Do dogs dream in black and white?
A shame, an utter shame.
I flounder for a hold on this man, his broad shoulders that used to carry me so effortlessly lifted upon the throne of his smile, so much worthwhile.
When now all that I see are the heavy hanged heads of the love that was once so deep, once so deep.
Pained silence pushes me to tears barely contained when before I laughed.
This is it; Don’t… Be. Scared.
Do I dream in color?
The hold on this; like the grip of my prints on wisps of smoke that flee and disperse from my desperate fingers, forever chasing an image that once ran to me with open arms.
I was a queen once, you know.
I danced with grace across maple panels glossed with the sheen of a million diamonds, painting the path of the white stag that pranced with me upon my forest floors, parting particles of light as they float like precious snowflakes to meet the dead pine needles.
The violins and ivory keys trilled out in their glorious voices with the angels that watched me dance.
Elegant and beautiful and free; commanding all who would listen to smile.
Then one day the earth shook and took my forest floors away, my white stag dead where he lay, the crimson painted corpse of all I held dear.
They brought their guns on fearsome horseback, their steeds’ bright eyes ringed white with horror, coats aquiver, for their king lay silent, glass eyed, still.
The throne of his broad shoulders askew with the pain of something only he knows, limbs tied back, no gentleness to hold his head, no soft cradle for his head.
The king is dead.
The king is dead.

An obscene, sickly beautiful scene
Met me with a ***** sheen
It dulled the tightness in my chest:
The butterflies when I misstep.
Like the second-guessed ache of paranoia
that left me curled at the foot of the sequoias
waiting still and tense, for your voice to fade.
Never for a moment dropping my charade
as I paraded proudly back inside declaring
my true innocence; I found you unsparing.
You swallowed my word and I found you even
Requesting repetition, so you could believe in
the obvious lies leaking my lips,
and you know what they say: loose lips sink ships.
So when you come to grips,
I’ll still be installing microchips
Inside that open wound of yours.
While you’re hugging porcelain on all fours
I won’t be sympathizing with all the ******
Who leave their lipstick napkins on your lap;
Who fall into your egocentric death trap.
I was never one of those,
To be used and then disposed…
So while you’re trying so hard to make me jealous;
I’ll just tell you your method is overzealous.
You had your chance before;
You’ll have no chances anymore.
You can finally stop trying to request the help of cupid,
I promise you I only ever loved you young and stupid.

You think you're so charming with your six-string but I've got some news,
and that's that that six-string is old news.
When you gonna pick up that new electronic beat and let the drums pulse heat into your cold eyes,
littering the shoreline with every bit of negative commentary necessary to make the moment much less than romantic.
Jump into panic, oh alone you're so alone and though I sympathize I won't fall for those lies;
you're just a kid with a crayon trying to sell the Mona Lisa.
Dragging me down into new friction against a new addiction I never wanted,
dust litters my clean floor and I can hear you back  there ****-talking the shore as if your racing heart never wanted more.
Racing blurred burnt out on lines speeding past fluttering eyelids so quick, the storm inside the flashbulb can't even stop us.
The quickness inside our pounding hearts won't slow, the blood won't thicken no matter how hard you wish it.
Crushing candy into cotton in public bathroom stalls under careful fingertips, I wish so hard you never happened to me but what would I have done otherwise?
I suppose your trying to **** me evens out owing you my life and though I sympathize, I won't fall for your lies;
you're really just a kid with a crayon trying to sell me the Mona Lisa.
Brother, I've touched paint in my lifetime, I've swirled fine horsehair brushes across an open mind,
and I can tell you your rhetoric is no masterpiece.
Alone alone empty empty
addict, addict
No matter how hard I look at you I can't see you without your lover, how hard she makes you sweat, how she makes you gasp for breath,
in, out, in out.
I can see you leaning hard against those walls,
push kid, it'll never budge an inch.
If my observations count for anything, knowing you doesn't count for anything,
seeing you suffer under ghosts and grime won't make you smile,
no matter how many times I tell you no.
I'll watch you breathe superman until you can leap buildings;
but I won't be watching when you come back down.

When I am with you the world comes to a still.
I look beyond what I know, striving to become knowledgeable, successful; everything becomes splendor in the wake of your words, as if your tongue weaves silver and gold into your speech.
Your voice travels to me, slow, rolling, calming like the waves on the ocean, lying next to the beach that I despise so much; I suddenly feel comforted that I can lie on this sandy shelf.
My heart trills out in joy when I hear the highs and lows in your tones, singing my name out in that second when I answer your call, so stunned by my anxiety that my voice goes quiet.
I push each pencil stroke with a new fire as my thoughts settle on your voice, your smile, the touch of your hands on my sore shoulders.
Because I am who I am, the second before you hang up I struggle to whisper, "I love you" before I hear the finality, the click that ushers in silence again.
Just so you will know, Just in case you forget.
Though I am lonely here, I feel renewed. I breathe in springtime mid-winter, when I would be lying face-down on the floor and stand, feeling the power in my bones rush to the surface.
I struggle to use words that might have meaning to you, that might make what you mean to me mean something to you.
But I find, again and again, that there is but one way to express what should have a million expressions:
When I am with you,
I love you.
And when I am without you,
I love you.

