she is a rendering in darker inks of lighthearted subjects
the eloquently illustrated surrealistic seduction of the heart
demure yet ravishing sexualization
the ideal of beauty offering itself up like a sacrifice
at the alter of some wanton hedonistic temple to gods of lust
she looks up at me from her practiced good girl gone naughty dream
and tells me that she wants me
wants it all to be perfect
like in the paris magazines
wants it all to be crafted in perfumed perfection
near to goddess as human can be
she is rendered in darker inks
but i am captivated by the lovely
entranced by the beautiful
enraptured by the perfection
as only darker inks can be

Dear Mother and Father,*

        I spoke with Ali today. Maybe it was the first time in years. Maybe it was the first time that we’d ever actually spoken at all. Either way. She told me some things that I thought you should know.

Prostitutes, ******, what have you. They’re not born, they’re created.

         Focus on this. Your white picket fence. Your barbecue, your big family dog. Your pristine, rich neighborhood. Your uppity gossip. Your rules, judgements, “charity.”

         Behind your closed doors, however, dwells something else.

         Something like hypocrisy. Something like abuse.

Now focus on this.

         Ali: dark and brooding, even as a small child. Questioning all of your family values, the ones that I had merely accepted.

         My little sister, the ultimate judge, the supreme *****.

         Forbidden black fingernails, black hair; fingernails, which you forced pink, hair that you insisted blond. Friends that you deemed “greasy” and “unsavory”.

         Hateful, teenage Ali. Ditching classes to go off with boys. Returning home with track marks and glossy eyes. Sneaking out with no destination, if only to not be at the one place she couldn’t be herself.

         Home.

Now, this. That awful “it’s not to late to save your soul” camp. A reform jail. Holier than thou epithets. Squeaky clean repentance. A stockade full of higher authority telling her, “you’re wrong,” telling her, “we are going to fix you.”

         Brain washing robots with backhanded facades.

         Sad, scared Ali. It’s no wonder she chose to rebel, for all she knew of authority was hypocrisy.

         Not just you.

         Instead, a withered, sick janitor.

         The old man who brought her the food that they didn’t serve in the dinning quarters. Fresh fruit, chocolate, and cheese. Food to outweigh the everyday gruel.


         This lonely, forlorn man expecting compensation in return. ****** compensation; unimaginable and certainly ungodly acts.

         This Janitor, he would wander into Ali's room in the early hours of the morning. . . And vanish, several hours later.

        His pockets, empty. His heart, full.

         In this sick and twisted world, the janitor believed that love could exist anywhere. He believed that romantic relationships should not be constricted by something as trivial as age.

         And Ali, she had alternative motives, and compensated her innocence to reach them.

         This was, perhaps, the beginning of Ali's stark career.

         The *compensation of her soul.

         Or, perhaps, it was the man that picked her up next, as a desperate hitchhiker.

         Ali, who finagled the nun’s keys and escaped that ungodly place forever.

         Ali, who climbed into a sinister car with a pretentious man who warped her in more ways than one would even imagine.

         Penniless, solitary, and willing.

         But, think. What would you do with yourself if you had absolutely nothing and no one to lose?

         **Prostitutes, ******, what have you. They’re not born, they’re created.

when i'd be asked in the past
'do you collect anything?'
as a child i'd feel an obligation

my friends collected buttons,
christmas ******* rings,
compiled shells,
or gas station keyrings

so i collected can tops
and squishy toys from beach side shops
pointy pointless scraps of metal
that now sit in a dusty jar
and stuffed lizards and seahorses
in a box under an old bed

and when they said
they didn't get it
i knew i didn't either
but i'd say the metal
is sentimental
it really is a keeper
honest

and now i'm older
i'm no objector
to being a collector
promise

because in a box
inside my heart
beyond the dust,
i'm honest,
i keep a stash
tied in a sash
of all the things
i've sprinkled with stardust

of all the memories
of days i loved
and too ones fogged with miseries

of scars formed from thunderstorms
for thorns are as much of a blessing
as the caressing from surrounding roses

of people who loved me
and people i despised
of eyes i glanced at once and
should i see again
would go unrecognised

for when i'm collecting moments
i am collecting lives
and there is no better way
to be alive
than revising every moment
as if it were chosen
by you
from that gas station
instead of just through obligation