you're not half bad
at your candlewick blossom snuffing -

got your braggart game up loud
in your repetitive silence
beaming at the doting strange phoenixes
darting in between your
bending fingers,

snatching up my flames
in their return to their
static progress on
life skills that are lingering
far too long
in the forging stage.

baby, baby
please -

tell me those aren't
your voices
slithering up the tall
columns of echoes,
wailing out
overzealous,
too pompous
orations.

nevermind -

my mind's pretending
to sleep somewhere marvellous
in this mind-field
of
the littlest
pink *******,

trying to act like
i don't suddenly feel
as if
the tomorrow
up next
will be bringing
a different star.

so i just sit here -

pointing my toes at occurrences
that i really wish had've gone down
a whole lot more
differently,

praying that
by some miracle,
tossing a bit of dust
from my careful bag

(paired with the experimental
levitational practices
i keep doing in my free time)

will somehow
make room
for all these
eggshells you won't stop
throwing onto the floor.

too many have found me
playing patty-cake
under that possessed streetlamp
down Hardy,
the one that always seems to flicker
when i walk by -

snatching back its potency
just long enough
to highlight the
unsolicited red apple ritual
happening in my
cheekbones.

i've got a game to catch.

not trying to be the dawdling girl,
throwing all of her hopes
into the air,
willing the destined one
to be something that will
cradle us both.

you gotta be on this
wick snuffing trip
searching for something a little more than
a ****-tossing buddy.

better get a pack of matches
and try to beat me to it,
'cause i'm putting up my fire-red can

and the light's gonna follow me out.

are you quickness?and muscles sore from last night
when we met we inside blue softly metal(wheels adorned
and i cupped your cropped short raven finger tousled
pulling your excellent blossoming eternal face to my
finite ugly wilting face and we ate, from each furious
clasp, fruit more sweet

When I say, do you feel me?
I'm not meaning in a literal sense.
Get your hands off of my mindset.

Ha!
Laugh at me
Throw trash at me
Strip me down
Expose me; please

Rip away my crusted exterior
To see what’s really inside
It’s putrid I’m sure
It’s foul and nasty
It’s just the disgusting trash
You anticipated it’d be
It couldn’t be anything more
Right?

With your manicured nails
And photo shopped perfection
You could never be wrong
In seeing what I
In my raw essence
Could be
I could never be anything worthy

But tell me please
What you
In all your perfection
Would do
If it turned out that I were
Pretty?

I had to sell the cottage
and lose the gestures
of wind on water,
the names
of flowers and trees.

Time runs out, traffic
snarls, sirens wail. I
stare, confused, frail
as faces dissolve
in fog and mist.
I forget names now
and how to move.

Is it strange for me to say
That with the passing of
Yet another year
I’m most certainly young but I feel
Old?

So much as occurred since passing
That simple little thirteen
Quite literally
Cancer, Sexuality, Grades
But also figuratively I suppose

Even in youth it seems
That I bear so many more scars and wrinkles
And so much more knowledge
Than my peers
It’s as if I’ll need a walker soon

I've spent it losing races,
Worn through my shoelaces
With countless (too short) paces.
        But you know what I mean.
Falling in love with faces,
Shallow shadows my eye chases
Through the old familiar places
        Of my monotonous routine.
And even on the off-chance
Someone reaches past first glance,
I won't ask for a dance.
        My old coat just won't come clean.