Paint by number
your colors
just like everyone else.
But do not color
outside the lines.
There's no place for
extraordinary.

Shove the clay
of yourself
into a mold that
doesn't fit.
But do not dare look
for another one.
There's no place for
individuality.

Write out the story
of your cliché life
just like all the others.
But do not make
any revisions.
There's no room for
originality.

I was the kind of grime that made you hesitate before you put your foot into the shower
You watched the water hit against me as I refused to move.
You stepped into the shower, anyway
And I know you regretted it immediately because you ignored me
It was easier to pretend I didn't exist, pretend that I wasn't a mess that needed cleaning
When you would step out of the shower and the water threatened to suffocate me
I would drink it
I let it feed me and I grew stronger
You couldn't tell
But you stand in the same place every time you shower
And with each shower I grew closer and closer to you
I wondered why you never acknowledged how well I was doing

You were gone for some time each day.
I don't know where you went, but I heard your shiny black shoes against the bathroom tile as you brushed your teeth and hummed a song by the Killers

Somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend--
I loved hearing the music you made
You made me want to be more than what I was
I couldn't reach beyond the edges of the shower, for without water, I would be terribly dry and probably die.

I would entertain myself in the hours you were away. I counted the time it took for the water to dry. I would choose a droplet from the shower door and watch it race the others, hoping it would win. But my favorite time of day was that 15 minute shower. I lived for that, you know.

I tried to relay feelings I didn't know I had
For days
But you never said a word.
So I let you scrub me away
Out of your clean, white shower.

Panic crept up to me,
Filling my mind with images of them pulling out my body,
Festered  and decaying.
Images of slow starvation. Of disease and disintegrated skin.
My breath faltered,
I gasped for air but it got caught in my throat,
Hot and humid,
The cloying stench of mold.

I could feel my heart in my head,
Rushing through my ears,
Every beat ripping my chest open,
Like the pressure would burst my veins.
Reason fled.
Rationality ran.

The walls closed in on my mind,
The water rushed up and choked my hope,
Impenetrable dark, weighing on my shoulders,
Pulling me down. Suffocating me.
Filling my mouth,
My nose,
My mind.

The moss beneath my hands crawled up my skin,
Images of drowning in insects flew through my brain.
Crawling in to my mouth,
The sockets of my eyes.
I screamed.

I screamed and I screamed,
My voice broke and still I screamed,
Silent peals of anguish,
The sound rough and course, grating against my throat.
Ripping apart the silence.

Frantically I tried to scramble up the rough stones.
Shredding my fingers,
My hands were covered in blood and grime.
Panic faded into Pain.
Pain to numbness.
I retreated into my mind.

Breath
In
&
Out
The neuro-
toxins of
your sad
and ever fighting struggle
(BLACK MOLD)
Hopefully
you do make
It out alive.
Here
Here-
Let's praise a cheer and hope
Hope
Wish
&
Pray
For the very best
My dear....BLACK
PLIGHT
PLAGUING &
Mold ing
Me asunder:
Death.

She resembles a make believe song
As if my sorrow for the staircases
Of the ocean
Blue because the nymph stretches
Around the ring of perfection
When the world was as dull as a sink
When the sky looked like a pillow
Trembling behind the doors of ***
As if the leggs weren't enough
To ask for a second meal
Then
The hand cuts the melancholy pear
Swift and shinning pear
Before the branch broke in half

I place you in a mold
and when you didn't fit
I tried to make you bend
but there were holes in you
the kind that only you could mend

Your words embody me and melt in such a way I lose all train of thought.

I breathe you in deeply as though you will only last a moment.

Take me, melt me, mold me to the very curve of you.

City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
                                     span
                        across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
           the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.

I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.

We're gonna trickle past addresses
                                                   now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
          I can taste it now.

Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
                           spans
              all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
                   teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.

I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.

A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.

We're gonna flow right through these boule-
                                                          ­          vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.