Found myself at a dental clinic...
He was the best there was.
Unorthodox and eccentric,
But to the specialised craft, he was boss.

Ran through the bits and bobs
Like any normally would.
The poking and prodding and the mandible X-rays.
Everything cold and clinical, so was the mood.

Strange was what happened next...
Specialist and I then stood facing each other.
He leaned close and pressed his palms against my rib cage.
Held them there over a few breaths before it was over.

Then a brief chat, small talk initiated by the man.
Bespectacled and exceedingly chatty, small in stature.
Talks of politics and odd human behaviours...
What started off as friendly turned into a heated banter.

I then realised that along with his decorated credentials,
Was his propensity to be condescending and arrogant.
Him being the best, I thought I could let it all slide,
But soon enough I opted out of being a willing participant.

Couldn't stand his abrasive cockiness!
I snapped out of being cordial and passive thought.
I wanted him to just stop talking!
I went, "Well, are you going to fix my teeth or not?!"

He was stunned momentarily...
I suppose he hadn't seen that coming.
Then his features softened to a blank
I could almost read the unspoken words he was conjuring.

With an exasperated sigh of resignation,
He uttered his next words swollen with regret
"There's no need...for you only have four years left."
It dawned upon me that my timer has been set.

*And then I woke up...

There is a boy walking, maybe ten or eleven,
a skateboard under one arm,
his shirt branded with
THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.
And I wonder, what did she say?
Did she say she liked his tricks
or his ratty sweatshirt?
Did he blush,
swishing his hair in response,
exuding confidence and cockiness, in the mean time remembering his mother,
calling out to him before he left the house.
Did she say “Son,
don’t forget your helmet!”
Even though he was already gone—
Or was she really a he,
who sat him down a few months ago and said
he’d be gone for awhile
that he’d see him soon—
it’s been six months—
and maybe, when the boy heard this, he ran out.
And maybe when he gets older maybe he will run out more often,
to hang out with those who are deemed to be
“the wrong crowd”
and he will be drunk and high,
stumbling under the streets,
above the lights,
hearing-but-not-hearing everything that she is telling him.
She is telling him the secrets of the universe.

a beast
bitterly binding
the broken books
of the benevolence
that be-seats
the thrones of thieves
a binary botulism baby
survived by
the lowest common denominator
lord of may be
the calamity shaker
shaking limbs from trees
he made me
who am i
to be enshrined by
the designs in which
he heaves the storms away
leaves the drones in decay
as of yesterday
in an electrical parfait
of symbiotic energy
******* tempting me
in its tether
as embryonic entities
shutter the flow
to the effects
that no one knows
of the development and growth
of self
and the foes he oppose
as was imposed upon
by force of will
exposed and deloused
of the shrill
cockiness instilled
in his build
aroused
in the post stillness
of his kills
he is i
and i am thrilled
to lower the shields
leveling out the playing field
and yielding
to the technical terminology
of my basic demonologies
of my ****** up philosophies
cloning the technologies
you infuse into the spirituality
of your broken dichotomy
just let me know
how that goes
as corrosive winds blow
through the boroughs
of your haunts
i can almost feel
the taunts
as i hear the boots clomp
turn to stomping through the door
enacting your unholy chores
in that which bares no reward
the price is blood
the cost is love
in which i cannot afford
unfurled upon the hoard
in torn intellect
abhorred in the twirls
of a de-cored vortex
inter-sexed
and robbed of originality
in the result of cultural finality
empty
in a sea of dreams
our heads blown apart
is only the start
as it seems
ill be whispering
from afar
by dark
yet to embark
from under the rage of my darkening heart
but if i hiss cyphers into your charts
ill become safer than the cause
as i shall get the sympathy
of the claws
across my character
in the jaws of the barrier
to non existence
its even scarier
than the persistence
of ignorant citizens
with hard-ons
and night vision
down-loadable intuition
with the precision of the averages
unlocked savages
in the ravages
of synthetic bliss
1.1 happiness
projected in eyelids
emptiness
defectors of the world
gotta free them
beat them
if you have to
defeat them in the bathroom with a knife
rip their chips of deceit
show them life
clip their legs in retreat
until they secrete
the evil from their throats
binary bohemia
pooling into a despondent
pool of blasphemy
drained happily
from the heads of greed
only when willing
to commit to killing
can we fix the dream
and control the lean
of modernized thinking
chromatically depleting
as our chromosomes are shrinking
not one inkling
nor notion
of the ocean sinking
before the rise
and in all that you bitterly despise
forgotten
as the world is washed
before your eyes
yet to realize
the compliance of failed tries
a crashed system of self told lies
yet ...
i still spy the better days
i can smell them in range
estranged
surprised
i muffle the cries
of demise
in reprise
of a new name
a fresh start
summarized
in the surmise
of restraint
the faint
whisper
delivering from here
the elixir of life's experiences
cryptically laid upon the sentences
of my ethereal commencements
the beautiful lessons
entrenched in the blemishes
the scars of the heart
impart
on you
the virtues
of the tried and true
blood sweat and tears
in the blurbs
of yesteryear
obtuse
it be my will
to instill
in you
the
jaded
truth
love yourself
and i shall
love you
too

