We make home in our dying summer sun,

we shed our moonstained flesh.

Freedom lingers on chapped lips and

star spangled eyes.

Love stories burrow in kissed blonde hair

and that throbbing ache that follows sings in each crooked smile.

Tonight shadows melt as one,

Tonight this world will belong in our begging palms.

Every night we spent in sad songs and

bottomless coffee cups pining over each imperfection, each quirk.

I told myself you wouldn't crawl through my veins,

but here you are

draining away my life force.

I am bones.
          Bones.
             Bones.
Bare, sun bleached,
     Picked clean,
Scavenged,
      Forgotten.
I am bones.

It was the end of day
the trance of your flesh was fleeting
as warm rain broke through the shelter of your arms.
Your skin shivered
as mine glowed.
It was the end of day.

I've resorted to magic
To the mysteries of the universe
To everything intangible
Just to try to rid myself of you.
No matter,
I still wake up  
Thinking of all the sunsets driving across Wyoming,
Falling asleep at abandoned rest areas,
Waking up in deep thicket.
You were by my side.
life flows on
things change,
People grow,
Together,
Apart.
I imagine getting over you is supposed to be like this grand amazing thing,
I wake up in the morning and dance in my underwear,
The sun is shining, my favorite songs play on the radio, my coffee is perfect,
Maybe my chest feels a little lighter.
But I know now
It's really like watching a profound festering wound
Sluggishly pull itself together.
I know that faint scar will just become another constellation
Connecting the freckles I religiously trace with my fingers.
You will just be a story,
Something told but repeatedly forgotten,
The bits and pieces of you staying with shards of my memory
I have been throwing away since I was 7.
I'd like to think of you as a warning,
Something i've survived,
thickened my skin,
Made me a wizened bard crowing under the moonlight.
Knowing you forced me to shake,
Rattle myself from the confines of a skin
That just wasn’t fitting anymore.
Perhaps you should be thanked,
Perhaps applauded,
You moved a ******* mountain.

Our shadows dance across the wall,
serenading in the madness of the moon.
Your lips runs over my disintegrating armor,
until my vulnerability drips tastefully from your fingertips.
My battle scars shed, my memories, my lessons, my self control,
cast away at the sigh of your name.
Fear wallows in my sorry veins,
despair resides in my ancient heart.
You're the words caught in my throat,
the lover who never left,
the insanity sifting through my mind,
you're the ache that sways through my body,
melting away the shell i held ever so closely.

Breathe me in.
Let me populate each cell,
every chromosome.

Sometimes
I think
My body is a
Cemetery
Nestled in a
Deep
Dark
Wood
Defended
By the old loves
Baying to the moon.
Sometimes
I think
My bones were
Only meant
To consume
Every hurricane
With grace and fascination.
Sometimes
I think
That I am
Too tired
To take another
Broken defeat.
But I am a
Home
For the dead,
I am a vessel
For mismatched memories,
Crooked smiles,
Calloused palms,
I am a concept
I am always
A
Stranger
In the end

Life submerged in morning caffeination and a quick nicotine fix.
People shake away the fog and babies wail for satisfaction.
Sheets tied around their ankles,
as crusted eyes peer into a new day
and at a lover still sound in yesterday.
A cigarette burns, it's alright.
Coffee drains, and we know it'll all be alright.
As long as the night rests,
we know another day will make it all alright

I am not sure
If I am an artist,
But I like to watch
The way your mouth
Creeps into a smile,
And how your laugh
Crawls deep from the bottom
Of your belly.
I like the way your eyes
Glisten
When you first pry them open.
I like the way your hands
Hold onto me,
As if I'll float
Up
Up
And
Away.
No, I don't know
If I am an artist,
But I can recognize a masterpiece
When I see one.

You're fading.
Our summer moon thieves
the remaining fragments of your soul.
That shade of pink dries from
your quivering lip.
Don't go.
This tasteless humidity will do your lungs no glory.
Wait! Don't go.
I'll only crave each speck of
skin, fiend for the gentle
***** of your shadow.
Love me, Oh love me,
my reflection shakes and shatters,
it cracks as your smile once did.
Let me into your personal nightmare,
sink my venom and adventure through each pulsating memory.
There's that smile, the one that hid,
amongst the delirium and preyed upon the suffering.
There's that smile,
the one I've only longed for.
Don't go.

His presence was made like
an unruly, unwelcome,  winter storm.
Chilling us to the bone, icing over our window panes,
and grasping for the very air in our lungs.
He came upon us like an intruder.
He came upon us like a deprived hope.
Just as swiftly as he came,
as graceless as he went.

