Cool skin, warm night air
Tasting each others secrets
Dying seems pointless

is what I tell them, now.


"I am only going to hurt you.
I promise."

I will laugh with you
and I will let you see my core,
and you will want so terribly much
to be a part of me

you will do almost anything.

"I told you not to."

I will let you in.
I will open myself completely
and make myself vulnerable at your feet.
You will trust me.

" Stop."


I will tell you about my family
and you will meet them.
You will think you understand me.

Did you think I was lying when I told you I was a *******?

I ******* told you.

I'll make you feel like the most beautiful
woman in the universe.
You will know in your bones
that I am yours alone.


It will be magical and true,

at the time.

We will be in love with each other. Madly, crazily, undoubtedly and completely in love and it will be the most wonderful and pure and good thing that has ever happened to us both and we will pledge eternal loyalty to each other and we will both mean it and we will be happy beyond our comprehension.

Then... I will

change.

I will grow tired of you.
I will become distant.
I will become indifferent.
I will become cruel.

You will be confused
and cry
and plead and pout and sulk and berate and beleaguer.

You will question yourself
and your motives, like it was your fault or your failing
when it was neither.

If it makes you feel better,
I will apologize.
I won't mean it though.
Not all the way, not like I should.

It was just me
being me
and doing

exactly

what I said I would.

One room away is a woman
who wants me to **** her.
She is beautiful, intelligent, and drunk.

I am ugly, intelligent, and sober.

Even though my highest and best
tells me to walk away with a smile,
my core screams for a ruining.

One room away is a drunk, *****,
dripping work of art who is also
very, very lucky.

Charles tells me to listen to
my **** and Pablo whispers a reminder
to remember the smell
of early morning wheat
and your eyelashes
while Walt and I gaze at the stars
and think of death.

I smile to myself,
soaking in the after glow
of vanilla chai, good ****,
and dead poets.

One room away is a woman
who's fate was in my sadistic hands.
Two rooms away is a twelve year old
who is dreaming of flag football
and Vans and getting to
level 37 of Skyrim
and one day,
after he wakes up
and after we have our
toaster strudel,
and somewhere in between
me stopping for coffee
and dropping him off,
I'll remind him
that good ***** is everywhere
so take your time and do it right
and when you just don't want to
look at their face,
make some tea,
catch a buzz,
and read some poetry.

Shameless *******
***** knees and greedy mouths
Sublime  atonement

You are not here.
I can not touch you.
I can no longer walk between
the two peonies on my way to
your porch.
The peonies are there, but it is no longer
your house.
How many times did I mow that lawn?  
Keep it tight to the tree,
round and round the peonies.
Good boy J.J.
God how I hated that nickname.

I see you now,
at your desk in the corner,
pall mall burning
in your shoe shaped ashtray,
crossword puzzle folded neatly
and your glasses half on your nose.

You were the toughest woman I know.

" Was ist los, Wer ist da?"

"It's me Gram"

I'd come around the corner and you would look at me over your glasses.
I could always tell what I was gonna get from you by the looks on your face.  
None of us have poker faces.

Even if I got the head shake of disapproval, there was always a hint of a smile, a smirk.
I know I was your favorite.
I got away with ******.
  
In your grey stuccoed rooms
I found my sexuality,
I tried to end my life,
I cried,
I ******,
I watched others battle until bloodied
and
I fought many
of my own battles
in front of your fireplace.
I saw a family blossom,
unfolding layer after layer
of beauty,
death,
secrets
and joy.

I saw strong men crumble in your dining room.

Countless were the times I would hang around on the fringes of conversations,
unobtrusive, but ever observant I was.
I learned so much from your phone calls, your conversations.

I think of when I have been the happiest
and it was when I was being tucked in by you
up in the king room.

My belly full,
freshly bathed,
the smell of avon's skin-so-soft,
clean sheets
and the softest pillows
in the world.
I was safe.
I was loved.

Waking up to
bacon and
french toast and
apple butter and
captain kangaroo and
your creaky stairs,
I have never had it as good as that.
You made the best french toast ever.

And then I got older and taller.
My marks on the measuring wall kept creeping up and up.
I got closer to
uncle mikes and
butch and...
was big jim on there?