I am a white, Jewish girl from Florida.
Hit me.
Hit me with your white girl jokes,
Your Jewish American Princess stereotypes.
I will giggle and squeal right along with you.
Because yeah,
I do order white chocolate mocha frappuchinos from Starbucks,
I Instagram pictures of my nails,
I take selfies, whiten my teeth, straighten my hair,
Shop at Forever21 and drink Naked Juice like it is my job.
Yeah, my daddy buys me things,
I don’t pay for my data plan,
There’s no way in hell I would drive a sedan,
I wear Nike shorts and avoid any nearby cameraman,
And let me tell you, I love jamming out to old school Britney Spears.
Hit me one more time, because none of that means I am any less intelligent,
Any less diligent,
Any less likely to face judgment
Than any other slice of diversity around me –
I am a white, Jewish girl
My nose is not its own cartoon,
I eat bagels (but I absolutely hate lox),
I’m not tan or even the least bit tinted,
And god knows I don’t wear Uggs.
Tell me I need to get married young,
Major in business,
Wear clothes that leave me airless,
Get some of that European gracefulness,
But don’t tell me I’m dumb.
Don’t tell me I’m not thoughtful.
I’m a white girl.
Take a glance at my resourcefulness,
Understand my goals of being ambitious,
Get rid of your own stereotype-inducing cockiness,
And notice me in all of my flawlessness.
Because I am a white girl,
And I am unique, strong, inventive,
Empowered, passionate, adventurous,
Indomitable, unbeatable.
I am an individual –
Not part of some whole that you put me in to stabilize your mold,
Not the example of a societally scatterbrained ***** meant to be your centerfold,  
Not a previously worn-out piece of clothing thrown to the gutter unsold,
Rather a human being of my own rules and my own morals
A human being with ideas and intelligence and power,
A white, Jewish girl,
A person.

One day, darling.
One day, we shall meet.
One day,
We lock eyes across the room by pure chance.
Whilst I am playing a wallflower
and you are playing a rockstar.
In the midst of my seeing
and your being seen.
We look directly into each other’s pupils.
One day, darling.

And I see a town crier,
my voice and feet,  in your face.
Maybe you see a poet, a dancer.
A storyteller.
Your spigot. A minstrel.
Like a fairy that whispers
charming sweet-nothings in your ear.
One day, darling.

You give a smirk
that gives me flutter.
I touch your shoulder with my pinky
as I reach for the plastic cup to fill it with another dose of cheap wine.
Your skin perks up and contracts.
I act as though I didn't notice,
but you know it was deliberate.
And I know you know.
My half-hearted bashfulness.
Your half-arsed cockiness.
We drink ourselves to semi consciousness.
As we indulge in our awful drunken dancing,
your hand slips in and rakes across my abdomen, and
my hand lingers around your bony hips.
I want to just grab handfuls of your ****.
However, even drunk, I am not that bold.
One day, darling.

I ditch my friend who dragged me there.
You fall straight onto my bed.
My bedroom in a flat I share with my best friend.
I look at your feet dangling off the edge of my bed,
kicking off the shoes.
I think of how quickly you have claimed my space.
And how much it excites me.
I slither in next to you.
And you engulf me, wait for me to overflow.
Both of us half aware, but fully euphoric.
One day, darling.

In the morning, you fry up my flatmates bacon,
scramble some eggs.
In my kitchen wearing nothing but
your underwear and t-shirt.
I make tea.
When you ask, I simply say I don’t have any coffee.
There’s a bag in the pantry. I just can’t be bothered to take out the press.
We eat together on my balcony.
Barely dressed.
Sober but painfully hungover.
Your smirk is now a softer grin,
but with the same glint in the eyes.
We don’t speak a word,
because it gives us headaches.
I put the dishes away and
set up a pool chair in the balcony.
And we cuddle up under the sun,
feeling the light breeze on our ears and brows.
So naturally. Naturally.
One day, darling.

