When you feel safe for a moment  
you cracked open the door and
it dashes out
And it won’t come back, even if you call for it.

So you’re left thinking where did she go?  Why did she leave me? But then

Joy returns
tempted by the thought of warm food and a warm bed

“you’re here!” You shout; warmly as you can

But

Joy cannot be kept in a strangle hold-

Joy escapes again

“I’m already in the landfill. Gone,” you say.
But I can dig you out.
I’ll hijack the nearest garbage truck while on its local route.
I’ll hang my body off the side breathing in the air and I’ll know I’m close to finding you when I smell burning hair.
I’ll hop down off my rusty ride- a pea next to mountain- of human waste, and plastic death, chemicals, foul fountains.

I’ll start to dig with my bare hands no care for glass, tin can or needle. Or paper cut, or diaper rot, or fleas or ants or beetles.
I’ll search for what you cannot hide, that so clearly defines you. For deep inside the oozing filth, your soul radiates around you.

A flicker here of silver, a flash of karat gold, I’ll listen for your heartbeat drumming beneath the shoals.
And when I see your face at last revealed ‘neath the decay, I’ll wrap my hands around your neck and wash the dirt away. I’ll kiss you through the stinking **** I’ll pull maggots from your hair, I’ll clean up all your tiny cuts I’ll lift you to a chair. I’ll hold your hand and hug you- we can stay here if you feel. You can be my dumpster king I’ll be your queen of peels.

Once I had a ribbon
Very pretty and so long
I tied it in a lovely bow and it held on so strong
It was pink and silky
Slipping between my thumbs
I loved my little ribbon when I was very young.

Yet overtime it shortened tied in many knots
The ends they frayed the pink it greyed and pretty it was not.

“Throw away your ribbon” “buy another they are cheap” but this is my lovely ribbon I even wear it in my sleep. There couldn’t be another I love it with all my heart I’d rather my ratty ribbon than a new one to restart.

“But that’s a silly way to be” you mustn’t hold so tight everyone can see now that your ribbon isn’t right. And everyone is thinking she could be so much more if she only replaced her ribbon and bought a new one from the store.

Once I had a ribbon
Very pretty and so long
I tied it in a lovely bow and it held on so strong
It was pink and silky
Slipping between my thumbs
I loved my little ribbon when I was very young.

What fiery blade can I shove down my throat to pierce that which lives in me separate from all else?

Show me the blade I will swallow it whole.

To slice open my body to slip out my soul to sacrifice it on the alter of the whole.

To do no more than chime
like chirping bells
to be no more
than a wave in the river of hell.

We are a holding each other still
what has been is what will be. I am yours and you are mine for eternity.

if you know it
if your bones your skin your blood your guts know it
-what love is-
without having to think about it
You understand
You don’t feel emotion
You are emotion.

Where are you now?
You are here with me.

She fits inside a shoe box?
How can that be?

A mourning card, a birthday card, a cartoon on a napkin. A wire bra, a notepad, her photograph softly smiling.

Now she is a voicemail that I still replay.
Now she is that song? That breaks me everyday.
Now she is a twinkling star winking high above me. Now she is a butterfly her wings look oh so lovely.

Will I too fit inside a box?
With no name written on it.
Closed with a yellow rubber band
Sitting on top of the closet?

Like I’d been struck by lightning
Electrically abuzz
grasping
For a rope then a bottle
Of anti anxiety pills
love no longer within
My reach.
Everything so bright so loud filament bulb burning my eyes full of
hot salty tears
clenched like clamshells.
Veins overflow like spring rivers in my head.
boom boom boom.
Faster
boom boom boom.
Boom boom boom.
BOOM BOOM BOOM

I’m dying for your love
And you’re just standing there
bloodless
thinking about beers because you need to be drunker for this.

What’s wrong with her? Why can’t she be happy? I want her to be happy.

And I want to die. But not now at your feet writhing in pain, ignored, because it hurts that when you see me like this you blame yourself.

Don’t blame yourself
see how much I love you?
cut my wrists, string me up by my ankles, drink my blood tell me there’s nothing wrong with me that I’m enough and it’s okay I’m not happy.

