Would you love me in a hundred ways?
In goodmornings and goodnights,
Flowers and falling ill,
together on the couch with an Xbox
And a box of Kleenex between-

Would you love me in words unsaid,
Good deeds unseen and bouts of malicious intent
forgiven. IF I could be forgiven. That you would forgive me
In each of these hundred ways you love me

Missed calls and messages,
Feeling like a little kid
Always waiting for the other shoe to drop

I have already succumbed to the burgeoning knowledge that my endeavors will come to naught,
Prose, song, story, photography, bouquet,
Beget not the notoriety I had, in truth, craved.
But let that disappointing greed be of bygone days-
Perhaps in future I will grow content to lay with what
My arts instill in me, solely
If I regain heart enough to craft, to sing, to wit-
For myself, only.

Out of every pore I’m breathing
Out of every shattered pulse
I’m sorry that you’re cleansing
I can’t feel you here at all
There’s a hollow where I’m mending
All the rafters you’ve torn down
There’s an ache of which
I’m grieving
But my lips don’t make a sound

I'll be on the ocean, floating away
& maybe we'll meet in Cancun someday

I listen to music which makes me cry,
Begging it to let me down one more time
Sun-soaked, riding down from an adrenaline high
Laughing, tossing, thrown around the carnival
Fried, sugary kisses into the sunset
Cheap polyester prizes and
Knowing we ain't made of time,
But spontaneous dreams and childlike wonder
We won't run out this time,
I'd bet one more ride, and always
One more song

I let my laptop die over the pain and keening,
The leaving for sake of leaving,
"Maybe you'd be happier this way"
Let the lyrics sink to the bottom of the ocean,
I let my laptop die,
I let my laptop die and I walked away

Tea residue,
Glowflies, cashmere
Cliffside
See the torn cloth upon the rocks,
Splinters from the mast
Salt tears, salt blood, salt from trade
Broken china
Saffron
It's all salt and sand and blood, now
Washing up the beach in the night,
Shadows from the fire light
The jaws, they gnash

The hungry ocean, the cliff's teeth, the fire burning,

Whichever takes of me first
But I would choose the undertow
For blacking out without the air to breathe,
And lungs filled where nothing could sate the thirst
Of my greedy heart above, and my ugly stomach below

He tries to soothe my heart with pretty words,
But many have come before with much prettier
And all balk at the sign of work-
You need effort and action to make love work,
Love cannot sustain on love alone.

But oh, how pretty are words as a salve,
A balm so easy given, as thought to mouth
I'll be sure to reread them once we're out-
You need more than empty promises to stay in love
Love cannot sustain on love alone

And yes, as a young poet,
I fell for gentle wordsmiths
Who felled me so swift with a note and a sonnet
If I'd had more care, I'd never have bought it
For love, truly love, cannot sustain on love alone.

That ice you hold in the center of your chest
You never let it thaw, you never let it rest
And I know where my sun sets,
But you,
You've never been that far west
//
Playing faded cards with a jar of hearts
I'll never win against a gambling man,
You know how to sugar me up
I always forget not to show you my hand
//

I'm writing into the disquiet night,
More words, words, words
Which you will never read

The cuts are warm on my hips
Blood and heat is primal, tangible,
Human and animal
I escape into my mind more and more and more and more
I can't remember the dreams, but being
Someone else, with different thought patterns
Different goals, different family, different loves
I can feel the cuts in my thigh while I dream
Holding and encasing, pressing in and blanketing
I know the dreams don't want to break, but break like a fever
If I didn't have to wake
I'd never live a life I'm willing to take.

Pretty in pictures we send,
People we'll never see in person
Pretty words we don't say in person
A fantasy, a guile, and as immaterial as a dream
Pretty, pretty words, I've heard so oft before...
"I won't leave" "I'm not like that" "you're not annoying"
"It won't happen that way" "why not stay"
And every time the peach dream pops I run straight into another
And abandon what I've learned for the sake of the pride of another
And I feel just as fake as an otome game lead
When it gets too hard, select another lover, when I start to glitch,
Restart the game, because when I'm sick, dying, hospitalized
And I look around and see I'm still all alone,
At least I've got pretty pictures, pretty words, pretty lies
To look at on my phone.

