Writing letters in Spanish to Penthouse magazine because everything sounds better in español.
It was a beautiful loving thing before it all exploded like a train wreck.
Are you furious?
A country that douses itself in English and then drowns you at the hearth.

Cherry vanilla
Obsessive compulsive
Mint and lemon-grass handwash

The only things that matter?

Thoughts from when I first woke up this morning... Still in that fuzzy bit where you don't open your eyes and no matter how you're laying, it's always comfortable. A feeling I take for granted. I think about you kissing my ******* and not about how you're falling in love with my best friend; but if she's happy, I'm happy. Good morning.

and by the way
there are flies in the basement,
no doubt, the
result of passionless blood-letting and
christ-sharp animalistic screams (that scatter across places)
where ingrown genital hairs take presidence over ionized howls of ecstasy-
where flies buzz around and die, worshiping the patchwork
row of halogen lamps
that get so hot as to scorch the hairy legs that spread apart wide just to touch the
sacred flesh of incandescence
-these that ****** reckless photons into the tepid air like rotting meat
and wants them to **** the last drops of electromagnetic ******* from their poems of illumination.  
meanwhile
i can be found numbing myself into comfort and complacency-
the phosphenes of faustian inadequacy taxing my eyes
with the vaporous waking that seeps through the vacant-
but i knew it was real when you pulled down your tattered jeans, exposing your backside to my interpretations of perfection and
allowing me the liberty of *******.
i have seen you scream.
and breathed your sigh of servitude.
these wet ******* and the tangy juices of anticipation dripping down your thighs becomes reality
and reality consumes.
and the world becomes conscious awareness.
and there is nothing to be known except this.
alleviant zero of the cyclic
and the 60-cycle hum of stagnation-
frustration.
we know that tomorrow
the angel-headed hipsters
will be basking in the instagram-induced solar radiation,
supine on the neatly cut grass,
donning their leather jackets and skin-tight corduroys. thick-rimmed-plastic sunglasses
obscure their frail vision and allow them to distance themselves just enough from the sunsoaked oasis to call themselves "cool"
and i would hardly know to recognize you amongst the candorous chatter about humanity and the existence of love
and i would hardly know to call you god
nor to look you in the face and tell you to dream a thought unthreatened by sanity
or to bring you to tears by means of dexterity.
i like my body for what its worth
but i did not try to stop them when they bound and ***** the waitress.
i stood and watched as those gentle agnostics tore apart her lacy blouse
and pushed thumbtacks through her ******* just to watch her scream
and she liked it.
when they held onto her skeleton ribs and hipless hips
and she liked it,
they tasted the *** with cinnamon tongues,
received the grace of an angel as pierced ******* and clitoral stimulation
listless yelps filled the tender air like howling phantoms-
little ms. misanthropy
with her
disposable epiphany
self-proclaimed teenage sage
with mistakes to make her wise
i try not to understand
and then i dreamt of forgiveness.
my days of holding grudges and killing mice are over
and when we don’t kiss
i can smile.
and did you want me to define you through destruction?
-martyrdom and madness?
her bracelet and studded pieces to decorate
only obliteration of expectation
gives my finger the feel of tendinitis
i have come to love things less
how i long to just let bay, my leaning lip
my wrist bent back, asks, how much more can be done here?
i guess it's a little too late to walk away.
endless mind-numbing repetition,
was it for the retribution?
or perhaps reassurance or the infliction of pain.
misdirected meaning-
bluebirds.
and blue-black bruises on your arms.
wrinkles.
from falling feathers and
do you hear the echoes of chains rattling in the cellar,
or was it just a love song gone wrong
alivient zero.
why do we have to be beautiful rebels
we leaned to love with our shoes on.
listening to the stereo silence-  
runaway gems, poetic outcasts
leaderless young lovers
she was a young poet
but her tv ran out of new channels
idols were made here, dreams shattered, and promises left unbroken
but her *******, not left untouched

unblessed
i can taste it in your tears
i can hear it in your voice

bless these tiny fingertips and her lips are soft.
her skin is a whisper.
i will leave no inch of flesh-

unsacrificed.


her wounds bled with the words,

*you begin
to
understand-
all of me

No
im not that betrayal creatures
which disappear
once i felt cherished
right after they call me
but what about people who forget me
when im done cherishing them
what about me
you see
im flawed
i can't stand them forgetting me
just like that
im not
as real
as bright
as victorious
as the stars
but im one of them
but just a different kind of one
i have to dissapear
putting those blames on me
*im okay

i want to
see stars in
daylight, so i rub
my eyes.

