you were a ******* masterpiece;
a shattered hurricane
of broken hands
and ****** knuckles
and mascara stains
that never really washed out
so impeccably broken
so wonderfully flawed
you tore the ocean to shreds
you scattered the sand
and ripped apart the sunrise
like an old picasso lost in the basement
like that god **** whisper in the oven
like poetry written in broken bottles
and empty sandboxes
i guess i've always had a penchant
for a beautiful disaster
i've always touched the edge of the fire
and waited for my fingertips to burn
but i didn't mean to fall into the flame
now i've got ashes in my bones
and embers in my skin
and when i touch the fire
it just ******* freezes me
i didn't know what it was like to miss something
until i felt it in every single cell in body
i didn't know what it was like to miss something
until i didn't know how to feel anything else
we broke twilight in half
and crawled inside the empty space
and somehow it still doesn't feel like home
nothing feels like home without you anymore
i'm still ticking off the calendar backwards
for when i can finally count time
on my own hands again;
i want to count for you
but my fingers just don't bend that way
and i want to prove to you i mean it
i always meant it
but i can't make my knuckles turn past
the black and blue
i'm sorry i couldn't love you like you meant it
i'm sorry i couldn't make you believe it
i hope the roadkill in your driveway
at least makes it to the graveyard
since you never did lay me to rest
i hope your own dreams at least get a eulogy
even though god himself knows you don't deserve it
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 12:39 PM UTC
i’ve been dancing on the clouds again,
whispering all my secrets into a dollar bill every night
because i’m too cheap for a twenty
and i know i’m not worth the extra,
but there’s a storm inside
and the clouds keep turning to mist
before i can ever finish a song;
the thunder is an earthquake in my bones
and i can feel them crumbling
every time the snow melts,
turning to ash until i’m too limp to dance anymore,
and the rain is a tsunami in my chest
that keeps tearing through the cage around my heart
every time i remember the flavor of the month
coursing through my veins
and dripping out my nose;
i’ll tell you a secret:
sometimes i even lick my lips.
but the lightning only comes
when i’m thinking of
the way the golden rays of sunlight
peek out from behind the clouds,
and the way the salty tide brushes up
against my fingers in the sand,
and the way the heartbeat of the ocean
engulfs my whole body
while the water clings to the thirst in my skin;
sometimes i bathe my throat
in a harsh bolt of white lightning
before taking a dive in that musky swamp
just to see if it’s the same,
but the bruises on my thighs
still make me wash my hands
until my knuckles bleed;
i finally realized pandora’s box
is the place where hope dies;
so bury me in the graveyard of
all the moans that died those nights,
carve out the epitaph with my own fingernails,
don’t give me a funeral unless it’s storming outside
and the lightning finally strikes me;
maybe one day i’ll stick my fingers
in a power outlet just to know the feeling,
since i know i’ll never be good enough
for the real thing
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 5:40 AM UTC
i close my eyes every night
and pray to a god i don’t believe in
that these dormant volcanoes will finally erupt,
that they'll finally burn away
the ashes under my finger nails
from every touch i can't ever give back,
that they'll finally drown me
in a scorching pang of apathy
so i can stop holding my breath;
I close my eyes every night
and take the hands of
a devil I don't believe in
while he leads me down to the fountain
and holds my head under the water
just so I'll stop begging him to do it for me,
just so I can wash down
the bile rising up in my throat
with a poison i’m beginning to reek of,
a poison swimming in my veins
and washing me away to a beach shore somewhere
with the salty tide tickling my tongue in the mist;
i can almost taste it.
but when the sun goes down
and the sky turns black
and the whisper of a
sea breeze behind my lips
fades back to broken mountains,
when i finally open my eyes
and i’m wading in the same swamp again
with that familiar sweaty scent
of musky resolution clinging to me,
i can't help but remember that it’s all real,
and yet none of it is;
i can’t help but scrub at the regret in my bones
until my skin turns red;
i can’t help but try to wash away this empty memory;
it chatters in my teeth
until my gums are raw and ******
*there’s a volcano stuck inside me
while i’m praying for a hurricane
to come and set me free*
nobody ever taught me
it wasn't supposed to be like this.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 10:06 PM UTC
it's 1619
& the boats are all docking, bodies pouring onto the land as freedom pours out to the sea
it's 1724
& the shackles are all rattling beneath the beaten but unbreakable who never gave up
it's 1864
& the abolitionists are all cheering, but lucky 13 never translated to equality
it's 1870
& the voters are all gathered, but the bleached out crowd still managed a loophole around the number 15
it's 1896
& the crows are all preaching. separate but equal, they say, like you can really separate equality
it's 1955
& the front bus seats are all taken, white hot anger sparking 381 days of determination
it's 1957
& the students are all shocked, the little rock needs a thousand Feds just to blend
it's 1963
& 200,000 people all have a dream,
gathering in unity for the 'greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the nation'
it's 1965
& the voting booths are all open, the wealthy pallid mass finally forced to share their ballots
it's 2008
& the white reign is all done pouring, the flood is still flowing but at least people have the chance to try to swim before the drown
it's 2016
& the trumpets are all singing, waning out the songs of the last 400 years like we still haven't learned anything
and maybe we haven't,
maybe i've just been too
hopefully ignorant
to hear the paralyzing
sound of the TRUMPets
all along
maybe i'm searching for a tomorrow that doesn't exist
because the sound of the trumpets is thrusting us all back into yesterday
but i refuse to join in on the symphony
'this is the new sound just like the old sound, just like the noose wound over the new ground'
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 2:33 AM UTC
I keep finding bullets stuck between my teeth
The same ones you bought the day you decided the ceiling would look better covered in blood.