I grew into a ****** little teenager,
I went from asking you for candy money,
to concert tshirt money
to bail money.
Through it all, you were there for me.
I would show up,
head down and repentant,
ready for my berating.
I wonder how different my life would have been had you not been around
as long as you were?

That day when my dad
came and took me
when I didn't want to go,
I kept looking back
and crying for you,
You said it always broke your heart, that look.

That was my introduction to manipulation.

It was in your basement
I found the steaming remains of debauchery.
I met most of my demons
for the first time
in the shadows
of the mighty sycamores
on Lincoln Boulevard.

You are not here.
I can not touch you.
You died and we fell apart, all of us.
We barely hang on,
it seems.
Your children squabble and flounder still.
Alliances formed
and broken
and rediscovered again.
Silly, this constant ebb and flow of intimacy.
Blood is thick, right?

We are doing ok though, I promise.
You would be so proud of us, I swear.

Our kids are happy
and we teach them words
like deetdeedles and shoisel.
I still make french toast your way
and Anne's house has the measuring wall.

I still do crosswords,
I love words, because of you.
I write, I  live, thanks to you.

The willow tree is gone
but the peonies are still there.

Ich leibe dich, Gramma.

I put the boy to bed
and sat reflecting
for a few minutes
about my blessed
offspring.
His face lit up
tonight
when I told him
that he was Grammas's favorite.
He is everybody's favorite.
My gift.

My salvation.

I looked up the story of Abraham
again,
and much like grade school,
I thought
**** That.

I listened to the new Trent Reznor project,
not bad.
I think of my
little brother whenever I see Trent's name.
I took him
to his first concert ever,
Nine Inch Nails.
Kicked ***.
I thought about my ******, ******* little bro.
I'm going to have to beat his ***, just ***.

I fired up a joint
as I put my
massive
music collection
on shuffle.

Genre: Electronic.

Shuffle: Puscifer.

I sifted through Craigslist
and saw an ad
for being a radio dj
for a grassroots
community based
nationwide
station
where you play whatever music you want
as long as it is not top 40 *******.
I could do that.
I could do lots.
Lots more than this, anyway.

Shuffle: Mike and Rich.

Buzzed.

I thought of my mother
and how
neither her nor I
are realizing our full potential creatively.
I called Mom
and we are
going to start going
to poetry readings.
She's gonna read my poems
and I'm gonna read hers.  
It's a start.
We are cool like that.
We laugh lots.

Shuffle: Awolnation.

I'm pretty high by now.
Then I read another article on NPR about mix tapes.
I thought about you.
Again.

Still.

I thought about you
and
the mix tapes we
used to give each other.

Shuffle: Massive attack.

****.

Angel.

I put this song on at least five of your mixes.
Even the cover by Sepultura.

The great nothing sighs deep and cold within me.

I started to write a poem.
This poem.
This poem for you.

They are all for you.

I know when I write I purge,
and you just keep coming,
like a
viscous
black
lie covered
rope
being endlessly pulled
from my gaping broken skull.
Will I ever reach the end of you in me?

Shuffle: Lords of Acid.
  
I rolled another joint.
You used to hate it when I
would pick you up
and have
Show Me Your *****
blasting.
But then again, you didn't like anything I used to listen to.
You didn't like much about me, did you?
Just that one thing.
It's no wonder though, you ******* hipster.

Shuffle: Moby.

Jesus man how many songs does this guy have?
He's like the ******* Bob Ross of geeked out techno.
That must make aphex twin the evil mad genius.

I made it through shuffling without crying
but I can't listen to the mixtapes.
Cd's, really but who's counting?
You would.
You.
I cannot
wait until
you becomes
her
and then
her
becomes a breeze of a memory,
wisping across my cheek
almost indiscernible
and
leaving
only the faintest whispers
of amber and earth.
Soil.
Soil and Ancient root.  
I can't listen to any of the great CD's baby.
My dearest.
My darkest.
My sickness.
My Love.
Beloved.
O, Fortuna, why?

 Shuffle: Dragonette,Take it like a man.

Ha! Well played, shuffle. Good timing.
I will eventually.
Until then
I will continue to pull your oily tendrils from my open throat.
I will continue to try and forgive both of us.
Myself most of all.