Aquiver mellifluous ineffable hiraeth nefarious somnambulist epoch sonorous serendipitous limerence bombinate luminescence ethereal illicit petrichor iridescent supine aurora solitude syzygy phosphenes oblivion ephemeral incandescence denouement vellichor eloquence defenestration Sondra effervescence cromulent cellar-door debridement

Illustrator icon verdant cerulean aeneous  albicant amaranthine azuline argent chartreuse damask ferruginous  haematic  hyacinthine ibis ochre primrose russet sanguineous virescent mystborn transcendence

The Universe will not break you
It rubs sweven pain to wake you
For I'm a solivagant in my latibule
Hugging my demons in irenic rule
Humans flash in multi-phosphenes
Supernovas blending into scenes
Fighting until they are consumed
The end is stardust as assumed
Dividing the Ge Earth into stakes
And all is only you that it takes
Strangling their orenda in dismay
Then departing in the Milky Way

∴ Lyna Salman

Sometimes the person you fall for isn’t ready to catch you.

Cracks in cover let
Sun in hits like
Bullets

Unwrapped window
Gives solar epiphany
To cocooned child

Flee fluorescent,
Flee faux verve
Doorframe: portal
Extra-terrestrial
World through eaves
Like bug zappers
See-through walls
Most envious glass
****** passage

Cold shoulder, concrete, masonry
Phosphenes gleaming, staggering
Hotfoot, addled eyes
Inverted wavelengths
Gravel clinging, unwise
Scrutinized steps to grass
Great big sigh
Saluting sky
With micro pupils
Torrid shell
Swollen locks
Rejoice

Westside: Central Avenue
Pack up, load up
Truckpower to State Street
Beer, veggie dogs
Corn-on-cob
Bag-of-fruit
Checkout scandal

Three-in-the-front
State to thirty-three
Thirty-three to thirteen
Chauncey, Jacksonville,
Trimble, Glouster,
Bonnie’s Home Cooking
Opposite British Petroleum
Exhausted loan office
Opposite Coal Miner Emeritus

Burr Oak: closed
Margin parking
Bathroom clothes
Tasteful vest
Bathroom tissue to brim
Feet welcome
Pass up close up camp spots
I feel a pull to the valley
Clearing: stop, rest
Crack, chug, more wood
Fire, crack, chug, more wood
Chat, crack, chug

Copper detuned chime
Of that ephemeral vibrato
Drone of nine-volt synth
Into kaput tape deck
& we sing & chant & cackle

Campfire chatter:
Bitter pill
Naïve philosophy
Crack, chug
Empathy
More wood

“So when I was seventeen still going to church there were these events they were called “lock-ins” we stayed the night at the church they took our cells our watches took down every clock & covered the windows so we wouldn’t be aware of anything only God & so there would be lectures & guest speakers & bible readings and discussions & also these ******* bizarre activities like they would turn off all the lights light a **** ton of candles & they would blindfold us and give us a little piece of paper and a little pencil and they’d tell us in a omniscient little voice to write down one sin we’ve committed on the little piece of paper fold it & nail it (still blindfolded) to this huge wooden cross with this little hammer & I guarantee every one of us wrote down *******.  