There you are
Taking my body
Into your arms
Telling me
Yes
Yes
You can
Do anything.
I breathe a sigh of relief
I am finally
Here
I
Am finally home.
Thank you
For handling me
With such care,
For covering me in sunshine,
For
So patiently
Waiting
Watching
Me grow.
I am in constant bloom.
The real beauty
Is that
You have no idea what you have done,
You
Can feel
Love strengthening your bones,
Breaking your ice.
I
Am
Your home
As well.

I have spent
Too many miles
In the beds
Of strangers
Pick up trucks
And
Roaring
Freight trains
To settle
For a quiet,
Small
Life.
I am a wayfarer,
Wanderer,
Vagrant.
No walls can keep me.
I am too
Massive
For civil norms,
I am
Too much
For a habitual society.
A roof would
Keep me from the stars.
How could I
Give up the rising sun?
A door would keep me
From all of the strangers
That I call my allies.
There is too much of this world
That I have caught
A glimpse of,
There is still
Deep-rooted mystery,
I can feel it beneath my feet
With every mile I roam.
The magic rouses
My being,
Stirs my soul.
Though
This may feel like a curse,
Some just weren't meant to
Fit
Into
The puzzle.
Some
Are
Free radicals,
Disturbing the peace,
Agitating the possibilities,
Proving
Freedom isn't dead,
Freedom isn't free,
Freedom is something
That must be stolen,
Freedom is to be
Taken into your own
Two hands.

I will run away
No one will ever catch me
Not even the wind will know
Which way it is that I am blowing.
I will mourn old lovers,
Dance with my drunken demons
Retching familiar promises
Once told between the thin blankets
Of a great green mountain generous moon.
I'll stash these memories
Under that bridge we loved in Salt Lake City,
Remember?
The one that kept us dry when it seemed
Like the earth just wouldn’t cut us a break.
I'll hide this ragged heart
In no man's mountain.
I'll strip this skin,
Peel gingerly back from these
Sun bleached bones,
I will be trampled by interstate stallions.
My body mangled,
Tossed to the side,
Forgotten.
That is what it takes to become untouchable.

I am kicking
          Screaming
          Crying
for the tremble of a 48
through evening mountains
set ablaze by thousands of fireflies.
If I could I'd leap from this skin
into the arms of the harsh desert,
I'd let the sun scorch my sagging muscles
and empty veins.
My thumb is aching
for long hours in the middle of nowhere.
My feet beg to dance once more in unknown cities.
I look to the corner of my room,
there lays my empty,blue,mile stained backpack,
pleading with me to find home.

I am guilty
Of diving head first
Into the arms of
Broken boys.
I wrap myself around
underdeveloped hearts,
Softly stroking
Fully inflated egos,
I stretch myself thin,
This
Is love.
See?
I am barely visible
I am disappearing
Faded like the soft blue veins
Mapped out like dainty roads
Up and down
Up
And
Down
My pale moon skin.
When
You do not see me
You never ask
Where
I've gone.
This is how
I was taught to love.

Grime soaked fingernails
        Plastered crusty smiles.
The world passes by at 80 mph.
We are warped into
Clunking metal,
We are one with shrieking steel
And I am the queen of this mess.

The day weaves through our time distraught bodies,
as we lay in constant wonder of where to go next.
There is no left, no right, no ups, and no downs,
just empty road and destinations unknown.
Maybe they'll care as we run into the sun,
or maybe they'll never notice out of the windows of their $100,000 cars.
And you're mother will shed her tears,
and my sister will shove guilt down my throat,
but the day is ours, life is ours.
So we'll tread through their woes and their words,
we'll grapple onto our beliefs like a child to the holy breast.
We'll stay nourished by our hopes, our love, our never ending fight.
We'll run into the sun,
run into the night,
run until our legs cry NO MORE.
And they'll say we're crazy,
when they look at our mangled corpses.
But hand in hand we'll always be,
because we are the ones truly dying for
FREEDOM.

Freedom sprouts
from the unintentional corpses
slumbering in the cat infested alleyways
of our drunken fathers
and mistaken mothers.

I remember the only time I was ever loved
Under a black tar night in a cemetery
Smoking too many cigarettes ,
his hand fell into mine,
fear rolled up my back .
And I so badly wondered what it'd be like to kiss this boy
Instead I kissed adversary.
Sometimes I see that boy I never kissed
We will forever be star crossed lovers.
There isn't a cemetery
Or a perfect dusky night
That doesn’t remind me
Of the only time I ever felt loved.

