaces between brown curls and
         whispered a sigh of abandonment by a trusted confidant
         of impossible dreams ignored
                  by the lady busy painting her room the bluest blue of a mad man’s box
But instead the trickle of light sighed the sigh of bored school children
and sped away as a glint on my snake’s terrarium with the unconsciously reckless speed of cars
         which will always outpace Olympic athletes
to find someone a little crazier
to talk to