Now that I think of it the whole thing was about ******* every speaker had some story of how they used to ******* all the time and how they were released of the devils hold and that ******* is a sin and will send you to hell and all of us kids were boys and every single adult was a woman they all looked at us like they read our paper like we were sinners like we would always be sinners just slimy ******* who would always ******* (like we would ever understand what it felt to be a woman or what a woman felt like) & their eyes were gleaming with such shallow sympathy that you knew they were true god fearing Christians”

(All at once)
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug

Bliss

~
black tie, bare feet,
a walk through dandelions,
following the scent of wine
and mirthful promise

phosphenes and paresthesia
—slow dazzle motif;
the bluebird of happiness
echoes in a shallow bay;
pieces of places to claim as theirs:
moth wings, flower petals,
and blades of grass

seduced by eventide,
unhurried mouth(s), lips searching
and soft, all words seem to have
a few extra vowels;
sudden ubiquity
to collisions and slippages,
cultivating suggestive shapes
from aleatory arrays
of objects and forms

in the surf they mingle and link,
emancipating adrenaline;
they love like they were
water for life
~

Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.

Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
        lovelifedeath
grip.

And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.                                

I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.

Ah perfectionism,  my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
      frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.

Phosphenes
those  bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
             make it out
             fix it all
             come out from under
             breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
  in short

has my bright patch of colour had its day?

I can't
face it.

"That felt like forever,"
and I meant it
as the sound broke through the noise
of the Saturday morning experience
I was having
and enjoying

I caught your eyes
and you hid from my blurry face
behind the thin flesh
as the phosphenes flickered blue and red and yellow
like my father's old television
that clicked loudly when I'd turn the dial

I buried my burning face
In the soft fabric
that's been through the wash one too many times
and I smelled fresh ink
in the sensation of mallets
colliding with my temples

You wrapped all of you
around all of me
and I felt the crude, harsh lines of your figure
against the curves of my hatred
I held my breath
and released my soul

The building collapsed around us
and in the debris I found photographs
of a face I only vaguely remember
and that old broken heirloom
that I still keep around
even though I know it's not worth anything

But for that one second
when my body and spirit connected
and my consciousness slipped away as I fell into a new dissociation
I woke up and understood
that we were existing only for this
and it felt like forever

Exploring hands encounter no defence;
Recollecting endeavours drives her to a dry pain
Throbbing, throbbing
Hamlet's hamartia discards her to *the lowest of the dead

His vanity requires no response;
Her life on the line and he's got nothing to lose.
  So much more the eye can see
Caressing, caressing

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass;
  Leave me, carbuncle:
Words she has never been able to utter . . .
Loudly, she thinks it
It doesn't translate
Shivering, quivering

Brittle monster bestows one final patronising kiss
  I must exercise some form of self control

Hardly aware of her departed lover,
She lays in a yellow blanket;
Phosphenes in the emerging light of day.

gaslit streams of dreams
and now you're psychedelic
soaking in highs and higher you're
throwing me over the bridge
and under a bus but
     >is that a bucatti?
and im telling you
     >no, its just another dead thing
and that seems to catch your blown eyes for a moment
because you smile at me
as if I can't already see the phosphenes dancing behind your gaze but
not before you say
     >what if we could make it one?
and now i'm smiling too because
     >who's to stop us?
the night seemed impossible and
unfortunately, we were still awake.

my eyes are tired
of drinking daylight
a breeze rustles the vines
outside my window
will it be cool tonight?
the phone goes unanswered
the tv remains off
it's time to rest
upon my pillow
there is nothing but darkness
phosphenes
the sound of ears ringing
and dreams of you

In a castle constructed of bones on a mountain high,
our hero sits alone on an ivory throne,
waiting for his current state of jejune to pass.
Whisperings of a voice, mellifluous air,
a singing so beautiful his heart skips a beat
at the gentle murmurings of such an ethereal voice.

And so he vacates his ivory throne
in search of this songbird that has invaded his walls,
the voice instils a certain hiraeth in his mind,
that village once so dear to him that now lies in ruins
due to his incandescent bursts of magical madness.

The owner of this voice, the eloquence, the elegance,
the image in his head that of a maiden on a rock,
as naked as the day she was born
and bathed in an iridescent sunrise.
A scintilla of a break in her voice
and she begins to sob at the meaning of her words.

He finds the source of this angelic sound,
a woebegone but comely creature supine on a table,
her eyes staring into heavenly mountains of madness.
She does not look to meet his wild-eyed gaze,
instead melting away until she is nothing at all,
leaving only dancing embers and phosphenes where she had lain.

