there is something
cowardly
and lonely
about becoming
brand new.

her eyes! sometimes they compare eyes to pools and oceans but her eyes were warm, calm, the serenity of a house cat sprawled in the sun and a sparkle so joyful i felt sure one minute in her life would rival the most powerful day in mine. she shone like selenite and left warmth behind where others left shadows.
spring and summer defined her equally well.

bat me across the room and act
surprised when i don't know
what to do when i get there.
girls like girls because
we tell each other the words
we wish no one had ever
told us, and each time we
internalize them they
taste sweeter. sugary soft
rejection colored blue
like her eyeshadow,
glossy lips and glitter eyelids
masking volcanic rage,
girls like girls because we all
see the cage,
we paint our bodies and its bars
with the same pomegranate
chapstick, we love glitter,
chafing bones and the sawdust
of two girls alone in a
cage, applying chapstick.

she asks the keyboard tenderly, each key
a little closer to the person
she wants to be
but farther every time she
asks for them.
how to be someone without
trying to become them first,
how to exist with someone
but not for them, how to know
when you have crossed the
line between being and
wannabeing
yeah i guess
that's
part of me
now.

roundy boundy two piercings in skin
blood's constipated and
metal tastes like it
already so
hey why can't i find where that went in?
i don't find where i am
i don't hide myself or anything but i think
myself hides when i need her. i stick knives into
tower walls to keep myself
in conversations
everyone tells me that i shouldn't have to
work so hard in conversations and
i don't i don't i
want to bleed
i like the way pain pierces itself over
and over and
over.
pain pills collect in dust and seasons
waver over the dried blood on my
ear lobes.

where do you go
when you know
you'll be blind forever?
how do you know
you are home?
is there a painting
with the confidence
to call beauty
its own?
when your eyes fog like glass,
when they become the mask;
is there a sunset that calls
the sun to rest at last?
when no color remains,
light and darkness conflate,
do your dreams become
shadows or drugs?
are they ever enough?

nikolai. oh, nikolai. have you ever looked at someone and had this strange feeling they were burning themselves to the ground? not literally, obviously, but there was just this look in his eyes, some mixture of deadness and passion so white hot I knew it was scalding him. a bad boy fantasy gone wrong--he had all the danger but none of the romantic tendencies or weaknesses. of course, he dallied in the occasional love affair, but only when he knew it would fuel his self-destruction. he was dangerous in that way--he intentionally and enthusiastically perpetuated his own disasters. more dangerous, though, was his tendency to allow his shrapnel to exceed the intended target.