"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way."
-Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his younger brother Theo van Gogh in July of 1880"

I've taken the straight razor
to my ear like a third-rate
van Gogh.

Impressionism bleeding
into Expressionism.

Mania trickling into
an unmitigated need
to find the beauty
and grace he only
found with a paintbrush.

Blood clinging to the
horse hair bristles
like the blood splattered
in the margins of every
page I've ever filled.
Each line and brush
stroke choking out
a futile cry for help
as the wheat fields burn
and the sunflowers wither.

You think you're clever
but I read you like
the prettiest little poem.
Red hair flickering the
edges of paper like
matchsticks.

If you use me
as an anchor,
toss me off
the side of the ship
like little plastic rings
that ****** dolphins,
I'll sink into that cold,
that dark. Bubbles rising
to the surface, with each and every
pop you'll hear my last thoughts
as the pressure chokes the life from my lungs.

There isn't a building tall enough
to jump off in this town.

or Redheads.
Crimson Irish curls
that cling to curves
like my lips cling to
your name.
Natural.

Lightning strikes and we're at it again.
fingers tracing faces like fire.
Breath short and sweet like so many
whispered words and unwatched movies.

Finger in the socket and we keep
laughing those laughs that only
we can remember.
Smiling those smiles that we hide
now from everyone and each other.

Toaster in the bathtub and we're lost.
Separated by a sea of improbability
and spine
less
ness.

There's an airport in my heart
Where I stand in the terminal
waiting on your flight to come in
so I can kiss you just the way I did
when you boarded.

I have this idea of you.
Tattooed and beautiful.
Sarcastic and witty,
with a silver tongue
that tastes better than
the richest chocolate.

I'm drumming my fingers
on the outside of the car.
Keep your hands busy, Charlie.
Don't let them wander across
the space between your seat and hers.

You've got this smile
poised on your lips
like a mousetrap.
Tense with hesitation
and a million neurons
firing thoughts through your head
that I'll never get to know.

Light up that cigarette, Charlie.
Keep those hands busy.
Let your eyes wander.

I'm clinging to hope
like I'm clinging
to hospital bed sheets.
Scared. frustrated. Tired.

Counting the naps,
beautiful demonstrations
of death.

Counting the kisses
pouring off your lips
like ballots on election day.

I am a warped vinyl left in the sun
by your careless hand.

My voice has become so warbled
it's no wonder you can't hear
all of the times I screamed "I miss you"
into that tin can microphone
so many songs ago.

The surface noise has grown louder
than the instruments
and now I know why
you never dust me off
the shelf and play me anymore.

Your voice is electricity
that shoots through my ears
and down my veins like
Frankenstein's Monster.
Reanimating the dead
cells and tissue with
surgical precision.
Arcing across my back
and shoulders singeing
hair follicles and chattering
decrepit teeth in my mouth
like dice in a cup.

Your voice is electricity
and it's clinging to my chest
like a defibrillator, sending
shockwave after shockwave
through my heart and soul.

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." -The Doctor in "Blink (2007)"

"Remember that time we.."
Her voice calls to me from tomorrow.
From yesterday. From a flat in England
in 1969, all **** carpets and counterculture.
All go-go boots and ginger hair.

"Can't wait till we.."
Her voice calls to me from today.
From nowhen. From the bed
a few blocks down the road.
All apologies and heretos
and whyfors.

"Spoilers.."
She says with a smile
that cracked on her face
yesterday and ends
somewhen.

Your words taste
as sweet as candy
and I catch myself
cutting them off.
My lips pressed against yours
in anticipation. How could
anything be as sweet as your
smile, your voice, your eyes?

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." -Charles Bukowski in Notes from a ***** Old Man (1969)

It's always been like this.
The intellectual and the artist
ripping each other to shreds in my head
like wolves in winter, so desperate to eat.

The teeter-tottering back in forth
has left me as barren as my ambition.
Soulless homunculus. A perfect rendition
of a man, but still lacking.

Will I ever find a balance
between emotional and intellectualistic
murmurs? These unheard whispers
whistle in the dark while I weep alone.