Maybe that’s why everything I say
sounds like it’s is trying to **** me.
But what do you do
when you stand in front of a mirror
with a gun to your head
and your reflection smiles back at you?
What do you do
When you stand in the middle of a busy road
And every driver is a different version of yourself you’ve tried to ****
Every version of yourself
No one could love.
My mother used to get in fist fights with the mirror and expect to win
She says I look just like her
Maybe that’s why I wake up and can’t recognize who I am.
I checked the obituaries this morning
Trying to find myself again
It’s a habit I picked up from you
But I never thought your name would end up there before mine.
Sometimes I imagine what death feels like
Sometimes I imagine kissing you instead
By now it feels like I’m imagining the same thing.
Someone once told me that begging you to come home
Isn’t the same as praying
Maybe that’s why God stopped listening
and started smashing the windows of every place I thought we could be happy in.
Your smile looked a lot like the light at the end of the tunnel
Right before the train hits you.
I used to squint my eyes when I looked at you
Like I was looking at the sun
Or a car accident I wanted to be part of
I’m sorry I ever thought you could be anything ugly to me
You were the only beautiful thing in this hideous place.
I couldn't look at you clearly,
because I knew I would see my own face staring back at me and
your eyes were the only place I never wanted to be dead inside of.
You can only break your knuckles so many times
Before you cant hold yourself together anymore.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking since you left
I don’t know how to tell them you’re not coming back.
See, I used to say I never wanted to end up like my father
Now I have to say I never want to end up like you,
Which means I can’t leave without saying goodbye
But I tried to write my eulogy last night
And realized it's hard to write about someone I never knew.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever
To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to
These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming
Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense
Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white
Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
it's not that i hate you
i don't
it's just all the saturday nights that
i poured into your empty beer cans
when you were so ****** up
you never even noticed that it was
me holding your hand
through all your nightmares
and it was me losing myself
in the fight against your demons
and he couldn't even see
that you were drowning;
it's not that i hate you
i don't
it's just that i can still hear you
crying over him
when the wind blows in the right direction;
i wasted all my breath
trying to remind you that you loved him
even though we both know you never did
and now my lungs are as empty
as the rest of me has been since
the moment you said
you didn't need me
i never took another breath
from anything but a cigarette again
it's not that i hate you
i don't
it's just the beautiful way you broke my heart
like it was your destiny
and i want to hate you
for all the hangovers from the nights
i couldn't let myself remember you,
for all the tears i left in my bestfriend's shirts
from every night she had to listen
to me sob your name,
for every piece of me that i gave up
trying to become someone else for you
i spent a year choking on the pain
seeping through the cracks in your voice
when you whispered to me
under the moonlight about him
and i wrestled with a typhoon in my chest
every time you sold yourself short
just to give a ******* to a boy
you knew you'd never love
and i listened to you complain
ever 'morning after' about wanting more
why wouldn't you let me give that to you?
it's not that i hate you
i don't
i hate myself for falling in love you
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 2:07 AM UTC
I almost want an apology for how you made me feel
but like your love,
I won't be getting it
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 12:30 AM UTC
If the sun had hands, he’d reach out
to touch the curve of the moon’s spine, tracing
his fingers along each crater as she lit up
for him like a paper lantern
in the sky. His flamed limbs enveloping
her, his Luna. The arch of her back
against the backdrop of night, her fullness
intoxicating. After all this time, still burning for her.
When the sun was given hands, he cursed them
as he watched the moon crumble
into ash in the blaze. His hands were Rome
and he couldn’t stop the collapse, the ruins of her
scattered across his cupped palms. He prayed
to Moirai for revival, but all three gods
were silent. Choking back flames of fury, he tossed
his beloved into the black expanse, each flake still lit
with a passion to rebel the stars
that continue to burn with foolish hope.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 12:29 AM UTC