I know they don't know how I love like an inferno
It consumes me, flames lick anyone who comes too close
Like a whip licks delicate skin on the flick of a lash
I cannot stop running my mouth, I want to share, say
Everything I want to find the weakest points and say the words
That cut you down I want to, kiss it all better, this burning crash
Is easy to ride right into the ground

They don't know how my emotions hit like a tornado,
Want me to get a job and keep a stable life without ripping the
Roof off this house and destroying everything we've nailed down
I cannot calm the core, there's anger in the eye and you
Cannot calm me, but root me to the spot
If you try to sate me I will take out this entire town
I can't stop the tornado but I've installed a warning

Like a tornado siren test and a fire hazard sign set to yellow
Always ready to crank it up to deadly degrees
Wild and devastating with a serrated edge at least
There's a sort of serene beauty to the aftermath,
Waking up from a hurricane to the calm debris-ridden sea
And maybe you ask her if she's burned herself out yet, and if she's
not crying,
You bring her a blanket and tea

Lazy afternoons and sleeping pills,
Washed out episodes of Winnie-The-Pooh and
Printed photos of a little girl I wish I knew

A dry riverbed, feels like a shut down KOA
These electronic waves are eating me alive
Old razors won't keep the spiders at bay

Slanted rhymes like slanted eyes,
If I wind the radio up just right
Can the music take me away tonight

Back to sleeping pills and scalding baths
And mid-melodramatic heart attacks
In the heat of a June I doubt I'll survive
But if I get back from this broken road,
I'll talk to you tomorrow

Then I'll talk to you tomorrow

I can see the fog horn hasn't been lit
Staring at the wall of white
I hear voices of my friends, in the trenches
I can't help thinking,
"How could they all make it?
With you here, trying to fake it?”

It's icy cold in the winter
And it gets colder as you get thinner
As you pull yourself into doubt, into grief
I was in danger of slipping

Always in danger of the cliff before my feet
I've been sitting here on the ledge
But it's time to walk along the lonely ridge

Someone once told me, you've got to know your cards
If you see a bridge, well, it's your choice whether to burn it
But burning's not so easy when the match is in their hand
I tell you friend, I ran along and fell
The future has always been tomorrow, forever
But now the future's here in the palm of my tattooed hand
I can't see it, but it's glowing so brightly
Maybe I'm blinded, but it's as dark as an abyss

I see mist is floating towards me
Holding closer, dreams ignore me
Will I ever escape, will my boat come in,
Or did it sink?
I sit and think, again.

I used to date
Now I just hate
It's a little
Silly stringing
Me along when you say
It's better if you go away
Tripping down a road
With water streaming between
Can't help but think
That the separation of my legs
And the stream, that's all it takes
Seeing what we'd never be
A bee and ant will never live in harmony

I used to love
Crushed by a dove
White feathers
Floating blood down upon
My arms,
I scratched,
Against the thorns,
You spit from your teeth
Come on closer to me

If we are, we are
But I don't pretend to know it
Side-stepping affection gone putrid
It's stupid
Thinking I got along fine
Before I left you behind

I used to connect
Warmth, I used to let
Fill up a gas tank
Leaking slowly
Open a valve like a locket
pour in the oil
I used to date it,
But now I hate it,
This crap you're giving out
Won't sustain, I'll clog the spout

And if I scream in anthology
Analogy, metaphorically,
Speaking, I'm going to die.

"What happened to her?"
It's better if you Don't. Ask.
See she wears Depression on her face,
In bloodshot eyes and dark circles,
In early age lines and pale cheeks,
In bitten, chapped lips.
You want to ask, "what happened to her?"
But it's better if you don't look too closely,
Or the spider-web cracks across her porcelain mask
Will break
You can already see the black smoke eking through
Joined to the shadowy frame of the one who walks beside her
Caressing her filigree skin and flicking a lighter.
She says, "I want someone to take the pain,
**** it, smoke it, love it, beat it, praise it, blaze it, lemon-glaze it,
Kiss it, kick it, shoot it, carve it, wear it, taste it, light it on fire."
But all we ever say is "you're looking so much better now"
So much better now.
Like a marionette in a little side show, colorful, with ribbons.
A broken smile, and sad, sad eyes.
So beautifully tragic, it must all be for show.
Though the silver she draws with, its ink a bright red,
Is more telling than any lie she has fed
Fed on, cried on, choked on, drowned with, like a gluttonous pig.
So what happened to her? And the life she once led?
Those honeyed dreams turned to mutinous greys in her head?
It's better if you turn away and smile,
And pretend your heart inside isn't as dead,
She only wears the pain most hold inside, swallowing a painful life from a flask sewn into the flesh of her hip,
It's better if you didn't ask.

I know I’m trespassing. Is that why he’s here? I’m not smoking, or drinking, or skinny dipping. I could be doing drugs. But I’m not. I’m just trying to find my own peace of mind. What’s so wrong with that? The summer homes are long abandoned. There are no lights from boats on the lake. It’s too cold for anything to live around here. So what if you’re not supposed to be at the park this late? Dusk is a concept! My emotions are a racket.
                I said, what are you going to do? He said nothing. How about you.