One doctor with a yellow number
Two pencil, writes notes on a paper clipped in a
Three-ring binder, scribble, scribble, scribble.
Four white walls suffocate me black.

Sometimes you might find me,
in a back alley, throwing up my guts,
in explosions, of green and orange.

Sometimes you might find me,
in a rundown apartment, with a ceiling fan
that arcs crookedly, hitting the ceiling in
explosions of drywall and poverty

Sometimes you might find me,
in a sunny park, scribbling lines in a
worn, tattered notebook,
in explosions, of ink and passion

Sometimes you might find me,
outlined in chalk, battered, bruised, ******
in explosions of red and abuse.

Sometimes you might find me,
standing beside you, walking with
and guiding you in explosions of
anger
and
I told you so's.

You took me in like a matriarch
takes in a poor orphan
***** and hungry off the boulevard.
Well just know baby girl, every night
I pray for the crops to fail and your
stomach to swell.

You took me in like a mother
takes in a curious toddler
sticky and fragile strapped in the car
seat. Well just know baby girl, every night
I pray for your breaks to go out and your
seat belt to break.

Electrocution: n. killing by electric shock.

Lightning strikes and I'm alone again.
fingers tracing scalp like scars.
Breath short and sour like so many
worried words and kneejerk reactions.

Finger in the socket and I'm
laughing a laugh that only
I can hear.
Smiling a smile that I used to
only show to one other.

Toaster in the bathtub and
I'm cast aside, seperated by
mistakes I made and words
"I don't love
you
anymore"

against my face and ears.
Forever pummeling the
inflections across my jaw
like a teacher who is overworked
and underloved.

Shelly says nothing
ever really turns out
just the way we expect.

She's right. Nothing
turns out just
the way we expect
like secret hand-holding
in backyard trees.

Or the way maps
become our enemy.
That impossible geography
that separates two halves
like the years lost in
a flurry of blows
and caresses.

1) 12 thousand tweets and none of them are substantial. They're becoming less and less about you though. Maybe that's what is substantial about them.

2) Something in the way you wrap sin in worship.

3) I'm an arson waiting to happen, is the funeral pyre really necessary?

4) Writing about you angrily isn't doing it anymore. I want to smash bricks through windshields that used to hold flowers I bought you.

5) Looks like you're not at the bottom of this one either. ****.

6) My love has always been leprosy.

7) You're the interlude, not the chorus. But, that's okay I'm a terrible vocalist anyway.

8) She wants to date boys that are self aware and boy did she hit the jackpot.

9) You smile with the grace of grandmothers and I'm a bad boy like your grandpa after the War.

10) Can I cut out your grin and put in on the wall next to my framed poster of Bob Dylan and Charles Bukowski?

11) Trace my outline in chalk when I finally drink myself to sleep. I'm euthanizing the pieces of me that belong to you.

12) If I find you in Heaven won't you be in his arms? If I find you in Hell won't you be my torment?

13) You make me feel as insignificant as God does and I think that says something about prayer.

14) I quit paying my phone bill so I'd quit dialing your number like a suicide hotline.

15) My teeth are rotten like the lies that spill out of my teeth. You find me beautiful and I've never been more self-conscious.

16) Your silence fills my abdomen like daggers and words clot where crimson should flow.

17) Loving you is *******.

18) My heart is at a crossroads and you're drowning in dust in the rearview mirror.

19) You prefer the subtle burns. The flames so hot they sever nerve endings when they lick your fingers the way I imagine I would.

20) She sings the body electric and I'm forced to worship her through computer screens and the scratch of needle on vinyl.

I've become quite
the actor.
Going through the motions
of the days I have to endure
without you like I'm on autopilot.
or drugs.

1) Your heart is so entwined into mine that I'm not sure if it hurts you or me when I pry it out with a crowbar and leave it on your windshield.

2) You're letting boys ****** you sweaty in your backseat and I just want anyone to write about me the way all my blank pages scream about you.

3) I've always been one to root for the underdog and baby we're a million to one shot.

4) You're the Dragon and the Damsel and I'm not sure what to do.

5) You're the draft I've been writing on for months. Art is never finished.