We break every rule written in Cosmopolitan,
told by our friends from school,
by people on television.
Those mind games to test each other or
guess our feelings become moot.
Because your hands become so
comfortable to rest my head in.
and I enjoy the weight of your head on my back,
like it belongs there.
And because there is no time to ask, wait, or waste.
One day, darling.

We spend countless days on the beach,
bathing in salty water, sand, sunlight, and each other.
We smoke kush and you buy me a ****
because I can’t stand spliffs.
I drawl on about my quasi-Marxist stateless communist utopia.
You stare at my face, not saying a word
and smile, even though you don’t give two ***** about a word I’m saying.
And I know you don’t.
You take me to bars and parties and social gatherings,
and I go everywhere you want me to.
Even though I never leave your side,
or speak to anybody else.
I go every time.
The days I cannot move an inch away from my couch
because I drown myself in useless, endless influx of thoughts and emotions.
You stay-
Sometimes, just far enough that I can’t feel your over zealous heartbeats full of life,
but close enough you can see me.
Sometimes, pressed up right next to me so I cannot make a move.
We drop acid together and spend the whole day
doing nothing but hallucinating while sipping my signature honey-lilac lemonade.
We pop a molly and have ***.
Which short-circuits my brain a little,
and brings you closer to the thing you call god.
You sing my words and
I dance your tunes.
So quickly, your fingers learn my hair.
And my palms know your chest so well.
I have never been so excited and comfortable.
You, of course, have never been so fascinated. Enchanted.
One day. Yes, one day.

And the summer comes to an end.
Because the earth didn’t actually stop
the day we met (no matter how much it felt such to us).
You go back to school, and I probably move on to a new city.
I give you my email or whatever.
But it’s useless.
Because you are young and new.
You have many things on your agenda -
people to become, things to acquire, places to be.
And because I won’t keep still.
Because drastic changes are so inevitable for both of us.
The world is so large for both of us.
Still, I know (I mean, I know) you have carved
a permanent spot in my mind.
But I can only hope I am the same to you.
Because, suddenly I don’t know a thing about you.

It doesn’t make much sense that I love you.  I’m so wrong for you, and you so right for me.  I guess it does make sense.  But you don’t love me so don’t feel bad.  It’s okay, I understand.  I’m not a high class, well-educated girl.  I feel like you need someone more like my sister, not hot-mess me.  I never match, I’m always late, my hair is always frizzy, I can’t dress myself nice, I love you.  I ******* love you.  Why can’t it be that simple?  Why can’t it just be

I love you
I love you too
I love you more
I love you

I love you.  So completely.  So needy.  Truer than blue.  You’re just

So.

Blue.

And I love you.

Your eyes.  Your smile.  Your laugh.  The way you talk with your hands.  And slur Italian so ****. Your arms. Your muscles. Your skin. Your sweat. Your spit.  Your feet. Your chest. Your strut, hips swaying. Your hips, those hip bones.  My mouth is watering. I want you.

I love your anger.  I love your jealousy.  I love your stubbornness.  I love your cockiness.  Your ****, too.

I love your hangovers.  I love your attitude problem, the way you talk down to me and ruffle my hair.  And tease me and talk to me and you don’t love me.

And it breaks me so violently, snaps every single one of my ribs, one at a time.

Crack. Crack. Crrrrrackkk-kah.

It hurts me.  It will **** me.  But it’s so true.  Because you are so completely and fully

Blue.

You consume me, floodwaters breaking the gates in my mind, leaking into every cavern, swimming debris of you slicing my brain, shallow cuts bleeding into the blue.

You move me, an ocean untamed, your waves thrash against my sanity, turn switches all the way ON.

But you go through me, you don’t see me.  You are this endless, perfect, vibrant, enormousity of sky and I am a bird, mesmerized by your beauty.  

I’m not Old enough
Smart enough
Wise enough
**** enough
Charming enough
Graceful enough
Clever enough
Fast enough
Strong enough
Tall enough
Skinny enough
Crazy enough
Impressive enough
Bodacious enough
Perfect enough

To ever win you.

How is it possible for one person to make you feel so absolutely wonderful and absolutely awful at the same time?  Even now I feel self-conscious writing these words, as if you are somehow perched behind me silently dotting i’s and crossing t’s.  I wish I could be prettier about this.

For you.

I ******* love you.

And I can’t say a word.  I’m afraid to inconvenience you.  I don’t want to make you feel anything but bliss. Part of me wishes you could just feed off my rich, sweet, sticky love for you.  And you could live forever.  But part of me knows you don’t want to sip from my overflowing cup.