He hears this burst of angelic quavers every day
but his madness permits no memory of each
to reside in his brain, comfortable and snug.
Instead, he suffers this delusion every morning,
when his head his quiet and thoughts are oblivion.

This siren swansong has no source in reality,
it is the last vestige of a mind damaged by time and solitude,
where the dawn chorus each morn’s twilight goes unheard,
but the ghostly choral vocalisations of a bitter memory
break his trance and he searches for the only sound not real.

Your eyes are the colour of the starry night sky; I close my eyes watching the
Fireworks of phosphenes
And in my vision I see your cold blue stare: warm, friendly, loving.
Too warm, too friendly, too loving.
My hands reached forth meeting a blistering nothing.
Our palms are two halves meant to be one, fingers intertwined and locked
Yet locked is your heart to which a key I have not.

My heart raced while watching you from afar
A spark ignited and soared into the black sky.
Exploding, it lit up the dark night and showered me with your warmth and fire
One I enveloped and was blinded by; I could not see the light
Fade into the stark starless nothingness
Instead, all I saw was you (and the life I wanted with you)

Countless, fruitless attempts of baring my soul to you made me question
Perhaps Cupid misfired, made me askew, and still I yearn for you.
I am afraid, you know. Yet, a sliver of light slipped between the crack of the closet door
Do I grasp it or do I leave the light be?
(laughs) Forgive me. To be or not to be, wasn't the crux, was it?

Staring at you from across the room, I've come to realize
Hard truths never fail to fall even the strongest—you only have eyes for Others
Cause after all, norms are meant to be adhered to
And the sky is never always a clear blue. Fireworks don't last forever,
Do they?
In the darkness I stand watching them fade. I clutch at my heart, fire ablaze. It shall stay ablaze

For all eternity.

whispered dreams and echoes in the dark
throwing tantrums at night for a *******
piece of death between my frozen-in-motion
lips that mouthed the three words in the living

i need you
because i do

i pressed the tips of my fingers to my eyelids until
i saw phosphenes and everything hit me like a bullet
so i ****** oxygen inward as if drowning and
then i realised i needed you even more than that

more than the oxygen that kept me alive and alone
more than the blood that fills my veins and whole heart
more than the alcohol that ***** my liver and lifts my head
more than that what makes time move forward
more than **** gravitation that has the earth turning
more than whatever it is that makes me think at all

i need your hand on my back to keep me steady
i need you talking to me like i'm real and i'm here for you
i need you walking beside me in the alleyways of town
clenching my hand in case this is over too soon
i need your hair stroking my cheek like it used to
i need your eyes on me in all the ruddy colours they are
i need you with all your laughter, cries, **** ups, frustration,
caresses, shame, fears, dreams, echoes, tantrums and lips

you and i

it's engraved in our skin
that's why.

My mind is aquiver with these thoughts that swarm like bees
Yet just the same my body trembles by the touch of your skin
As your mellifluous voice makes silent the buzzing in my ears

It's strange you see, the paradox that is us, you and I together
There is terror and calm, there is beauty and horror in it all
Like a sort of Yin and Yang but more so just a tug-o-war

With this I look in the past and question the limerence that was
It blinded us and deceived us like a butterfly hiding from a predator
We thought we knew what Love was, but maybe it was never made

We only rubbed our eyes and like phosphenes we saw an illusion
Colors that may only exist in a moment, but aren’t pure reality
Our lives together became so flawed in all we tried to conceive  

The moments of bliss and happiness were always just ephemeral
We got caught up in oblivion, because we lost ourselves before
There never was a truth to see, we were birds flying as if deaf

With this I come to a resolution that our relation was merely cromulent
We attempted to ameliorate something that was doomed from the start
Yet I think there was a sort of dalliance, but simply rooted in the flesh

I take a pill each morning--
"to keep the madness away,"
declared the doctor,
her tone clinically nonchalant
as she handed to me
a prescription for
small, white tablets
that leave a bitter chalkiness
in your mouth
when you've left them
on your tongue
for too long
before swallowing.

But
there is only so much
modern-day pharmaceuticals
can remedy.

Sometimes,
I can still hear her,
you know--
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
scratching at the
tessellated patch-work
of my psyche.

