You remember dreams fondly
and wish they were reality
or you remember them
with the ice cold chill of death
creeping up your spine
They hold you captive
in your waking hours
and you plead with your mind
to remember them forever
or forget them in an instant
The terror may chase you
and the love of unreal connections
can wipe your tears
But all of this depends
on whether you are willing
to hold them and accept them
or let them go forever
You can do that
or you can let your dreams
hold you and accept you
You can allow them
to let you go.

Once in a while I look back at her;
the girl with stars in her fists,
fingernails rendered ****** by her gnashing teeth
Those oval beds were uniform, honed.
I still wonder whether she truly dared to scatter the light from her palms
or if she let it sink inside and hide with all the other things
she'd ever longed to hold.

I have this craving
for a calm I only get when I'm with you
I have this feeling of pure joy
I can't forget when I'm with you
But now you're gone
and I'm my own
and I feel alone; perhaps it's true
We painted all the pretty pictures
and art is dead without you

I have desires that come with aching
when I wait here for you
building up, becoming better
maybe hating you, too
I have this heartache that I carry
as I walk without you
Now you're gone
and I feel like a stranger; perhaps it's true
And when you left me behind
I didn't stray -  but I am new

Now with all this love
there's resentment - hot and blue
There's a chill in this room that I've become used to
Sometimes I think of what we were
when I was all in with you
Those times are passed, it's in the past
next to the grave I dug to tell this truth.

Anonymous, my person
invisible to the naked iris
but how my vision focuses in
on that singular word
at the bottom of the page
almost more bewildering
than the words at the beginning
how I long to know your name
that we could speak
and perhaps I would then understand
why these words were made
and just how much you meant them
and just how good it felt to make them
oh, Anonymous, my lover
I read your works with a passion
for while I may never know your name
I know these words by heart

Liquid burns
as does smoke
and both share the same portal
both the same host
this liquid that burns
does not wash away the ash
that also burns
their host, how she croaks
and liquid burns as much
going down
as she does
coming back up
but not ash, who sticks
soundly to her host
loyal only to the tender pink flesh
of both lungs
and whiskey, she coats her masters
insides
as a freshly painted wall
And sometimes they converse
a friendship of
cotton-tasting tobacco,
and bittersweet alcohol
the best kind of pain
self inflicted
unwilling
regretful
but oh, how these twice-given agonies
go together so well
with their host, their slave
who is also their master
but never completely
for control between these three
must be separated by four
ash, whiskey, the host, and the choice

I am happy
I am sad
I am angry
I am bad
I hate this
and I hate that
I am silent
I am crying
I am screaming
but I'm still smiling

Convergient boundaries
force rock and long forgotten heat
to the surface
just as babes are forced from
the idle disarray of thoughts
of which form the womb
and into the
alert, calculated and controlled thoughts
of which form their lives
Daily we tread on what we love and hold dear
All of what keeps us whole and healthy and alive
stomped out and replaced with plastic
and bad news
We mold ourselves into disfigured amalgamates
to conform to an image that we did not make
We are unnatural

You dug your claws into my skin
Your teeth glinted with blood
and I couldn't help the fear that crept from my belly
in a shockwave
and strung its way into my heart
You lean over my shivering, bleeding body, and you smile
isn't it a beautiful sight, the broken pieces of someone else?
And like the fear, I can't help but feel weak
beneath your hulking figure
your wide smile
your laugh
even your eyes
You are the perfect predator
and everything about you draws me in
and spits me out
You rip through my skin like a woodchipper
I scream at the top of my lungs
until the pain is drowned out by my cries
agony is often described as unbearably painful
I think it is just a little more than that
and it would sum up perfectly fine
if you only described it as torture
if you only described it as something in multitude
for agony as one is agony as for many
and it is always different
and this, this is different
My agony, piercing through me in sharp pinpoints, numbing me at the edges
that is my agony
and you are the criminal
inflicting it upon me

Once upon a night I wandered
Queried deeply, questioned, pondered
Lay awake in bed, not dreaming -
All the while, seeming, seeming
to hold this letter in my palm
A thorny tongue with many prongs
I ask myself what none had before
all the while staring at a closed, blackened door
I ask if life is a series of notes
left under the door, the blackened door
Oh, if it is, I crave, yearn, live for more
The door handle, burnt amber, twists and turns
I stare as it opens
and my bedroom burns
Leaving only my skeleton, crisp and hallow
with the note on my tongue, ready to swallow
the words that were written so sweetly, simply
Even as my heart beats not and my wrists hang limply
I spy through these eyes that aren't turning, turning
a man in the door that was burn, burn, burning
He is cloaked all in red, not black, nor white
And I do see his face - with my half-melted eye
He does not reassure me, he lures me in
and I follow, words eaten, and question again.