Our Mother mourns blood spilled but once a year,
yet never casts a single eye on her ravaged thirsty sons,
or the slaughter heard around the world.
Innocents without a drop of guilt,
crowd the rivers,
rotting in the streets on live television.
Our Mother spits on their shade of skin,
their ways of worship,
their ways of living.
Our fellow folk gorge at the local Mcdonalds
thinking terrorism at any "strange" looking stranger.
Aren't these blue jeans thrown together by a Chinese sweat shop child
American enough for?
Isn't this greased up slab of corpse screaming,
"America land of the free, home of the brave!"
Or when you look deep into that carbonated blood bath do you see the truth,
"America land of the freedom killers, home of the cowards."

Wilderness lays in each gentle fold of mornings bed clothes.
Desperation clings to every glistening smear of sweat.
My *******, welcome your dazed crown,
your fingers crawl up my wizened flesh.
Beaten, battered like an abandoned ship
torn, scarred like a master of the seas...
I hold you near.
I am a warrior
a survivor
a rambler of near and of far.
I am the heart that can't be touched,
as your lips crash into mine
raw hunger escapes my veins.
Trapping my prisoner....devouring my prey.

Breaking fast with stale cigarettes
and burnt coffee.
morning flows through my tiny bedroom
and you come to life in all of the walls.
nothing will do until i am scrubbed clean of your love.
until my skin doesnt hold reminders
of the times you used to hold me,
of all the hours we spent
exploring every crevasse of our being.
someday you wont live in my bones anymore.
i look forward to someday.
i look forward to any day without you.

Inhale.
Scorching lights,
the grave of hospital beds swallow your long gone presence.
I peer into the nothingness of your eyes,
I feel the pulsating squeeze of your tiny hand...
I am nothing at the cost of you.
IV's drip,
groans escape your withered mouth,
Death lurks teasingly
as your thrown away children fuss soothingly.
My life, my start,
already shred into micro-bits of memory.
Life has been a series of mourning rituals
and fresh wounds that your love neglected to heal.
I've just been a wanderer traveling through the pages of your mistakes.
Finally there is a pause,
a chance of redemption,
a choice of absolute freedom.
Exhale.

Our America sulks in the gutters,

   in the rotten alleyways of those living in the shadows.

As corporations, as greed, as self-obsession

damages our life web.

Our America loves the lonely dying child,

as suburban 'mother's **** the illegal pool boy.

Our America peers through holey, worn fabrics

as bare-fleshed youth slaughter for

sweatshop brands.

Our America becomes the past

                     becomes unknown

                     becomes a dead fad

as mysterious men lure the idea of a future.

I could endlessly banter
About how you were
A
******* storm,
How you stole the air from my lungs,
How you drenched my heart
In a unfamiliar love,
How you wrapped me up
Under full moons
And made me howl
Into so many nights
In uncharted territories.
I could fess up
About how I can still feel the warmth of your body
Your back to mine.
But the real truth
Is
This,
You were a spineless *******,
Too afraid of my voice,
Too afraid
Of
My power.
You were a coward
Every
Time
You tried to
Break me,
Every
Time
You tried to
Make me believe
That I was beneath you;
I spit my blood in your face.
I am everything
You
Have
Ever wanted,
But my
Shine
is just
too
Bright for you.

You
Forced a kiss
In concrete city.
I
Thought
We were
Perfect.
My orange mohawk
Your fingers discovering every
Part of me
Diving
In
And
Out
I melted
In the back seat
Beneath your scrawny poisoned arms.
I thought
Maybe
I was bigger than the things I couldn’t understand
I thought
Maybe
If I loved you
If I disappeared
Became one with your shadow
That maybe
You would choose me.
I even became a contortionist.
Molding myself
Into your fantasy
Soft ******
Love affair.
But I never could get the ****** part
Quite right
I could never love her
Like you loved her.
I could never
Be
The image
You painted of me
In your head.
I am
Not that
Girl.

Strip away my flesh
expose the filth that lingers
rouse the broken soul

Junk sickness unearths this
Deep-rooted, oozing desperation.
Slack jaws,
Eyes
Bouncing in the back of your skull.
Tear through the paper flesh,
Scraping for a vein
Needing of
Molestation,
Mutilation,
Shredded from that constant need,
That whining itch,
To feel nothing
And everything all at once.
Praying for the earth to melt
Around the bare bones
Of the walking dead.

I am
But an observer
Stuffed in the back seat
While needles clog,
Blood surges,
Rage stirs.
I am
Just a spectator
To their universe coming to a
Creeping
Dull thud,
As they dream of better days that will
Surely come.
I am
Not sure
If it's possible to dig yourself
Back up
From the depths of a self-made grace.
I am
Not sure
If there is life after dope.
Lust swelters,
The shot is done,
We drive on.