wings beating hard against my chest
my heart, will it take up and    f   l   y,
with this, a mask, a painted smile, a porcelain;
                                          a china doll
       red lips, rubies sparkling
under a light that has never looked so false.
       the pulse
under your wrists, a smile crosses my lips
and i wish;
how hard i wish that it was permanent.
bump...
    ba-bump;
               ba-bump...
    ba-bump.
neverending butterflies in my chest,
bursting free, changing destinies.
so innocent, so delicate they fly through me;
and land upon the trails where you have been.
the moths, those things, fly for the light but in never reaching,
they leave the dust of their wings on every thing they touch.
and it will all just turn to dust;
bump,
    ba-bump;
               ba-bump...
    ba-bump.
let's go skydiving,
so we can breathe through our wings.
and falling through the clouds we will
wipe the dust from the song we sing.

Muscles grip and relax, grip and relax, grip and fight and tighten.
My fingers caress the blown glass between my lips, thoughtfully I stare cross eyed into the flame brought to life by the stroke of my thumb.
Feral beats in the background of this still life pulsing, invigorating the senses;
awakening the monster as it shrieks out for breath.
And so I pull another blow between my teeth, the air tainted and tasting so sweet.
Here stand these false philosophers with me as we shiver against the clawing of a wind so cold,
but we are brought together by our love for the fire.
A network of interlaced fingers keeps the flame alive as we **** out the life-giving tendrils from gaia’s hands,
she sends us spiraling upward until our ankles graze the treetops and we are looking down on city life from the crown of heaven.
My comrades bear their bruises closed and tongue-tied, and as we fly dark hints of the world below materialize on their lips.
The stroke of each errant brush paints their words black and white as I sing color across my broken sanctuary, stubbornly fighting for this bliss that only I exist within,
carrying no burden from the world below, I let my innocence fly me higher in this treetop temple.
I break the surface of a sea of clouds, no comrade to accompany me now;
none would follow anyhow.
The freedom screams from my fingertips like thunder and with every movement I hurl another one of Zeus’s famed bolts down onto the earth, dancing with the electricity; though when you’re so high up here there is no storm.
I watch as the others begin to fall back down into the earth’s open arms, equipping their synthetic smiles, for where they are going there is no joy.
My grin glitters like the stars I greet with open palms, smoothing my fingers across their warm fuzzy forms, gathering them into night-sky pictures for the beings down below.
I place each star carefully in my dark connect-the-dot drawing, swirling stardust in the blank spaces for tonight I paint a masterpiece.
As it takes shape my painting depicts a world so far away from the one I hail from, I almost wonder how I can even picture it.
I soar on ethereal wings to planets and galaxies until homesickness sweeps my winged shoes back toward the blue planet, eyes misted over with nostalgia for those days when I,
the fire and the philosophers would breathe together.
When I touch back down, my wings fold tight against my shoulders; curving firm and solid against my back.
I am a stone gargoyle, now guarding this world that I fought so hard to protect myself from.
and I, the fire and the philosophers break out our synthetic smiles.
For where we are going, there is no joy.
The vague and flimsy memories we have of our treetop haven melt misty smooth across mental palates that still ache for the taste of fire-breath, for the swirls of hazy wonder that alit our dry smiles to burn for real.
But my philosophers have become pharisees and now I quail and quake under the weight of my sky-paintings.
The gravity down here keeps my lips tilted down in the echoes of another man’s sorrow and my sympathy for their morose self-titled melodrama is running thin.
If  I could, I’d be tiptoeing among the stars, hop scotching across constellations, at home in my world of skies and fire.
And I am shocked once more, grounded suddenly by the voice of the pharisees and their stone hearts;

mourning for I,
The fire,
And the philosophers.

there's that safe place between cold sheets,
the shivers welcome the dreams that harbor this unknown peace..
so close your eyes just this time and we'll let the substance sing us to sleep
pulsing through twisting veins as we're counting killer sheep
savage teeth rip animal instincts across your outstretched arms
and there lies a broken promise, you're no longer safe, raise the alarm;
these claws are killer digits, these fangs are sniping rays, so softly sneaking through curtains of hair;
their lights pierce through shades of skin, turning you
black and blue as you begin to pale
and now i'm singing siren songs, melodies to lure them in
one by one, my massacre begins
and all these morbid metaphors mean just one thing
i speak of that healing that time is supposed to deliver
and as my limbs curl under these sheets, gathering folds of fabric
while my mind's velocity reels under a veil of false awakenings
i'm just waiting for those shivers
for those ******* shivers that rack my spine, turning my lounge into fetal position
leaving my jaws open in silent indignation, letting quiet sounds drain my emotion
i jolt awake, leaving cries on the stagnant air of this summer night
and clack together these sharp rays of light
grinding these ivories down to soft keys again.
the stars hide from me in their shroud of fossil fuels, saturated, decomposed on the heavy air.
when i open my eyes, you are still elsewhere.
and i close them again, just to be sure you're not a ghost, but here they come again, those god ****** shivers.