I can still feel her
as my fingertips flit
across the liquor bottle--
"Drink Me,"
it murmurs.

Curiouser
&
curiouser
I become with
every shot.

When the room
starts lurching,
when I am too
dizzy to stand,
I close my eyes only
to find that the world
is still spinning.

Or perhaps
I am just falling.

Yes,

D
   O
       W
            N

the rabbit hole I go.

And, as I plummet,
the phosphenes of colour
behind my eyes
transmute into the most
peculiar images:
a mercury-tainted top hat
encompassing the harlequin
countenance of a man
as crazed as I;
the trundling wings
of a Jabberwock
and the heaving snout
of a Bandersnatch;
a pocket watch,
its face lustrous and
encrusted with Jadestone--
"Time. It's time!"
it chimes.

"Time for what?"
exclaims the girl
in the periwinkle petticoat
(she appears simultaneously
excited and terrified
by the impending chaos).

"Bloodshed,"
reckons the squire
of the pocket watch--
the March Hare,
a grisly little thing
in a tattered waist jacket.

"Bloodshed, bloodshed,
off with her head!"

And that girl in periwinkle?

Why that girl is me,
and the Queen of Wonderland
has dealt her cards--
she'd like my head
(and my heart).

But
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
has a trick of  
her own to deal--
a Wild Card
tucked beneath her sleeve.

She is capable of imagining
at least six impossible things
before the high is over,
you know.
All it takes is a
simple flutter
of an eyelash
and then,
gripped between
her fingers,
appears a substance
foreign to Wonderland--
***.

"Bottoms up--
for with this,
I shan't feel a thing,"
she surrenders.

"What?"
roars the queen
upon her arrival.
"You will not fight?
Why, you must be mad!"

"Haven't you heard?"
replied Alice.
"All the best people are--
Cheers."

Affection draws me to you
your every part and every moves
and shatters me to pieces
your hair that falls like lightening
sparkles with thunder on my darkest night
like routine, these days
and shatters my conscience
like all those trees falling
helplessly, grotesque and broken
constellations shines in your eyes
and in my eyes are phosphenes
of your images blurred by shadowy lights
floating down the drain of my brain through my heart
as i slowly lose what was once so dear to me
i fall miserably in the salty tears
unable to swim across the dimples that forms in your cheeks
when you smile
i try to stretch my lips from ear to ear
in vain
i am not under my control these days
i have forgotten to love me
since you declined all the love
i showered over  you
and that love now flows down the gutter
like monsoon rain
my once big bright enthusiasm now floats around
teasing me to despair
together with smokes of cigarettes i have just begun to smoke
i have been such a reckless lover
you have been always been the better one
my favourite lines of love poetry
which i seem to relate has turned to some
crazy language i can't understand
all those days i sought to hold your hands forever
i dreamt  you by my side
brought you all my life, i could't lose
i fed to you, affection so annoying
now life devalues day by day
you have been a chain
even with regret cannot be undone
i wash my hand time to time
unable to wash you from my heart
i turn back and look at you
splitting me away...
from morning to night
as i barely survive
residing on the corner.. dark..
waiting for lightning
thunders, flood... silently
extinguishing the light of my life
with the candle dying over the note
i used to write love poems with your name at the end
does it even sense

sun’s light plays through disbursing clouds winding the day down; long legged spidery shadows
glinting reflections ignite phosphenes inside his closed eyes
cool finger-like breezes a sensual treat for warm body and tired mind
beyond papa’s peeling painted porch, sparse leaves on a rose bush’s bramble of dying brown branches sway and tickle with wind chimes
white wood railing diminished by dry rot
carnitas’ aroma remoras, zephyring eastward, riding in from a nearby restaurant; the faint perception of hunger
birds and traffic rush silently by; muted by hearing loss, drowned by tinnitus’ ringing and snapping
neon’s colors flash down the daytime street too far to read
miniature pedestrian people peddle in the distance, dwarfed by utility poles and power lines perspectively
from the hospital bed set up in his living room, he watches his open front door like tv
amidst a clutter within arm’s reach