And you’re just standing there bloodless thinking about **** because you need to be higher for this.

So I pick myself up and swallow the stone in my throat that held back the deluge of all the vomitous feelings pill by pill like pounding rain going down down down.

Fading melting light
key in the ignition
I leave you behind
I drive myself to say
I took a bottle of pills.
Im not happy.

After thoughts as the lights dim:

I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I am sad. I’m sorry I never felt like I was enough. I’m sorry I made you feel bad. It was me all along who hated myself and was too scared to make a change. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I couldn’t rearrange my brain.

I am the one people warn you about the dark secubus that ***** everyone dry. A demon. A curse. Leave me in my hole. Bury me in the ground and don’t mark my grave.

Then, be happy.

To
Lick between each of your toes
And chew on the crunchy grains of sand
And pick the purple lint
From your belly button and rub it on my gums

To bury my head in the hairy pit of your arm
And there make a nest for the night
Like a little weaver bird.

To let you spit into my mouth
And swallow it down
Like water from a mountain spring
with glass translucent fish.

To dig out your earwax with the tip of my pinky and sculpt a bust out of it
Because of your perfect Roman nose

To wear your hair like a coat
To the viennese ball and spin spin spin spin

You my love, light me up within.

to rot madly chanting I’m not free neither are you nor are we. freedom is the lie woven in the cloth of our flag- well constructed prisons- a world of body bags.

If the world falls apart tomorrow
At least I have a clean kitchen
And if the world falls apart tomorrow
At least I took the trash out
And if the world falls apart tomorrow at least I made the bed
if the world falls apart tomorrow at least I got the mail
if the world falls apart tomorrow
At least I paid my rent
if the world falls apart tomorrow
So what?

Picking petal
letting go of grasp
Feeling second after softness
Observing its dappled spots
Like a baby deer in a beech forest

Picking leaf
glowing green waves bouncing away
at the end of a long day

It is orchid hour of purples and pinks and
the waves scatter silver mercury moon drops atop the grass;

now the amphibious bull frog basses join a chorus of grasshoppers tuning their bow legs while the stars come in to focus through spy glass fingers.

All of this smeared under a blue canvas sky with clouds that are obviously paint.

Id like the quiet now please
I’d like the space. Expanding, curving, space finite as everything else. Everything ends don’t you see?

Over ten thousand years of life and death and not a trace of evidence can be found.
Houses fall into the sea, rocks grind to sand, even the thousand year oak will fall, rot and feed the maggot who lives his life in seconds.

Look back, see your shadow that is all there is- the great boulders you have yet to push up the hill those too will roll back into the dark and backward abyss.

Enjoy now: orange juice, blue sky, velvet leaves, pointy pen, words like isosceles and econlockhatchee, call to prayer, hail Mary’s, watermelon, ******* icicles, words for love in other languages, capybara swimming, a good curse like *******, a living corals reef, soul food soul music, drum solo, soft salty butter, curler fern, thunderous clouds, copper hair, resonant cathedral, stalking tiger, McDonald’s cheeseburger, silver fish, dancing sunbeams, Spanish wine, beach plum jelly, the smell of sulfur, crashing wave, skate’s eggs, pine cones, cold granite, sticky peanut butter, igloo fantasy, clear running river, red fox cub, aurora tbt, back pain, hang nail, diva ballads, cactus water, marble carved light as silk, cuckoo clock, tiki torch, ouvea cave, blue moonlight, dew drop, Harley Davidson motorcycle, whistling wind, lighting bug, dandelion tea, himalayan salt, rose bud, scarlet blood, snake scales, dead smell, whoosh, fear, memory loss, saturn up there, kittens, clam chowder, big big ocean, hard hard rain, salty air lost at sea empty, full, drink, alive, freckles, our song, honey bee.

Pretty good stuff.

Can I leave this meat and float on the cosmic waves out to the edges of space time  to learn… something? No, learning has a keeping thing and everything gets lost. To sense something? Greater than myself. The whole I am a particle of.

Paradise is returning broken pieces re-connecting to all life, all space, all stuff, all being- the source. She.