I will continue to write.
I will pull you
out of me
and
flog my canvas
with your shadows.

*They are all for you, Dearest.

I ate a whole bag of
cheetos one at a time,
savoring each cheesy bite,
and watched two seasons of
South Park as my friend tried to
hit a vein.

**** man. I got little ones, they keep rolling.

It took her hours.
Forearm
Shins
Wrists
Other arm
Calfs

"What the **** man, why even ******* bother? Why not just smoke it like everyone else?"

******* tweakers

She says the high is worth it.

That rush, man. *******!

But really,
no matter how ****
they are,
or used to be,
nobody likes
a spun out
tweaker *****.

*Nobody

You are going to die
before me.

I already know this.

You are going to get fat
and go completely blind
and probably,
eventually, they will
cut some parts off.

You are going to fall apart
in front of me.

I know this.

I still choose to stay.
I will be there
through all the appointments,
the stickings and pokings and cuttings and bleedings.

I have only wiped
a few *****
in my life.
Mine,
my son's,
a few babies
of friends.

I already plan on wiping yours
when you cannot.

I will draw
little sugar skulls
on your prosthetic feet.

I will make sure you always have enough medicine and it is always refrigerated.
I will help you
in and out
of the bathtub.
I will massage your legs
and arms
and back
and head
and neck,

every day.

I will make our boys breakfast
and walk the dogs
and make sure everything
goes back in the
same exact spot
and keep a file with all the pertinent medical information
so I can fill out all the paperwork.

I will take you to
all those folk rock shows you love so much
and describe the singers to you.

We will still garden together.
I can see you in a chair,
barking out questions
about our harvest and me,
going back and forth,
bringing you the biggest squash
to hold.

You see, I have given up thinking
I am ever going to
give myself to anyone else.

It is you and you alone.

So, when you start to fall apart,
and you will fall apart,
don't worry baby.
I am going to be there to wipe your ***.

Look at where we are now.
We have **** stores on every corner.
Our fifteen year old pipe dreamers
just collectively **** themselves.

We have dubstep finally.

Who the **** needs
an instrument
or training
or talent
when
I can steal fruity loops
and make my own ****?
I make dope beats at the same place
I
"write"
"poetry".

A cold fog is seeping into the park
across the street and I like to say "****" a lot.

Google makes me feel like a ******* king,
ordering my minions
to go and fetch me
the whys and wherefores of
how butterflies communicate.

Why?

Because *******, that's why.

We have countries revolting
against *******
who have been in power
for decades
but now we have
Facebook,
*******!
Take that!
You can't get away with ****.
Ask Osama.
How long will it take before peace sets in?
Will it take as long for the machines to take over?
Both outcomes seem inevitable.

We have as much ***
as we can download
and pretty soon

our reality will be completely virtual.
If you got the money, honey.

I see our white bloated
underbelly
sagging and scraping
****
against ***** beer stained floors,
a crimson trail,
bodies in the swath
of decadence
and a most
revolting pursuit of debauchery,
Thank God!

It's fun to go off the grid sometimes,
like when cable
and the interwebs
become that luxury
that you can't justify,
you know, reality.
Ha! What a joke.

It wont be long until some clown
figures out time travel
and we all burn up in
the resulting feedback loop.
That's what the big bang was.
Some other clown,
some other place,
figured **** out.

It's not gonna be me, Jack.

I'm on the cusp.
Not really, I am a full on scorpio,
*******.

But

I was lucky enough
to remember
rotary phones
and lite brites
and playing ******* outside.
Sounds nostalgic and sweet, right?
**** that,
those hours I spent
burning some heavy metal logo
into that stump outside mom's house?
With a ******* magnifying glass
*** we didn't know what cable tv or mp3's were?
I was dreaming
about **** shops
and making weird ****** up
noises that sound alarmingly
similar to fuckstep.
**** YES!
I was bored as ****
and couldn't wait for a day
when I could plug in a new
******* universe,
my universe,
my way,
I create the characters and the storyline.
My internal apps do the rendering.
Get it?
I was thinking of that ****
way back when,
so it makes sense that
someone
a little more ambitious
and well funded
was making that stuff,
even back then.
The farmers don't let the sheep know much, do they?