6) I'm wicked and I'm proud, just like every fallen angel.

7) That's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's your eyes and I think I always knew it was.

8) There is no salvation. There is no damnation. There's only you.

9) And I'm sitting outside the Pearly Gates, cigarette perched in my lips like a crow.

10) Or maybe I'm sitting on the bank of the river Styx, I'm not much of a cartographer and Dante doesn't have time for fools like me.

11) My poetry is a lip-synched prayer and my goddess has turned a deaf ear to them.

12) I was replaced by we and me by us and you wonder why I don't know who I am when you're gone.
12b) You wonder why we don't know who we are when you're gone.

and this drought has
lasted long enough
for the crops to wither
and my stomach to swell.

Timing is everything
is what they say,
but they've never met us.
Passing each other
on the highways and interstates
that connect our hearts together
like tiny spiderwebs.
Like shackles.

I surround myself
with words like
a caterpillar in
cocoon.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
For it no longer echoes in my ears, in my fingers,
in my tongue. These endless digits fallen instantaneously
numb like a local anesthetic or winter basement nights
alone in the dark.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
It's melodic tones and overtures, the way it wraps
around words like my hands around your curves.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
And how I fed on it like the word of God.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.

She's moving to the big city.
Leaving this Podunk town
behind in a blaze of smoke,
sarcasm, short steps.
Accomplishments.

She's dancing away
from this town
with the grace of
grandmothers and women
long since past. Past
the cracked sidewalks
and brick streets, down
the highway. Out of here.
Out of here.

Half empty glasses
are on the table
in the living room.
Materialistic proof
that I never finish
what I start.

Following the crooked pavement
that is set in the street
like a broken arm in
plaster of paris.
We steal the smiles from
the people plastered on
the sidewalks like thieves
in the night.

Stealing the hope from children.
Stealing music from the pages
like a third-rate pop artist.

Sneaking past sirens that
try to lull us from the
road less traveled.
Sirens that blare in the night
like ghosts in the hall.
Singing songs trying to serenade
the kleptomania from my
soul.

Stainless
by Kayla Corder

I was going to change clothes
but I didn't. I'll cling to the dust
like we cling to those memories of us.
Those lingering smiles. Sweet touches.
Breathing heavily on my neck as I melt
into your caress. Love too pure to be real.
"I can't handle real life..." You tell me
when I've found someone new.
But nothing can replace what I found in you.
My broken boy. Found me. Saved me.
Repaired what I didn't even know was broken.
This tattered heart, parts still cling to you.
Like the glue that sticks to the steel. Stainless.
Like this love.
Stainless.

I'm feline in my approach
slender-sleek and silent
footsteps like ghosts
on stairwells and whispers
in your ears.

I have nine lives
and I've wasted them
all stalking you
through concrete
jungles and labyrinthian
words and feelings.

I miss you like the desert misses the rain
Dry and cracking underneath the sun
that we both share.

I miss you like an alcoholic misses a drink
cold and refreshing in that dive
where we first met.

I miss you like a cactus misses a hug
Prickly and worn with arms outstretched
waiting for you to come home

You messaged me yesterday.
Snide words about present company
and then wanted to see me. I agreed
because I no longer remembered the
sound of your voice. Those tones
and inflections that make the
ugliest insults sound like a church choir.
Spiritual. Soulful.
Your laugh rang through the car
like it has through the hollows
of my mind every night when
eyes are closed, beds are empty
and I try to remember the sound
of your voice.

Don'tcha know babe
that misery loves company
so grab a hand and smile
a ******* smile that
hides the scars in your eyes.
Because misery loves company
and nobody wants to be alone.

So grab a mouth and kiss
it like it ******* matters
because, don'tcha know babe?
Misery loves company.
And I'm tired of being alone.

Don'tcha know, babe?
I love company,
and I'm sick and *******
tired of being alone.

We beat the paths that
are laid before us with
machetes and gunfire
Loving violently, loving
violence like Roman citizens
at a colosseum.Cringing
heroically at dismemberment
and pain.
And we're all just the same.