                I think that’s why I’m sitting on the wet rocks. Craving a smoke and chewing my fingernails. I could be a lot of things. I could do a lot of things. I’m just not sure. I’m waiting on something that’s out of my hands. I’m waiting for the typewriter to end its round. The press to run. The stars to fall out of the sky, gathering in my ****** and coughing up dust. I’m waiting for this to become us.

                I’m thinking I should have bought red lipstick. The summer I painted the Denver room with make-up. I’m thinking, I should have broken the board into half again, the day I got the news. I’m thinking I should have walked farther into the ocean the weekend they announced it terminal. I’m thinking I should have moved in with you. Now every empty doorway is another reminder of the space that used to be filled. And I’m too small to fit into the cracks in these walls. But for hell’s sake I’ve got to try. I don’t want to be that.

                I don’t want to be another “why?”

I might just be an echo of a star trying to burn her way home

I pace this room like a ghost / picking up books
Trying to fold myself in them. I want to be a soulmate,
another half, I want to be like stardust, some white powder
You can inhale or **** on to get you high I want
To be the reason and the drive but like a drug I am also,
I am the reason you shake, you sweat, you worry and turn from the bottle, syringe, or pipe
Until I'm some forgotten college memory you were just trying
Like a memory either fond or full of regret but a memory you won't forget all the same /
While you hope your child doesn't try something like me, doesn't get hooked on someone like me because I am a stain on a perfect track record,
An expulsion from school or work, god if you'd only hid me better
I promise I can get you out of whatever you need to escape this. time.
Only I can't promise I'll get you where you're headed and if you
survive
See I'm not the heroine of your story, I might just be an echo
Of a star trying to burn her way home, through any means necessary
But unlike that star, that drug, that ghost, I care if I hurt those people around me and in that, around me, I'll always feel alone.

And I only ever wanted to be symbiotic,
To be loved and in love.
Trained myself to forgive every hang-up I thought someone
Could throw at me,
And guarded myself not knowing, my guards could be the end
Of some things beautiful.
And beyond the hurt, we're still here word-for-word
Don't you want me?
Don't you regard me?
Isn't that more than enough, more than enough and just,
Breathtaking?
I never thought of vows someone and I could make as truth,
But here you are.
With no need to seek or try, in fact sometimes in failing,
We just are.
Maybe four years isn't enough to know someone but
Regarding the fragility of life I-
Oh,
Just shut up and kiss me.

And oh, when I want to slip
To fall off the edge
I'm begging for a reason to collapse
The broken cannot fix the broken,
Doesn't mean that we don't try
Because while mine are dim and dying,
I still try to feed the light inside your eyes

And even when neither of us can stand,
Hand in hand we still lean in and rise
Until the day you can walk away from me
Will I be able to walk my own way, too,
Or will I fall without you?

The blind cannot lead the blind,
They say the world won't work that way
If I'm no better than a husk,
A mirror to bounce back your love,
Then shall I live within the water,
Which reflects the moon, which reflects the sun,

How long does this last
Is this as good as we'll ever have?
Because it's not sustainable
It feels too good to hope

You're welcome to prove me wrong..

Tonight I chose a path, followed to its end and it was
Closed off
Kept driving down the road, to find another way
Evening air burned sweet as incense over the green water,
Clear and cold snow run-off, up in the mountains
Where otters made their play
A hummingbird came to say hello, singing in my hair as I
Shook my head around to see it, retreating and returning
My car died, I just lay in the sand
Sticking my toes in
That river running down, if I could only bear it
I'd slip into its current, grow leathery fins,
Oh I'd never go back, but for the memory
Across the way, heavy with trees and a rock face
Scorched by fires of travelers passed by
There are antlers, elk and such, oft in the forest
Their hoofprints in the beach I walk
My toes trailing across the rocks, fingers trailing wind
A small stone, caught up from the water, gleaming emerald,
Pocketed
I wish you'd come dream here with me
For I fear it's all just a dream within my head

Baby unlock your window, I'm coming over tonight
Yes there might be a draft, but this is all that we have
For a ****** romance in the night
I can't walk in the door, I might wake someone up
Yes I'm not ashamed, but who could be blamed
If they saw us and said it was love?

The world can hide in a blanket of cloud,
Beneath a song
A city in a broken heart,
Funny how a memory can change with time
The person you were, left behind
In embrace of the dregs of love
Left over in a perfume bottle swept up
By the winds, change
Follow the scent to days and places past,
Hidden in an hourglass,
Pressed within a page

Sometimes the nights up here sink into my bones.
There was no quiet in Cali, not really. Even as the apartments and small homes slept, there were the haggard and homeless on the streets. The lamplights never went off, and security made rounds around the gates and shopping center. All rounded off neatly with the late-night patrons of the 24hr Walgreen's.
I was one of them.
No, there's a peace to the PNW. The fog that blankets everything, keeping the night sweet, secluded. Somewhat lonely.
(I would hate to not have a friend up here)
There's a way the stillness of the hours after midnight sink into me.
Surrounded by trees, grass, dirt. Bugs and owls and coyotes.
The earth breathes here, the night is a living entity.
It breathes me in, and though I may be at odds with the nights up here
Sometimes
Sometimes, we are at peace. A peaceful understanding.
As I sit, and let it wash away who I was and who I am.

