The glimmer on my M16
Reminds me of the life machine
And though the jungle holds me close
The men are what I fear the most
-Rambo

I had a dream
To live in the mountains,
With a dog,
A black border collie to be exact,
Become an author,
Write a book
But still
Hang out in that mountain.

I had a dream,
That one day
I'd go on a road trip,
Just me and my best buds,
Snapping photos,
Chatting,
Just living a life
with no worries at all.

I had a dream
That I'd grow up happy
Don't care about the money,
Don't care about the stress,
Just happiness.

I had a dream,
And you?

You crushed it with a
All your
Might.

The author?
That's never gonna happen
Because you're gonna spend
Seven years studying
Architecture
Designing buildings,
Being all techy,
You won't have time for your
Stupid little dog,
Or your mountains,
None of that would

Exist.

Your road trip?
You'll be spending time on the road
In congestions
Towards the city,
Where you'll go to work
Where you'll suffer
For the rest of your life.

Until
You
Die.

Your worst idea
Is growing up being
Happy.

Happiness is when you finally become
Successful,
But that ain't never gonna happen to you,
Success isn't for lazy pigs
Who cause parents to split apart,
Who ruin lives,
Who dream of stupid dreams
Like living on mountains
With a dog.

You're gonna stay this way,
Forever,
Perhaps be my little servant one day.
You wanna talk about dreams?
Well my dream
Is to
See
You
Suffer.

I have one last dream,
It still lives on
It grows bigger and bigger
Every night.
It's the only one left,
That I still hold onto
Dearly:
To save someone
From a car accident,
I pray it's soon,
I pray it's now.

Then finally,
I'll prove you wrong,
And I'll finally die

Happy.

old makeup spilled on my floor
dirty clothes strewn on my floor

You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on. Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror. I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a swipe. For the past six months, I have had less than four hundred combined checking and savings, and that number dwindles by the day. I have no groceries, but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles, and I was handing pills out like candy (but they are needed, much and every day).

Where did all these bills come from?
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.

Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, and the store's six blocks away.

I pout on my throne of dirty cotton, thinking I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price! It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would, even if they were smashed over a the back of your mother's black cat.

"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents! I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"

I crack open my father's checking account with the swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.

(I prove I love him and he loves me this way)

Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money,
they must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)

I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.

We go together.

You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic

(I think it adds to the glamour)

We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after

I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little cocaine
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur

And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)

I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,
just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
until I die, or something else.

Music.

One of the things
That makes all this

Bearable

Be it listening to
Or making
It’s one thing
That takes all this

Away

Lose yourself
In its lyrics
Dreaming up
Another story

The heavy bass
Beating in time
With your heart

Pour everything
All your energy
All your thoughts
All your pain
All your unspoken words
Into the chords

Feel it flow into the keys
Weave them into the musical phrases
Transforming them into a symphony
Giving life to the notes on the page
Just feeling everything

Gush out

Just for those six pages
Or so
Just for those four minutes
Or so

Music magically
Takes
Everything

Away

Turning them into something

Beautiful

And then, as soon as it had started,
It stops.

And that
Silence

Resonates through you
Through that

Emptiness

And that’s when you can
Get up
Smile
Bow
And walk off
Carrying on
As if nothing happened

Thank you, music
For making this possible
You’ve brought me this far
And you’re still keeping me going.

You are

My savior

There’s nothing to do
Nothing to prove.
Take what you want
Gamble your life
Spend all of it.

Poems on bottle cases
One of the endless anonymous
Giving breath to life
And leaving surprises
Like nature does.

Burn your life.
Miraculous ashes.