That's all well and good mate,
but how happy are you gonna be
when you lose all your **** because
some 22 year old knows more about
binary than you do?
How ******* awesome is your pabst
collection and your dad's old 45's gonna
be when you are *** out because you
thought you could become an internet
billionaire and your sister just got tired
of carrying your ***?
This world is ******
and we are growing out of our pants too fast.
Even the smart ones aren't gonna be able to keep up.
Have fun mother *******.
Do it now,
NOW!
Get laid as much as you can
with as many as you can,
but love them all,
and mean it,
you *******,
this **** isn't gonna happen again.
We are on the cusp of the singularity
and it's gonna be one hell of a ride.

It's only you,
my dearest, my darkest;
it's only your
soft voice I hear
in the small hours.

These lilac bushes breathe
your name and the soil listens,
remembering everything.

It's only a whisper
of rose oil and
amber, of silk and
skin.

Just a whisper.

It's only you
in the small hours.

You can get it wrong, at 1 a.m.
If you listen to the whispers
of the blue smoke.

Intentional bruises sneak in between the thunder and we build our altar on the ashes of tradition.

Now.
you are My sugar.

The drums and whistles of our dead keep rhythm as we dance alone in the cold of our
Great Nothing.

You can get it wrong at 1a.m.
If you wait for the smoke to clear.

Waking to you in the crook of my arm;
the smell of us lingers in the crime scene
of our room.

This must be the place

Wigs and corsets,
empty bottles and riding crops.
Sugar and sweat,
cologne and *******.

Good morning sugar

Eyes flutter and lips part
as juices flow and bloods boil.
This wet and wordless union
knows no boundaries.

*We are one, now

"Write what you know."

I want to write about
beautiful things,
but I only know
ugly.
Ugly hearts and stone blood.

Fetid loyalty.

I want to write about a love as pure as honey,
but all I know are the poison-tipped thorns of betrayal.

If I could put the right words
in the right order
at the right time
and explain what it means to lose you,
nobody would care.

I'd like to write about
my happy family,
laugh filled birthdays
and joyous gatherings,
but I only know
fractious,
secretive,
*******.

I want to touch another soul
make a connection with my words
share a part of my self
and help someone in the process,
but all I have been taught is
taking
keeping
lying
hiding
running
ruining.

I would love to write
like Pablo,
of wheat
and bread
and fields that don't weep,

but all I know are
desperate fumblings
in ******,
beer soaked bathrooms,
back alley
drunken
*******
by black
barely passable trannys,
diseases and
barely consensual bloodstains.

I cannot speak of such things.
It's bad enough I think about them,
even worse I write about them.

I write what I know.

You are going to die
before me.

I already know this.

You are going to get fat
and go completely blind
and probably,
eventually, they will
cut some parts off.

You are going to fall apart
in front of me.

I know this.

I still choose to stay.
I will be there
through all the appointments,
the stickings and pokings and cuttings and bleedings.

I have only wiped
a few *****
in my life.
Mine,
my son's,
a few babies
of friends.

I already plan on wiping yours
when you cannot.

I will draw
little sugar skulls
on your prosthetic feet.

I will make sure you always have enough medicine and it is always refrigerated.
I will help you
in and out
of the bathtub.
I will massage your legs
and arms
and back
and head
and neck,

every day.

I will make our boys breakfast
and walk the dogs
and make sure everything
goes back in the
same exact spot
and keep a file with all the pertinent medical information
so I can fill out all the paperwork.

I will take you to
all those folk rock shows you love so much
and describe the singers to you.

We will still garden together.
I can see you in a chair,
barking out questions
about our harvest and me,
going back and forth,
bringing you the biggest squash
to hold.

You see, I have given up thinking
I am ever going to
give myself to anyone else.

It is you and you alone.

So, when you start to fall apart,
and you will fall apart,
don't worry baby.
I am going to be there to wipe your ***.

With stones in my eyes
and your flesh
between my teeth,
I rot a little more.

My plants weep and wander
as I try to
conjure your smells
from the cold.

Grey is the color of your skin
and the night is thick
with our black blood.

Closing my eyes,
breathing deep,
my hands remember
the curve of your hip
and the miles between us
are molecules.