I told you I was hurt, bleeding on the inside
I told you I was lost, in the middle of my life

There's times I stayed alive for you
There's times I would've died for you
There's times it didn't matter at all

Will you help me find the right way up
Or let me take the wrong way down
Will you straighten me out
Or make me take the long way around
I took the low road in
I'll take the high road out
I'll do whatever it takes
To be the mistake you can't live without

Standing in the dark
I can see your shadow
You're the only light
That's breaking through the window

Well I'm not gonna give it away
Not gonna let it go, just to wake up someday gone! Gone!
The worst part is looking back
And knowing that I was wrong

I'll do whatever it takes
To be the mistake you can't live without

I live my life in constant fear of finding out,
That all the adventures worth-while
Are done
That there is nothing left to discover,
Nothing wild,
And there will be too many rules guarding,
Those which remain.

I know if I close my eyes, I could fall asleep tonight
But the stress is eating me alive
And I know it's not how things work,
That everything feels like a slight

They don't like me because I'm boring.
They don't want to hang out because I'm a burden.
I destroyed second chances beyond repair,
I never did enough
It's like I was never even there

& That jackal-girl in the mirror,
With her glowing eyes and crooked teeth,
Is laughing at me,
menace oozing off that twisted, too-frail body
As she places her hand around the shoulder of the girl I should be
In the reflection, staring back

I know if I close my eyes, I could fall asleep tonight
Chase the shadowmen into the veil
For with so little sleep, I can see them awake or in dream
I dare not, but as them,
I can instead walk the night, and frighten the moon.

And I'm out and about like a girl who's on
Her way down to the bottom
No I don't have a problem with her,
But I have a problem with her

'Cause I see you go out, like she's made of stardust
Well I'm only made of stardust and waves,
Let me pull you under, come on and let
Me pull you under

I've got no problem saying I go out to get laid, got my eye
On a way of life, but I could pull you under,
Under,

If you weren't under her
Oh, oh whoa-oh

I could tap-dance on the top of her hourglass figure,
Yeah I know I'm a bit bigger but I don't have a problem
With her figure.
I've got a problem with the fabric she's hanging off it,
It's gonna catch,

Yeah on your chains and your rings, it's gonna catch,
Just like you caught her

No I don't have a problem with her
I have a problem with you

Oh Darling, do say you were,
I think I was in your dream last night,
I came in late like walking into an occupied room
And curled into bed like you were there, sleeping on your side
I swear I heard you dreaming, within the slumbered breathing that wasn't there
I could've sworn the pillow was damp from your shower,
That I almost tripped on your shoes
Oh wake up, wake up and fly to me, let us not delay
And make that dream a reality
Like we were some epic, the fateful reunion to the joyous conclusion
of the play
And not climbing into empty beds, each wishing we weren't alone
Do say you were dreaming,
For I feel I may be dreaming, too

This house has steadily been built by tears
From divorce and death and heartache throughout the years
It's curled up in the carpet, where an 11 year old dried her eyes
And in the depths of memories,
All the pain, the alcoholism and goodbyes
Now there's a woman who holds her own throughout the day,
Cries silent tears into the master bedroom walls at night
There's a boarder sobbing in the living room while her dog whines
And when I've cried my throat hoarse in the same room as all I've mourned,
I go outside to smoke and make it worse.

hum, hum, heat, rain
Focus, contrast sight
Film roll, acidic soak
Low

I have always loved broken things,
That I, in lack of care,
Became a broken thing, too

Here I lay my cheek against the concrete,
Warm water lapping at my waist as
Cool rain ****** against my face, neck,
And gentle winds periodically hug my shoulders
A/C rumbles on inside, outside
only cars passing by

My poetry will never be as delicate as a Lang Leav poem
Nobody is going to remember me, as Sylvia Plath
But who am I kidding, as sad or delicate as I've tried being,
I will always be at the core, wild.

I want to know how my name tastes on your tongue
I want to make your blood sing

I want to recreate the warmth of summer in Williamsburg
With the cool breeze by the willow tree

I want to know the places you've walked and trace the footsteps
As I walk through gardens and hills and cities
And I will do it all alone, if I must

I wish the world for thee