I threw a little funeral for us.
Gathered our things.
Photographs and poems.
Your bra and tinfoil and straws.
All tucked tightly in a little oak box
lined with all my hopes and dreams.
And I buried them in the backyard.

I strike the Bic lighter
and flame erupts.
Like a miniature Pompeii,
Heat searing images of people,
Places, things, nouns and verbs
across my forearm on ****** skin.
Your face and words taking their place
Inbetween the small tattoo on my wrist
and the cigarette burns.

I'm spitting teeth onto the pavement.
Cracked grin cracked across my mouth
like your fist as it splits my lip again.
And again.
And again.
Ribs splitting from the laugh
that is echoing across the bricks
laid psuedo-symetrically like our
best-made plans.

In this corner weighing in at 115 pounds
we have the hopeless romantic.
All featherweight and bones.
All martyrish and faithful.

She's all class
and manners.
The way you imagine
your grandmother was
when she was a twenty-something
Army wife while your grandfather
was eating mud for Christmas dinner
in a trench outside of Berlin.
All smiles and pearly white teeth
and slow dances for one.

My heart beat stopped with a wimper
like a cry swallowed by the night. Stifled
by the
prettiest
little
monster.
Hair like Hell-fire licking the sides of
her face tracing cheeks like lips in the dark.
Fangs hidden behind smiles and honeyed words
that put me at ease as easy as a lullaby.
I am the perfect victim and she is
the prettiest little monster.

You are a dinner set for two
and I'm late like always.

The candles have melted into red and white puddles on the tablecloth
like wax seals on the unread love notes
I leave tucked under your windshield wipers.

I am the abyss.
That great gaping whole in the sky.
In the Earth. When you peer into me,
the dark threatens to swallow you whole.
A cold, calculating, Nietzschean monster.
I am the perfect predator, walking amongst you.
Aggressive mimicry, I dance, and I laugh, and I cry.
Counterfeiting emotions so well, that sometimes
I even convince myself I am but a sheep among the sheep.

The English language falls
terribly short of giving me
the ability to describe how
I feel on a day to day basis.

Your name never fails to appear.
On little LCD screens. On the back
of my eyelids where I trace the letters
as if they belonged to me.

My heart claws its way up my throat
like the way I claw at my scalp.
My face. My hair. Everytime
my phone lights up,
your name never fails to appear.

You changed your clothes
right there in front of me.
The dust no longer clinging to your skin
like little specks of angel dust
Smiles fading into harsh words and tears
whether there's an audience or not.
A love stained like the sleeves of my shirt,
mascara-streaked and frayed along the seams.
I still can't handle real life.
Those inbetween moments where you're in his bed.
Where you're writing love letters on Valentine's Day
even though you hate it.
Your broken boy is still in pieces at the bottom
of your toy chest. Voice warbled from dead batteries.

CROSSROADS
by Beth Faulkner

When you know I'm dead, don't say my name
for I will never move on.
I would hear your voice and return.
I'd live in this eternal waiting room
Watching memories like home videos.
Pausing at the wonderful times,
fast forwarding through the hard,
rewinding and playing over and over
to hear you ask if I shall love you always
,and myself answer "till the end of days"
I need to leave,but I make every excuse not to
Watching the memories until our last moments
Then I hear you call my name and begin again..

******

I know you're dead, and I still whisper your name
for I will never move on.
I hear your voice and beg for you to return
to the eternal waiting room of my mind.
Watching my memories like home videos,
pausing at the time where you belonged to me
fast forwarding through my times without you
rewinding and playing over and over
knowing that I shall love you always
'Til the end of days.
I need to leave, move on.
But every memory is a reason not to.
Watching them until my last moment,
until I whisper your name, and begin again..

"Maybe if you're lucky"
she says like the dealer
at a blackjack table.
The representative of the House.
Of the Competition. She fingers
the deck of cards that hold my
fortune with whimsical interest.
Whereas I can't take my eyes
off the flop.

My friend Murphy knows all kinds of things about everything.
Like the chemical composition of LSD and how to dance ballet.

He told me once that there are an infinite number of universes,
where each possible variation in life has happened and I think
it's kinda funny and I think it's kinda sad

that I'm stuck in this one