Another breath and
amber fills my mouth.
Tea bags drying
and good whiskey
with limes
and lilac
and bleach
and mastiffs
and skin
all burn in me now
with enough heat
to tighten the flesh
around my ribs.

I cannot stand this empty
air and the weight
of our nothing
has stamped me flat.

No cherry blossoms here
as the lies
cover the soil,
poisoning the root.

Another breath,
my head tilts back
and mouth opens
in remembrance of our sacrament.

Stop cutting.

I get it, life hurts.

You want to feel, something.

You would rather watch your own blood seep out of your body from a self inflicted wound, than experience the hurt you have inside.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You choose to hurt yourself because you are overwhelmed by the pain you have caused another person, even if it was unintentional. The thought of that person whom you have such strong feelings for, suffering because of your actions or in-actions, is almost unbearable.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You don't know what to make of your situation. You don't know how a person like you could end up in such a ****** up scene. You feel stuck, lost.

I get it. I do.
Stop cutting.

Your parents ****. They don't understand the kind of **** you are going through. Sure they were kids once but that was different. Things were different back then. They don't get you and they probably never will. They don't care.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You really want to hurt yourself because you get off on the pain. You want it. You need it. You deserve it. You were put on this earth to suffer and you accept your role as martyr.

I get it. Truly, I do.
Stop cutting.

You need some sort of release. Something, anything. Anything but the consuming black,
nothing. The sweet release that only a razor can provide is the only thing that seems real to you amidst all of the drama.

I get it.
Stop cutting.



There is chaos in your life and the secret solitude provided by your ritual seems like an oasis.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You like the way your skin splits open.  You like the way you can touch the cuts underneath your clothes. You like the way the scars remind you.

I get it.
Stop cutting.

The love of your life has abandoned you, leaving a void that nobody will ever fill. Ever.
You are completely and utterly alone.

Life *****.

I get it.

You however, are beautiful,
inside and out,
scars and everything,
and you are not as alone as you think.


Please,
Please,
Please,
Stop cutting.

I can't listen to the ******* cure
ever again with out feeling empty.
Way to go robert smith,
you big ******* depressing
*******.

Ever since you told me
lovesong was yours and fuckfaces
song I can't listen to some of my
favorite cure songs without thinking of....them.
Them being you and him, not us.
Us being you and me.

I can't listen to cat stevens
because harold and maude
was our movie. Ours!
Now, the last love song makes me cry like a *****.

I can't listen to ******* inxs anymore.
Never tear us apart drops me to my knees.
I can't listen to the kinks
or edith piaf
or talking heads
or leonard ******* cohen
or great lake swimmers
or fever ray
or peter sarstedt
or portishead
or killswitch engage
or paul mccartney singing maybe I'm amazed
or pearl jam
or ween,
especially ween, one of my favorites, *****.

Gotye is a prophet.

If I even think of antony and the johnsons,
my chest seems to cave in on itself
and I am filled with such a deep despair,
a longing for something,
anything
to take away
the pain of knowing
I lost you.

I can't listen to so much good music out there because that was our thing.
So many times we would lie in bed after loving each other
and listen to mixes we had made for one another.
Those were my favorite times.
Sipping whiskey with lime juice,
Reveling in your smells,
your juices covering me.
Your dog farting so bad
all we could do was laugh
or we would puke.

The first few notes of alexi murdochs
love you more, bring forth tears like niagra.
I cannot listen to that song without crying immediately.

I don't understand how feelings like that go away so suddenly.

It's *******.

This isn't a poem.

Poems are supposed to be beautiful
and about love
or beautiful and about loss of love
or just plain ******* beautiful
about something like a ******* tree
or a nice view
or flowers.

I have to write about how I hate the empty ******* space in my chest whenever I think of your name.
I have to write about the thousandth time I cried over you,
like now.
I have to write about how
the bright blue
of our love was replaced by
the ***** brown of
our lies and deceit.

Nobody gives a **** about that stuff.
I can't write a ******* poem to save my life.
I want to put down on paper
the weariness and exhaustion.
I want to express how I feel
so that maybe I can save
someone else
the pain of suffering alone.
I want to write you the most beautiful poem on the earth,
the one that makes you
understand just how much I care
for you
and how much and I love you
and I want you to read it
and forget about your fears
and past hurts
and realize I am the only man for you
and nobody else will ever come between us ever again.