And
You
Come
First

So I’ve sewn my mouth shut and fed you the key.  I only hope you’ll reject it, throw up stinky bile all over me.  It’s the only love from you I even deserve.

I love the way you touched my thigh.  Your fingers just barely grazed it, as if sitting next to me was so natural you forgot I wasn’t a continuation of you.  I only wish your lips had followed.

Sometimes I imagine myself getting drowned deranged drunk and spilling my thoughts all over you, a slimy shower of emotion you would rub all over that ******* chest and your heart would pound so loudly veins would rip.  But then I snap back into reality when I bump into a pole.

You smell like Italy, summer, on the beach, with an ice cold fruity drink in my hand.  White white teeth, smiling around an orange wedge.

Whenever we talk I secretly reread our conversations and overanalyze and morph and mold them into the perfect love.  You and me.  I think you are pounding at the door ten flights down screaming my name.  But it’s just all the stupid drunk druggy college kids.

Am I a stupid drunk druggy college kid

To you?

I remember when you hit me in the foot with a door and I yelped “ow” and crouched to the ground. And you crouched down and said, “Are you okay?”  But you looked right into me, into my muddy eyes, and you were

Soooooooooooo thisthisthisthisthisthis close to me.

And I got angry.  And said, “Yeah, I’m fine, ****, calm down.”  Why did I do that?

I told you I have a bad memory.  I don’t.

Have you ever lied to me?

I’ve been writing so much all I can smell is the tangy bitter smell of ink.  And it’s sad that that’s the only sensation I’ll ever know when it comes to you.  

Unless you want ***.  And you might.  I could give myself too, let you use this mint-condition waterbag shell.  You could use me ‘till I wear down to bone and my organs look like rotten vegetables.  But it would **** me faster.

I will be your *******.  You can cheat on me and hate me.  And chew my nails.  Eat my skin.  You already set me on fire.  I’m just gonna burn out, anyway.

I want to look in the dictionary and write down every single word that belongs to you.

I want to write you suicide notes.

Every time I eat an apple, I think of the time you let me take a bite of your forbidden fruit.  And you bit right on top of my saliva and teeth marks.  Like nothing.

Because you are everything.  And I am everything else, nothing.

Soulmates.  So you say.  Why do you tease me?  You hang yourself right above me, a shiny, round, juicy, tender, tempting, sweet nectarine without a single bruise, just out of my reach.

I howl my rage at the moon every night, for tattooing your contagious inferno across my throbbing chest.

You make me cry.  Did you know that?  I cry into my pillow so it stifles my whimpers.  I sound like a choking, sputtering, snot-filled dog.  And I can never swim to the surface of the loneliness that is drowning me.

Sometimes, I just wanna ******* punch you.  And knock all your teeth out.  Stab you up the nose so the whole **** thing falls off in a gurgling, bubbling, ****** mess.  Because

Well I don’t know

You make me mad

But that made me think of you dying and the jolt that just went through my body was so searing I pray you’re immortal.

And I never pray.

plastic
tables and chairs
pinks
blues
yellows

leftovers lie on the table
paper plates stained with chocolate syrup
beside the foam
fossil of a milkshake

brown
fingertips and corners of lips
dinosaurs and tiaras

table napkins wipe away
giggles and smiles

wooden table
little words etched in
hearts, crosses and names
jagged lines through the middle
random doodles
curse words

stained with grease, an empty pizza box
soda bottles all over the sticky floor
a single can
of beer, empty
touching a hundred lips
curious little sips
awkward conversations,
air thick with secrets and lies
confidence and cockiness

*clean white table cloths
long-stemmed flowers
crystal wine glasses
silverware

no one quite fits into these

knees always banging
and cutlery always clanging

no one quite fits into these

****** Bag in sunglasses
donned indoors where
fluorescent sunlight cannot justify
the obfuscation of haughty eyes
so the visage is one
of pure pretension
and cockiness,
dichotomized
as self-assuredness
and the colloquial term for the phallus,
a literal ****.

(I see him strongly in the memory of a high school field trip returning home school bus late night he sits sideways back to the window head leaning back sunglasses donned smug grin I rendered him the vessel and the scape goat bearing my burning hatred for the inflated ego wrapped in an undesirable chic I deem deplorable, hate hate hate)

Smug grin,
I wrote this poem from a bean bag
in the corner of the library third floor
whilst wearing sunglasses and
a taste of irony
on callous lips
twisted in an invisible sneer.