Electrons dance with me. all is me and me is all.

Perhaps the only thing to fear is that there is no joy out there.

the emptiness is calling me. Better than dead- elemental. As we were before conception when we left eternity and came into human being also known as holy conscious particles with body odor.

I am not born of man and woman I am not child of David and Theresa.

I am not grandchild. Great grandchild. Great great… great…

I am not ape. I am not small mammal that survived cataclysmic extinction event.

I am not cells nucleus dna.

I am just carbon and water and spit lit up like Frankenstein with electricity.

I’ve made no sound as loudly as possible for the prolonged period of my life. I’d prefer the silence.

I’d like to go back where I came from.

How are you? Not much
How have you been? Doing?
How are you doing? Been?
What’s new? I’m fine.

Let’s get together sometime.
Open invitation
Feels like forever since I saw you last.
Text me.

Definitely.
It’s a date.
Has it?
Text me.

Gassy, bloated, clammy, smelly, chicken in gums, sty in the eye, sweatpants stained, scrunchie, flip flop fleeing
Actual feelings.

Here’s to you friend-
You’ve come unwound,
Betrayed my trust and stomped the ground

And slammed the door
And made a scene
That it’s unfair, and I am mean

And it’s my fault
Can you not see
I’ve locked the vault
It’s you, not me.

The time is done
When i’ll give in
To your tyrannies

So there, I win.

Yesterday
I approached Yesterday
enjoyed complimentary champagne and truffles
Wore a light blue silk shirt
Skin tight jeans
black and blue high heels
I blew out my candles and wished three things
I wished these three things three more times
Through the tunnel each way
And the second time I blew out my candles
It’s a funny thing when wishes feel hopeless
… how I wish for a love like yours
Even though you were left in the end.
Perhaps I have it on a small scale
Not a novel’s worth but three pages in a journal's worth
No children, no ring, no transatlantic life
Just a stillness inside.
I fell denying it was happening with the illusion that
I was in control
Until, “Surprise! You’re heartbroken now pick up the pieces
Of your self respect and move along
The yellow lights are flashing
You can’t stop here”.
And I find myself thinking today
Between floods of emotion where the phlegm in my chest
Wants to escape as tears out my eyes that the
Greatest heartbreak
Is that HE didn’t talk to me on my birthday again
OK fine Christmas OK fine New Years, but my birthday?
How many birthdays has it been where we haven’t spoken?
Where I get no acknowledgement for being alive?
Heartbroken, a mess with men, I went to a jazz club with a new beau.
A young painter fairly talented fairly handsome
Who paid for everything the whole night
So I went back to his small apartment
That smelled like turpentine
And he took off my clothes and tried to have *** with me
When I said “no” he persisted so I said “no” again
And he backed off asking if “he got anything in return?”
I said “no”
He said “I plan on making you my girlfriend”
I said, “so?” The answer is still “no”
And I left.
Took a cab back
It was past two am and snowing the first snow of the year
And I thought about yesterday and how I was asked
To be a **** model for ten photographers for a hundred dollars an hour for two hours
And to sign my rights away to all the pictures
I haven’t said “no”
I feel **** today
I feel more than ****
I feel see through.

I wrote a sonnet today but it was serious so I titled it "I wish this sonnet was funny but it’s soNNOT. Then I deleted it because I'm in one of those angsty annoying phases where I'm disappointing even myself.

I wear ****** like a fur coat. Denying the dead animal.
Accelerate. Crash.
Circles. No ends. Circular thoughts.
I have no clue *** that means. She didn't either. Ivy league *****.
3: Obsession, Hatred, Boredom. The holy trinity.
Everyone else does. iiiiiiiiiiii.
Genius? Too tired. ****'s pointless. Nothing to prove. No point in proving.
Prove it into me, yeah. What? You're insane.
You think everyone thinks that.
You can think anything. See try: They're all jealous. Doesn't make them all jealous. Take a step back. Who gives a ****. I think therefore who gives a ****.
I wear ****** like a fur coat. Denying the dead animal.