But I can't.

I am not smart enough.
I am not creative enough.
I am not...enough, for you.

I don't want to even try anymore.
I want to forget you like I said I never would.
I want to love another like I said I never would.
I want to be a liar, like I said I never would.
I want to stop loving you, like I said I never would.

I want to listen to love songs and not miss you.

Alone with only the piles of ash as company,
I harden a little more.
Severing cords and burning bridges can be tiring and I have had my fill of useless people
so sleep is in my future.

I have never known love;
I know this now.

Hollowed out by wicked inclinations,
tempered with deviant leanings,
filled with poisonous lust
and fueled by misanthropic,
misogynistic misgivings,
I have become bereft of
all that is good.

I have given up
on ever being happy.

Severed ties, cut cords;
I watched it all fall apart,
From a safe distance.

Soil, mulch and flora.
Odors of spring on bodies.
Peonies ripen.

You can do it now, if you want.
Get ****** up,
****** over,
Stepped on,
****** with
and just plain ******.

Right in your ***, if you want.

You can wallow and writhe
in miserys mud, carve a new scar
and think it's all your fault,
If you want.

You can even throw a bag
of your body parts into the river,
if that's your kind of happy.
You can do it now, if you want.

You can drop the false smiles
and start telling these mother *******
how it really is, also.

It's ok to drop a little venom in the tea
because these ***** have ****** on the carpet
too many times and nobody likes
a loud mouth drunk *****.

Some just have it coming and I'm ok with being the one that gives it to them.
Because I can.
So can you, if you want.

So if it's a toss up between
getting ****** or
rising above,
bend over ***** because
I'm not letting you
stand in my way.

My blood runs thick
for those I love.
If you are mine
you feel it in your bones
and I am the sound
of sugar that makes you wet.

Your pale skin wrapped
only in a black corset
and ebony hair,
the welts begin their ascension
towards grace.

No need to burn when
I am around for I bring
enough pain to satisfy
all of our dark desires.

That time is dying and
I have new rituals for your
milky curves.

Tonight you crawl through me
as I bind your ankles
to your wrists,
my thoughts to
your blood.

Submission, like honey.
Slow and ageless,
forever ready for my tongue.

Tasting bliss centuries old
and loosening the knots
inside, we lick our wounds clean.

Time and distance
don't exist in our cathedral.

With a flutter of joy
comes a deep red on her cheeks,
neck and collarbones follow suit.

Our creek and the sky
and the earth
and the birds
give us all the
answers so let us find
other uses for our tongues.

Together in this
quiet and safe
garden we have created,
we will share our secrets
with the flowers
and listen to the stories
of earthworms.

We will give
the soil
small tastes of ourselves
under Luna's smile.

Let us drink deep
from this water
cold and clear
and become one
under the mighty
Cottonwood trees.

*******, sycophants
Obsequious mosquitos
Blatant fuckery

Blood in all the right places.

Your square ******* head
looks just the same,
a little older maybe,
some new lines around the edges.

Still the same crazy shine in your eyes.

Years later the same traces,
barely discernible
to the unknowing,
of earlier
disgusting
scenarios
being played out
in your living room.

I  smell the rancid
sweat of old men.

I  taste the curdled,
sour milk
of your breath,
recently begging for
alms.
I hear your hands
pleading whisper,
palms
being offered up
as your eyes
lower.

He owns you.

Here and now,
basking in the echoes
of your voice,
I feel your hands on me.

Hands I've never seen.

I run my fingers through
your ironed hair
and softly kiss your cheek
as the stains of memory
fade.

Toad legs and tattoos
intertwine; skin to skin,
we become one.

Within you, I shed
my shadows.
Surrounding me,
your fears fall away.

This is my here and now
as the night blooms
and sleep gathers dust.