Every day I fall
and flail
I stumble and stutter
and slur my words together
I do so well some days
Those days I am proud
but on those awful
otherdays
I fall even further than the last
You lure me in like
the perfect predator
as I am the perfect prey
topping off my glass
the moment that it empties
You, who tell me I need not ever use a cup
that I might touch my mouth
to the top of you
and it would be fine
so long as I drunk you all
to myself
and when your poison is in my veins
and I am thoroughly gone
you teach me how to walk
and how to talk
and how to scream aloud my every thought
in ways I would never imagine without
your harmful presence
but I need you
it is as though the very thought of you
makes me yearn for your bitter taste

Hearts that ache and burn
Ashes falling to the Earth
Writhe and twist in pain
Hope that we can wake again
But do we arise
When we are bidden to wake
And do we smile bright
For a love that only hates
Are we wholesome now
In this fever that we made
Will we cry for death
When the time has come to leave
Hearts that ache and burn
Ashes falling to the Earth
Writhe and twist in pain
Hope that we can wake again

I place one foot before the other
I whisper to myself
It's only fifty feet, but it feels likes fifty miles
With every gaze burning through the back of my neck like a heated pan of judgement
Every person is suddenly talking about me
Every one is suddenly watching
Eying me critically
I grab a tray, get my food
The walk back is much more difficult
The whispers seem like screams
The eyes are red and raw and malicious
And when I sit back down
Everything goes back to normal
And I let out a shuddering, icy breath

I raise the glass of my eyes
and upon this action I drink swiftly your expectations
until I am full of you
Your heartbeat is my own
Your love is my love
Your darkness my deepest sorrow
Sleep Peacefully

Hell's teeth, biting and nipping at my ankles in a teasing,
sensual way
They tickle the sensitive skin around my neck,
leaving bruises in the shape of bite marks
Oh, God, how they make me squirm

Hell's tongue, swirling passionately with my own,
a sweet taste just on the edge of bliss
It darts forward, like a predator,
before moving back and to the side, in a soft, heated dance
Oh, God, how it makes me groan

Hell's hands, holding me up before I have a chance
to melt under their pleasure-bringing caresses
Touching me and rearranging me in ways too sinfully delicious
to say aloud
Oh, God, how they make me scream

Hell's eyes, drawing me in
and drowning me in a heated pool of desire
Roaming up and down my body as though I was the most
beautiful, sensual thing on Earth, above, and below
Oh, God, how they make me feel

my                                                 heart?                           mind
    

                                           mind
    is
                               P L E A S E                                           never
      
              silent

                                                 please                               D O N ' T
help
                             me                    
                                                               I
        am                                                                 lost

                                  gone
where                                                                       G O


                                            have
you
                                                                         gone

gone                          gone
                                                                                                   gone
                                                      P L E A S E
try
                                                    to

                   find                                                                me


I                                                          can't

                 see                                                                    it

                                     is
dark                                                    D O N ' T        


help                                           help                                     help


                       my                                         thoughts


are                                                      too
                    G O



              scattered                                                      to
                    

          
                                       understand


I'm                                                                 t i r e d

                     can't  
                                                           sleep
  

               please                                
                                              don't


                              go                                               go  



don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't

                                                  don't

P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E  D O N ' T GO P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N 'T GO P L E A S E D O N 'T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O

Your face is supposed to make me feel safe
Your smell is supposed to remind me of milk and warmth
Your voice is supposed to be soothing
But everything about your presence brings me anxiety
and it's your fault.
I can't sleep at night
because I toss and turn with memories
running through my head
like the methodical twisting and turning of
the French braids you used to put my hair into -
Memories of times when you failed to protect me
and when you helped hurt me
and denied I was ever hurt to begin with.
I see you attempting to atone, and I feel guilty for not
seeing things your way
I want to forgive you as easily as I forgive the cat
for watching me cry
The difference is that the cat is a cat,
blameless without morals or human sentience
and you were my mother.

Grass grew through concrete edges
of the parking lot
like the hard edges forming around my heart -
calcium deposits of emotional damage
that build up over time -
Corrosive and self-destructive.

Something vile grew, at length,
upon the ending of his gaze
that landed on my mother's smile -
where I would pass my days
I'd walk along the wicked mile
that breached the stones below
I'd find myself upon the steps awhile,
hesitant to go.