pry open your eyes
Two Families, one survivor: A Tale of Unwavering Hope!
Or...
Two Families, one survivor: A Tale of Unwavering Self Deception.
Por Qua?! You may blurt out? Yes, sheep can and do speak Spanish and if you are reading this you are one of them. Join us! As we hold hands and adventure down the raging rapids of I accept that my life is great and I am happy because if, for one second, I did not everything about me could crumble into meaninglessness.
modernmodernmodern

Great
After a perfectly good week
You stub your toe. Isn’t that the way?
I caught a cold from a boy who kissed me and
I was speeding around town singing to the radio, spending money, getting my toes painted and my shoulders rubbed and then I ran into my cousin.
Who I had forgotten about.
ERRRRRRRTTTTTT.
Guiltguiltguiltguiltguiltguiltguilt
Lost family, lost family- aisle 6 red vest white Target...
I…. hi.
No not I, not now.
Worst than forgetting about him is seeing him this way- in his opinion. After embarrassed eye contact he turns away.
But none of us turned out the way they wanted us to.

The boy who kissed me said “sorrysorry” when he got me sick.
“It’s not your fault. It’s okay.”
Was that the right thing to say?

Why didn't I yell after him as he walked away- "I'm not really doing anything with my life either."

Unpeel my flesh
Let the mealy apple brown
Because you are gone.

Going out’s impossible today
The dog is looking at me but i’ll have to stay because
Today I can’t. Today I can’t.

Cleaning up’s impossible today.
Getting dirt on my feet just walking around the house.
I should put socks on but I won’t.
Today’s just another one of those days where I can’t and I won’t.

Really should take a shower today.
Wash away the dirt and the grime and the sweat
But I really don't want to get wet.
Just another thing to do
And I can’t and I won’t.

Why is it so hard to live on your own?
No one telling you what to do, you're alone.

I probably should try and eat some food
There’s nothing in the fridge
And I’m not really hungry at all
Perhaps I’ll go to bed.
Another day, another day
Another day where I will stay in the same place.

I’m wonderin’ if I’m wasting my life? Wonderin’ if there’s anything else I could be doing?
Then I remember life is… confusing
No one knows anything.
“Doing” feels like a problem. What if I do something wrong?
What if I hurt someone else? I don’t want to hurt anyone.
So I'll stay here at home.

I can’t. I won’t. I’ll stay alone.

The boy first noticed the crow on a quiet day
It called to him, caw, caw, from a high branch,
The crow tilted his head,
The crow was looking back.

The next day, the boy returned and called to the crow “hello crow! Caw caw”
The crow swooped down,
its blue black feathers reflecting the light.
The boy smiled as the crow circled above.

The next day, as the boy was lacing up his boots his father asked
“Where are you going?”
The boy answered, “To visit the crow.”
And his father frowned,
“Crows are no good, they eat our crops. One crow is a crow too many.”

“Not this crow!” said the boy. “He calls to me and makes circles in the sky.”

“No crows” the boy’s father scolded as he handed him the gun.

The boy went out to find his friend
The crow called to him, caw, caw,
but this time, the boy didn’t call back. The crow saw the silver of the gun.
He spread his wings wide,
and began to rise, to fly circles in the sky. Remember little boy how beautifully I fly?

The boy raised the gun and
The crow fell from the sky,
wings folding as he hit the ground- plop. Stillness.

And the boy turned away
He didn’t look back
At the blue black feathers reflecting the light.

Iwaswokenat329ambymyownselfloathing
why
thatmostsacredinnerpartof­methepartileastunderstand
isrestless
andkeepingmeup
itstryingtote­llmesomething
somenightsjustarentforsleeping
forcedtolistentoitil­ayhereanditchinside
hopingmyselfsoulrevealssomething
ofthestuffim­madeof

I sat at the window watching the kids across the street do cartwheels in their yard.
They shrieked and galloped and flitted about the green green green grass
Enjoying all the seconds of this first summer-feeling day.
And I sat at the window
drinking ginger ale for my hangover.
And in the distance I heard the bagpipes.
The old old old lady who lives next door died yesterday so they must be her bagpipes.
They filled the air with something that I had never felt before on this familiar block with its dead end, mowed lawns, and oak trees.
I feel nothing about the old old old lady but guilt for feeling nothing.
A boy I went to high school with died yesterday. He was knocked out in a fight and went into a coma.
He was 22.
I hope he had bagpipes.