Wet ****, rigid ****
Inappropriate haiku
I **** in your milk

This restless and irritating
little tick in my skin
won't leave me alone.
I scratch and I pick
and I peel away
my flesh, digging
away the rotten.
My words are matted
cat hair and
malignant growths, needing
to be cut off and out.
I reek of apathy
and whiskey
and lies
and lost sleep
and I feel
as if I am
caught in a swirling
whirlpool of
the kind of loneliness
that consumes men whole.

This has to end.

Beating meat again
Five sisters do me up right
******* blues

I hate myself, now.
I want to die, today, now.
I choose life, right now.

Cicadas creating a cacophony,
emerald leaves gracing limbs
centuries old; the park is alive.

Neighbors walking dogs, rumbling
home after a long work week, a lively game of tennis is being played across the way.

I should feel...
good
happy
content
calm
something

Shadows taste like unanswered crickets and last years leaves.
This question crawls in your skin
as you try to wring the answers out of *******.
There is no right or wrong
in the realm of exo-skeletons
so the crickets sing as
I part the earth and
come on your sacred soil.

I know what I am.

You are my sugar,
white and heaping.

There is only this.
There is only now.

You are here
and I am there
and I will choke on these
shadows the way you choke me
behind your lovely lashes.
Don’t die so soon,precious;
I have many flowers to
spread on your skin.

Sycamore floaters fill the park
and shadows grow long on the hill
as the sun sets on my peaceful oasis.
Dogs are being walked and chickens
are being watered.
The tweekers are on their
rigged up, gas powered bicycles, zipping through
the streets like squirrels in the ancient oak
tree guarding my corner of the block.
Everywhere I look I see fifteen million
emerald leaves shining back the truth to me.

Another cold night alone
with nothing but the ringing in my ears
and the traffic on the hill
as I grind into sleep.

You are missing from me

I need your smells to welcome me home.
I want your warmth left on the couch cushion.
I have to see girl stuff infiltrate my cabinets.

Please

Bring me yoga pants left on the chair
and random hair ties in weird places
and long hairs on the pillow
and clean dishes
and **** that I would never think of cooking
and stretch marks
and skin products
and grace
and beauty
and soft lips
and smooth curves
and wet folds
and a soft touch
and mood swings
and chub rolls
and dresses, lots of dresses.

Give me your shadows weight
and your insecurities
and fears
and scars
and let me carry
your nothing.

I will help you heal

This cold night,
this tortuous loneliness,
this moment,
Now,

I need you here

Be my sugar.

Bent over cold granite, my left hand gripping your hair while simultaneously holding your neck down; my right hand hovers above your quivering, beautiful ***.

This is our forever

SMACK!

That was harder than you thought it would be,
your gasp and shrill "Oh"
makes me rise and swell.

37 huh?

Earlier, you had no idea why I asked you to pick a number between five and one hundred. Now, you feel the significance of your answer in your burning cheeks.


SMACK!!
SMACK SMACK SMACK

My arm becomes a windmill
of pain as I count off the numbers in my head.
Your gasps have turned to sobbing,
your honey is dripping
and my **** is granite.

*Welcome to subspace

I am trying to remember your tattoos
and I cannot.
You had a goddess on your calf,
but which one?
There are the vines that started on your ankles,
I think,
and wound up your strong legs,
traveled the curve of your hip,
to where?
Or did they begin on your arms?

****, I should know this.

I remember the heart on your ***,
the mermaid on your chest,
the rocket ship, somewhere.

I spent so many hours looking at these tattoos
I should know them as well as my own body.

I don't though.

The edges blur away
into skin
and elbows
and smells
and sounds
and feelings.

When I try to think of your body
I feel my hand tracing the curve of your back.

I smell amber and wine.

A fertility goddess on the shoulder,
laughing and tumbling
out of bed together in a
breathless heap.

Crime scenes, willow leaves on your neck.
Drawings by Luke, a rocket, a cat, and was there a heart in there?

I should know this.

I tried to memorize them on so many nights.

I should ******* know this.

The lilies on your arm, I can taste your stomach.
I tried to look back at the captured moments.
Never once did I think,
take pictures of all her tattoos,
one day you wont be able to remember them.

One day you will not be welcome to look or touch.

I can remember every curve of your body.
I remember every fold,
every scar.
I can feel your soft feet and your stubble covered legs
I would not want any other way.

But...I can't see you baby,
I can't see you.