Bright cold silver moon
Staring into the scales - your nacreous eyes
You are my ******
I touch your hair ever so delicately
Why am I filled with torrid logy?
You are my narcotic, you
Unknowingly sew
the lids of my eyes closed
Cross-stitched phosphenes of your face
under my eyelids
I am overcome with a voracious thirst
to drink you, or the glass of moonshine
balanced precariously on your lips
Everything is better when my being
splinters, fractures, and crumbles into your lap
Moonshine, take us to the cosmos tonight

I wished you stayed, I wish you stayed, I wish you stayed
but you are made out of shooting stars and made to be loved from
a distance

I wished to feel you, I wished to feel you, I wished to feel you
but you are made out of phosphenes and made to never be touched but drunkenly seen

I wished you were mine, I wished you were mine, I wished you were mine
but you are Equuleus, Pegasus, yearned after constellation, and made
to be yours and yours alone

I can't say bye, I can't say bye, I can't say bye
for I am a creature of immense love, immense emotion, immense denial
I am a galaxy, and I will love you until my stars burn out.

Staggering to my feet from the icy bathroom floor
One hand raised to shield my swollen red eyes from the
Blinding sunlight filtering through the dew-stained leaves of maple trees
Another hand weakly grabbing onto the porcelain white sink
When a sudden wave of gut-turning nausea caused my knees to buckle
And the white room spun
My vision peppered with phosphenes like holographic dust
My skin drenched in cold sweat

No longer sweet since the day you left me
My blood’s a bitterness you can’t imagine

black and fuzzy and walking through a vivid nightmare of things moved around and skewed. rushing and a sharp zephyr that grazes your skin and rustles your hair. its incredible. there is bright light. burning my retinas and pushing on my brain.

i walked around again last night. pulsing in the temples and sniffing e+++rs or whatever you call them now. the urge to binge boils in the pit of my stomach.

infinite visions of infinite timelines of infinite versions of me and myself and everyone around me. my bougainvillea froze and slowly obliterated my memory. the page turns and the blur comes to wipe out the color from my eyes, shut now, fractals danced and the phosphenes came. then stuttering im coming out of it. what?

is this? what is this? another shallow poem that considers itself? low art on the internet begging to go viral? an avant garde approach at a genre begging for something new? just a puff of smoke?

the yellow is nice it takes the sterility of my surroundings the color of it all drained and depleted. at night I choose the sterility and let the colors sharpen and blast.

the smell of earth. that dirt and wind smell from the rain and the loamy soil. the imagery and lucidity glows in the background. feeding on my periphery. come and whisper with me.

soft daylight.
behind my
eyelids it's
pink, and
white, yellow
sparkles;
maybe
lights
coming on
and off,
over
and
over
again.
a small
abstract
world.
eyes
closed.
i'm here.

this is a continuation
of what took place
that frosty night
with glimmering,
shiny
phosphenes,
endless bokeh.

he was right there,
parallel from my
spot,
and we thought
of nothing
but what we are
in, right at that
moment.

as he sweep
my hair from
my cheeks
to my ears,
from my face
towards my back,
he took his hand
placed it on top
of my eyes,
cold they
were,
he then
gently,
touched my
left cheek
with his
chapped lips.

Light filtering through the room,
A slight disturbance,
A common enemy,
Phosphenes dancing as you awaken,
The weight of your eyelids lifting,
Unveiling your surroundings,
An announcement of your existence,
Your choice to restart the world,
To have another look,
Just in case.
It’s a mixture of curiosity, maybe a little hope,
And possibly a bit of fear.
But that moment you open your eyes,
Each morning after your dreams,
The moment your darkness disappears,
To be captivated by light,
Is the moment you decide to give the world another chance.

Ana

Ghost kisses across my skin,
Gleaming white from the blade,
Music notes seeping out under my sleeves,
The days I cut with rib-bones like a knife,
They dreamed they could save me,
Drag me from the depths of my self-hate sea

I said I was made of stars, they burned bright,
In phosphenes and fluorescents in the night

Said love could save me, be the one thing that wouldn't hurt
Only self love saved me, though I'm content to have the memory of notes unsung,
Of nights unspent,
Of kisses too long ago to have had,
to have burned.