Darling
I'm flailing against rip tides
But really just laying in my bed thinking
Please god help me pay my taxes
I'm on the cusp of something great I can feel it
Please god.
It’s the small-humongous things that are so ****** tricky to master.
Like finances and security and happiness and self respect
And you. (*you) you have to be complicated too?
You can't just be there to want me when I need you?
Take my hand, kiss it softly, walk me across busy streets?
And here I am wondering if life ever feels less lonesome
More controlled.
Eh.
How * brilliant you think you are sheep**.
Draw the shades, crawl under the covers. Fully clothed. Thinking Why?
Because I can make you who I want you to be
My own personal HeyZeus walking cross water
To dryland a warmmeal a softbed

You told me I was invisible the other day.
Do you remember that?
You told me there was something wrong with me that everyone was concerned about me that I am the reason I am alone because I push everyone away.
You told me that on my birthday.

What about the sound of fingernails clicking on ivory keys?
Does it distract you from the ringing from the pinging from the singing of
your mind like the rolling rain

Shining a flashlight under the hood of the casket
To see the broken glass intersection
Where I met myself
In the reflection of the car window
Through slicing drops

Those yellow sheets still piled
Under the piano bench
Music that can’t be played because the thing built
Out of wood, and ivory and hammers
Is silent now.

"Women"
lent to me by my friend Dustin because I confessed I kept
"Burning in Water Drowning in Flame"
on my bedside table because I like flaws for sleeves.


The pock-marked face that was a mask for the lily within,
Does one see flaws they are unaware of in themselves?


what makes a person
re-read the stars in search of something else?


He wrote the most important thing was bravery.
He wrote "the only time a man needs a lot of women is when none of them are any good. A man can lose his identity ******* around too much."
He said she was too good for him


Because she liked flaws for sleeves.

They weren’t sure
Till they compared
Dental records
‘gainst what was there

A metal jaw
Four teeth remaining
The scientists saw
A blueish staining

And empty orbs
That could not see
His crimes against
Humanity

Yet, here in his fragmented skull
A bullet hole in his temple

No meat just man
He used to chew
And spit beliefs
“**** all the jews”

Forever sunk,
Below, beneath
He burns in hell
Here are his teeth.

My heart feels empty, it’s not sorrow, but a ghostly ache felt while slipping into a dream,
I heard you sing, siren, the words that made my loneliness fade
one dusk on a summer night, a green flash along the horizon of the world.


Your song stopped my thoughts, and I floated high above the white capped sea
through deep, blue shine, silver moonbeams, echoes of the sun,
leading me peacefully through the dark,
Leaving behind the noise of my past,
The weariness, the struggles, the hard parts.


And I flew
away— far away I went with you,
Where my heart didn’t ache and time didn’t pass,
Where we wouldn’t grow old watching dreams through broken glass,
Where beauty couldn’t fade,
And fear couldn’t separate twin souls, soul mates.


But now, lift the cool night air from my blue feet tucked under the soft edges of a warm quilt, the music of your voice must be filling space beyond this place I lie in this fleeting moment, alone. Out the window I go-


I no longer see the stars behind the shadows of the trees but the night smells sweet—
Wet dirt, cool in the dark, coating grounded feet.
To tread on lilies, clovers, mossy stones,
Breathing life into my bones.


This is where you’ve left me- as you sing around the world-
Standing at the edge of black abyss,
Where death is nothing to fear,
And I could slip away forever should I once more hear, mid-song, mid-breath, mid tear, the waves of your music, anything but this sharp silence whistling in my ears.


You, siren, were different—
Your voice will never fade
You will echo through the cosmos off the concrete basement walls, forever writ on digital and analog. Your music will outlast us all. You make me feel so very small standing here looking up at… it all.


Was your song real, my love? Or just a dream?
My memories are fading now, rolling waves lap on the shore,
And here I am again, alone unsure—
Will I love again? No, not ever, not without you now. No, never, no more.