How many times
did my hands roam your canvas?
How many times did I long to be the ink
in your skin?
I wanted you to
take my pain and make it yours,
carry me around with you,
as you.
I wanted you to blend our pain
and make it something beautiful.

I can hear your voice,
the one I thought you
used
just for me.

The stain of you covers me and I just want this taste out of my mouth.

A breath,
in deep,
Eyes black,
and I smell your amber skin.

Another breath,
I feel your hips
cradle my hands.

Centuries between us,
yet a breath away.

I write these words
but can't feel.
My words ring cold as ******,
no echoes there.
No warmth or weight,
ashes.
A grey frost on ancient soil
as midnight blooms cold.

A breath,
in deep,
Eyes black,
and I smell your powdered skin.

Another breath,
I feel your hips
cradle my hands.

Nothing between us.
A breath away.

Water born lovers-
Ripples became tsunamis,
Floodplains bring new life.

You will not be meeting me
at the train station,
wearing nothing but a sundress and
the warm scents of
wet desire rising as
a lustful fog
from your steaming forest,
anytime soon.

The heat would **** the sun.

I will not be showing up
on your doorstep,
rigid and pulsing
with the blood of
centuries coursing through
my thick roots,
in the nearest future.

The pressure would crush the moon.

Instead,
I swim in your teacup
and warm baths
while you roam in
the smoke at the edge
of my shadow.

I feel your soft whispers
across the ocean of time
as they float on broken
spiderwebs of memory.

Our love is in the words
between the worlds;
resting in the
wet soil of
an afternoon nap,
we bloom as one.

As the fire of night
descends, destroying
the boundaries of time
and space,
we transcend all that
is cold and unforgiving,
leaving behind only
echos of wanting.

...
Your name,
a stab wound in the neck.
Memories of you,
moldy coffee grounds
and soggy biscuits;
your taste, spoiled milk.

Black, oily tendrils spill from my dying lips each time I say your name in my head.

I do not say it out loud

You are she now, I must
remember.

She...her.

She was the only one
I would have
completely submitted
to, had she only asked.

Her juices, sublime.

She ruined me
for the rest of you.
Cold and dark, her love
is the shadow in my eyes.
These bloodstained years,
ashes, weightless.

I cannot love anyone now.
I gave what little I had to her,
and she killed it.

I let her

This purging of her,
will it ever end?
So many dead memories
taking up precious space.
So many lies, so many lies.
A soiled sanctuary,
dripping in poison.

My dearest and darkest love,
my only.

They were all for you,
these poems. These futile
attempts to reconcile my reality
with my guts. Even the ones that weren't for
you carried your shadow.

Her, not you.
I must remember
This one broke me
because she didn't know
how to wield
the immense power
I gave her.
She was careless.

This has to stop.
Soon.

I want to hold someone
else and not think of...her.

You

I want to make everything right.

No

I want revenge.
I want her to suffer.

These dark reflections
from my nothing
inside
are innocuous.

Pale skin, bleach and rotten milk.
Lies and lies and lies.

Her grey garden is barren
but I still have sight.
She was supposed to
pluck my eyes.
Communion, this eating of
my flesh and
drinking of my
blood
has left me
bereft of anything
worth wanting.

*I crawl through stone

I was raised by bruises and beatings
so you can go cry on someone else's
shoulders, victim. Better yet, come here
and gimme whats mine, *****.

Offended? Don't be.
It's life.
Sweet, sensuous, violent life.
If you are one of those
that think people are inherently
good,
think again.
Watch people under pressure.

and *****, slimy and rotten
to the core.
The Id rules here
so ******* and fighting
at playtime now means
****** and killing
for breakfast.
I had feelings once
when the world was bright
and what the fists didn't beat out of me,
the women devoured.
I would give anything
to just be the mighty
sycamore guarding
the park.
Anything to not be this, now.
No lilies in my eyes
since you left me,
like they all do.
No amber
or candles
or soft kisses on
wet thighs.
Nothing but filth
and the familiar stench of
being alone and unwanted
here.
Filth and refuse,
remnants of earlier tortures,
limbs and guts,
decaying art of us
stinking up the place.
It's a sunny day here but
the shadow of our rot
weighs heavy.