***** *** and cigarettes
bad decisions, no regrets.
Painted lips and fingertips
lace, leather, gags and whips.
Cheap motels, steamy nights
sweaty flesh and candlelights.
Pushing limits, breaking rules
naked dips in swimming pools.
Getting high while living low
riding rails, pure white snow.
Playing games & telling lies
the look of lust in lovers eyes.
Rendevouz in seedy places
sloppy kisses, hot embraces.
Ménage à trios, or even four!
Anything goes behind locked door...
Shots of Jack make it all alright-
just another dirt-bag night.

I keep writing 
writing and writing
on scrap notebook paper,
in the margins of my favorite books,
on old receipts for new notebooks
my hand is not yet worthy of
writing in circles
around and around
around the issue
around myself
big wide circles
turning everything i do
into a cyclone of denial
and hand cramps

Wild ride girl
Windows down, hands up
fingers splayed
trying to catch the sun rays

Soft Summer girl

tells me to buckle in
that we're going for a spin

Flower petal girl
all wilderness and
thistle bush 
tugging my shirt sleeves

Morning dew girl

knows we're headed for a cliff
but **** if i'm not ready to fall

I don't want it like this
When I'm going sixty and you're dragging your feet
I'm in for the ride, brake line cut
and there's only shadows and dreams in the passenger seat
Next time let me know before you tuck and roll

The leaves turn green to red
 to brown to dust and my end looms on the horizon
If there is beauty in the changing of the seasons
then there is beauty in death
and I see no beauty in death
Even with the knowledge
that rebirth will come there is no reprieve
The fear settles in like the first snow,
enveloping me in frost and stagnation
My life will turn to pain to numbness
to nothing
as the leaves begin to fall
and my end is in sight

This eternal longing for the soft embrace of Rest grows ever-stronger while my will shrinks by every passing infinite moment
I am suspended in place, held aloft by pure stubbornness and not-entirely-honest hope for a better life come next Spring
And to think of what I might miss if I let myself sleep...
Well, that pain nearly overbears the dull ache of existing at all

So here I will remain forever, one foot caught in a trap I set for myself out of fear on my darkest hour and the other foot just barely toeing the border of a daunting place I hope to never set my eyes upon

Its raining outside
The frogs croak
pitter patter on leaves
My heart is broke

The dark grey skies
They weep at my pain
I do not know why
She left me alone in the rain

The smell of the night bloom
Reminds me of her perfume
Her fragrance, her radiance
She left me too soon

The thunder rolls
The lightning flashed
the torrent, it pours
My world just crashed

What did i do wrong?
When did the tune go out of our song?
Was i too quick to judge her?
Was i really wrong?

Dont know why she left me
I guess it was meant to be
Will just say a silent prayer
To just keep her safe and happy!

i tell myself im feeling better.
no social media
no outside distractions
just me and my mind.

ive made quite a few changes in these seemingly eternal summer months
ive changed my diet
changed my thinking
my sleep schedule
my hobbies and interests
even my wardrobe.

ive made all these changes
ive gotten out of my head (for the most part)
so if ive made all these changes and if im doing all of these new and better things
why do i still feel so low ?

i feel low not as in sad
no sad is too simple, too cliche, too blase
i feel low as in my heart will start to clench and struggle to beat
my breathing gets shallow
my thoughts are dulled and become sullen and narrow
like im on the verge of a never arriving panic attack

so tell me if im filled with no responsibilities no standards to hold myself to
filled with a sense of freedom and "peace" as many would say
how come if you asked me to today
i still couldnt put my so called peace on a scale of 1 to 10 ?

sick!!!!!!!!!!!! shaky shaky
can you hear the paper in my lungs
like i can

i can hear it

i can hear it like i hear
the screaming of anonymous
mouths
in my obsessive
compulsive mind
i hear it like the
cries of a pummeled boy
who cries

do you peel skin off your fingers? do you rock back and forth
on the floor in the bathroom on the floor

why am i in the bathroom why did i lock the door????

you run from this i run from this
we all run from this like we run
from uncertainty even when we
make it pretty in our poetry it's
not pretty we're not pretty
there's paper in my lungs.

cut it up breathe it in
listen like paper breaths
sound like violins
what an orchestra these paper cuts
become when you listen
when you hum
and the paper sits in your lungs.